Evening star., 1938-10-25
The Quizzing
Of a Child
1nhunan
Continual Prodding
For Information
Very Harmful.
BY ANGELO PATRI.

Lately it has become the thing to
quiz children on all sorts Of facts.
Who built the pyramids? What's the
longest bone in your body? Who said,
"A fool and his money are soon
parted?." Is puck 4 tool, q fairy or
fish? Why is fire hot and ice cold?
What makes the wind blow? What
does 1914 say to you?
If the truth could be told by the
suffering child these quizzes give him
pain and little else. In school, at
home-some people think that the
dinner table should be a round table
Of knowledge asked and knowledge
given-in Sunday school, the luckless
children are pursued by people anxious
to ascertain the amount and the quail
ity Of their intelligence.
Answering these questions and their
like are no measure OF a child's in
telligence. If he knows the answers
he has probably been enticed or
forced into reading and memorizing
facts from reference books and ency-
clopedias. Somebody had the erro-
neous idea that in formation q mass
Of isolated facts fertilized intelligence.
I am here to say this Is not so. A fact
Is important in relation to other facts
and useful only If it applied in per-
sonal experience of some sort. Taken
out Of its setting. forced out of rela-
ton to anything else, it is as dead as
an empty snail shell.
This practice of asking children 4
list OF questions. the answers to which
the questioner has looked up before
time. Is cruel and inhuman practice.
It should be stopped by those who
wish children we'll A schoolchild
will learn in the course Of time that
1914 was the year in which the terrible
World War was launched upon q tor
tured world. Let that be enough.
Don't serve that dish at the dinner
table, nor the others like it. Let meal
time be a happy time Of rest and
recreation. Tell pleasant stories; laugh
much and in kindness and charity
toward all men, with special reference
to children.
OF, course. children ought to have
. fund Of general information: GER
talnly they should. But 1t ought to be
information that concerns their expert
ences, applies to their interests. in
spires their desire to do more and
better work in their search for knowl-
edge. A list Of questions intended to
elicit information touching every field
OF human endeavor is about as useful
Tor the education of . child Is sitting
on the dictionary is to his vocabulary,
The waste Of effort is bad enough.
but the effect Of this continual prod
ding and probing. this showing up Of
child's ignorance, to himself and
other people. works harm because 1t
makes him feel dumb. He thinks YOU
think he should know the answers. but
he doesn't and he feels he Is q failure
In your eyes.
There Is a class Of workers, and
near workers, who "know the an
swers" and nothing beyond. Some
Of them are stenosraphers who can
not spell, teachers who cannot get
beyond subject matter, civil service
workers who never understand what
their work Is about, bores who think
the way to social success is to ask
blithely, DO you know that the popu-
lation OF New York Is greater than that
OF all 1reland?" You don't know: yo,,
don't care. That's the way it is with
the children, too.
(copyright, 193s.)