The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1910-05-19

largely ACT upon the OLD addge GnaG
knowledge is power. They measure
the student by his ability to absorb
learning. If he is docile, has good
memory and can give back accurately
what his instructor and his books say
to him he is "good student and on
the high road to success.
The world at large little dreams to
what absurd lengths the best schools
60 in the direction of memory cram
ming even in this day and age. Recently
in one of our best universities class
Of students was~kept for eight months
out Of nine learning by heart the most
absurd rubbish under the name of
g theory of elocution" as a prepara-
ton for practice in learning to read
effectively. The ninth and last month
of the year was spent in desultory
efforts to learn a little play for the
sake of practice, but there was never
even in this any drill in reading. This
for most of the students ended their
college training in reading.
| In a great university short time
since professor of mathematics gave
course in trigonometry. He openly
told his students that all he wanted
them to do was to understand the
'Ftheory" he gave them in lectures
three times a week for a semester.
The students who 'passed" in this
course could not today solve simple
problem to save their souls, unless they
have studied the subject since A
professor of English gives course in
grammar for students who want
to teach English in high schools. The
semester is taken up in explaining
that English is an unaffected language
and has no grammar. Drill in the
analysis of difficult English sentences
would be most excellent training for
these young people. 1t would de-
velop their analytic power and would
add to their efficiency as teachers. But
that would be useful and the useful
is with many college professors taboo
In many of the best institutions in
this country today teachers are taught
the art of teaching, not by practice
and criticism, but by lectures on
pedagogy.
One of these lecturers recently said
to his students in the " teachers
course" in an academic subject, SIRE
member that, in the high school you
are to teach the subject. The pro-
fessor of pedagogy will tell you that
you must teach boys and girls, but
this is nothing but can't" Which,
being interpreted, means that the
teacher must have her interests cen
tered in biology, physics, and the like,
and not in her pupils. They may be
interested or not, they may learn or
not, that is their affair and not the
business of the teacher.
You can find scores of young men
and women now about to get diplomas
from leading institutions of the coun-
try, who are saying to one another
that teaching is going to be a soft
snap. "You assign the lessons and
you have the book so you can see
whether the pupils recite correctly or
not :" School board officers might as
we'll make use of monographs in their
school rooms as to employ teachers
who act upon such instruction as is
given by some university professors
who are so absorbed in their subjects
as not to care rap about students
as young people to be transformed in
to worthy, efficient citizens. To be
sure, there are many young people, es-
pecially among those who have had ex-
perience in teaching, who have high
er conception of the teachers func-
ton.
The school says, I will test you by
what you know; the world says, [ will
test you by what you can do. The
solution is for the school to teach both
knowing and doing. The school
should transform knowledge into power
as rapidly as knowledge is acquired.
There is onl y one safe and sure way
to do this and that is to put knowledge
into practice as promptly as possible.
One reason why our schools are so
sadly divorced from the practice side
is that so many of our teachers are
not properly trained in making knowl-
edge useful. Students often get more
knowledge as to the formation of
words in the English language from
three months of word analysis than
they do from eight years of the study
OF Latin for the reason that in gen.
eral teachers of Latin seem to think
their students will learn this without
having their attention called to it.
Most OF the subjects in the curriculum
are largely bookish and they are taught
in boolzish way. We must instruct
our training schools to give us high
school teachers who know how to de-
velop the initiative, the active nature,
the thinking power, the doing power.
We must also introduce extensively
into our schools such subjects as man