The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1919-09-04
EDUCATIONAL.
(By J. w. Voborill


The international Journal of Ethics
for April contains an article on Educa-
tional Reconstruction by DR.. +. c.
Moore, President of the State Normal
school, Los Angeles, California. DIR.
Moore is one of the most scholarly edu-
Gators i'm America. The following are
quotations;
"The means which Germany used
were her schools. The war was school
master made. The Germany which
made the war was land of castles. Her
school system was not intended to open
opportunity to everyone. They did not
set up a ladder reaching from the kim
dergarten to the university They made
the Volksschule a thing apart to keep
the toiling millions of the lower classes
in their place, and teach them such UNI
questioning obedience as would make
them plant and devoted tools of the
officials. The Volk esschuke was a free
school; the others were not. The Ger
man child of working parents entered
il at six years of age, and normally
the age of fourteen. He studied no
foreign language during this period.
But the child of more fortunate par
ents who was to be trained for a career
officials. The NolksSchule was a free
tered the Gymnasium, or the Real
schulz, or the Real Gymnasium at the
age of nine and at once began the
study of a foreign language, for a long
training in foreign languages was nee
essary before he was qualified to enter
a German university. The Nolksschule
did not lead through the middle school
to the university; it led away from it.
It was intended to do that The Ger
mans built wall of foreign languages
about-ther higher education which eff
fectually 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 Volks-
schulz"
Comment by State Superintendent.
In this country, it may be noted in
passing, the foreign language 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 aggregate thousands of years,
yes, millions of years, for a single indi-
vidual were wasted as a result. Not
only that but many people who desired
an education failed to get it because of
this bugbear of foreign languages. Of
course we should offer the opportunity
to study foreign languages in our high
Ter Institutions of learning as we offer
the opportunity to study mathematics
and chemistry. But to demand foreign
languages for entrance to college or
even for exit from college with a bach
clor's degree is a senseless requirement.
Nincty-nine out of every hundred who
meet this requirement never open a
book in a foreign language after they
leave school unless they happen to
+ teach, They do not acquire power in
school to absorb and assimiate the
thought of the author; they have to de
! vote laborOus 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 coun-
try Of ours we should resist every ten
dency to develop such a dual system of
education as Germany developed We
are not making the separation at nine
as Germany did, but we are tending
strongly to make il at fourteen.
1t is extremely shorisighted in any
one to think for a moment that in this
country institutions such as high
schools for the favored or leisure class
can long continue to exist under the
antagonism that would quickly be de