Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1919-05-23
STATE SUPT. CARY
ON LANGUAGE ISSUE
Says Foreign Language is
Not Subject for the High
School Courses But
for Universities.

THE international Journal Of Ethics for
April contains an article on Educational Re-
construction by DR.. E. @. Moore, president Of
the State Normal School, Los Angeles, Cali
fornia. DR.. Moore is one of the most scholarly
educators in America. The following are
quotations.:
1.-THE means which Germany used
were her schools. The war was
schoolmaster made. The Germany
which made the war was a lard Of
castles. Her school system was not
intended to open opportunity to
everyone. They did not set up a lad
der reaching from the kindergarten
to the university. They made the
Volksschule a thing apart to keep
the toiling millions Of the lower
: classes in tl,eir place, and teach them
such unquestioning obedience as
would make them plant and devoted
tools of the officials. The Volksschule
was a free school; the others were
not. The German child of working
parents entered it at six years of age,
and normally continued in it's classes
until he reached the age of fourteen.
He studied no foreign language dur
ing this period. But the child Of more
fortunate parents who was to be
trained for a career did not go to the
Volksschule. He entered the Gymna-
stun, or the Realschule, or the Real
Gymnasium at the age of nine and at
once began the study of a foreign
language, for a language, for a long
training In foreign languages was
necessary before he was qualified to
enter a German unworthy. The Volk-
schulz did not lead through the mid
die school to the university; it led
away from il = intended to do that.
The Germans built a wall of foreign
languages about their higher educa-
tion which effectually kept it away
from the mass of their people. Ninety
per cent of them had to be satisfied
with what was furnished them free in
the V~olksschule."
Comment by State Superintendent
of Schools: In this country, it may
be noted in passing, the foreign Ian
guage idea which, prevailed to such
an extent in our higher educational
institutions had no real motivation
but was a fad or craze largely got
from Germany. What would aggre-
gate thousands of years, yes, millions
of years, for a single individual were
wasted as a result. Not only that,
but many people who desired an edu-
cation failed to get it because of this
bugbear Of foreign languages. OF
course we should offer the opportunity
to study foreign languages in our
higher institutions of learning as we
offer the opportunity to study mathe-
MATES and chemistry. But TO de-
mand foreign languages for entrance
to college or even for exit from col
lege with a bachelors degree is a
senseless requirement. Ninety-nine
out of every hundred who meet this
requirement. open a book in a
foreign language after they leave
SCllOOI uLlICSS oJOJ AoPpOA " O00NL'
They do not acquire power in school
to absorb and assimilate the thought
OF the author; they have to devote
laborious hours with the medium in
which the thought is expressed.
But this is not the chief lesson to
America in the above quotation. The
lesson, and it is sorely needed, is that
we should not build an educational
wall between the children whose par
ents labor with their hands for their
daily bread and the children of those
who do not so labor. AS we value the
future welfare of this democratic
country of ours we should resist every
tendency to develop such a dual sys-
tenn of education as Germany devel-