Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1912-11-08
APPEAL FOR NEW TEXT BOOK
Need Is Not Less Culture Than Here
tofore, but for Achievement
Through Teaching.

II is time for those interested In
the education of our farm boys and
girls-and who is MOTTO look little
more closely into the textbooks they
are expected to study at school We
believe that there is great need OF
change right here, that, In our rural
schools especially, practically all the
textbooks in general use have been
made with a wrong ideal in view.
and that our schools have not been as
efficient as they might have been be-
cause the textbooks studied in them
have been so generally of the wrong
type, says the Progressive Farmer.
To put it in a sentence, the need
is for textbooks more directly related
to the life of the people.
We need spelling-books in which the
farm boy will early become acquainted
with such words as nitrogen" pot
ASH" protein" etc, as well as suoh
common, everyday words as "clevis,
"single-tree," "mattock," and other
ordinary farm terms which have
hardly had place at all in the spell
ngbooks used by all the millions and
millions of farm children heretofore.
Nor are the spelling book makers at
all alone in their attitude of indifer-
ence or contempt OF the farm childs
needs. The arithmetics have taught
all about banking and exchange and
English money and latitude and longi-
tude and the metric system Of weights
and measures, and have told almost
nothing about how to compound
fertilizer formula from certain guam
titles OF phosphoric acid and kainit
and cottonseed meal or how to make
balanced ration for cattle from diff
ferent combinations of feeds.
The Biographies, too. have too Otter
laid emphasis on naming capitals anC
bounding countries while neglectint
to teach the principal products Of
these countries and their commercial
importance.
The histories have laid undue EN-
phasis upon wars and battles tant
some of them have given US some
very one-sided war history at that
and have under-empbasized the grea
educational and industrial achieve
ments Of the people.
There is special need Of great ad
vance in the matter Of teaching healu
in the public schools. Until now w
have had physiologies that hav
taught the number Of bones In tn
body and the names of these bones
and about the different kinds Of mus
I cles and arteries and veins, but hav
, given little or no practical instructio
about how to conserve health and hoy
} to combat typhoid fever and malari
I and tuberculosis and hookworm dis
} ease and other maladies that hav
| slain thousands and even millions
: people who might with proper instru
, ton be alive today.
{ Let us have a new kind OF tex
!, books, textbooks that are related
: actual life and that train for th
3 | mastery of environment" in the I'm
= phrase of Governor Mann of Virgini
. The need is not for less Of cultul
Z than heretofore, but for the achiev
v ment of culture through teaching Il
{ practical and useful rather than Il
8 useless and non-practical things.
( the end the people rule in all thei
l. matters, and IL they don't get the kir
t of textbooks they need. they shou
s have a reckoning with those respon
\ ible for any perpetuation OF prese
). policies.