American Public Education
WRITING on the topic “American Public Education,” Dr. J. G. Holland, a noted American writer, well said: “I believe that a school, in order to be a good one, should be one that will fit men and women, in the best way, for the humble positions that the great mass of them must necessarily occupy in life. It is not necessary that boys and girls be taught any less than they are taught now. They should receive more practical knowledge than they do now, without a doubt, and less of that which is simply ornamental; but they can not know too much. An intelligent gardener is better than a clodhopper, and an educated nurse is better than an ignorant one; but if the gardener and the nurse have been spoiled for their business and their condition, by the sentiments which they have imbibed with their knowledge, they are made uncomfortable to themselves, and to those whom they serve. I do not care how much knowledge a man may have acquired in school, that school has been a curse to him if its influence has been to make him unhappy in his place, and to fill him with futile ambitions. . . . There must be something radically wrong in our educational system when youth are generally unfit for the station which they are to occupy, or are forced into professions for which they have no natural fitness.”