THE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY 85 



knowledge that is so common leads the young people to assume a 

 superiority which they may in no wise possess in the more sterling 

 qualities. We greatly overestimate the value of the three r's, the two 

 g's and the one s. People are what they feel and do, much more than 

 what they know; in any case the residuum of knowledge surviving the 

 eight years of the elementary school is pitifully small. 



One must learn to read in self defense. If ninety per cent, of the 

 population carry pistols, it will not do for the remaining tenth to go 

 unarmed. And people should learn to read in order to preserve and 

 pass forward the social heritage, which may some time be the endow- 

 ment of all, and is now the necessary condition for selection of those 

 competent to improve or enjoy this heritage. But the present advan- 

 tages of reading to the average individual are small, while it is prob- 

 ably injurious to family life. The main benefit of reading for most 

 people seems to be that it is a substitute for alcohol, in which excess 

 does not lead to such harmful consequences. The effect of reading the 

 newspaper or current novel is similar to that from a small dose of alco- 

 hol or opium; it relieves conscious strain and the burden of routine 

 individuality. A weekly journal or an ounce of alcohol on Saturday 

 evening would doubtless be better than illiteracy or abstinence; but 

 people will not run themselves as machines subject to the laws of 

 utilitarian hygiene. The Bible may be read aloud and give solidarity 

 to the family and community; the city newspaper absorbs the indi- 

 vidual in transient details, not fit to be talked about or remembered.. 

 Its tawdriness distracts from homely interests. As a social factor, it 

 is more likely to lead to national hysteria than to solid homogeneity. 



There is relatively less to be said against writing and more in its 

 favor. Its acquisition, while likely to be harmful to the immature 

 nervous system, is less destructive than learning to read. What the 

 average man reads is rarely worth while; what he writes is ordinarily 

 of use. As a matter of fact, he writes very little, and could get on 

 fairly well without that little. But of course, under existing condi- 

 tions, every one should know how to write. I have found that practis- 

 ing on the typewriter for twenty minutes a day for two months, namely, 

 a total expenditure of twenty hours, will enable people to write faster, 

 not to mention legibility, than they could after eight years of school- 

 ing and twenty years of practising with the hand, though doubtless it 

 is this practise that makes typewriting easy to learn. 



It has become necessary for every one to deal with numbers and 

 quantities, but it is a question as to how far the average man is helped 

 in this by the school work in aritlnnetic, with the possible extension to 

 geometry and algebra. One of the most persistent errors of our scho- 

 lastic methods is the teaching of a child of a certain age with great 

 labor and at the production of much stupidity what could be learned 



