St Ignatius College - Ignatian Yearbook (San Francisco, CA)

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Iieimgngiral Eemilhermrnt its allotment of abuse in this destructive iw Q age when even the most sacred things .are being criticiaed, 1s.not, in itself, aph cibjtict for surprise, but it is surprising a e abuse should come from men and women who have been identified with the system all their lives. At- tacks from without might have been expectedg it was alto- gether unexpected to hear of internal dissension and it was astonishing to find the dissenters so full of destructive criti- cism and of unmistakable bitterness. One public school teacher writing in The Ladies' Home Journal tells us that the system is the most momentous failure in our American life today. From another we learn that the high schools in particular are little more than fool factories. And when we add to these thoughts the criticism of the universities that appeared some time ago in Everybody's Magazine under the general heading Blasting at the Rock of Ages, we are forced to wonder what they are going to do about it. - ll I-IAT the public school system should receive if M' E ' I 5 Q fi? While thus wondering we beg leave to offer a few thoughts of our own, which may be of advantage in deter- mining just what is wrong with the system. That some- thing is wrong is now generally admitted, and the articles recently contributed to The Ladies' Home Journal empha- size this general conviction. Still we fail to see that any of the critics have indicated the real source of the evil. They are self-constituted physicians, and, in our opinion, they are very faulty in their diagnosis. In fact, one of the articles -that of Professor Frederick Burk, Principal of the State Normal School of San Francisco-affords a very beautiful, though unconscious illustration of the real pedagogical dis- ease that is afflicting the schools. The learned professor, than whom there is no higher authority in the land, builds his article in criticism on the results of a common sense I

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T . illlrlpnnwtw Ukn Jmitatiunb Muse of pure poetic taste, No Isthmian strife your verse can mary You smile not on the charioteer Who fast careers in Grecian car. For Martian arms your care is small And proud and haughty leaders' tauntsg The mellow strains of stringed lyre Alone can cheer your classic jaunts. The sight of fertile hill or dale, The babblings brook or rolling sea, The dense and clustered shady grove, For you have charms, Melpomene. I, O Muse, by Rome am classed Among her bards of lyric fameg My humble tribute, mistress fair, Accept for that distinguished name. Fred S. Johnson

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PEDAGOGICAL' BEWILDERMENT 31 test examination to which he subjected a class of girls who were seeking admission into the Normal School. This com- mon sense test, which affords an additional proof that common sense is a very uncommon possession, will serve as our guide in the thoughts or suggestions that follow. The test was arrayed in formidable language: Charac- terize in a line or so the following persons, in a way to state what they stand for in general public intelligence: Queen Elizabeth, Burbank, Hamlet, Lancelot, etc. There were, in all, 27 names chosen from the widest possible field, from sacred scripture down through Greek mythology to Roman history, thence through English mythology, English history and English literature, to American fiction, politics, sociology and trades unionism, with a side study of music, painting and botany. The girl students manifested a certain degree of familiarity with the classical and historical personages, but were, in great part, deficient in knowledge of current events and modern characters. One little girl though LaFollette was the French general who helped the Americans in the Revo- lutionary war. Another characterized Booker T. Washington as the assassin of Abraham Lincoln. All knew more about the past, particularly the distant past, than about the present, and this aroused the pedagogical indignation of Professor Burk to such a point that he exclaimed: Are we living A. D. or B. C. P He thereupon proceeded to answer the ques- tion which he had himself raised, his answer being sub- stantially as follows: We are, of course, living in the year of our Lord, but no one would be able to judge of the truth of this assertion by the answers received from the girls who sought admission into the State Normal School. They actually knew more about Roman insurgency under Cassius than they did about American insurgency under LaEollette! They seemed to be living Before Christ ! Apart from the main thought which it is our intention to suggest, it may be stated here, in passing, that, educationally speaking, it is not a very undesirable thing to live among the ancients, to breathe the intellectual atmosphere which they