Devils Lake weekly world. (Devils Lake, N.D.) 1911-1914, 1912-04-19
WHERE THE SCHOOLS FAIL.

acknowledged authority, but we
have no objection to buttins
one such authority against an.
other, while we have distinct objec.
ton to being backed down when we
feel certain we are right, or in being
ruled out of the game simply because
We refuse to follow tradition.
Authority questions our repeated as.
seriton that the present public school
methods and courses, with their iron
bound requirements, do not meet the
college requirements, are driving boys
and girls out Of these schools. This
authority too, is one we hold in high
respect.
But we refuse to back down or quit
the game, since we have fully as good
authority on our side. The latest such
is William d. Lewis, principal of the
William Penn high school of Philadel-
phia, who writes in the Saturday Even.
ing Post Of "The High School and
the Boy.'
Mr.. Lewis says: Gin no school sub
ject is there a sacramental virtue that
makes it an indispensable means Of
intellectual salvation,'' and he makes
no exception of algebra or history or
any other subject beyond the rudimen-
tary fundamentals.
Yet many of them are made indis-
pensable; without all of which no one
can be graduated, and failure in any
one prevents advancement. "Each
boy" said Mr.. Lewis, "recites or fails
to recite to five or six teachers, no one
of whom knows how much study other
teachers are requiring or what kind of
work the pupil is doing in other sub
jects.
"Every one of these teachers is a
specialist in her branch of learning.
She glances an eye of pity on the mas
SEES, who are rotting in ignorance of
her particular mystery; SO her duty is
as plain as the way to church, By
each of these teachers Independently,
without regard to general scholarship
standing in other subjects, the boy is
judged.
OF algebra he says: Elm 1910, 1874
per cent aof the first year pupils in the
state Of New York failed to get rat
ing of 60 per cent in this subject. AL
zebra and the foreign languages form
veritable bed of Prosrustes, on which
is annually sacrificed all opportunity
of advanced education for tens Of
thousands of boys
OF so boys who failed in the class
room, but succeeded in the workshop
and its correlated studies, he saws:
1.-The old.line course of study had
nothing for these boys. The school
was teaching them only idleness. Ought
they, therefore, to be dumepd on the
street, or ought the school to provide
for them as we'll as for the boys whose
tastes conform more nearly to our
schoolmasterish ideals'
He sums up his Indictment in this
way: "The high school is failing to
solve its social problem for two rea.
sons: First, because its course is too
narrow; second, because the method
and scope of its teaching is cramped
into the Chinese shoe tradition. The
one thing it is trying hardest to do is
to meet the entrance requirements of
the colleges.
Though the college has broadenod
its own curriculum so as to meet all
the varied demands of our complicated
social and industrial order, it is only
beginning to accept for preparation
anything but the old subiects-lang
uagc, mathematics, science and history
"Until tho colleges broaden the
scope of their entrance requirements
the high school will be greatly narrow
ed for hundreds of thousands of pupil.
who will never see the inside of collcg,
halls.'
1T is not merely the courses of stud,
that hold the fault, but the total lacl
of any sense Of the relative value Of
studies, the holding to rigid set O.
requirements which compel all pupils t,
pass through the same moulds. and
subserviency to the colleges. whose de
mands for entrance are calculated rath
er to make wooden images of student
than to promote the student quality
Duluth News-Tribune.