The San Francisco Directory, 1874, Part 11

Author:
Publication date: 1874
Publisher: San Francisco : Langley, Henry G.
Number of Pages: 1128

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SAN FRANCISCO DIRECTORY.

faintly and demurely, and curl down in a close room two hours a day to hateful practice upon the inevita- ble piano, whether sho shows the least taste or abili- ty for piano music or not. Subject a boy to restric- tions, confinements, deprivations, and compulsions equal or equivalent to those which fashion enforces upon the average girl, and he would presently become far less able to maintain his rights than she is at pres- ent to advocate her own.

This topic demands a thousand times the space which any brief article in a volume of this kind can properly afford. Dr. Clarke and others have already begun that discussion and agitation which usually procedes long-needed reforms.

THE USUAL END OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.

With this grade the Grammar School work ends. All pupils who honorably complete it receive an en- graved certificate of graduation, which entitles them to enter either High School at the beginning of the next school year.

To most pupils the graduation from the Grammar School becomes at once the hight of their scholarly ambition and the end of their formal Public School education.

PERCENTAGE WHO COMPLETE THE COURSE.

To such an extent is this true, that of all who enter the High Schools hardly one in seven graduates from them; while the Grammar Schools graduate about one of every five whom they receive, and the Prima- ry Schools one of every three. That is, out of every one hundred and five who enter the lowest Primary grade about thirty-five creditably complete the four years of primary study and enter the Grammar School; of these thirty-tive who enter the Grammar School, about seven regularly complete its four years of study and enter either High School, and of these seven who enter the fligh School one will regularly complete its course and honorably graduate from it. Thus the Public School Department carries com- pletely through and honorably graduates from its highest grado only one of every one hundred and five, or less than one per cent. of those whom it re- ceives into its lowest Primary grade eleven years before.

CAUSES OF PREMATURE WITHDRAWAL.

Several causes combine to account for this. Even those parents who have least of, and care least for, education, wish their children to read, write, spell, add, subtract, multiply, and divido. Hence, all parents, with very rare exceptions, desire their chil- dren to complete the Primary School course certain- ly, and usually the Grammar School course as well, it the increase of family expenses and the consequent necessity of multiplying even the smallest possible sources of family income enable them to spare them long enough. But even if its attainment were possi- ble, hardly one parent in twenty as highly appre- ciates, or as strongly desires for his child an equal knowledge of the studies commonly forming the greater part of High School instruction.

A still more common cause of the increased pro- portional withdrawal of pupils from the higher grades-a reason so powerful, in fact, as to become almost uncontrollable-is the increased pecuniary value of the service of the child with every year of successivo growth. Hence, every teacher of ten years' experience in all grades of Public Schools, can testity that the relative number of withdrawals from this cause alono, after making due allowance for the effects of other natural and unavoidable causes, continually increases with each higher grade.

REMEDY SUGGESTED.

A partial preventivo, at least, of this premature withdrawal and consequent failure to obtain the full benefit of the entire Public School course, would be the addition of one year to the time now spent in the Grammar school. Such an additional year faith- fully devoted to a thorough and bual review of the more important branches now imperfectly taught and still more imperfectly learned during the last three years of the present Grammar School course, would make the scholars doubly sure of what they now very seldom thoroughly acquire, and enable them to add some very desirable, practical, and prof- itable studies which lack of time now compels them to forego, and which they seldom have any subse- quent opportunity to pursue.

To a thorough drill in branches as indispensable as Commercial Geography, Business Arithmetic, with Business Penmanship, developed by daily practice in writing Business Forms and practicing Business Correspondence, and including, of course, Practical Bookkeeping, they might add a fair knowledge of Phonography and of such practically valuable nat- ural sciences as Elementary Astronomy, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Geology, Mineralogy, Zoolo- gy, Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene, and especial- ly of Botany, which, as presented in such recent works as that truly scientific and admirably simple one of Miss Youmans, is almost an education in it- self. The study of nature, in any of its departments, is far better fitted to quicken mental life, develop mental growth, and discipline mental power than any other that can possibly be assigned to young minds.

Among the more obvious and immediate advantages of this additional year in the Grammar School would be:

1st. The High and Normal Schools could propor- tionally extend and improve their courses, and this, in turn, would give us far better qualified teachers. The present system sends into both those schools pupils so young in years, immature in mind, defi- cient in mental acquisition, lacking in intellectual discipline, and wanting in scholarly culture, that the almost unanimous testimony of experienced teachers is, that they are compelled to lose nearly or quite the whole of the first year in doing over again, or, oftener indeed, in doing for the first time that elementary, preparatory work which should have been thoroughly done before the pupil was permitted to approach either a Normal or a High School.

Receiving pupils thoroughly and uniformly well qualified these higher schools could enter at once upon their own legitimate work, accomplish it better in quality and more completely in degree, and send forth their graduates with far broader culture, better discipline, and higher honor, than is now possible.

2d. Our Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools would, in turn, receive even more benefits and be able, in still higher degree, to accomplish what they should and would, but cannot for lack of previous culture in their precipitate pupils.

3d. And, chiedy :- many pupils who cannot pos- sibly accomplish, or even attempt, a full three years' course, beyond, or in addition to, that of the Grammar School, could and would gladly romain for the single additional year could it be made to include, as sug- gested above, such practical and essential studies as the average pupil most needs in later life.

RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.

The Grammar School is indisputably and emphat- ically the peoples' college. Nearly ten times as many succesfully complete its course and honorably graduate from it as from the High School, and nearly twenty times as many go partially through, but are compelled to withdraw within a year or twoof gradua- tion. llonce it long since became, and to-day re- mains, the true popular University, to a far greater degree than any other institution for free popular education. Consequently, the inclusiveness of its scope, the excellence of its methods, the economy of its management, and the completeness of its success are matters of ten times as much interest to the pop- ular mind and heart. This is clearly shown by the fact that not one citizen in one hundred donies the necessity or objects to the general scope and manage- ment of the Grammar Schools, while nearly ninety in a hundred decidedly doubt the necessity and questions the methods of a High School whose chief result seems to be to turn out perhaps ton graduates a year that are fit for admission to the University, and produces this meager result with the minimum of economy and the maximum of expense. If we take proper care of the Primary and Grammar Schools, the High Schools, Colleges, and Universities will take care of themselves. Hence it is fully in order, at least once a year, for those immediately charged with the management of Grammar Schools, long ex- perienced in such management, minutely acquainted with every detail, thoroughly conversant with their results, familiar with their excellencies, well know- ing and even suffering from their deticiencies, to do what they can toward calling public attention to these public matters and ask a proper considera- tion of them. This the present writer has partially

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GENERAL EEVIEW.

The instruction in Vocal Music and Drawing, VOCAL MUSIC, DRAWING, AND PHONOGRAPHY. which had been so successfully given for several years by generally well-qualified teachers, was also discontinued early in January of this year. Grammar Schools of the city. Since the commencement of this article the Board has reelected the best of the available Special Teach- ers in those branches and proposes to reestablish their respective departments. A similar fact is also true of Phonography, and, partially so, of French and German, as was anticipated. attempted but very imperfectly performed. Indeed | French and German, to at least four of the leading when one considers the general public apathy and remembers how little practical, personal, and in- telligent interest even parents themselves appear to cherish, either in the schools themselves, or in those men and women who devote their lives to them, and how frequently a suggestion or a crit- icism from some practical educator who does know, calls forth only the public censure or even the personal enmity of impractical Directors who do not know, it will plainly appear what it really is, almost always a thankless, and often a dangerous task, to offer hints, criticisms, and suggestions tend- ing only to the improvement of that most vital public interest, which in Fourth of July orations, at least, and in political platforms, if nowhere else, is SHOULD FOREIGN LANGUAGES BE TAUGHT IN FREE PUB- LIC SCHOOLS, AND, IF SO, WHAT ? universally conceded to be the foundation and the palladium of American liberty.

CUTTING OFF EXTRA STUDIES.

The discontinuance of regular daily instruction in French, German, Vocal Music, Drawing, and Pho- nography, having taken place since January 1, 1874, more properly belongs to the school history of the current year than to that of 1873, which, alone, this article attempts to relate. As, however, it quickly became, and has since remained, a matter of un- usual public interest, it may be proper to state that, early in January of this year, the new Board of Ed- ucation, the first elected from the city at large, with- out the slightest previous official announcement, or even intimation of such intention, giving opportunity for discussion, calling for testimony from principals, and other educators as to how the matter was work- ing, or taking any adequate pains whatever to ascer- tain the public will, suddenly abolished instruction in French or German from nearly four hundred class- es, and summarily dismissed about titty ladies and gentlemen previously employed as teachers of those languages.

ABRUPT DISCONTINUANCE.

Whatever may be the diversity of public opinion as to the general desirability, propriety, necessity, or legality of teaching modern languages in the free Pub- lic Schools of an English-speaking country, to the dis- proportionate extent to which they had unquestion- ably come to be taught in those of this city, public opinion was almost unanimous in condemning the re- markable precipitation and absoluteness which char- acterized the unexpected act. It looked very much as if a controlling majority of the new Board, unduly exalted by new accession to unwonted power, and tem- porarily overcome by an infirmity which has beset and overset other minds almost equally great, in pre- vious epochs of the summary and spasmodic legisla- tion of this new State, had quite forgotten that the people had chosen them as their servants and not as their masters; and that, before decreeing so radical and sweeping a change it might have been wise, to say nothing of the modesty and courtesy of the act, to take some measures for learning the will of the peo- ple who had made them what they were and whose will they were bound to ascertain and execute. Even if the public will, or the will of a considerable ma- jority of the school-patronizing public, had chosen the partial discontinuance, or the total abolition of free public instruction in French and German, it would have been better to announce such proposed discontinuance or abolition at least three months in advance.

It may be, however, that the new Directors, in the first flush of their fresh-blown wisdom, concluded that, like some surgical operations, the sharper, se- verer, and more quickly over, the amputation of the study of the modern languages could be made, the better would be the patients' chances of recovery from the sudden shock. It is but simple justice to state, however, that this most precipitate step ever taken by any Board of Education in this city, and the one which immediately worked so many and se- vere hardships, did not pass without the very strong opposition of a highly respectable minority mainly composed of the former and more experienced mem- bers, and so considerable in numbers that an addition of two would have made them the controlling major- ity. And, also, to add that present symptoms indi- cate not only that, if the vote were to be taken again, it would be wholly reversed, but that the Board con- templates an early restoration of instruction in

Pertinent to this matter of the sudden general ex- clusion and subsequent partial restoration of instruc- tion in modern languages, and, more especially bear- ing upon the general question whether they should be taught at all in our free Public Schools, and, if so, what foreign language should be first introduced and to what extent, the following are a few among the many facts and arguments claiming a fair hearing, and worthy of due consideration.

1st. Of the native-born German and French speak- ing families for any considerable time resident in this city, or in America, hardly one in twenty uses its own native speech at the table, or generally, about the home.

2d. Of those same families hardly one member in a hundred intends any permanent return to, or final residence in, his native land.

3d. The German and French merchants and busi- ness men, with their bookkeepers, salesmen, and clerks, almost universally speak English, and habitu- ally use it in nine tenths of their business trans- actions.

4th. English is fast becoming, if it has not already become, the almost universal language of commerce, in all the leading marts and ports of South America, Africa, India, China, and Japan.

5th. For English speaking youth generally to learn German and French, is going backward, against the current of commerce, immigration, and general pro- gress, while tor French and German speaking youth to learn English, is rowing themselves forward into the full strength of its onward sweeping tide.

THE MOST NECESSARY FOREIGN LANGUAGE.

6th. If the Public Schools of this city especially at- tempt to teach any foreign modern language, it should be, first of all, the Spanish, which, in our in- evitable and fast-increasing relations with Mexico and South America, their present pupils are likely to find of far more immediate service and permanent value. An additional argument for this, is the fact that the youth of Spanish speaking countries have very few, if any, general facilities for learning Eng- lish, compared with the similar facilities now quite generally extended to the youth of Germany and France. Hence, while the French and German youth can and do come to us on the ground of our own common speech, we must quality our youth to approach the Mexican, the South American, and the Spaniard, on the ground, or through the medium of his common speech, if we expect profitable and satis- factory business, social, or political intercourse.

A complete colloquial mastery of French and Ger- man, if such could be imparted to every one of our Public School pupils to-day, would never prove of one tenth the social and business advantage to them which would accrue from a similar acquisition of the Spanish. And, still farther, the Spanish presents less ditticulty and consequently can be much more thoroughly learned and far more servicably used, in decidedly less time, than either the French or the German. (Much as certain parties may sneer at the suggestion, and scoff at the suggestor, it is, neverthe- less, true that within the next twenty years an ordi- nary colloquial knowledge of the Chinese language will prove of far greater practical value to its fortu- nate possessor than an equal knowledge of all three of the other foreign languages already named.) As previously intimated these are but a few of the facts bearing upon this question, and any one of them might be much more strongly put, and, much farther expanded, did ability and opportunity permit. They may serve, however, as a contribution to that public

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discussion and consideration, which will end in less attention to the far-off and comparatively valueless languages of trans-continental and trans -oceanic countries, and increased provision for the study of the native speech of millions living upon the same con- tinent with ourselves, and with whom we, and espo- cially our youth, must inevitably come into constant- ly closer and rapidly increasing business, social and political relations.

THE HIGH SCHOOLS.

There are two-the Boys' and the Girls'.

The Boys' High School is established to afford boys who have graduated from the Grammar Schools, or who have gained an equivalent education elsewhere, an opportunity for a more liberal educa- tion, and to fit those who desire it for entering the University of California.

The Girls' High School furnishes those girls who have regularly graduated from the Grammar Schools, or have received an equivalent education elsewhere, such higher culture as may prepare them for admis- sion to the University of California; and qualify those who desire it for the profession of teaching.

The regular course in each school occupies three years. The Normal course consists of an additional year after the girl has duly completed the regular High School course.

It will be noticed that the boy who may wish to fit himself for the profession of teaching finds no pro- vision made for him by the public schools of the city.

There is a strong and rapidly-growing conviction that the High Schools of this city, as at present con- ducted, are by far the most expensive, and much the least profitable, of all the departments of public in- struction. Comparing the annual number of gradu- ates with the annual cost of conducting the two schools, will presently disclose one reason of this con- viction, even if it does not demonstrate the full truth of this assertion.

In the organization, support, management, and improvement of public instruction, as far as provid- ed for in the ordinary Primary and Grammar Schools of both city and country, the people, through their agents, and, generally, in the choice of their agents, have done nearly, if not quite, as well as could have been expected; but in the organization and conduct of the High Schools and the University, they have fallen, and appear content to remain, very far short, not of any fine, impracticable theories, but of the actual performance which was, and is, really attain- able under the circumstances.

In partial proof or illustration of this, consider the following facts in the management of the High School Department of this city:

Ist. It maintains two separate schools, two district buildings, two well-salaried principals, two numer- ous sets of duplicate teachers, two sets of apparatus, and two libraries, where one comprehensive school, one commodious building, one competent principal, one set of thoroughly qualified teachers, one set of apparatus, and one library, could do the proper work and serve the special use of a High School, not mere- ly as well, but very decidedly better.

2d. It may not be generally known that, within two years, the management of both High Schools has returned to the old, obsolete, Primary District, country-school plan of requiring every teacher to instruct his or her own class in all, or very nearly all, the branches which they pursue. In practical common sense and daily efficiency this plan is fully equal to what would be the case in the U. S. Armory if each individual workman were required to make all the parts of each gun with which he had anything to do. Everybody knows that every teacher, like every mechanic, has some specialty; some one thing which he naturally does with greater ease, efficiency. and success, and that the best management is that which assigns to each teacher those branches in which he is specially accomplished, and therefore can teach with the greatest economy of his own power, and, what is of far greater consequenco, with far greater profit to the class. This sound principle, almost everywhere practically recognized, has been disregarded and is still ignored in the lligh Schools of this city by educational officials, who sometimes seem to act as if very fow principles in the science and art of successful toaching had boon thoroughly tested and almost unanimously settled by the most ad- vanced educators of the world years before any of

them began their costly experiments in this com- munity.

This is not a theoretical question to be argued; it is an actual fact to be proved by experience and tes- timony; and even this proof need be brought only to those who, by reason of the life-long pressure of other and very different interests, have been so com- pletely engrossed that they have never found or taken the time necessary to adequately understand and judge this most vital subject.

One of the strangest intellectual or social facts of the day is, that, while in all other public interests, or even departments of private business, we readily concede the superiority of the expert, defer to his opinion, and decide by his testimony, in the matter of education every man feels himself competent to pronounce the most decided judgments even upon the most complicated points; and a peculiarly unfor- tunate feature of the case is, that those most notori- ously destitute of both education and experience are the most aggravatingly positive and self-assertive in the announcement of their most ridiculous opinions, and the precipitate enforcement of their most dam- aging plans.

Each successive set of new and inexperienced School Directors appears too prono to act as if its predecessors had known next to nothing; and its first duty, in its full flush of new-felt power and uncon- scious ignorance, was to upset something to begin with, as if to prove beyond question how much more it knew in a week than its dull predecessors had been able to find out in two years. If the results of such precipitate and self-conceited action had not, too often, been so injurious as well as costly, it would be almost laughable to notice how almost uniformly the average Director knows such an im- mense deal more about the efficient management of the almost endlessly multiplied details of a large school department, charged with the public in- struction of thirty thousand children, during his first month of office, than he ever does again. And it is almost as entertaining, and vastly more satisfactory, to observe how uniformly he gradually settles into the final conviction that those same predecessors did know a little something after all, and that the pub- lic good does not absolutely require him to signalize the commencement of his official career by suddenly upsetting as much as possible of what they had done.

What the common sense of the people demand of our High Schools is this:

Ist. Their union into one centrally-located, con- yeniently planned, commodiously-constructed build- ing, amply yet economically furnished, and finished within and withrut with such solidity, simplicity, and appropriateness that the very sight of it should be a daily lesson in the highest school of true archi- tecture.

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The San Francisco Directory, 1874, Part 11

Author: Publication date: 1874 Publisher: San Francisco : Langley, Henry G. Number of Pages: 1128

Author:
Publication date: 1874
Publisher: San Francisco : Langley, Henry G.
Number of Pages: 1128