Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-09-20
BALTIMORE GOES
BACK TO Three RS
Cuts Out the FddS to Teach
Thoroughly

Baltimore, Md, Sept. 19.-With the
opening of the public schools there
has been ushered in new regime in
educational affairs in Baltimore.
The declaration of the new school
board that there has been too much
science and not enough sense" in the
schools gives a vague hint OF the i'm
pending change. 1t has been said
by the powers that be, that former
Superintendent Van ST kle strayed too
far from the teaching of the three
RS" There is to be new system
Van Sickleism, as the former sup
erintendent's enemies are wont to call
his system, is an application to popu-
lar instruction of the new thought in
education. 1t aims to teach child
| to do rather than to learn, to promote
initiation rather than submission 70
system, fewer books and more origi-
nality. MIR. Van 81 kle was a support
err of the system adopted by the Ma
tional Educational Association, which
counts among it's members the super
intendents of most of the large Amer
lean cities.
Agreeing with the National Educa-
tionaI Association, Mr.. Van Sickle ban
ished the study of grammar from the
schools on the ground that the sub
pect was too abstract for the youth
full mind of 1O-year-old child. That
d knowledge of grammar should De
acquired from the experience Of read
ing and composition rather than by
memorizing meaningless rules was the
doctrine. The age-old A, B, Cs were
banished. The child was taught to
know the words by pictures and by as
ISOLATION. He was taught to pronounce
by phonetics and know the word be-
fore he could recognize the letters
posing it.
Teaching Power to Think.
Mr.. Van Sickle believed this tended
away from mechanical education and
taught the child to think. He advocat-
ed the abolition of the teaching of most
compound numbers, decimals and frac-
lions as they were taught, gavoring
teaching the idea as popularity APP
piled and leaving the tables and 9TH
er particulars for more developed
minds.
In geography children were taught
how a man lives rather than where he
lives; not how to bound" country
but what the people of country eat
The system purposes to place before
child's mind the things that will be
grasped most readily rather than the
old system of forcing the mind to az
sorb what was placed before it. In
the elementary grades a teacher must
determine what is best for child TO
study, while in the secondary grades
it devolves into the elective system
of study. The theory is that the glbwth
of child's mind takes place as does
the growth of a peoples mind. The
first state is savage. The mind should
be given that for which it is best fit
ted to promote development that will
seek for higher things. The purpose
is to lead the mind rather than &c
drive it. When the mind is in a civil.
lied state, then is considered the tine
to introduce details that weary the
young mind and paralyze it's future
development
The system has been adopted in the
majority of American cities. Members
of the present school board believe
that Mr.. Van Sickle carried his ideas
too far and that many of innovations
were fads. While they wish to retain
many of his ideas, and believe that
thoroughness for the child that leaves
the schools on the early side of the
eighth grade demands a return to the
three Rs-reading, riting and 'rith-
metic."
Particulars of the changes are to
be worked out by the new superinten-
dents, and they will go slowly.