The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1912-03-29
BOOSTING BY IMPROVING .
PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

James Ruane, the prolific edi-
tor from Slayton and who is con-
sidered an expert as we'll as
crank" on educational systems and
methods, spoke Interestingly for
some time. The criticism of school
methods and the discussion of the
school question was an exceedingly
delicate case for a newspaper man
to handle, because it implies that
there is something wrong with the
system.
I'VE must expect that there are
evils in the school systems, but
movement to intimate anything OF
that kind is to get yourself into
trouble at once Peculiarly enough,
school boards as rule will not re-
ceive suggestions from outsiders as
freely and gracefully as village coun-
ellis or other city officials do.
although have voiced my
thoughts against the present sys-
TENS and methods of our public
schools, / have never been prompted
by a personal grievance, for l have
had none. Sometimes criticism OF
school methods has a most injur-
ious effect on the pupils"
Mr.. Ruane then took up the de-
ficiencies in the public schools of
the present day as he sees them,
and cited many instances to bear out
his statements. Mr.. Ruane has been
t4I IN
of his own children and in school
methods as a whole. He laid special
stress on the practice OF trying TO
inoculate too much knowledge into
minds that were not ready to re-
ceive this amount of learning. 1t
was not right, thought he, to have
a girl or boy twelve or thirteen
years of age take the final eXami-
nations in geography or at fourteen
finish up arithmetic. The reason
ing power of children at twelve or
thirteen years of age was not fully
developed to complete a subject like
arithmetic. But in order to fulfill
what is expected of the school
children, they are crammed before
examination, merely to pass to an
other grade for some more cram
ming.
Why Children Dislike Studies.
"Why do school children get up
to the eighth grade at the age of
fourteen? When l went to school
we usually did not master arithme-
tic until we were sixteen instead of
fourteen, and we liked our study,
whereas now the students as rule
hate arithmetic because they can
not understand it.
1.-THE real foundation for our edu-
cation comes in the eighth grade
and we have been crammed too full
of knowledge that is of no benefit
to us and with ruinous result.
What we need is more intensified
education, and you may compare
this to intensified farming. You
must prepare the mind for the re-
ception of arithmetic just as you
prepare the soil before planting
corn.
Don't put eighth grade arithme-
tic into sixth grade minds. Our
normal schools are weak in this re-
spect. They do not teach teachers
to do original work. This distorting
of the brain is a crime against the
children just as much as the dis
torting of child's limb The studies
are usually as far above the chill.
dren's heads as the floors in the
schools of Minneapolis were below
their feet, as was complained of by
Mrs. Caroline Bartlett Crane"
More drilling is what the stu.
dents need, just as corn needs con.
tinual cultivation. Boys like to do
things well, but they balk when re-
quired to do a thing that is above
their heads and that they cannot
understand. If teaching were in
tensified, students wouldn't get into
the eighth grade so young
Mr.. Ruane did not criticise the
teachers as much as he did the
system that prevails in the public
schools. He sharply raped the
high school board. contending that
this body of men has organized the
system, He did not permit the nor.