Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1881 — Died of too Much Public School. [ARTICLE]

Died of too Much Public School.

Indianapolis Journal. , We published, a day or two since, a ehort p&raganh from the N. Y. Tribune with the above *, caption, referring to a death from the overwork of a pupil in the New York public schools. The chief significance io this community of such Sn item is the evidence it affords that the malady which Affects us is uot local. Indeed, this is the most alarming feature of what men are pleased to call our public school “system.” It is a system as unbending and unyielding as the “system” of drill in auy army. The individuality of the pupil, and of the teacher as well, is wholly swallowed up in the “system,” so that a teaeher who dares ’to utter or practice the least dissent is as unceremoniously decapitated as the unlucky pupil would be held back or expelled wnq shows more or less capabilities than the regulation standard. We do not misstate the facts when we Bay that such a teacher as Prof. Hoshour, pr Thomas H. Sharpe, or Dr. Lynch, was forty years ago would not be accepted in our High School without some special preparatory training. We have no idea that Mi>s Mvrril, qt auy time in the last twenty years of her unrivaled success as a teacher, could have been admitted into any department of our public schools without being required to abandon some of her-methods and substitute those of the public school “system.” Imagine tho venerable Hoshour, iu his apimy days, calling out the class in English grammar aud saying: “Mr. Morten, please analyze the.following sentence: ’That black horse is certaiuly a g’bod traveler.’” And the young man begins “This is a simple declarative sentence containing a subject, predicate, modal frjd copula. The words, ‘That black nbrse,’ is the grammatical subject of the Sentence, because it expresses the subject of the thought. The word ‘horse’ is the logical subject, because it expresses the priucipal subject of thought, and is modified by 'the adjectives ‘that’ and ‘black.’ ,The words ‘is certainly’ is the grammatical copula, and is-useil to assert the predicate of thought of the subject of thought. The verb ’is’ is the logical I copula. The word ‘certainly’ is a modal, and modifier the logical copula “is ’ The words ‘a good traveler’ is the predicate of the sentence, because it expresses the object of thought. The wont ‘traveler’ is the logical predicate, because it expresses the principal thiug asserted Of the subject, by means of the 1 copula. It is modified by the words ‘a’ and ‘good.’ ” “Tut! tut, Oliver,” the vigorous educator would have said, ’ “You will never become Governor or j senator if you take up your time in ■ cramming yeur young* mind with such a'rigmarole of stuff as that.” Is : it any wonder that so many die of too : much public school when every one, ; without regard to age or sex, is put | through a drill which requires them to I commit to memory such twaddle as * that? v '

Yet we do not despair of our public schools. A swing to that extreme ot thd arc was not unnatural when we relegated to the professional . teacher the entire control of schools, and in the form of a close corporation a - lowed teachers to dictate modes to the alter ignoring ot the methods which had produced profound scholars for ages. It is to be hoped that the inevitable reaction will not carry our sehools to the other extreme. We hail as an omen of good, private schools among us. Weiope they will not entirely supersede the public schools as a means of educating the children of the richer portion of the community, but by their greater elasticity they will compel the relaxation of many of the arbitary regulations which now destroy or greatlv militate against public schools. Meanwhile, we have no hesitancy in saying that, as our public schools are now conducted, all who can afford the expense will do well to consult their children’s mental and physical developement by sending to these private schools until there is less of machine and more individuality both in teachers and their methods. The public schools must be “Boycotted” to a degree that will be felt by the author ties if reform is ever to come.