The Tree of Knowledge

Extract

The farmer, who expressed contempt for our national system of education because a lad of school-leaving age in his employ did not know the dental formula of a yearling sheep, was merely giving expression to the thought in the minds of many.

For there are two schools of thought in matters educational. One regards education as the means to an end; the other regards it as an end in itself. To the former school of thought belong most teachers and education officials; to the latter most practical business men. The effect of this conflict between the practical and the ideal is the crowding of the curriculum in both elementary and secondary schools, so that boys and girls leave those institutions with a superficial smattering of knowledge, unrelated to the occupations they intend to follow and not making, in any large degree, for any ethical advance in society.