PRESIDENT LOWELL SPEAKS OUT

The indictment of the secondary schools in America as delivered by President Lowell in his address at the opening of the National Educational Association convention points out several glaring defects in the present system. At present the colleges must waste valuable time in correcting the deficiencies of the graduates sent to them by the schools, and these are due to two fundamental errors in their methods.

The schools try to accomplish too much and as a result achieve nothing well. "What we need is a good mental training, an accurate and thorough habit of mind; not a frittering away of the attention by a multitude of small matters of which the pupil does not get enough to develop consecutive thought."

To make education attractive, there has been of late a tendency to make it too easy. "Repeated mental exertion becomes a habit, one of the most valuable a man can possess. In fact the habit of overcoming obstacles is a large factor in the condition of mind that is properly called education; for the quantity of knowledge obtained when one leaves school is far less important than the ability to acquire knowledge and to think clearly on hard problems."

Criticisms such as these challenge the value of usages well grounded on tradition and custom in many of our schools. But if any progress is to be made in improving the present system, it must be by the elimination of just such deep-set evils. President Lowell has rendered valuable service to the cause of American education by his penetrating attack on them.