October 3, 2016 Monday

Bedtime Story

The 1860s: American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and Abraham Flexner

The total lives lost in this war over the issue of slaves were anywhere between 700,000 to 900,000 when the US population was around 32 million.

This may seem small but the numbers killed if taken as percentage for working population age 25 to 45 becomes a significant large percentage.

Yet, the handling of this crisis by President Abraham Lincoln is highly and widely praised by military historians.

Such were the times that Abraham Flexner was born, just a year following the assassination of the reelected President Abraham Lincoln.

The president was shot on the back of his head at point blank range while watching a theatre play in Washington DC on April 14, 1865.      

His assassination was a part of the broader plot by a group of people loyal to the Southern States or the Confederates.

The idea was to eliminate the president, the vice president and the secretary of the state, the top 3 people of the administration.

This would have crippled the government reviving the spirits of the Confederates who were on the verge of defeat having suffered huge casualties.

As history showed, the plot failed, the Confederate army surrendered (5 days before the assassination) and the United States remained unified.    

Abraham Flexner was fortunate enough not to have witnessed or be a part this gruesome bloodshed that is proudly American Civil War.

Abraham Flexner did his schooling following which he attended Johns Hopkins University to earn his Bachelor of Arts degree in Classics (2-year program).

He had a passion for teaching at a very young age and so he returned to his home town of Louisville, Kentucky to teach.

He taught classics for 4 years in a school when like a true entrepreneur, he established his own school and named it “Mr. Flexner’s School”.

The purpose of this private school to my mind was not about earning and making a living through the student’s fees.

Like me, he was very critical of the prevailing schooling system in the country which has strict inflexible curriculum.

His school according to his beliefs was very untraditional, having no particular prescribed syllabus, no examination nor grading nor keeping any academic record of any student.

It was my utopian dream of education.

How did you think this school fared?

It was enormously successful in the sense that students passing out of this school were getting accepted at the prominent colleges all over the country.

In 1908 at the age of 42, Flexner published his first book: “The American College”.   

Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/

Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.

Another great educator and teacher that I am aware of is Professor Subhashish in Bagalore, India.

While I narrate stories, he actually does and teaches real mathematics and phyics.

Do visit him here:

http://skmclasses.weebly.com

It was on the papers the next day which was Saturday April 15, 1865

The first book of Flexner that was published in 1908. It was a scathing attack on the American system of education.