Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-11-20
(Continued.)

The advantage to the young per-
son of facilities for education de-
pends pretty much on what he is
taught and how it is taught him. IN
the last fifty years or so there have
not been very great changes in the
substance of the school curricula,
except that the manual and domes-
tic arts have come along in recent
years. Reading, writing, arithmetic
and history have always been
taught, and as long ago as 1850, as
stated by Professor Foose in a brief
history of high school education in
cluded in his annual report for
1896, "The records show that so
early as 1850 the then principal of
the North ward high school for
girls. S. d. Ingram, was teaching
such studies as chemistry, astron-
omy, rhetoric. botany, algebra,
drawing, ETC., and that in 1854 in
the boys high school of the same
ward, DR.. A. Z. Eyster then an en-
thusiastic teacher of that school,
was teaching such studies as Latin,
algebra, natural philosophy, chem
istry, astronomy, etc" These same
subjects are still taught, and with
some changes in the method of
teaching, particularly, perhaps, In
the sciences, and with few subjects
added to them, they still constitute
the basis and substance of academic
instruction. But now, merely by way
of illustration, in the two high
schools and in the two intermediate
schools there are physical and chem
ical laboratories, fully equipped;
physical geography is taught by the
laboratory method. so to speak, and
SO in come of the classes is even
Latin. In the girls high school and
in both intermediate schools the
girls are taught cooking sewing and
millinery, and in the boys high
school, as well as in both intermedi-
ate schools, the boys have, or will
have, courses in wood working. ma
chine work, timing, blacksmithing,
printing, applied electricity, etc. If
the main purpose of the schools-to
educate, to develop the capacity for
sustained and orderly thinking-be
kept in mind, and ii they are not
regarded, at least as at present or
ganiZed, as institutions for the
equipment of boys and girls, without
further special preparation, for par
ticular activities in life, ii would
seem as though this manual train
ing, utilizing as it does, the physical
faculties, as well as the mental, in
the process of individual develop
ment. must be of distinct value, and
we may say that in this respect we
have made much progress.
Related to the increased facilities
provided for education are num-
Der of activities that were unheard
of, and, perhaps, even undreamed
of in the earlier days. For instance.
this school district maintains a
school called continuation school
! at which all boys and girls between
the ages of fourteen and sixteen,
who have left the regular schools
! and have gone to work are taught,
| under compulsion of law, for eight
hours a week. the courses being
specially adapted for the needs of
| the patrons of the school. The dis
trict maintains two schools, presid-
/ ed over by teachers specially pre-
pared, for children of deficient mem
| tality. It maintains three or four
! schools in one building, for children
of tubercular tendency, where plenty
| of fresh air and good, simple food
| provided by the district, are includ-
! ed in the curriculum. The district
employs three physicians and two
! nurses who mean to do, and l have
while. 1t maintains night schools, in
which some hundreds of persons are
now enrolled, many of them foreign
! ers taking a course in Americaniza-
! ton. The district even takes care of
/ the teeth of the children of parents
! who are unable or unwilling to bear
| the expense themselves. This does
not seem to be altogether dem ocratic
! but it seems to respond to the pub
! lie opinion of the moment. The dis
/ trict also contributes $1,000 a year
toward the maintenance of the Pub
| lie Library and II might very well
| contribute as much more.
One of the tendencies in educa-
| tional progress which we will all
support and approve, is that toward
the reduction in the number of pu-
| pills per teacher. Sixty years ago
there was one teacher to about
| every seventy-five scholars enrolled.
A