Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1914-02-15
The Three RS Restored in Boston

Boston's Board Of Education has determined that
the Three iR's in all their pristine purity, discipline
and practical usefulness shall be restored to the
public schools, from which. shall be cast out all inter.
fering fads "%=*s.@-r@ :s"
The Board has comc to realize that the true bust
ness of primary education is soundly to ground young
pupils in the classic Reading, Writing and 'Rithme-
/ tic. which in itself is a serious undertaking and no
small feat. The Boston Board realizes that to fur.
nish the children with facility to read, to write and
to cipher" is to bestow upon them the most valu-
able education possible, in itself and as a solid foun.
dation for all further and advanced education, and
that to deprive the children of such real and true
instruction is to provide them with a handicap such
as few of them will be able to overcome in all their
after lives.
There is no royal road to learning and no short
cut across lots to knowledge and efficiency. And
this is as true concerning primaries as. secondaries,
as true in learning correctly to spell, legihly to write,
easily to read, accurately to cipher, as It is in nc.
curing the Greek language or mastering integral
calculus. Study means brain toll and the toll is
discipline and sharpening for the mental faculties.
1.-The day of "snap courses in colleges Is passing
and graduation from a college will some day soon
again he evidence of proficiency in subjects that are
worth While of ability, or of real learning. I;estora-
ton Of sound primary education, is bound to come,
also, SO that pupils in our public. schools will learn
to write, to read, to cipher with precision and
facility. ~
No doubt, the newer education, which has already
passed its apogee, had its uscsin sweeping ont much
litter. But its endeavor to substaate an easy method
for the old hard one has proved f,tile. Education
must remain in good part a labor. Otherwise it is
mere vanity. What avals it that a pufaL., of our
primary schools knows a number Of things that are
not so-ory il so, that are perfectly useless and a1ko.
gether snperfuous-while he is unable to spell &C.
curately, to write correctly, to cipher with ease and
precision?
The test of the primary education that ~neglects
the RS has been made in business and in life. where
those who are deficient in the RS are discovered to
be inefficient and at disadvantage. The injustice OF
the education of fads and fancies has been borne by
themselves through no fault of their own. 1t is not
exaggeration to say that they are the victims of the
system, the sufferers; from its injustice.
Order in the mental processes is mainly derived
from the primary education of boys and girls before
reaching their teens. Precision, order and discipline
Of mind are consequences of good mastership of the
RS in the main. Aftereducation, however extended,
IS based upon these consequences. To learn how to
read and to write a language is a mental feat inferior
to only one, the learning how to speak a language.
That task, the greatest in life, is performed by
aa~theE4schid the first three or four years Of its lite.
whitehall goes to show how important the education
of athe. child under ten years Of age is as compared
with the education thereafter" Proper education in
that period means everything. whether the child is
TO- pass into the higher schools or into the school OF
life. Improper education makes of the child its vic
tim.
And such proper education is mainly sound In.
struction in the three RS. II