Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-06-04
EDUCATORS ARE
TAKEN TO TASK
Commissioner of II c a lth
Dixon Makes Some Interest
ing Comments

Educational systems of to-day are
declared by DR.. Samuel G. Dixon,
State commissioner of health, to be
wanting in attention to the individ-
dal. The commissioner says that
educators ought to put into effect
more and more the principle that
everyone Is not created alike and
that great care should be exercised
that children are not forced beyond
what they are acapable, mentally or
physically.
The commissioner says:
The physical and mental strength
of student is rarely considered by
the educator. The result of this is
that we have vast number of nerv-
GUS wrecks, a burden to themselves
and to the public because they are
too weak, either physically or men,
tally, or both, to stand what is placed
upon them by the teachers. Many
of them, if strong enough physically,
have not been born with sufficient
gray matter ever to apply the high
or education with which it is sought
to equip them, should they live
through the ordeal.
Teaching does not produce brain
substance, but only arms the brain
tools for tn struggle of modern
achievement. Not only are children
forced by teachers beyond their nat
ural aptitude. but frequently to
death.
along the tracks of education
there should be many stations where
children could be discharged, fitted
to fill situations consistent with what
nature had intended them to per-
form. To accomplish this in public
school education, the curriculum
would have. to be adjusted so as to
round up certain degrees of educa-
tion essential for them to pursue
successfully some of the lesser posi-
tions in life.
The present system of having a
continuous chain of study from the
primary school to the high school
leaves no link that is complete with
in itself to provide for many of the
still indispensable to our existence in
civilized life.
"Those sufficiently endowed with
natural ability to make use of the
higher education really represent a
minority of our children. Those
with weaker mentality. who are
forced to keep up with those more
richly endowed so that they may
graduate from our high schools. are
aften rendered too proud to seek the
more humble positions in life. Many
of these who find themselves in that
position become n burden to the pub
lie and often tumble into paths of
dissipation.
This chat is not my first at
tempt during my life to awaken the
educators to the necessity of recog-
nizing the fact that nature has not
made us all alike. This great vari-
alton is found in animate and mani
mate life and is generally consistent
with the versatility of the necessities
of man.
THE teaching world, however,
seems to be too highly specialized to
take a broad view of the subject.
Since it has failed. parents will have
to provide the solution themselves.
Let them lay aside sentiment and
try to measure their children's ca
pacities for education and their ap-
titude to use education, so that they
may be prepared by the proper kind
of education to succeed in the char
acter of work nature endowed them
for.
This want of having more varied
courses of study to meet the varied
mental capacities of the students
and their positions in life, has al
ways been of vital importance. But
in these war days wise conservation
of education and health are doubly
vital. If we are to lose some of our
people in the war, one way of making
up VIII be to educate more properly
those remaining"