Year: 1874

Common Sense view OF the Modern


Public school System.


The native of America has his fetishes
as well as the untutored inhabitant of
Africa. One.of these is the educational
system in vogue in our public schools.
Il is a cardinal point of belief with the
othordox American that the system is
perfect and ought not to be touched.
The teachers are held to be inspired
and infallible. To hint at a reform in
their laws and customs is esteemed al
most n crime. Therefore il is that the
youthful American is placed in the arms
Of the moloch of education, .and his
parents are hidden to keep at respectful
distance until the will of that power is
accomplished. The mould into which
the child is placed is one and the same
for all. It is of iron, and viii not bend.
The child must be made to fit the sys-
tenn, since the system will not yield an
iota to accommodate the peculiarities
of any particular child. In this, il may
be respectfully submitted, the system
is defective. As a point of fact, is is
questionable whether as good general
scholars are turned out by the schools
of the day, with all their modern appli-
ances, as by the old-fashioned school
teachers who taught in log cabins, with





ucation. The trouble seems to be that
children are forced and crammed. It is
the aim TO send out graduates of imma-
ture age, who put on the appearance of
vast erudition, but have little practical
knowledge for the business OF life.
Pupils are we'll up IN algebra who can
not tell where Fort BFidger Is, and
scholars who can give theohemical SYM
bols are unable to fix the year in which
the constitution of the United States
was adopted. Logic, rhetoric, and ge-
ometry are excellent studies in them
selves, but accurate spelling, and a full
knowledge of geography and history
are q necessity Of daily life to one who
pretends to anything like an education.
Boys are studying logic and quadratic
equations, when they should be thumb
ing the spelling-book. Arithmetic is
made the foundation and test of all
progress, and everything else is sacri-
ficed to it, though the knowledge of the
elementary rules of that science is all
that is needed in the ordinary affairs of
life. Hence n child that has q good
memory stands we'll and is advanced
rapidly, though he should forget to-
morrow what he learns to day. The
teachers hear the lesson by rOte, and
memory is therefore always at a prem
ium. OF course the child who has no
taste for arithmetic, though a genius
in all else, must stand at the foot of the
lowest class so long as he or she remains
a scholar. These things ought not SO
TO be. A sound system of education
would place spelling, geography and
history on par with mathematics, and
would give the brain that puzzles over
vulgar fractions an opportunity TO make
up its defeat by triumphs in other lines.
Colleges can afford TO make much of
Euclid, Sophooles, and Kant, but aver
age graduates of the public schools
want to learn everything about their
own country, and little about the rest
of the world. The plan of giving q
free education to every child is q grand
one, but it by no means follows that tho
system in use is 1nfallible. Parents
can do little or nothing by their over
sight, so long as the rules are inhexibly
applied to all alike. On all hands it is
ming. Physicians say that growing
children should not study at home. If
the teachers are educators, and not
merely machines to hear lesson by
rote, the six hours that are given them
to train a child afford ample time 10 fill
the brain for n single day. Fewer
branches of study, more instruction and
less recitation in the school, and no les
sons at home, would be an admirable
basis for a reform in our system of ed
ucation. Our modern moloch of edu-
cation should give place to living gys-
tenn that shall be adapted to the needs
of living men and women.