Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1902 — AMERICAN SCHOOLS EXCEL. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AMERICAN SCHOOLS EXCEL.

Chicago Professor Gives Particulars o ■ Deficiency in European Schools. The American schoolboy Is two Inchet taller than the average European schoolboy of a like age, writes Prof. Watt,-of Chicago. lam positive of this declaration after a tour of Inspection of the various schools of Europe, and I place the usefulness of the Instruction dnaparted, fronf ahTeducatlonal and a hygienic point of view, as follows: First, the JJnlted States; second, England; third, Germany, closely followed by France and Russia. There Is a great difference In the school systems, but in two ways is this more noticeable, viz., Inspection of school work and its results. The system of Inspection abroad has been developed to such an extent that it is more of a science than an ordinary routine, as in this country. The Inspector spends at least a day a month in each room, making copious notes of ifcth teachers* and pupils’ work, criticising In open class the deficient studies and commendingdhose that are satisfactory. I am willing to concede that It Is possible to be more definite abroad than at home, owing to more specific aims in

the minds of both the educators and text-book writers. Text-books are rarely changed abroad, and a student is taught rather to grasp and retain detailed information than look for it In himself. Blinders, as it were, are placed on his eyes, so that he is unable to look sidewise. Certainly these schools are more advanced in theory than ours, bue we surely excel them from a practical side. We aim td impart a theoretical and practical education combined, and more nearly to procure the acme of usefulness in after years. Then, too, the natural tendency of the American youth to apply knowledge as soon as acquired is a superiority that greatly aids the teacher to attain results. Probably, and most likely, the lack of the foreign student of this essential is off account of the system of supervision and restriction that obtain abroad. It is almost a crime for a junior clerk to suggest an improvement to the manager of a corporation and likewise it is considered very bad for a student to advance any ideas in class. Any one of the foreign schools Is better equipped, more expensive to maintain and better fitted to exert an influence in the student body than ours, but the medieval practice of restrictions places them beyond the pale of our work. Omitting the English schools, any one of the others has a distinct advantage over our schools from the fact that reading and spelling are mastered In three years, because words are spelled as spoken. Many of our pupils are unable to read English after ten years’ steady application. Arithmetic is much easier abroad, because the tables nre founded on the decimal system, like our money, and require very little memorizing. It |s conceded that a boy coming out of the preparatory school en the continent is about two years ahead of our boy of the same age who Is graduating from our high school. While this is true, our boy hns done at least three years more work in mastering the reading, spelling and grammar of our difficult language with Its barbarous spelling and numerous irregularities of grammar. Then, too, our high schools take In nil tlasess of boys who can afford to re-

main in school, because we are an educated people, while in Europe no common boys attend the secondary schools. Only those yvho are in training for professional careers and who are supposed to be specially well endowed mentally enter those schools at all. Again, the matter of fitting a ptipil so that he is able to step Into an office as soon as he is out of the high school is not considered abroad as it is here. Little or no attention is devoted to what we call commercial training, such as shorthand, typewriting and commercial law. This instruction is 6nly obtained by a European student in a college course. The same openness of mind so noticeable in the American youth is totally lacking in the foreign student, and he is held to the facts in his books until he has no breadth of range. He spends much less time In the open air and takes less exhilarating exercise than our boys. Add to this the scientific ventilation of our classrooms, .the dash of our methods, shorter hours of instruction, more cheerful methods, periods of relaxation more frequent, and it is no -wonder our boys grow two inches taller than the foreign boys when taken age for age.

The American does not work a colt before he has grown, and it is on this idea that our educators refrain from putting our students to the severest mental test. We do not ask how much can possibly be accomplished by a child, but how much is best for him. The fullest answer to the whole question is to compare the ages of the average college graduate. In this country it averages about 22 years, while abroad it is about 28 yeqrs, and from that we see that our pupils progress slowly in an educational line at first, but after the faculties are thoroughly developed a very rapid advance is made, and we alm as nearly as possible to devolep the mental and physical natures of the student at the same time. The success of this plan, I think, is evident from the number of young men at the head of the many large industrial establishments successfully competing with the product of the world in every line.