SUPERFICIAL EDUCATION

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 3, 1881

SUPERFICIAL EDUCATION.

It is the boast and glory of our common school system that it brings an education within the reach of all the youth of the land; but it has to be confessed that there is a tendency to that hurry and "cram," which is not at all conducive to thoroughness. In a late number of the Army and Navy Journal, is found a report by the Board of Visitors to West Point Military Academy, in which are the following suggestive remarks:—

"The examination of new cadets resulted in rejecting 49 out of a total of 118 who reported for examination. The examinations were conducted with the usual great fairness and impartiality, and each candidate was asked if he desired to have more time than the usual allowance. The result does not give a high character for the progress of education in the schools of our country, when nearly one-half of the young men, all over 17 years of age, selected from all parts of the country, are not proficient in the mere elements of learning required for admission to the Academy. The rejected applicants are not confined to any part of the country, and many of them come from the older States, whose citizens are proud in the belief that all their youth acquire a good knowledge of the elements of education."