56 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



been pointed out that such reading is one of the most 

 lasting sources of enjoyment and self-improvement. In 

 fact, the whole atmosphere of the modern high school 

 seems to be that of fitting out the pupils with a cargo of 

 miscellaneous information with should last him until he 

 has reached the allotted three score and ten. Our educa- 

 tors tacitly ignore the necessity or even possibility of 

 continued reading and study once the pupil has left 

 school, and make no apparent effort to train him towards 

 this end. The result, of course, is natural enough. If he 

 is not to read or study by himself when he has finished 

 school, it is obviously desirable to load him up with as 

 much information as the time will allow. 



The result of this, also, is only too obvious. Since the 

 world of knowledge has reached the bounds which it 

 knows today, it has become humanly impossible for even a 

 man of unusual attainments to acquaint himself more or 

 less casually with the more important portions of 

 it, even in the course of an entire life time. 

 Yet, what this man of talent finds difficult in fifty 

 odd years, we cheerfully attempt in the case of 

 immature youths in the space of four years. Just 

 at the time when the pupil should be gaining a 

 thorough mastery of his mother tongue, should be re- 

 ceiving that strict mental discipline from which man can 

 benefit only in youth, and should be acquiring those men- 

 tal traits which will guide his reading and study in later 

 life, just during these four precious years his time is be- 

 ing squandered in a hasty, shallow, sciolistic survey of 

 knowledge. In an attempt to do the impossible we allow 

 habits of carelessness, superficiality and inaccuracy to 

 develop which constant effort in later life is often unable 

 to eradicate 



The average pupil has never learned the elements of 

 how to study. He leaves the high school a poor speller 

 and unable to write a page of English without commit- 

 ting' the grossest grammatical errors. In this anyone will 

 concur who has had any experience with freshmen stud- 

 ents entering the universities and colleges. Since usually 

 more time is devoted to English than to any one other 

 study, his attainments in other fields must be tragically 



