No one who is at all
familiar with our present status will claim that drawing, natural
science, geography, and language are yet properly adjusted to each
other. The task is a difficult one, but it is being grappled with by
many earnest teachers.
It is obvious that the first serious effort to _remedy_ this
shallowness will be made by deepening and intensifying the culture of
the new fields. The knowledge of each subject must be made as complete
and detailed as possible. Well-qualified teachers and specialists will
of course accomplish the most. They will zealously try to teach all
the important things in each branch of study. But where is the limit?
The capacity of children! And it will not be long before
philanthropists, physicians, reformers, and all the friends of mankind
will call a decisive halt. Children were not born simply to be stuffed
with knowledge, like turkeys for a Christmas dinner.
It appears, therefore, that we must steer between Scylla and Charybdis,
or that we are in a first-class educational _dilemma_. This conviction
is strengthened by the reflection that there is no escape from fairly
facing the situation. Having once put our hand to the plow we can not
look back.
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