The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1916-12-28
THURSDAY, DECEMBER %, 1916.
Assimilating Culture.

Ideas of education are changing.
Years ago it was the idea that the man
who was educated was the man who
could live without work. Nowadays the
idea is that the man who is best edu-
Gated is the man who can work the
most and get the greatest results from
his efforts. Education used to mean a
vague something that came as an ae-
complishment to the individual and
made it possible for him to hold his
head just little higher than the other
fellow and assume superiority which
in many cases was lacking. We are
now beginning to assimilate culture.
This fact is found in the new idea Of
teaching children in the schools Of Ke-
nosha and in the schools Of other cities.
Education is no longer something for
children alone. It is proving more in
teresting every day tOamen and women
who are walking down the slope with
the shadows falling toward the east.
The idea that it is 'hard to teach an
old dog new tricks" has been succeed
ed by the idea that an old dog learns
new tricks just as well as young one
and learns them so as to make the
tricks more valuable to him. Culture
no longer deals with the high arts and
the classics. 1t is mighty good to have
this sort Of culture and the right round
ing out of an education demands them
but there are other kinds of cultures
which are receiving just as high an en-
dorsement from the world. It's the
story of the 'better mouse trap 1t
used to be the rule that the cultured
man had q talking knowledge of the
classics, could judge picture or tell
just when discord came into the music
of the delicately toned instrument
Now the man Of culture sees discords in
steel and iron. The world is beginning
to see that the real culture comes in
applying art rather than in appreciat-
ing it. cart for art 3 sake" has come
to mean cart for life's sake.'' The
true artist has come to be the man
not who paints the prettiest picture or
writes the most beautiful symphony,
but the man who makes the best en-
gine and developes the machine which
is going to do more for his fellow man
toward making life easier and life more
comfortable. We are switching culture
from the mind to the hand. We are
teaching the boys and girls to work
with their hands as we'll as their heads.
The girl is learning that culture can be
applied to the work about the kitchen
cabinet and the boy is learning that to
saw board straight and to turn an
iron rod properly has just as many ele-
ments of culture as painting a picture
or reading a page from the forgotten
languages of the past. The man is
cultured who can make two ears of
corn grow where one grew before. This
may not be the culture of youth In
fact, many of the most valuable con-
tributions to life are being made by
men and women who would be a for
gotten element in the old idea of cul-
ture. The man who teaches other men
the science of building home which
Is going to be a real home of comfort
is one of the men who is adding to the
worlds culture and his gift is worthy
of consideration. Culture through the
applied arts is greatly to be desired and
1T is more valuable to the world at
large than the culture of appreciation
or the art of some other person, One of
the greatest satisfactions in the world
is the satisfaction of actual accomplish
ment. The school of the applied art is
not getting all the attention it deserves
IN Kenosha. Work with the hands is
just as important as the work with the
brain. Kenosha needs great school
OF applied arts where real culture NAV
be assimilated. Where the bows NAV
learn to do something which will be
reflected in the great institutions of
the city. Kenosha is not to be ranked
as fourteenth in a great state in
the development of this form of cul-
ture. 1t should be first. The proper
development of great city-great in
dustrially-depends largely on the edu-
cation Of its boys along these lines.
Kenosha should in the near future
make arrangements to have great
school of applied arts which would be
just as great as any of it's other schools
The service that such a school could do
for the boys and girls of Kenosha is
not to be estimated in the dollars
which it's building and maintenance
would cost. The applied art is the new
form of culture and Kenosha should be
among the first cities to recognize this
fact and provide for such education of
her children.