The adoption of the scientific as distinguished from the Aristotelian
system of education by the leading teachers of all the Occidental
countries within the last century, has been of enormous benefit to
the human race. We know now that the first thing to be learned is
to maintain the body in as nearly perfect physical condition as
possible--since the mind, to a marked degree, reflects the pathological
state of the flesh. Consequently, hygiene becomes the fundamental
science in the education of the human being, and facts relating thereto
should take precedence generally over all others in the priority of
time in a youth's education.
With the habit of health once established, the next matter is to see
that those studies which will place the individual in possession of
the greatest numbers of facts concerning his physical and mental
environments, and which will give him the best training in observation
and reasoning, are pursued.
For this, natural science and its accompanying mathematics, are
supreme, although enough manual training and domestic science should be
included in the curriculum to insure an acquaintance with the matters
of everyday life. Human physiology and anatomy, as well as the subject
of parenthood, should also have a share of attention commensurate
with their importance--and this has long been denied them. Elementary
psychology must also have a place even in that course of education
which should be made compulsory in every State. A knowledge of the
elementary Latin and Greek is also to be desired in those countries
whose vernaculars are largely made up from word-roots to be found in
these dead languages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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