The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 25, 1895, Page 16

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1895. HIGHEREDUCATION| There Are Many Good Reasons Why the People at Large | Should Support High | Schools and Colleges. By MARTIN EELLOGG, President of the University of Callfornia. | The fundamental importance of the | common schools attaches to them a great | interest, but it should notcloud the public | mind as to the higher branches. | There are many good reasons why the people at large should support high school and college courses. Such support brings an ample return in the value to the com- munity of more influential and useful lives. Only by public support can all have an equal chance; only thus can the unpol- ished jewels in poor and industrious fami- | lies be brought to the light and made to | shine in their fit setting of public promi- nence and responsibility. But my present purpose is not a general review of such reasons, but the considera- tion of a single point, viz.: the absolute need of the higher education for thee ficiency of the lower, There is avitalcon- | nection between them which often fails to be recognized. There is a long chain of educational progress, every link of which | is fastened to another. They stand the | strain together. The reason isnot far to seek. Teachers on the lower levels must themselves come from the higher levels, We may start with this statement, to! which all will assent—the teacher must | know more than the pupil. But that | is not enough. The teacher should know | a great deal more than the pupil has not always been acknowledged. In; old-fashioned ungraded schools a young teacher was often employed whose intel- lectual resources were hardly above those | of the more advanced scholars. The daughter of an influential man found favor with the School Committee when she was just out of the rule of three and the pars- ing of easy blank verse; very blank it | sometimes was, as in the dreary **Course of Time.” A brisk young man, who worked through the summer on his father’s farm, sought an engagement for a few winter months, and had to establish an intellec- | tual as well as an official authority over | grown-up boys who were well nigh his equals. Native force often carried such | teachers through and gave them a certain | positive success. But the results of their teaching were too often very meager. We have begun to do better now. In | our well-graded schools the smallest chil- dren, we say, must have well-equipped teachers. They might learn much from | their older brothers and sisters in the middle grades of the grammar school. | But we insist on something far beyond that; we require for teaching the lowest | grades a grammar-school diploma, and in | addition a course in the normal or the | high school. It is seen that all grammar- | school teachers, from the lowest grades | up, must have very much riore knowledge of their subjects than their pupils have. | Ia all the subjects which are taught, even | ‘in the lowest grades, the teacher should be possessed of a thorough knowledge. So long as the teacher is groping her way, | uncertain of her goal, she is unfit to be the guide of even the youngest children. Notice, for example, what seems to be the simple matter of the first reading lessons. The child will take for a model the teacher’s style of reading; her utterance of sounds and words, her accent, her em- | phasis, her management of pauses, her soulless or soulful rendering of a writer's thought. If there is a defect in those points the defect will stay by the child under other teachers and for many long years. In arithmetic much time may be lost by the teacher’s failure to know the subject thoroughly, not merely in applying rul to particular problems, but in understand- ing the reasons of the rules and in explain- ing the reasons to the pupils. It takes a | thorough knowledge of a subject to give | the teacher herself a clear idea of it. Without clear ideas of it, she can never simplify it so as to make it clear to the | pupil. Silas Wright said to his college | chum: “I have found out what it means | when one says he knows a thing, but can- | not tell it. The trouble is, he doesn’t | know it.” A teacher with imperfect knowledge must have ideas that are vague and hazy to the pupil. Small children need the very clearest and simplest ex- planations. - This is a sufficient ground for the provision in our school law which favors the assignment of the best teachers to the lowest school grades. It says (art. xi, 1687): “In all schools. baving more than two teachers begin- ners shall be taught by teachers who have had at least two years' experience, or by mnormal school graduates; and in cities such teachers shali rank, in point of salary, with those of the assistant teach- ers in the highest grade in the grammar schools.” That provision is often inoper- ative, because fey teachers are as much i terested in the younger children as in the older; they are not enthusiastic kinder- teners. But thereisin the law a sound philosophy. As we proceed to the upper grades of the grammar school, the case becomes still plainer. Here are children with a fair stock of information and an appreciable degree of cuiture. Many of them are taking This | (3 | a8 the unit of advanced study to be prop- their last year of schooling and deserve he best instruction that can be given. No half-fledged teacher can meet these | needs. There should never be a question | whether the teacher cannot be put down by some one of the pupils. On points of detail this might be; the teacher is not omniscient nor infallible. But for a wide sweep of knowledge it must be felt that there is no comparison between teacher and taught; that the guide of the class knows where to lead the class, and is authority on the subject taught. In the sciences, for example, there must be a real ; acquaintance with the work set for the pupil to do. There was an old-fashioned | way of conducting an exercise in botany, h reduced the teacher almost to the level of her class. She had gone through a textbook, but had scarcely analyzed a | dozen botanical specimens. When a new specimen was brought into the class, she had to consult the book and guess where to place it. It would not do to pronounce | too positively or a bright pupil might make a better guess and put the teacher to shame. The class had only a fellow- | learner, when they needed to have a trust- worthy guide. It is clear that for all grammar-school | grades the teachers ought to know the subjects thoroughly; that nothing less | can be demanded of them than a good high school or normal school equipment. But how shall they get that equipment? ‘Who shall be their instructors in the hij; school or the normal school? The lear: ers there must not be left to grope their way under inferior gnidance. They must be taught by those who are far in advance of them. These superior instructors must not be left merely to individual study in gaming their higher vantage ground. They, too, need superior guidance in their | sake of ‘the high schools we need good | cannot conceal his poverty of culture from his pupils and his fellow-teachers. Fur- thermore he will find no sure ground for an English training without a geod knowledge of other langusges, at least Latin and some modern tongue. The natural sciences are becoming all the while more exacting. No teacher can afford to neglect them entirely; ana those who teach them in the high school must have spent many long afternoons in the college laboratories. We must not over- look the growing demand for pedagogical training. In the college curriculum this study has assumed a prominent place. One must know how to impart knowledge. And the pedagogical work of the college should be based on the general studies of the department of philosophy. Take all these needs and reckon them up: (1) A general equipment in the dif- ferent high school studies; (2) indispens bie culture in the department of English; (3) much continuous preparation in the | subjects selected as specialties; (4) special | preparation in pedagogy, with its ground- ing in philosophy. Here, surely, is enough | to occupy and fill to their utmost tension | the four years of college study. Almost | all graduates feel that they have missed | much which would have been valuable; | more could not be done for lack of time. | It seems clear, therefore, that for the | college courses for the equipment of teachers. As the grammarschool depends on the high school, so the high sciool de- pends on the college. The college courses | ive what is commonly known as the| “higher education,” a “liberal education.” They are none too high, none too liberal, for the thorough equipment of any one who would teach in 'a high school. These college courses, grouped together, are at PROFESSOR MARTIN KELLOGG, PRESIDENT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, [Drawn by a “Call” artist from a photograph.] advanced studies. This guidance is to be found in college courses. Letus not mis- use the word ‘‘college.” There are too many institutions calling themselves col- leges that are little, if at all, above | the high school; in fact, they are sometimes below it. By colleges let us understand the comparatively few in- | stitutions that keep up the old standard and give a really liberal education. Such colleges have usually a good four vears’ course of study. Four years may be taken erly required of teachers in the high school. These years are none too many. The high school teacher must be thor- oughly equipped in several lines of study, All-round work is often required of such a teacher; one must hear classes in English, in history, fn mathematics, in some one or more of the natural sciences. If the num- ber of teachers allows specializing, still one must have an intelligent appreciation of the work of one’s fellow-teachers. The teachers’ knowledge of high school subjects must therefore be quite superior to that of his pupils. In the subjecis made a specialty the teacher must be very thoroughly equipped -and be really an authority. Now consider what all this means. It means many college courses in the leading subjects taught in the high school and long college courses in the special subjects. There must be a good grounding in the higher mathematics, some attention to history, at least a begin- ning in physics and chemistry, and above all a mastery of good English. No teacher in a high school should let himself be shamed by his pupils through his ignor- ance of English writing and English litera- ture. Whatever subject one teaches, if he cannot speak and write his own language correctly he will be detected by his pupils. If he is a tyro in English literature he present the main features of our universi- ties. Substituting the word university for the word college we may put our ascend- ing series in this way: Primary school, grammar school, high school, university. The linking in the chain is perfect; there is an absolute dependence of the lower lir})ks on all that are above it. If the nigh school is added for teachers in the gram- mar grades, equally is the university, in its college courses, indispensable for teachers in the high school. ‘We may carry the series one step further. How shall the instructors in college courses gain an adequate preparation for their work? By the still higher studies of post- graduate rank. These studies were for- mer]y pursued only in foreign universi- ties; but now they are claiming a large place in our best American universities. They are becoming a criterion of a first- class institution, and go to establish its character as a real upiversity. They pre- pare college instructors for their work, but their influence on teachers is not confined to the college. Many high school special- 1sts seek in these graduate courses a still {fuiler equipment for the best work in the high school. Theseadvantages also ought to be open to the young men and women of our own State; else they will be over- matched by those who come from beyond the Rocky Mountains. Inthe keen com- petitions of life—growing more keen with each decade—it were a shame to let our own sons and daughters be outclassed and displaced by strangers. The successful teachers of the twentieth*century will have no easy time, either in gaining or re- taining their positions. | California. OUR ADVANTAGES. The Climatic Conditions Are Potent as a Factor in Advancing California’s Educational Interests. By DAVID STARR JORDAN, President of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. In discussing what California can do for the children, it is natural that one should begin with the climate, for the open air is one of the most important elements in health and tramning. The essential cli- matic virtue of California is that the open air is at the service of its people. The children can get it at all times of the year, and in the condition best for their purpose. It does not need to be baked or chilled to make it usable. Otber things be- ing equal, the growth of the child is pro- portioned to the oxygen he receives. The California child can take all there is. Speaking broadly, it is never so cold that a well-kept child need suffer. So it is possible for a child to be free from those congestions of the nose and throat, which are so destructive in the winters of the Northeastern States. The “snuffles” in children means a flow of blood to coneested mucous membranes which are very close to the brain itself, into which the congestion is sure to ex- tend. Hot heads and cold feet are not favorable to work or growth, and these conditions beset a very large proportion of the school children of the East. Many children are stupid for these reasons when | a gentler climate would let their minds re- | tain their natural activity. | this congestion seems like liiting a veil To remove cast over their minds. Nor are the summer advantages of Cali- fornia less marked. Along the coast the trade winds are cool and bracing, even if | sometimes harsh, and even in the hot in- terior the dryness of the air makes the highest temperatures endurable. The languid days and sleepless nights of the heated term in the East are unknown in This absence of extremes is good for the children. The monotony of the California climate is, according to Professor Barnes, ‘“like the monotony of good healti.” Itisa kind of monotony thatis in itself strenethening and inspiring. To the idler it may bring excuses for idleness; to the active 1t is simply a firm basis for activity, We can, count on our days as all good days, as the healtby man counts on his strength as adequate for whatever he may do, *‘The glorious climate of California” has been the subject of many eulogies, as well as of many good-humored and ill-humored gibes. But from the side of the children it 18 open to no criticism. Itis the best on earth, and the best on earth is the best for purposes of education. Some day children will be sent to California for education as naturally as men now go to the country for exercise or rest. The measurements of school children show & much more vigor- ous growth in the children of Oakland as compared with those of Boston or Brook- lvn. There could be no better aavertise- ment for California than could be made by showing these facts in the form of statues or casts. There 15, moreover, a great educational gain in picturesque surroundings. The value of mountain, lake, forest and sea is great in the development of him who can see these things. To the man who 1s blind to nature there is nothing in natural scenery. Its value is in the response which the mind makes to its presence. The average California child is not unre- sponsive to the beauties of nature. Walt ‘Whitman tells us: ‘“There was a child went forth every day and the first object he looked upon, that object he became’ for an hour or a day, “or for years or changing cycles of years.” When the child goes forth in California he cannot fail to see some noble prospect, and this is a part of him *‘for changing cycles of years,”” A Swiss artist once said to me, *‘Not all the vulgar people who come to Chamouni can ever make Chamouni vul- gar.” 8o not all the vuigar people, dirty villages and disreputable saloons to be found in California can ever make Cali- fornia vulgar. Even the prosaic San Joaquin Valley is prosaic only by comparison with other parts of California. Whenever the smoke lifts or the mists blow away one has in view the great Sierras. He 1sin presence of the “Gods still sitting around on their thrones, they alone and he alone.” Then, too, freedom is good for the strong and the California child is born to social freedom. It is said in reproach that there is “no public opinion in California.” This is true as we measure public opinion in old and crowded communities. Rascality and fraud are not scorched by public sentiment and they areas proud of themselvesas strength or virtue could be. In this con- dition there are some grave disadvantages, But there are also compensations. In this free air there isno respect shown to forms and conventionalities after the rea- sons for their being have passed away. People say what they mean, not what society has prearranged that they should say. This is good for the child on the whole, because it teaches him to be frank and truthful. Frank and truthful the Californian is in his dealings with others, whether his life be good or bad. And there is no better company to be found in life than the intelligent, serious man, who is likewise frank and truthful. A man in California counts for what he is. The weak and the wicked fall more quickly here than in the East, where they are kept up by traditions and conventional 5 The devil takes his own sooner in Cali- fornia than in Massachusetts, but not more surely. The boy who has inherited a backbone, who has intelligence and pur- pose, develops better here. He becomes impervious to temptation which has taken no pains to disguise itself. His strength grows with each successful re- sistance. The moral and physical tone of the Cali- fornia college student is higher than with like classes m the East. One important | reason for this is that the cigarette young | are already broken down and out of the race before they reach the college require- | ments for admission. | paniments, there is no doubt of their | value in race progress. They destroy the | weak and perverted, leaving room for the ‘“‘deep-lunged children of the fatherland.” | Ttis the “deep-lunged,” morally and pt cally, who will control and make the Cali- | fornia of the future. | The school system of California is to- | day in most respecis excellent; but its strongest features lie in its promise rather | than in fultillment. The growth in edu- cational matters goes from above down- | ward. The strongest evidence of the truth | of this ancient generalization is shown in the stimulus which university develop- ment has already sent downward to our lowest schools. The results of great ex- tension of the old university and the foundation of the new one within the last five years are felt in every primary | school in the State. This comes through man and the young woman of like nature | However much we | may deprecate the cigarette and its accom- | | | | 1 | | | | | the downward extension of bigher ideals ' WRITTEN FORTHE CALL By MART!N. KELLOGG DAVID STARR JoRDAN W.C. SAWYER = MRS.EULALIE WiLSoN f P.M. FISHERS §.F.BLACK AND THE, e always been excellent in their grade, and in the cities good work is done, though the methods of organization are open to im- provement. Besides the public schools of various grades California has an extensive system of Catholic schools, many of them of high repute within the church that maintains them. The old college of Santa Clara is the best known of these, and it has done a very important educational work for men outside as well as within the chureh. The other denominational colleges are small, but their work asa whole is good because it is honest. The pretentiousemp- tiness of some so-called colleges of the Middle West is unknown in California. Collegiate preparatory schools in private hands are numerous in California. Of these we may mention the different schools at Belmont, San Mateo, San Francisco, San Rafael, Berkeley, Palo Alto, Los Ange- les, Oakland, Irvington and San Jose among others, while at Nordhoff in the Ojui Valley is an out-of-door preparatory school of an especially interesting sort. Especially important is the Throop Poly- technic School at Pasadena, in its relation to technical and scientific work. Popular education receives likewise a great impetus in_ the institutions or asso- ciations for the advanced scientific re- search, of which the most important are the Lick Observatory of the University of California. the Academy of Sciences at San Francisco and the Hopkins Seaside Labor- atory at Pacific Grove. And now, while I have consumed the space aliowed me in discussing advan- tages, T must claim a few lines for the de- fects in our public school system. There is nothing in democratic rule so hopeful as the recognition of its fatlures. 1. Most dangerous of these is the intro- duction of politics. In most of our cities school matters are under the control of PROFESSOR DAVID STARR JORDAN, PRESIDENT STANFORD UNIVERSITY, [Drawn by a “Call” artist from a photograph.] and better methods of work. It comes, too, through the better training of teachers, which the higher schools make possible. Five years ago there were less than 500 college students all told in Cali- fornia. To-day, with little increase in population, there are some 2200 in the two universities, and the lesser colleges have gained rather than lost. Five years ago there were no students in California universities fitting themselves for the teacher’s work by special advanced courses of siady. To-day there are more than 400 such. Five yearsago there were but seven high schools 1n the State accred- ited to prepare students for entrance to the university. To-day there are more than sixty. This growth in secondary educa- tion is in part a result of the growth of the universities, and 1t is again in part a cause of this growth. Concerning the universities I need say buta word. In organization and stand- ards both are abreast of the best institu- tions of the country. Their growth and extension have been closely parallel for the last five years. In many respects each of the two supplements the other. The one emphasizes the value of thorough dis- cipline—in line with the traditions of Yale. In the other individual develop- ment, the distinctive quality of the recent years of Harvard, is made the central edu- cational thought. The three normal schools of Califor- nia have felt the same impulse, and in all three child study, the basis of the professional work of the teacher, is taking the place formerly given to the metaphysics of education. Without making invidious distinctions I mav men- tion the work of Dr. Dresslar in the Los Normal School as an approach to of professional study in this grade. The county schools of California have some political boss or coalition of bosses. These men are usually ignorant of school affairs and reckless of the needs of the children. They are only a shade less dis- reputable than the ‘‘neelers” they control. They make positions in the school sub- jects of favoritism or of quasi-purchase, favors given for favors received. Such a system makes efficient superintendence impossible. School superintendents of the first rank will rarely come to Cali- fornia so long as these conditions re- mam. The people have yet to learn that knowl- edge and training are essential to success in every calling, that anything worth doing has to be done in the right way and that ignorant service is the most expensive. ‘When the people demand teachers who know what they pretend to teach, who understand the best methods of teaching and who have a pride in their work, the politicians will step aside and let them have what they want. The belief that ‘‘a school is a school, a teacher a teacher,” and one school or teacher about as good as another, is the source of inef- fectiveness and corruption in the teachers’ profession, as in the other and less im- portant professions and trades. For in the schools of to-day the history of to-morrow is writtén. What we make of the children of this generation will ap- pear in the life of the next. Only through the schools can we change the current of history. ‘The ballot-box only records. It does not change. Forall these and a hun- dred other reasons reforms in education are the greatest and most pressing of all reforms. ECCLESIASTICISM. The Denominational Academies and Schools Fill All of the Requirements for Religious Training. By W. C. SAWYER, Ph. D. Professor of German and French in Belmont Schoal. Religion and culture were inseparable in the early ages of the world. Art first built or adorned shrines for primitive worship, and literature found no voice till it was liffed up to magnify the strength or cour- age of some hero who was credited with achievements so impossible to men that divine honors could not be withheld. Thus the great epics of the world have become our textbooks of religious beliefs and myths. As mythology gave way before revelation and dawning civilization, sci- ence and the higher culture enabled man, groping toward his majority, more clearly to think God’s thoughts after him. A step farther, and he claims their author- ship his own, and begins to have visions of the promise and potency of all forms of life in the crude matter of the universe. This stage is a *“twilight of the gods” threatening the downfall not only of Zeus and Odin, but of Jehovah as well. The distinction of religious and secular now becomes well defined, and the relations between these contrasted forms of culture become strained. It is well to recognize this partial revo- lution in considering the sources and char- acter of the light that shapes the relizgious beliefs and observances of the yonth of Califorma. 3 In the excellent public schools of Gere many “relizion’ 1s taught parallel with logic, chemistry and conic sections, and similar tests are applied to the results, The worst boy in all the gymnasia may win a credit of 95 per cent in “religion,” without provoking a smile or suggesting any incongruity. The German educator insists that every boy and girl shall be able to say, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain’; but even their clergymen and ladies transgress'this law every day without suspecting that God cares. Religious training in California makes little accouht, perhaps too little, of this theoretical mastery of sacred history or ecclesiastical dogmas. Our teachers trou- ble themselves very little about teaching the decalogue, but will in no case suffer the profaning of God’s name. If any time is devoted to enlightening an offender upon the nature of his guilt, he may be told that God has issued a special decree against that offense, or, more likely, he may be informed that it is ungentlemanly and gross. Either the German or Californian method alone i defective; but. this com- parison may serve to impress the fact that the popular American use of the terms “religions” and ‘“religion’” relates pri- marily to practice and experience, and only more remotely to theory. Is there any religious training in the public schools of California? From the kindergarten to the end of the university courses, the State dares not teach anything that can reasonably offend Jew, Catholic, Protestant or Atheist, as such. What room then can be found for religious train- ing, since generalities are so weak, and every specific dogma is likely to proceed from the oracles of some denomination, and thus be offensive to some other? Even Longfeliow’s “Psalm of Life” would hardly be permitted to sing in our schools, Dust thou art, to dust returnest ‘Was not spoken of the soul, If Atheism and Materialism had any liter- ature of their own to take its place. To be sure, these irreligious denomi- nations do not fight religion in the schools under their own banners, but are glaa to help the Catholics put the Bible out of the schonls, and then to help .the Protestants put out the Catholics. These parties make no permanent coalitions, and thus the only religions peace in the schools is a peace without religion, i. e., without specific religious teaching. The Catholics are not satisfied with such training, and they strenuously insist upon separation, so that they may regulate at their own discretion not only the amount of catechism in the curriculum, but also the character of the historical and literary studies. Protestants generally incline to accept, and do accept, for their sons and daugh- ters, public schools that are not religious, provided they are not irreligious; and they are often more patient than is becom- ing of the flippant skeptical deliverances of certain youthful science teachers, It is often claimed that adequate reli- gious training is afforded by the homes, the Sunday-schools and the pulpits. Pos. sibly these agencies brought to an ideal efficiency might afford all needful dis- tinctively religious training; but such as they now are they are not effective enough to satisfy all of the pious fathers and mothers who have a keen sense of the re- sponsibility of parents. They realize the weakness of these agencies most when their children are obliged to Ieave home to enter upon the hizher education. Many who desire to cuitivate the spirit- ual as well as the intellectual faculties of their children believe that a widening in- telligence permits and should be accom- panied by a widened religious experience.