The daily sentinel., 1914-04-27
ARE WE ON THE WRONG TRACK?

a AcfEk speaks his mind about the public schools in
most interesting article in The American magazine The Sen
tnel believes he absolutely correct in his dec5atons and b
says IS applicable to schools all towns We you read
thS teachers views and therefore reprint hem
Nineteen years ago busy progressive little town in Con-
neccut began my first work teacher. On the whole we
were dhgent body ambitious to the latest of and
of books and conscientious that was too trivial to @
cape our notice insignificant command our attention liz
matter Tor very serious discussion whether should teach
o to add one to the subtrahend take the mnend
the eacherous mazes of subtraction And were divided
INTO warning camps OF those who believed that the introduction
the phonetic system the beginning of wisdom and those o
ers who held with unsakbe loyalty that only the word
method would enable render Sheridans Ride etc with
all due regard to expression.
while many point that taboo" IN our conventions
was couageousy discussed neghbory gossip the idea that
system itself might be wrong appeared never to have entered our
heads sometimes there heard whisper the boy who
had lett school was not as efficient he might have been
simply regarded evidence that he had gone enough along
IN the schools Perhaps close be Judges
near to get good perspective Perhaps deeply
ned with the working of the details have sensed the naming
of the whole Perhaps harased by the personal problems
our individual gradesthe daily struggle make the square peg
TIT INTO the round hole lime and place and may change
the problem everywhere the and still unsolved
What possibly be done with young Tommy Peters
whom numbers has terrors but whose reading troubles the
spirits of his complacent friends and Lars Anderson who
does the most beautiful handwork, but alas nothing else: and
George Washington Johnson who has been the grade
already and who simply must but whose scholarly attain
ments of such doubtful character frazze the
and furrow the brow of his anxious teacher?
They still with u.s. those great durbers of the peace
the backward children After twelve years of absence from
hooroom during which have brushed elbows here and
with teachers and choomen almost every the Unon
return to find that the spirit OF the schools yet unchanged 1t
that the last few the struggles of the duoned
and inefficient graduate has
something wrong with public schools but it still general
y regarded not fundamental problem but question Of
detail the solution of which may be left the teachers While
the choomen still struggling for the solution within the csab-
shed order of like the fox with his hundred
tricks having tried the ninety and fairly launched
the hundredth OF vocational schools far by
blessing Many good cook without Knowing
where her daughter spends the evenings why she
much for the And might graduate class of very fair
plumbers, only find that needed BARRIERS This
specialization gives for hope that Will solve
our problem. 1t is valuable chiefly such degree dveI
IRON present OF standardization.
We struggle bring the country school the standard OF
the the that of the city, the city schools uniformity
and the individual grade 1t is vaient effort make the
pyramid its apex For high schools merely pre-
only of every hundred who the public schools
into the high school and few of these get college.
Nnet-thee every hundred do get beyond the ee
schools From here they leave, the
luton of the nations problems And what these elementary
schools? Merely steppngstoes for the high schools Frankly
freely that and nothing than that
When going trying to life ourselves by our
boosraps and recognize the fact that the elementary schools
the finishing schools of the nation!
"And when we going break away from this frantic
struggle for Standardization and bend energies toward mdd
lualzation!
'When shall we give each child in whatever time fortune
NAV grant him for schooling opportunity acquire the great
powers his head and his hands unhampred by the
stutifyng limitations of artificial grading?
"If this ideal impossible of attainment under our present
organizations much the for the system And we do
definitely how attain this result then let us begin TO
schools experiment Not model
schools nor training schools for proficiency technique; but
places where established orgoten where the
Question of methods may be subordinate the bigger and
one finding the relation of the public school to the
Individual the changing problems OF the nation ana 10 e
special problems that community of which it be part
f. l.. \.