TWISTED TRUNKS

There are more than a few Phoenixes in the world; and the familiar "springing from its own ashes" is coming to be an every-day affair. The latest is that of the problem of the school teacher who carries his individual notions with him into the class-room--a problem to which the New York Tribune has seen fit to devote a lengthy editorial.

The Tribune is not over-emphasizing. If propaganda of any sort is still being disseminated inside the grade and high schools--and it most certainly is, unless many individuals have undergone an unusual metamorphosis--too much cannot be said against it. Be it Bolshevism, Pacifism, Politics or Pruning-hooks, it is injurious, and should go. One of the most important features in the acquisition of an education is the ability to think and weigh decisions for oneself; given both sides of a case, the final judgment, unless it comes from the student himself, is worthless both to the student and as a judgment. Spoon-fed minds can never be anything but a sop to the community. And, incidentally, the propagandists are defeating their own ends; for as soon as a counter-propagandist appears who can out-shout them, their converts, trained to be "followers". Carlylian "valets", are as liable as not to recant, and desert to the enemy.

The class-room, legally, mentally, and morally, is no place for the indulgence of "humours". That it has been so in the past may in great measure be responsible for the crime waves and slackening of the moral fibre that is apparent today. The teaching conditions throughout the country are pitiable enough without the additional charge of selfishness and thoughtlessness being laid upon the teachers themselves. So long as there is no willingness to improve these conditions, teaching will continue to be of a poor quality. As for the propagandists--for the merely thoughtless, a careful reading of Elyot and Ascham; for the purely selfish--discharge. An education which bends the twig to its own will-be it wholesome or not--can only result in a forest of misshapen trunks.