for daily use, when he knows how to make them and what work he has to do.
If these fragmentary suggestions have been of any use in conveying to the minds of some of my agricultural friends my impressions as to the principles involved in a truly practical education, and my sense of the evils commonly prevalent in schools, and likely to continue without a remedy as long as schoolmasters are required to do what is impossible, I may shorten the discussion by stating at once what I think may be done at school within a reasonable time.
I assume that either at home or at a small preparatory school the mechanical aids necessary to all learning, namely, the art of reading, writing, and counting, have been, to a certain extent, secured. They are not education, but its tools; and, as education advances, the power of using the tools will improve.
Elements of Practical Education.—Language.
I should then say, that, next to right religious and moral habits, the power of reading intelligently and of expressing oneself clearly and correctly in speaking or in writing stands first among the elements of education.
This is not to be acquired by learning rules out of an English grammar, still less by copying set phrases out of a letter-book. It is, in fact, the result and the test of the progress of general education, and can only be arrived at gradually. The command of the English grammar is not easily attainable without learning some other language. But I intend to recur to the question of language further on, therefore let the bare mention of the subject suffice for the present.
On the subject of spelling, I will only say that some of the most common faults of spelling would be corrected by a very small amount of training and slight acquaintance with the sources of the English language. No one who has ever made acquaintance with the Latin words "principium," "paro," will confuse "principle" and "principal," and write separate" and "comparative," as they are often written. A boy who has conjugated "capio," and its compounds, will have gained the clue to the mystery of the diphthongs ei and ie.[1]
Calculation and Practical Geometry.
Next in point of usefulness may be placed the power of exact and rapid calculation. It is said by some very old-fashioned
- ↑ I would strongly recommend the use in middle-schools of Dr. Kennedy's vocabulary, containing a selection of the most important Latin words, with their derivatives traced down to modern English.
