Art of Teaching School

Schools are established for the instruction of the millions. The education provided in these schools should be practical, the methods should be agreeable and logical, and the results, popular intelligence. The reverse of this is mainly true; the education is almost universally impractical, the methods are disagreeable and illogical, and the result, purchased at a price paid for intelligence, is popular ignorance. Ten or fifteen years of school-life are given over to the study of illogical books, the solution of intricate problems found in school arithmetic, to the mastering of impractical methods and bungling devices, to the memorizing of useless and meaningless rules in grammar, correcting false syntax and parsing, to learning the names of places noted for the number of shoes made there or the quantity of cheese produced annually. This, coupled with the ability to read indifferently and write illegibly, in many places is all that is acquired by the majority of pupils in the public schools. This comparative uselessness of public-school education arises, not from want of intelligence on the part of the teacher, the convenience of appliances, skill in teaching or diligence in prosecuting studies, but in the most senseless and bungling methods of classification that are employed in the construction of the curriculum of studies. This book was written in the belief that its contents will assist those, who are labouring, as school officials, teachers and patrons, controllers and administrators to restore the system of education to its normal healthy life, and to make the schools serve the ends for which they were established.