The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1913-09-25
FUNCTION OFdE
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
SUPERINTENDENT BROWNING OF
CITY SCHOOLS DELIVERS
FINE ADDRESS
DIRECTED TO PARENTS OF BR0OMNGS
Mutual Understanding Between Par
ents and Teachers is Very Essen
iai Says the Superintendent

tiai Says the Superintendent
Al the Presbyterian church Sunday
evening superintendent Browning of
tho city schools gave a splendid ad-
dress to the parents of Brookings.
The church as filled to capacity
and Mr.. Browning was listened to
with close attention. His address
was so good that the Register prints
it for the benefit Of those who did not
hear him. and every parent should
read it. Mr.. Browning said:
There is none like me, said the cub,
In Joy OF his new found skill.
But the jungle is large and the cub
he is small,
Let him think and be still"
The cub of a city supt. could profit
by tho advice of Mr.. Kipling in these
few lines and merely think and be
still"
St Paul says: when / was a child
spake as a child, | thought as a
child, understood as a child; but
when I became a man l put away
childish things" Just here Is a weak
less that creaps in unawares. Toe
many of us have put away childish
things in an educational sense, and
have failed either to speak as a child,
think a. q child, or understand as a
child. We often attempt to make chill
dren speak as men, think as men, and
understand as men. But the demands
of modern life are imperative and
must be needed. The schools must
interpret to the child the life that is
about him. Therefore our school prob
lem is right-emphasis and right-ad-
justment. The right emphasis and
right adjustment of today may be the
wrong emphasis and the wrong ad-
justment for tomorrow. Adjustment
and readjustment are the laws of
school development. The school stu
alton at any given time is a comprom-
Use between what ought to be and
what ought not to be.
For instance let us take the idea of
practical education, about which we
hear 20 much in these days. To those
who have not looked around the sub
ject completely, there seems to be an
idea that practical education consists
wholly in what one does with his
hands; the practical education trains
the boy to make boxes, to build side
walks and houses; that practical edu-
cation trains the boy to cultivate the
soil and to harvest the crops. All of
which 10 true, but the emphasis may
be placed go strongly upon this side
as to obscure the larger truth, that it
is Just as practical to teach the boy to
think straight as it Is 20 saw straight;
that 1t IL just as practical to teach
the boy how to hit an idea on the head
in an argument az 1t is to hit a nail
Ou kno AO00 III Sho ~ tAoAhAh6
department.; that it Is just as prac-
teal to train q boy how to dig a truth
out Of q book as it is to train him how
to dig . potato out of the ground; that
it 10 just as practical to teach the
boy how to estimate the fine points
of a great poem as it is to train him
49, 20 oofiyrofa fhn oh no pfnrtCftnC
of a good ear of corn. The emphasis
in education has shifted so far that
many people think today that the chief
end Of education is to prepare the boy
to make a living. And there Is no
question but that Is one of the primi-
tive and fundamental and imperative
a mistake to suppose that it is in any
sense the highest aim in education,
or the controlling aim in education
1t Is one thing to train a boy how to
make a living; it Is quite another thing
to make his life worth the living. Prof.
Simon Patton of the University of
Pennsylvania, in his book on "Heredity
and Social Progress" advances a very
interesting theory respecting evolu-
ton. He says in substance, that when
ever an animal has to expend all of its
time and energy in wrestling from it's
Environments simply enough to sus
tain its life that such an animal at
the end OF any given period of its
struggle Is really facing a deficit, and
cannot in the nature Of things make
any future progress In evolution. But
whenever an animal finds, either
through o favorable change in the