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Show lattger of a Store nf By DR. THOMAS STOCKHAM BAKER, Lecturer John tlopklna Unlvenlty. IIE schoolboy of to-day docs not do enough work. His school vjl year is not long enough and this vacations arc too frequent and ' too protracted; the real object of going to school is frequently SFZlS forgotten. Wc find the boy getting more restless, an increasing jHK craving for excitement; for diversions.. Athletics, -schoolboy VnV enterprises, yearbooks, newspapers, fraternities, dramatic so-Nbp so-Nbp cietics, so-called musical organizations, occupy his attention and drag him away from scholastic work. ImJ It is the duty of the schoolmaster to set his face against the present extravagances in time and neglect of opportunities. Whip and spur are applied to drive tho boy into college, no matter what the cost. The schools arc getting very bad nerves. Between the violent exercise and tlfo tho breakneck educational policy, there is little opportunity for repose. Lot us stop. Tho greatest benefit to bestow on a boy is not to place him in college, but to teach him how to study. Wo hear a great deal nowadays about the manly boy and about tho dangers of his becoming a mollycoddle, but in our efforts to amuse him and to make his school life attractive wc are in danger of developing a race whoso later course will be far more disastrous than if it had enjoyed in iia youth a vigorous course of plain living and high thinking. And tho eternal college entrance question places in one's way a tremendous temptation to help the boy over the rough places instead of placing the responsibility on "him. We coach him, we annotate his texts down to tho minutest details, we simplify his tasks, we remove all the inequalities from the high road of I learning, and we arc in danger of producing a mental mollycoddle, a typo ' ,1 whoso intellectual powers arc distressingly sickly and stunted. ( ' The school that has the best atmosphero generally is the school where I the most work is done. Wc do not want a nation of prigs, nor of book- I worms, nor of professors, heaven forbid, but wo chn make use of more I scholars and more real students. A Harvard professor has said wc do not I want tho "sweat shop" education of Germany. Perhaps not, but wo must I admire the results achieved and ought at least to hope for somo of tho I German spirit without its asperities. The amount of ingenuity and mental I power that a boy expends in learning tho batting average of the leading I baseball players, or the peculiarities of the college football teams, is sufik I cient, if utilized in more scholastic directions, to accomplish great results. |