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Educational Progress.
The girls in the Denver schools have been order
ed to put pockets in their dresses.
Mr. Tomlinson Fort, of Atlanta, has been ap
pointed teacher of mathematics for the junior and
senior classes at the University of Georgia.
Judge Geo. F. Gober, of Marietta, has announced
that he will give to each of the eleven new agri
cultural colleges of the state fifty peach trees of
fine varieties.
A new technical school has been established in
Campios, Brazil, by Dr. Nilo Pecanha, the governor
of that state. Instruction will be given in tailor
ing, shoemaking, gardening and similar work.
At the first meeting in 1907 of the Atlanta School
Board the following officers were elected: Luther
Z. Rosser, president; Dr. L. P. Stephens, vice-pres
ident; Prof. L. M. Landrum, secretary, and Joseph
T. Orme, treasurer.
Jno. D. Rockefeller has given $100,000.00 to the
Board of Foreign Missions of the United Presbyte
rian church “toward permanent property needs in
Egypt and Egyptian Soudan.” The larger part of
the amount will be used in the erection of new
buildings for the Asiut College.
Prof. Frederick A. Goetze, Dean of the School
of Applied Science of Columbia University, New
York, has tendered a gift of seven hundred volumes
on literature, science and history to the Georgia
School of Technology. Pres. K. G. Matheson was
formerly a student under Professor Goetze.
Three hundred Barnardo charity school children
recently left London for Canada, where they will
make their future home. It is estimated that nine
ty-eight of the children educated in England at
this charity school do well and succeed in life.
Eighty per cent, of the boys in Canada who were
educated at this school and are now grown up, arc
landowners.
Principals of schools in New York City are de
manding that telephones be placed in the school
buildings for use of the teachers in the event of
fire or other emergency. The schools situated in
the parts of the city having almost entirely a for
eign population have felt the need of the telephone
on such occasions as during the vaccination of
pupils, when a mob of angry foreign mothers sur
rounded the doors of the school demanding that
the teachers stop cutting their children’s throats
and lacerating their arms with knives.
The Georgia State Alumni Association of the
University of the South was formed in Atlanta this
week. There were about forty students of this
’varsity present at a banquet held at the Kimball
House on the occasion of the organization of the
Association. Vice Chancellor Wiggin, now the act
ive head of the University of the South, made an
address which was the feature of the evening. Mr.
S. A. Crump, of Macon, Georgia, was toastmaster.
When the organization of the State body was per
fected, Mr. E. H. Hinton of Atlanta, chairman of the
SgMlMg.
JK
The Golden Age for January 17, 1907.
Southeastern Freight Association, was elected Pres
ident. He is a distinguished alumnus of the insti
tution and is prominently known in a social and
business way in San Francisco and New Orleans,
as well as in Atlanta. Next year will mark the
semi-centennial of the University of the South and
it is the purpose of the alumni to make it one of
the best years the institution has ever known.
A recent number of the Macon Telegraph con
tains a complete and interesting history of the
public school system of Bibb County and Macon,
Georgia, by the Hon. John T. Boifeuillet. It gives
figures showing the present prosperous condition of
the work. The valuation of the school property
of the county is $250,994 T’m city school prop
erty is valued at $165,950. The enrollment of
pupils in the city schools last year was, white,
3,757; colored, 2 272, showing 1,485 more whites
than negroes. But in the county schools there were
806 whites and 1,247 negroes, showing the negroes
in a majority of 441.
It is but natural that every one should feel an
interest to know just how well the American stu
dents studying under the Rhodes Scholarships at
Oxford University, England, are holding their own
with their English cousins. Dr. Osler, now regius
professor at Oxford, when on a visit to America
some time ago, declared that these students were
not doing very well. More recently English news
papers have published the results of the honor
examinations which take place at the end of the
first three years of an Oxford student’s career, and
from them we learn what their real standing is.
There are 161 Rhodes scholars; 79 being from the
United States, 71 from the British Colonies and 11
from Germany. Although the Americans number
nearly one-half, they do not take half the prizes.
The Rhodes scholars, altogether, have taken seven
“firsts” out of fifteen “possibles” in the honor
schools. The list of prizes is as follows:
“A first for the B.C.L. degree, a prize not often
won; two diplomas ‘with distinction’ (that is, up
to a first class honor standard) in economics; a
B.Sc. degree; the Gladstone Memorial prize; the Vi
nerian scholarship; and last, but not least, that
blue-ribbon of Oxford classical scholarship, the
Ireland itself. Canada takes the Ireland, the Glad
stone prize, and one first; Australia, the Vinerian,
the first in the 8.C.L., with four other
firsts; and America the B.Sc., with two firsts. Al
together it is a start such as would have rejoiced
the heart of Cecil Rhodes.”
Mr. Rhodes’ desire was that the Rhodes scholars
should take part in every aspect of Oxford life;
and the earlier doubts about the new elements get
ting on with the old are said to be entirely dissi
pated. In a few colleges, says The Times, “the
Rhodes scholars may possibly tend to keep together
a little, especially the Americans, but not more so
than Etonians or Harrovians or Wykehamists while
in the great majority of cases they become complete
ly absorbed in the ordinary body of undergrad
uates.”
Prof. Calvin M. Woodward, of Washington Uni
versity, in his recent address as president of the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science, gave considerable attention to the growing
importance of manual training in education. He
has had much himself to do vrith the introduction
and defense of manual training as an educational
feature, having in 1879 organized a school for boys
of high school age wherein the liberal and mechanic
arts had place side by side in the curriculum, the
object being “to cultivate not alone or chiefly the
memory and the understanding . . . but the
judgment and the executive faculties as well.” In
speaking of this school, he said:
“Many wise and excellent educators had grave
fears as to the result of the experiment. It was
thought that the introduction of tools, machinery,
materials, the theories of construction, and drafting
might not only break up the orderly program of
the school, but they would lower its intellectual
and moral tone. It is now known that all such
fears were groundless. Manual training, when
properly adapted to the boy’s status of brain de
velopment, and when incorporated into the daily
and weekly program with due regard to the other
essential features, has proved to be a more valu
able element in education than even the most san
guine advocate dared to expect. The moral, intel
lectual, and economic fruit of this combination, as
shown in the characters and careers of the boys
who formed the first classes in the pioneer schools,
is the best possible evidence of its value. The
gloomy predictions made of its effect upon the
pupils, and upon our American system of schools,
have been forgotten, and early opponents are fast
friends and enthusiastic advocates.
“At first it was suspected that our motives were
sordid; that we were likely to degrade our schools,
to teach narrow trades, and to turn out ‘mere
mechanics’ instead of educated men. On the other
hand, a recent report of a Massachusetts commis
sion (for whose membership I cherish high respect)
regards the manual-training movement as almost
exclusively educational and not sufficiently indus
trial. I suppose the earlier and the later estimates
are still held by many sincere and able teachers.
One does not easily lay aside the convictions of
a lifetime.”
As a conclusion to his discussion of the manual
training feature of education, Professor Woodward
said:
“I see nowhere, in either ancient or modern
times, a people whose youth have been trained as
our Americans should be trained. Neither Greece
nor Rome with their pinnacles of culture resting
on the barbarous foundation of human slavery, nor
the blooded aristocracies of modern times, can teach
us how to educate, train, and adorn an American
citizen. We must not expect all our students to
rule, nor yet all to be ruled; to direct, nor yet to
be directed; to employ, nor to be employed. They
must be capable of all these things. No narrow,
selfish aim. no prejudice of caste, no false claim
of high culture which scorns service, must mislead
the growing, expanding minds. Give them a gener
ous. symmetrical training; open wide the avenues
to usefulness, to happiness, to power; and this age
of scientific progress and material wealth shall be
also an age of high intellectual and social achieve
ment.”
The DeWitt Clinton High School in New York
City is the largest and finest public school in the
world. It has room for 4,000 students and cost
$2,000,000. Every effort has been made to construct
it. with all modern conveniences and it is as nearly
absolutely fireproof as a building can be made. It
has been recently opened.
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