LEAVE IT TO PSMITH

Once again the question of the purpose of secondary public schools comes to the fore with the recent statement of Dr. Payson Smith, state commissioner of education, that modern subjects are more essential than "sixteenth century subjects" because they "represent the needs of a modern child in a modern world." Going further, he declared that music, art, manual training, vocational and physical education should be stressed; and that English grammar and composition are far more important than Latin, Greek, or any of the modern languages. Apparently Dr. Smith is speaking in rebuttal of the recent attacks on the "frills" of modern education.

There is much to be said on Dr. Smith's side; liberalism is desirable as a leavening influence in education, as in anything else. Under the rigid system of the past many students were either completely bored or unable to cope with the curriculum. Today such students have a variety of interests offered to them, so that school is less of a grind and more in accord with the teaching ideal of Montaigne--to inspire the pupil rather than to drive him.

Yet Dr. Smith seems to forget that their is a definite ideal of scholarship which is not yet nullified by a "modern world" or new conditions. Whatever may be said of their practical use, Latin and Greek form the cultural and literary background of much of our present world. Furthermore there is a certain toughening of the intellectual fibre which is the basis of learning to think, only to be gained in the drill work of the school. It is easy to advocate the discarding of all these subjects as deadwood; to make instruction entirely a matter of practical arts that are interesting and useful to the student. Learning to think, however, requires as hard an apprenticeship as anything else, and this apprenticeship must be served in the secondary school. Even more important is upholding the old and traditional meaning of the intellectual and scholarly liberal arts.