CRAM EVERYWHERE.

Evening Star, Issue 10931, 13 May 1899, Page 1

CRAM EVERYWHERE.

Children in the United States do not seem ip have a specially good time in school, judging by the pathetic complaint of the wife of the author of * Ben Hjir.’ Mra JLow Wallace protests in vigorous language against the way in which the young folk of the Great Republic are being stuffed with knowledge that is absolutely useless to them in after -life. Fathers and Mothers aver (she Says) that their children have little or no real school life, and are always talking about " exams.” Her remarks have application to other places than the States : . ,

The murder of the modern innocents is a march to untlnuly graves, not by the order of a wrathful King Herod, but under what is claimed to be the finest free school ay tem of the world. I do not understand education, but over-education is slay ing its thousands. The burden is book*, 'ihe tasks imposed on the young are fearful. Of o uree far the greater portion must bo forgotten as the waves of yesterday. With red eyeballs and nervous fingers our I aughters cipher whole evenings over partial payments—sums that not ten men could do —for which they can never have need. . , , The mathematics superstition is strong in the land; children of thirteen are in algebra. Undertake the task laid on girls in their teens for on? year. We need no physician to tell us that the number of nervous diseases on the increase is appalling, Even paralysis Ins crept in on the y oting, Girls break down first because of Hie greater capacity for suit ring in nerves alive and quivering that in boys a’C as iusens.ble as telegraph wires. Beside-, girls are more tractable, and take to music, embroidery, and painting ; while boys play cricket. In sana'oriums, rest cures, water cures, and other refuges, forlorn wrecks of women lie on teds of pain, vainly seeking to build up ; but there Is no foundation upon which to fcuild. To be sure, it is a fine thing to know what Carlyle moans by certain literary flights, but there delights may be icseryed for mature intellects ; something might be left undone in the schools. A pupil is asked to read ‘ J’aradlsc Lost,’ and write an essay on the poem within six days,

of all, and harder, than unbending rules, ‘is the merciless ambition of parents. Propose to out down, drop the least congenial study, and there it en outcry: .‘’Why, Maiy could not get her diploma !’’ What will she do with it when she does get it? Lay it away in a forgotten top drawer, or frame and hang it in the guest chamber—a costly document bought with a gieet price.

aid a tender mother to me : “The air of the schoolroom i- so foul that my boys’ heads smell of it.” "And you continue to send them?’ “ Ob, yea; you know they must pass. ’ They are passing.

The mother of a girl with lips colorless as her forehead dcola-cd; “I have a high standard of education for Julia,” “But health! if she leave that in the text books, though she speak with the tongues of men and angels, it profiteth nothing.” “ I moan,” deteiminedly, “ for her to have advantages, and wheu she gets her diploma she Oim rest.” So she sums along till she can multiply three figures by three figures in her head, da.’ and night, thinking and thinking. “This is Inr last y<ar; tlm has seven studies ; then comes the finishing tchool.” “Doesn’t her head ache?’ “Sometimes she talks i x her sleep. ’• She wai already in the fi-ashing school, and what the now says in her sleep we shall not know till we learn the language of the dead

Said one of my neighbors; “Hero are two diplomas; tli y represent my two daughters, educated to death/’ Death by freezing is easier.

“A child of nine years is re quired to define and understand such words as these!—Aphocrasis, apocope, paragoge, paraltipsis, diaeresis, synoorasis, tmesis, 'j hi re arc famous speakers and writers who never saw them.

A little girl who was found bending over a tablet and writing wends on both sides of a straight line, like multiplied numerators and denominators, explained that el.e was “diagramming.”

It s mental discipline. Miss Ciam says I have a fine mind that needs dc-vcloi mg. I ook hero, grandma, now, this is the comet p’acirg of the element?. “Founc,rc” and “seven” are joined by the word “r.r.d," a subordinate conmotive copulative conjunction. It modifies years, the attribute of the proposition. “Ago” is a model adverb of prst fine. The root of the first clause is

The exercise was taken from Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg. No wonder the disgusted old lady declaicd that if he had been brought up on. "such stuff” the speech would never have been delivered.