CORRESP ONDENCE. 



119 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



PUPILS OK MACHINES? 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



THAT the present system of graded 

 schools is far in advance of the old un- 

 graded one, where the same teacher instructed 

 Johnny in his A, B, C, and Johnny's older 

 brother in geometry, is an undeniable tact. 

 But to the non-professional observer, who 

 merely looks at the effect on the children, it 

 is by no means evident that the reaction 

 against the schools of fifty years ago has 

 not gone too far. By the present mode of 

 specialization, many individual teachers have 

 worked out their own hobbies, and presented 

 their arguments so plausibly that they have 

 gained general acceptance. Each succeeding 

 year shows a so-called advance in these 

 " natural " methods, and they are all united 

 in a system so unnatural that a course of it 

 kills out all individuality in the child mind 

 and life, and leaves us with a set of little 

 machines, all stamped out from the original 

 metal with the same die. 



Look, for a moment, at some of the 

 methods employed in our schools, examples 

 taken at random, and that ought to speak 

 for themselves. First comes a city gram- 

 mar-school, where the pupils average thirteen 

 vears of age. To save herself the trouble 

 of speaking the names of her children, the 

 enterprising teacher has arranged these 

 names in alphabetical order, numbered them 

 according to this order, and addresses the 

 pupils as "Number Two," "Number Twen- 

 ty-eight," "Number Forty - three." Slight 

 as this fact may seem, it is not without its 

 influence. From ceasing to have any names 

 of their own, as far as their teacher is con- 

 cerned, the children cease to have any per- 

 sonality in her eyes, and the pupil becomes 

 a mere hollow block, labeled with a certain 

 number, into which daily portions of arith- 

 metic, geography, and grammar are to be 

 poured, regardless of the capacity of the 

 block and the strength of its walls to resist 

 overpressure. The child keenly feels such , 

 loss of individuality, and, by this loss, much 

 of the incentive to work is withdrawn. 



As for the lessons themselves, much 

 fault lies at the foundation of all learning to 

 read. While our parents were forced to 

 spell columns of words, real or imaginary, 

 like am, bam, cam, dam, and so on to zam, 

 and, by perusing such cheerful sentences as 

 " the lamb is on the tomb," to discover that 

 in some words the final letter b is superflu- 

 ous, as an improvement on that the children 

 of to-day are taught to read without spell- 

 ing, recognizing each word by its appearance, 

 and learning it as a detached fact. The 

 time spent in gaining a vocabulary in this 

 way would surely be more than sufficient to 



teach the child the separate letters and their 

 usual combinations, and his reasoning pow- 

 ers would be quite as rapidly developed in 

 the latter case. 



A lesson in writing was recently wit- 

 nessed with some amusement and perplexity. 

 One of the pupils took her place at the pi- 

 ano while the teacher gave these brief or- 

 ders "Attention; sit erect; feet together ; 

 lean forward ; elbows on desks ; curve two 

 finders ; hold pen ; describe letters m the 

 air " And, while the piano rattled out a gay 

 march or a lively waltz, fifty arms were waved 

 in mid-air, vaguely outlining a string of let- 

 ters Again the voice was heard : ' btop ; 

 dip pens ; write on paper ; begin." And 

 then capital I's were scratched off by the 

 score, while the waltz sounded its accompa- 

 niment. Then came the command, Wipe 

 pens " Alas for the luckless child whose 

 nen was not dipped deeply enough, or caught 

 a thread on its tip! On, on he must go 

 until the order " Dip pens " or Wipe pens 

 ^ave him a chance to repair his accident. 

 The avowed object of all this is to teach the 

 rapid writers to take more time, while those 

 who are slower with their pens must learn 

 to hurry. Why is this necessary ? And if 

 the lessons of school are to prepare one for the 

 everyday needs of life, it would be the nat- 

 ural conclusion from this that our business 

 men have grand pianos and church organs 

 in their offices and counting-rooms, and that 

 the clerks take turns in playing appropriate 

 selections from the old masters. 



But two more strange rules can be 

 glanced at. By the first, each child in a 

 certain public school must take home one 

 book every night, no matter whether the 

 lessons are all prepared or not. The other, 

 which, like the first, comes to us from 

 Massachusetts, is still more absurd. In 

 this case the text-books are free, and each 

 book has a string securely tying down the 

 leaves not yet studied. On no account may 

 a child slip out a leaf and look ahead. The 

 obiect of this last regulation _ still un- 

 known ; but for most teachers it is safe to 

 assume that when a child wishes to learn a 

 fact, then is the best time to teach him re- 



garding it. . 



Is not the present craze for carrying , 

 " methods " to extremes worthy of some 

 consideration? Anna Ohafin Ray. 



West Haven, Connecticut. 



ANTISEPTIC TREATMENT AND SIB 

 JOSEPH LISTER. 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



In the short list of important discoveries 

 of the last fifty years, given in the July 

 number (p. 428), that of the antiseptic treat- 



