Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1879 — What It Meant. [ARTICLE]

What It Meant.

The trouble at the recent commencement exercises did not occur in vain if it shall prove the means of infusing into the public mind a better and more correct idea of the true functions and limitations of our free school system. During the past few years there has been too much of a tendency, all over the country, to forget that these schools are common schools; that they are so in name, and should be actually such. Everywhere the tendency has been to make the schools ornamental; to neglect the primary and rudimentary departments for the purpose of enlarging and extending the upper grades. School boards have added to the course of study the languages and the higher mathematics ana the fine arts, and have paid high prices for instructors in those branches while cramping the primary and intermediate grades. This tendency has not failed to excite widespread attention, and proyoke general discussion. It is believed now that a reaction has set in, and that a movement is on foot which will result in confining our schools to their proper limits. In Fort Wayne the high school is a thing of the past, having been superseded by a central grammar school, and the same change has been made in many other cities. Less attention is given than formerly to the teaching of purely ornamental branches and more care is given to the primary and intermediate departments. It is recognized that these schools are common schools; that they are maintained for the use and benefit of the poor people of the county; and that they do not afford any proper field for costly display of any kind. In our common school commencement exercises, rich dressing and costly floral tributes are equally out of place. Let the rich have these things, if they desire, at their private institutions; but in our common schools it is merit alone that wins; the poorest scholar is on a plane of ah! solute equality with the richest, and the latter must not be allowed, by the expenditure of money, to affect a superiority which does not exist. Any display at the Central Grammar School commencements is out of order. It is

a fact that young women of superior capacity and scholarship, having earned a diploma, have refused to graduate because unable to purchase a dress equal to those to be worn by her classmates. it is a burning shame. Hie school board, in prohibiting the giving of floral tributes at the commencement exercises, did so, we doubt not, because they hold the same views that we have advanced in this article, and which must, we feel sure, jbe heartily .endorsed by every true friend of, the common. school system.—[Ft. Wayne Sentinel.