To the Editor of the Norta-Carsa Datry News."
Sir,—Let us pray that the suggestions of Mr. Teesdale Mackintosh, commented upon in your leader of the 28th ultimo, to substitute vocational for general education, may not prevail. The resulting evils may readily be gauged by a scrutiny of the product of present-day "'educational'? systems in the United States where the old-fashioned Common School curriculum, which admirably served its purpose in that it fitted the majority to think, has been largely, if not altogether, supplanted by vocal tional training. The American tax-payer, abetted by pedagogic gical fadists, has been led to expect that the State or the community shall provide his offspring, gratis, not only with rudimentary training but with secondary and tertiary schooling of a vocationed nature as well.
The result is that, to-day, American schools and higher institutions are turning out onesided specialists by the thousand each June. Precocious High School youths discuss glibly the theory of ionic dissociation of the elements and! at the same time harbour a vague impression that John Milton was the captain of some winning base-ball team in the early eighties. Wechnical School graduates, learned _parrot-wise in the theory of Rela tivity, are convinced that the "Jost spirituality" is the direct outcome of prohibition.
(The basic difference between the American and the British method would appear to be that the former (though Jargely abore tive through attempting too much with the immature mind) aims to develop intellect, while the latter is chiefly concerned with the development of character. Each has its advantages: and, m spite of each, an occasional promising mentality is matured.
The aim of education is to train the individual to think. To this end, no modern formula can efficiently replace the mental discipline achieved by teaching an inflected language, preferably Latin, as well as mathematics. The further discipline of a compulsory curriculum—as distin-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.