The Wilmington morning star., 1945-04-18
New School District
Nv FRANK L. PERRIN

Nv FRANK L. PERRIN
II is not impossible that the discovery will
=. made or that it will be conceded a
self evident fact, that all our Wanted proc
esses of education are but the repeutons or
methods and processes taught ana PIacuced
esses of education are but the repetltlons or
| methods and processes taught ana pracuced
| since that time to which the memory OF man
runneth not to the contrary. Whatever is taught
mr. sought to be taught, and whatever is learn
ed or acquired through the application or en-
forcement of prescribed processes and approx
ed methods, can be traced to the acceptance
and application, in an appreciate degree, of
written or unWritten disciplinary code or
rule of action.
The pioneers who peopled the prairie and
wooded sections west of the Alleghanies and
later the broad valleys of the Mississippi and
the Missouri had, for the most part been
schooled in the villages and farm districts
of New England and New York. They had,
willingly or unwillingly, learned the rudiments
of self government by disciplining their think
ing and reasoning processes. At least by
product of this achievement was the realiza-
ton that order, even if enforced by one to
whom had been delgatd tn authority to n
fore obedience, was essential.
It was in the natural course of events that
it devolved upon these pioneers, even without
| too willing acquiescence, to transplant and
perpetuate this Yankee system of American
thinking and teaching, yes, and even OF reason
able and effective discipline, first into their
homes, and then into the schools and churches
which, because of their own teaching and
thinking, they established wherever few fami-
lies settled. MY own memory, naturally enough
runs back to vivid experiences in that frontier
country Reminiscing, one hardly speaks, in
comparing conditions then existing, OF cultural
lines of distinction. But there were lines of
differentiation. To some they appeared to be
be hereditary but in either case, when under
great deal of water has gone under the
racial. To others they may have appeared to
bridge, the saying goes, since those days.
all those, without class or family distinction,
On the fingers of both hands 1 could not count
stood, equally nonessential and superficial.
who have made conspicuous places for them
selves as judges, legislators, educators, and
some as mere writer's They were taught, and
fortunately learned, to discipline their thinking
No, the story does not end here. Beyond
the fertile areas pre- empted by the adven-
turing pioneer families there lay, to the north
and to the West. a vast empire to which
there came, a little later, an alien but friendly
horde of homeseekers. The strangers knew
little or nothing of free schools, or public
schools, and nothing at all OF the processes
by which Americans taught the new idea how
to shoot Edward Eggleston, three score years
ago, IN MS 't1OOS1eT OCIOOulldSlcI, gave Us
an enduring and faithful picture as true to
life in Michigan Wisconsin, and Illinois as it
was of the vicissitudes and trials of country
schooltea cher in Indiana. Will you agree with
me that the lesson impressed, both by expert
ence and by the courage of the Hoosier School
master, is that accepted or enforced discipline
is fundamental in successful training in estab-
fishing basis for right thinking and sane
reasoning?
If it is so agreed then we must accept
the responsibility, wherever the need exists
of establishing, by whatever means available
and practical, and with without the con-
sent of those in need of enlightenment and
teaching, the processes and the teachers cap
able, of perpetuating the role OF Edward Egg
gleston's hero
The whole of wasted and depleted Germany
with her horde of misguided and mesmerized
young men and women, constitutes a new
school district awaiting new teachers and new
masters imbued with courage and sanctified
with the faith and rnselfishness of pioneer mis-
sionaries. To them, as they enlist for service,
should be committed the responsibility, sacred
in itself and not impossible, of seeing to it
that the next revolution in Germany is a revo-
luton in human processes Of thinking 1t is
by those right processes that true human free
dom is born and made to endure.-Chrstan
Science Monitor.