WORDS WITHOUT IDEAS

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 2, 1880

WORDS WITHOUT IDEAS.

An excellent instance of the way in which the children of the average public school learn without learning is related by Burnes' Educational Monthly. A teacher in one of our public schools has been accustomed to require her pupils to say: "The equator is an imaginary line passing around the earth," etc. It never occurred to her that the boys and girls of her school had no idea what an imaginary line meant, until one day a visitor asked them how wide they thought the equator was. Some thought it was 5000 miles wide, others 2000, and others said they could jump over it. The visitor then asked how they thought ships got over it. One pupil said he thought they got out and drew them over, and another said he had read that a canal had been dug through it! "What is the name of this canal?" was asked. "The Suez Canal!" was the answer.