EDUCATION IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. 675 



ties he once enjoyed, and does not thereby gain any new ones.* 

 A project to import twenty thousand negroes from Alabama and 

 Mississippi into the State of Durango in Mexico has been defi- 

 nitely abandoned, after the payment of over one hundred thou- 

 sand dollars for freight charges alone. The land companies will 

 introduce Chinamen instead, and the outlook is correspondingly 

 brighter. Every experiment but demonstrates more clearly that 

 the negro is useless as a colonist, even for reintroduction into the 

 tropics, f 



EDUCATIONAL VALUES IN THE ELEMENTARY 



SCHOOL. 



BY PROF. M. V. O'SHEA. 



IT is perhaps safe to say, without attempting to enter into the 

 question in detail, that there has scarcely ever been a time 

 when intelligent people have not been concerned about what their 

 children should be taught in the schools. Leaving the attitude of 

 bygone ages out of view, it is apparent to a careful observer that 

 in our own time and country there is marked interest manifested 

 in the question, What materials of instruction are of greatest 

 value to be employed in elementary education ? The last quarter 

 century has witnessed many and important changes in the cur- 

 ricula of the elementary school ; new subjects have been intro- 

 duced and old ones dropped, or less time and emphasis put upon 

 them. The recent appearance of two of the most important edu- 

 cational documents of modern times, J both considering in the 

 main the relative worth of branches of instruction; and the rapid 

 growth of book and periodical literature dealing with the same 

 problem, are indications of the importance which is being at- 

 tached to this matter by all educators. Our educational gather- 

 ings, too, in every part of the country are largely given over to 

 the discussion of this old but yet very new question ; and not 

 only teachers, but parents and statesmen take sides in the de- 

 bates, some maintaining that the classic three E/s furnish su- 

 perior material for the scholastic training of childhood, while 

 others believe that the many new subjects of history, literature, 

 science, music, and art are better adapted to prepare our youth for 

 the circumstances they will encounter when they leave the school- 



* Jousset, p. 279. Waitz and others agree that the negro returning to Africa from 

 America becomes liable to fevers from which his predecessors were immune. 



f Vide letter in Boston Transcript, dated Mexico, August 11, 1895. 



% The Report of the Committee of Ten, 1893 ; and the Report of the Committee of Fif- 

 teen, 1896. 



