The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1913-12-05

n1ot0ef 20 zee ne3# O40e1g bkOS0eks 0E1uu8 Wl6n,
bis company. See, Mamma she said. .theyl
sre ,all~oat Of step but .Iohn- I Some parents,
mothers especially are % wrsIpedSup In their
child sthat It appear toE them ilnpossible for
that child to be doing anythinES wrong. I
worked for an hour, with one good mother the
other day to convince her that her boy had
deliberately lied to her and when she saw It
her aiTief was sod to Witness Yet n long
~ she went on acting on the principle that
her boy was perfect and did not need looking
after, the boy was becoming confirmed in
habits which were bad for him. =,
The great thing in bringing up children
is to study each. child constantly to know
what he is like. The treatment depends upon
the nature of the child. You will notice that
the child may change in temperament rs he
grows older. often quite suddenly. We reco8-
nize in our child study in the schools that
children have periods of growth, both in
height and in weight, periods of development
in ability to do things with the hands and
with the mind, periods of Temperament. What
we want to do is to tide him over an un-
little loss Of time as possible and without los
ing any of influence. This is the occasion
demanding teacher who can still see good
in the boy and who can still hold him to the
best ideals of his nature.
'For many centuries in education, no
Reorganization was taken Of the fact that boys
and girls are different in their natural tastes
and inclnations. As q matter of fact, some
plays do not appeal to some children at all.
I havo kno,,yn hov xuho ho1 1ociro
to play football. know of some girls who
do not care to play tennis. In like manner.
some boys do not like to study Latin and
Greek. Some do not like to 60 into the car
penter shop and learn to handle the tools.
Some girls like to cook, others would much
rather study or sew.
Schools of Former Times.
1.-THE schools of former times, and have
reference to those of only short time ago.,
made no provision for furnishing opportunity
to those whose natural interests were along
the lines of the old language course. The
result that. while we had free schools for
all the children. but a small percentage of
them took advantage of them. The schools
of former times really served but one class
of people. namely, those who had liking for
Latin and Greek. A very small fraction of
one per cent went through the entire system
Of schools.
Now we are trying to offer something
which will prepare all classes of children
for different lines of life work. 1t has been
a hard fought battle with the universities to
gain concessions as to allowing credit for work
done in manual training. cooking, bookkeep-
ing, typewriting, farming, etc. even when the
work is done in school under competent in.
structors and the same amount of time is
spent would be spent upon Latin The
latest innovation in the educational world is
to allow credit in school for boy or girl
who spends a portion of the day keeping q
set of books while earning enough to continue
in school.
"The fact is that our ideas of education are
getting broader. 1t now means drawing out
and developing any of the latent powers in
a human being which may be of some service
to himself and to the race. A man is valu-
able to himself and to humanity according
to his power to do things which are bene-
fetal. That education is most successful that
develops the larger number Of these powers
in the child. There are some powers possessed
by but few people and these are the ones
most highly valued.
Formerly schools carried the notion that
if a boy or girl did not have the ambition to
become a doctor. lawyek, statesman, or some
other professional person he was not of much
consequence to the world and did not need
to be educated. In fact it were better that
such one should not be educated 30 that he
would shovel dirt and carry the hod in ignor-
ance of the lowlness of his work. Now we
have come to recognize the dignity of labor
and seek to exalt all kinds of labor through
education of the laborer. It is not the work
we do but how we'll we do it that marks
the perfect man. The work itself is neither
honorable nor dishonorable, it is the man who
does it and the manner in which he does it.
The man who gets rich because he underpays
his men, the lawyer who wins his case by
bribing a juryman, the student who hands in
an essay as his own which he has copied from
some book may appear by results to be emf
nently successful but he is not. True sue
cess is not attained in that way.
"Some Celebrated Billiards."
'Sir Isaac Newton, Wordsworth, Henry
Ward Beecher, the great philosopher, Hegel,
and a host of other eminent men in the
worlds history were regarded as being stupid
in the old school. The fact is that the old
narrow Latin curriculum did not appeal to
them. We are trying q offer q number of
different courses of study today so as to serve
greater number of people. l think there can
be no doubt in the mind of any informed per-
son that a child is more apt to get along
we'll in life if he has q good education than
he is if he stops his education too soon.
You know what the little girl told her mother
about her sister. She said. Mamma, 1 know
why Mabel falls out of bed every night. It
where she gets in There are too many child
rem today going to work too near the place
where they have let their powers 60 to Sleep
This is partly the fault of the schools and
partly the fault of the homes. We are trying
to remedy the defects in the schools so that
pupils will be fired with the desire to climb
as high as possible. hope for the coopera-
ton of every parent in the task Of keeping
the children in school. Why should not the
our splendid high school as we'll as those of
only few7
Why Children Leave School.
Zone reason why the children here stop
going to school is that their work is needed
to help support the family. I think as the
children grow Older they should be able to
find work after school and during vacations