The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-08-13

which menace the life or well-being of the individual. The mass is un- digested. It remains physiological depressant Just so with mental pa- bulum taken in excess of assimilative capa city. The chhd who might >eag- erly absorb four or five studies inter- estingly presented, is satiated and ap- paled by the constant and nnremitting grind He becomes apathetic and unem motional, ina gination is inhibited, the creative faculty is smothered and the permanent antipathy against study has been developed"
 Do you mean to tell me''-Pro- lessor Craig has stood it just about as long as he couId-that our entire educational system is failure? I admit that some features of it are ar- chaic, but these are being rapidly eliminated The studies you people decry are particularly useful as men, tai discipline-in cultivating the abil- ity to generalize from given facts to treason logically.
 "See here, Craig''-Big Joe Ener- son had followed the argument with rapt atteition-"I had a. lot of fun in | college. was 'high-muck-a-
 muck in athletics, popular in the l .F'rats,' and made a lot of acquain~ tances-fellows whose good opinion
 and friendship value highly. But your contention that because l was ground through lot of Greek. trig- onometry, geometry. paleontology. chemistry, physics, and other stuff, l that my analytical or deductive abil- | ity is any better than that of scores | of my business friends who never saw 1 %Sz3,o
 nyrot And further, any college 1 man. now in professional or business life,--if he's honest-will tell you the same thing.
 | My own experience, said the
 Judge, was that in my college course we had a smattering of everything, and a knowledge of nothing-and so promptly forgot most of what we had
 so laboriously acquired"
 | "Correct'-Dr Carson emphasized with a vigorous nod-"Ask nine out of l ten college graduates what they re- I memb Der of their studies. Inquire as to the Keplerian Laws. or who Draco, I I.ycurgus, or Sidartha wereor what l they know of the Saurians of the Cor boniferous Era. and they will stare at you with the fShlike expression of l the Ancient Mariner, and answer, =, "Oh, knew something of these sub- I jects when I left college, but don't I recall anything of them now, Dit Ito with geometry, Greek, and many l other studies whose chief value lies l in what Craig calls Mental Disci- pline' ''
 Well, what do you folks suggest as an improvement upon our present methods Professor Craig challeng ed.
 '.He was plainly worried-for there , is nothing your college pedagogue--
 bound by head hands and musty GUS
 tom to the nliIdewed past--hates nnore ardently than innovation.
 Mrs. Hilliard responded instantly.
 ..Elaborate the kindergarten method. Adopt a limited curriculum adjusted l to the sympatfiies and ability of each individual student. Abolish competi- 1 ton and substitute emufation; and I above all, don't kill the study hah-
 1t by superfuity of studies, and | thereby satiate the mental appetite
 Tn other words. don't force-feed
 Knowledge in excess of assimiIative ability" added pr. Carson.a
 # TThe main thing, it seems to me- I l-Arkwright had been silent an un-
 usually long time, flor man-''is to
 cultivate and mature a love for read. ing. One who has developed and re-
 tained this-in spite of all the blud. Il geoning efforts of the schoolmasterr tI to ,assassinate it---is not. to be kept
 out of the storehouse of knowledge
 any more than you could keep 8 q squirrel on the ground.
 II "But there isn't particle of use in our keeping Judge and Mrs. Hill Hard up all night with our chatter so let's take the matter up for fur.
 thor discussion at some future time.'
 sDR. EDWIN F. BOWERS. {