Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-09-08
What Students Do Not Kno1O
Concerning Current History

~ VEN the lost favored groups OF young
r. Americans are drolly and withal sadly
- deficient in knowledge of current MS
tory, if the results of test issued by the Re
view of Reviews may be taken as representa-
tive To some two hundred thousand stu
dents in colleges, high schools and grammar
schools the country over were submitted hsts
of simple questions about persons and issues
figuring notably in the life of the times. In
the seventeen thousand five hundred answers
returned, college Juniors and Seniors, 1t ap-
pears, scored highest, but their average was
only sixty per cent, while that OF college
Freshmen was only fifty-three. Fltty-three
it also is for high school graduating classes.
"Of ten Thousand high school students flfteen
hundred in the second term of the third year
did the best, earning fifty-fiye per cent, while
twenty-nIne hundred high school Freshmen
averaged only thirty-five per cent; for TWEEN
ty-two hundred and fifty grammar school Sc
niors the average was forty-tWo per cent
while fifteen hundred seventh grade pupils
earned thirty per cent" The average for
all seventeen thousand five hundred answers
returned was fortyfour per cent.
Alice herself did not discover in Wonder
land such WITNESSES and freaks as these ad-
venturing young minds report of the Work-a-
day world. They variously represent MT.
Samuel Gompers as "a poet, as minister 10
JAPAN" as head of the strikers" and as
''civ1l service commissioner. Senator henry
Cabot Lodge is written down as an advocate
of spiritualism," and also as ambassador to
England; among twenty-seven high school Sc
niors in New England town the senior sena-
tor from Massachusetts was known to put
seven. Charles E. Hughes is Identified as
having been president Wilson's private sec
retary'' who now wants to conquer Russia.
Sim Fem is "a gang of mysterious men, and
"a party of people in Russia trying to gain
power" The Knox peace resolution PROVIDES
for "a reduced navy" international d1sarma-
ment," and abstinence from foreign affairs.
The last two amendments to the Federal
Constitution are described as having brought
us railroads. steamships paved streets ana
restricted immigration.
1t is not to lack of intelligence, but to
lack of instruction and reading, that such de-
fciencies are mainly to be charged. Schools
there are whose students answered correctly
and with understanding most of the 1mpor-
tant questions in the test. Where current
events are rightly taught, whether in class
room or through table talk, they beget an
interest which itself becomes richly educa-
tive and which is highly essential to good
citizenship. History Of yesterday and OF ten
thousand years ago lights up the life and
problems of today, so that study OF the past
is a practical, an invaluable aid to under-
standing of the present. But just as truly
does the proper study Of today illuminate
the decades, the centuries and the ages gone
Boys and girls will understand Pericles and
Cleon far better from keeping up with the
news of their own towns and their own ma
tons politics, just as they will see more
clearly into the issues of the hour through
knowledge of what befell and of what men
thought in the FARGO yet ever potent times
from which this hour is descended. Certainly,
then, an educational program which ignores
current history will do but half-hearted JUS
tice to history's larger prospects, and will,
miss moreover, one of the great aims OF true
neutrality-suspicious. for the duties and
problems of citizenship.
Touching the blankness and confusion of
mind betrayed in so many OF the answers
to the Review of Reviews test, the institute
of Public Service New York City, observes
. lie near the surface 1t is apparent for
one thing, that "unless schools teach current
events, young people while getting an educa-
ton will put off, until after their school days,
learning how to study them" 1t Is equally
evident, this authority thinks, that merely
reading or hearing about current events,
without being tested on what is understood
and digested, will leave the students con-
fused and helpless in thinking about vital
public questions" Where current events are
studied and tested, however, young Amer1-
cans can be taught easily enough to read
the important doings of the day intelligently,
with enjoyment and with profit for the years
to come Further "what thousands of teach
ers are already trying and what hundreds OF
teachers are already doing we'll, two hun
dred thousand teachers in upper grades, high
schools and colleges, can do so we'll that
whatever else graduates may lack, they will
not lack training in an analysis of the NOV
ing-picture Of current events" If schools
and fresides will give more attention to this
lively province of education, there will be
more of clear and competent thinking at the
polls, and a fairer outlook for democracy.