Show KA KATHLEEN NORRIS Character Precedes Logarithms IT IT HAS BEEN A PUZZLE to me rue L as it must be to many mothers and grandmothers why they teach our children what they do teach them or try to teach them in public high schools and in all col col- col- col leges In the past the only men who had this higher education no women had it were it-were were preparing for forthe forthe forthe the law medicine the church or service to the state They were destined to be the rulers attorneys doctors clergymen judges colonels in the empires empire's flung far-flung posts teachers and professors Their studies of course included history higher mathematics international law Latin and living languages Today we trail along on the same course dragging with us thousands of ot American boys and girls who will never need Latin or logarithms Awakened Interest Correct speech is achieved because because because be be- cause it is heard read and thought about Such mathematics as any man or woman needs beyond grammar grammar grammar gram gram- mar school must be learned in the express and particular business to he or she devotes himself Any language can be mastered by bya a person of good intellect in the six months before he takes a post postin in Brazil or Russia And similarly enough history of any particular epoch will stay in your mind when you want it to stay there there and and that desire is not apt to awaken until you have some reason to be Interested interested interested inter inter- ested in it Turn to any college man you know unless he Je be e yesterdays yesterday's graduate with the simplest Latin phrase and he will look as blank I I t turn to any college colleg man as he did at 15 in the schoolroom Present any problem in machinery or electronics to the average college college college col col- col- col lege graduate and unless he majored in that subject and intends to follow it up hell he'll know less than the unlettered lad in the garage who can put his shock of ot hair into the engine hood of ot your car mumble mumble mumble mum mum- ble mysterious mysterious- words and have things righted in five minutes We dont don't teach them what they need We dont don't help them find the glory of work they like to do because because because be be- cause we give them work they hate to do We bore them to death all aU through their young years and then are amazed they dont don't want to read Shakespeare or Homer Gosh they gave us that stuff in school II Modern l Conception Ive I've just finished reading an article article ar ar- ar- ar tide on this subject by one Jack Harrison Pollack in a newspaper weekly It describes what many many modern public schools are doing along the line of Life Adjust Adjust- ment Many schools schools not not more than five per cent it is true but that means about ten million children chil chil- dren are dren-are are allowing older pupils credits on part part tune time outside work encouraging the development of character in human relations personal personal per per- contacts individual ventures We all know that what our children children chil chil- dren need is strong fine ine characters If a boy or girl has that little else matters He is equipped by grammar gram mar school to go as far as he cares to go So the question is what college college col col- lege work can help to form strong characters what type of training will guide young minds and souls to true self development and self con These modern modem schools are work- work Inz actual miracles In i a vine youngsters from the common mistakes mistakes mistakes mis mis- takes of adolescence They teach sexual understanding which is a astep astep astep step toward sexual morality they inspire daring courage initiative and above all self sell But the easier righter Tighter simpler place for characters to be formed is at home The national tragedy is that 50 per cent of ot our fathers and mothers haven't the knowledge or the strength of mind or the fineness of ot character themselves to accomplish it America would be the strongest nation in the world if U they did She need fear tear no one then She would be so much the envy of all other nations that no foreign pagan ideology could find root in the minds and souls of her children A boy of 17 was given a life lle sentence in an eastern state years ago He wont won't serve all that perhaps perhaps perhaps per per- haps but hes he's been in jail almost 20 years already good already good years for more fortunate boys In the course of several talks his foreign-born foreign distracted mother showed me his smeared rubbed blotted school- school books He had studied or rather been expected to study algebra ancient history English literature folklore gymnastics and music One wonders why any of us ever imagined that these would give him sound character |