TOO MANY STUDIES IN THE SCHOOLS.
Chicago Times-Herald, Aug. 8, 1900. THAT there are too many studies in the public schools, in all grades and all departments from the primary to the high school, in nearly every city of the Union, is the general belief of schoolmen who understand and correctly apprehend the theory of education, and are not in the pay of the schoolbook publishing houses. There are no new disclosures, therefore, in the report of the elementary school committee of the “citizens’ educational commission,” appointed by the Civic Federation to investigate the Chicago school system. It is gratifying to note, however, that the committee’s report affirms what has already been pointed out by progressive educators. The committee finds that the course of study in the elementary grade is so extensive that it is physically impossible for the average child to accomplish what is required without overwork. It found that the pupils who finish the elementary schools are, as a rule, deficient in English, and can neither speak nor write the language acceptably. The committee is also in line with the most progressive educational sentiment when it declares against the teaching of foreign languages in the grades. The time and money thus expended could be employed to better advantage in the study of English and civil government. The plethora of books in the schools results from two causes,—the growth of the “cramming system” in the public schools and the continuous and persistent pressure of the schoolbook publishers. One evil logically follows the other. Having engrafted the cramming system upon the schools, the demand for books is constantly enlarged, and the book publishers engage in fierce competition to supply the demand. The result is that the schools are loaded down with books, and the old notion, which regarded education as a “drawing out of the mental powers,” instead of packing the cranium with useless and indigestible facts, has been discarded. It is not an uncommon sight nowadays to see a ten-year-old child with spectacles on his nose, carrying to and from school half a dozen books. This is not education. The text-book was originally designed as an aid to education. Properly used, it is a guide in the mental processes that are necessary to develop the mental powers of a child.