Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/549

Rh, because we should be justified in saying, on psychological grounds, that that nature was deficient and defective. This great aspect of civilization. . . is a necessary factor in adjusting ourselves to the full richness of human conquest and human acquisition. . . we should see to it that the esthetic inheritance is placed side by side with the scientific and the literary in the education of the human child." Among the humanizing elements of education as it should be organized esthetic insight and appreciation rank high. Yet our figures bear testimony to what every one knows without tables of statistics, that art is neglected in the education of the American youth so far as the schools are concerned. The fact that high school seniors who can name on an average 5.7 statesmen know only 2.7 painters, sculptors and musicians in all the world's history is too significant to require comment. Is it a fair showing? Does it not indicate an over emphasis of certain lines of school work to the neglect of others, and to the permanent injury of pupils? Does it not indicate an overdoing of the literary side? Are we not too much enslaved to letters and books even in our humanizing? One may even ask, has the poet any just claim to so much more of the pupil's time and interest, as indicated by the figures, than the artist who bodies forth his ideals on canvas or in stone?

Finally a word regarding a by-product of the investigation. An examination of the individual papers brings home to one anew that much even of the university student's knowledge is a vague, jumbled patch-work of shadows and blurs. A few instances from a vast number will illustrate the point. We are told that Victor Hugo was a military leader; that Aristotle and Virgil were great orators; that Isosceles was a great orator; that Emerson and Bryant and Lowell were English poets, and Bismarck an English statesman; that Romeo was a Roman writer; that Shakespeare was a Latin author and wrote Julius Cæsar; that Macaulay was a Roman writer and wrote Lays of Ancient Rome. Confusion and haziness are the banes of the university student as they are of all grades of learners. We are in constant danger of over estimating the number of clear-cut live facts or principles in the possession of any pupil or student. The question naturally arises, is it not possible that modern education with its wealth of material which it pours forth on students with such lavish hands does not smother and confuse rather than enliven and illumine?