The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1933-03-15
ADDRESS BY PROF. OBRYANT
AT MEETING OF WONIAN'S CLUB

1hS 1oho"HS Is copy VI liie
address given by Professor Horace
.O'Bryant at the Woman's Club
Tuesday afternoon, March 2:
Il have been asked to speak on
the Importance of education, but
/ am quite sure that is unneces-
sary for this audience. 1 know
that no one of the Woman's Club
would willingly trade off her ed
ucation to become illitefate under
any circumstances. / would much
rather speak of the needs of edu-
cation, or rather, of the needs of
different forms of education.
"The form. of education that is
most in the public eye at present
is that of adult education.
"The industrial anda educational
leaders are pointing their fingers
at the schools and saying, "You
must train these people for a
worthy use of their leisure time.
You must give them an avocation.
You must give them a hobby with
which to occupy their leisure time
in a wholesome, sane manner
"The need for such training is
glaringly apparent at the present
time. People out of work just
now, but who have hobby with
which to occupy themselves, do
not brood. They are able to pass
over this time of waiting with bet
ter grace than those who have
nothing to occupy themselves with
except their thoughts.
Need Some Training
"This does not mean that adults
must return to school as children
in the fifth and sixth grades, but
it does mean that some form of
adult training should be provided
and further means that the boys
and girls in school now should be
given such training as to provide
them with that hobby for use af-
ter graduation. An additional
burden is being placed on the
schools because industry is de-
manding that we keep young men
and women in school until they
are at least eighteen years of age
for the purpose of giving jobs to
those who are older and who are
heads of families.
Many adults will raise the cry
that they cannot learn as well as
they could when they were young
.sters. This, however, is a false
idea. We have proved to our sat
isfaction that adults not only
learn as well as children, but that
they learn a great deal better than
children learn. As a matter of
fact, almost any of you ladies here
this afternoon could learn in the
course of three months the same
things that it requires grammar
school children three years to alb
sorb. We have established the
fact that learning ability increases
with age, and achieves its peak be-
tween the ages of % and "a.
"You will never be able to learn
any better than you could when
you were about "a years of age.
When you were 80 years of age
your learning ability was almost
equal to what it was when you
were I'd, and it is much better
than your learning ability when
you We're Is. At the age of 40,
you cannot expect to learn quite
as well as You did at 80, but your
learning ability is very much
greater than it was when you were
10. Your learning ability, then,
reaches its peak in the early TWEEN
ties and then declines very slow
ly until about 45, at the rate of
one-half of one percent per year.
Lack vi Interest
"This, then, being the case, we
wonder why adults do not learn
more than they do. The answer
to that question is lack of interest,
laziness, or lack of time. Nat
urally, if grown-up is not in
terested in learning something, his
or her learning of that subject
will be very inadequate, but sure
ly no adult can give as an excuse
for not learning the fact that his
or her learning ability is less than
1t was when he or she was a child.
The idea that in childhood is
found the golden age of learn
ing" is a myth, and is no longer
of any value in explaining lack of
learning ability among adults.
I'm Denmark there is found one
of the best examples of adult
education of which ! know. The
Danes have a regular educational
system extending from the kin
dergarten to university, and in
addition to this they have q sys-
tenn of Danish Folk-High Schools
which is entirely outside Of. and
not connected with the regulaI
educational system. To US they
would be most peculiar schools
They take young men for five
months in the winter. and young
women for three months in the
summer.
These students must be be-
tween the ages of eighteen and
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