Something, no doubt, must be yielded to parents; but they,
too, should be educated to a true view of their children's interests. As
the world is, a well-spoken declamation is more gratifying to parents,
and more creditable to teachers, than the most careful training in the
vowel-sounds; yet the latter is infinitely more valuable to the scholar.
Neither progress in the languages nor knowledge of mathematics can
compensate for the want of a thorough etymological discipline. This
training should be primary in point of time, as well as elementary in
character; and a classical education is no adequate compensation.
Elements are all-important to the teacher and the student. It is not
possible to have an idea of a square without some idea of a straight
line, nor to express with pencil or words the arc of a circle without a
previous conception of the curve. Combination follows in course. We are
driven to it. Our own minds, all nature, all civilization, tend to the
combination of elements.
We think fast, live fast, learn fast, and, as the fashion of the world
requires a knowledge of many things, we crowd the entire education of
our children into the short period of school-life. Here, and just here,
public sentiment ought to relieve the teacher by reforming itself.
It should be understood that school-life is to be devoted to the
thorough discipline of the mind to study, and to an acquaintance with
those simple, elementary branches, which are the foundation of all good
learning.
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