Substitute the word education for government, in Lincoln's famous saying, and it might well be used as a definition of true culture: Education of the people, for the people, and by the people.
In practice, if not in statement, this is the motto of the professional monthly called The Popular Educator. Not only is it full of good hints, but practical lessons. There is a heap of trash to be swept away from our school system, despite all our boasting and previous gain. Neither grammar, arithmetic, nor any other branch, is taught as it should be.
We send our boys to school forty weeks in the year, from the age of five to eighteen; but they come out no better fitted to cope with traffic, politics, navigation, mechanics, the professions, than were our grandfathers, who had only a winter term of free schooling in a ten-footer,—and had to pay extra for more at some Academy, if perchance they could earn money enough for the purpose.
Clearly, something is wrong. What is it? Hours upon hours are industriously wasted in the schoolroom and in home lessons. Why?
The periodical which calls out these inquiries helps to solve the problem.
