The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1922-05-19

| quitting the lnVeStIgatlOn IN disgust
If the world had depended OF
Latin to do it's thinking we would
still be wearing bear hides, eatins
meat with our fingers, fighting will
a club, living in caves, writing or
stones and parchments, reading by 6
tallow candle and travelling in al
OK cart.
! | believe that the elimination OF
arithmetic from the high school
course is an outrage on the children
| of the State, and the substitution of
Latin in it's place is adding insult to
injury.
Should you ask the teacher of your
school why your boy or girl has fin
ished arithmetic he will tell you that
arithmetic is only branch of math-
ematics, and that your child has been
advanced to algebra. Algebra is all
right in it's place but I want some of
you to show me it's place. Show me
where it is in use. There isn't SOL
itary man in Obion County that uses
algebra in his business, not one.
There is more algebra taught in the
public schools of Union City in one
week than has been used in all the
business affairs of Obion County in
the last one hundred years. Your
boy will quit the use of algebra when
he quits school, but he will need
arithmetic every day of his life. He
should continue the study of arith-
metic as long as he continues in
school and when he has finished he
will have but scratched the surface
of the only exact science that the
ingenuity of man has ever yet de-
vised
Don't misunderstood me. I think
algebra is all right, but the set of
men who are responsible for driving
arithmetic out of our schools ought
to be tried for treason to the children
of the State and shot at sunrise.
We also have in our Tennessee
schools at this time grading sys-
TEN. Some professor who has lin
gered at the lamp until he has for
gotten which end of mule to put
the harness on, has devised scheme
for grading and asserting the minds
and intellects of half-million school !
children in Tennessee. He hasn't |
made the grades to suit the children, I
but he is insisting that the Lord |
must make the children to suit his |
grades. If your child is extra bright I
in some one subject and extra dull in I
some other subject he can't make the I
grades, and so his mind was made /
up wrong, and he must be marked T
down as a failure and go home in
disgrace. This child must be HUI
and held back in a lower
grade, while the other children adj
vance, simply because he is deficient
in one subject By this means the
teacher prepares to build up where
nature has been deficient and to
create, force and make well ,
mind. BY the old system
which was in use many years ago in
Tennessee a boy could advance as
rapidly in any number of subjects
rs his ability would permit and could
advance as slowly in other subjects
is his limitations required. This old
system was generally in use through
out the country, but it was found to
De very defective in that it produced
10 many "one-minded" men-such!
men, for instance, as Thomas A. Ed
son, Luther. Burbank, Henry Ford,
John D. Rockefeller, and many 9th
RS, all of whom would have been
rounded out" better had they been
in one of our graded
chools.
Genius has always been zone
ided' and always will be. Take
rom the world the works and labors
# its "one-sided" men and we would
re in utter darkness" If your boy
S extra bright in some subject and
xtra dull in some other, watch for :
he spark of genius, it is with him.
he "well-rounded' fellows, those
Who are smart in all the subjects,
Will not display any unusual talent
long any particular line. They will
well the great army of hired help. 7
The dull boys" have been the
reat master minds of all the ages.
hey have given us our reapers and 7
lowers, our telephones, our steam
ngines, our electric lights, our
rinting presses, our automobiles,
ur steamboats, and practically all
ne inventions that have made for
he advancement of mankind.
l am pleading the cause of the dull
oy. Don't humiliate him. Let him
0 forward where he is strong; let
lm linger where he is weak. The ]