OCR Text |
Show H Neglected By The Schools NOW a cry is going up that graduates from our higher schools are shamefully deficient in H penmanship. We suspect that is true. Hand- H writing is mechanical, and the boy or girl that H has no natural mechanical gifts will never be a H first-class penman. H But sure, there are some other needed things H which most graduates of our higher -schools are H deficient in. There is not one in five who is a H good geography scholar. Ralph Waldo Emerson H did not know geography enough to answer the H simplest questions. H Again, npst of them are woefully deficient H in history, and nearly every one has no knowl- H edge of political history. This last is the fault H of the country. No text book of political history M that we have ever seen was fit to introduce into a school room. 0 Pupils advance to students and graduate from H high schools and universities, who can give no lucid description of how our government was H formed or the difference between it and that of M Great Britain or Germany or any other power, M and can give no substantial account of either its M political or real history. This we hold to be the M most sinister failure of our schools, for these m things should be taught when love of home is H strongest in young hearts, and at just the time fl when love of home should expand into love of H country. fl Every teacher should be an adept in these M branches, and in the absence of text books should M every other day explain the potent facts in a H half hour's lecture, making the pupils take notes M to be questioned on next day. It is a wonder of H the world that some school man has not before H this prepared such a text book, reducing the facts H to questions and ansvers, which is the best way SH to reach young minds. gH No high school student should ever be per- H mitted to graduate without this knowledge, for it M would be of more use to him in after life than H anything else he might acquire in the school. H There is one more thing that is neglected in B the earlier schools. Not half enough drilling i3 H performed to make children spell correctly. True, H men can get along without this. Old George H Washington was never an accomplished speller, H but he, nevertheless, did note some things. But H had he been a good speller he might have writ- B ten more state papers, and his state papers had H a fashion of supplying the world with bettor edu- |