USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Newburyport > City Officers and the Annual Reports to the City Council of Newburyport 1914 > Part 10
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14
6
34
41
8
4
93
12
X'I
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
1
9
39
55
22
5
2
133
31
55
52
28
6
2
1
154
37
Total Iligh
1
64
97
121
103
47
21
464
94
3
32
51
29
9
2
...
...
126
40
VIII
...
...
...
...
...
...
2
49
67
28
8
1
1
...
...
156
38
VII
...
...
...
...
...
1
54
13
33
10
6
1
1
...
...
149
51
VI
...
...
...
...
1
40
65
30
17
12
4
1
...
...
...
170
64
V
...
...
...
1
33
87
31
18
12
6
1
...
...
...
...
189
68
Total Grammar
1
34
128
152
143
161
107
48
12
4
790
261
IV
...
...
...
56
58
-
30
13
11
5
5
2
...
...
...
...
180
67
III
2
39
94
43
14
8
1
3
2
...
..
...
...
...
206
71
II
1
61
75
48
19
6
2
1
1
...
...
...
...
...
...
214
77
I
70
133
37
13
2
3
3
2
1
...
...
...
...
...
...
264
61
Total
71
196
151
211
122
53
26
15
10
7
2
864
276
Gr. Total 71
196
151
212
156
181
178
158
172
178
147
133
107
47
21
2118
631
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
..
...
SCHOOL COMMITTEE
...
NOTES. Distribution of pupils by grades and ages Sept. 14, 1914 Twenty-two pupils from out of town in High School, and 27 Parochial pupils entered in Freshman class Retarded pupils at right of diagonal lines and accelerated pupils at left. Normal pupils between diagonal lines
23
.
24
ANNUAL REPORTS
THE PROPORTION OF PUPILS WHO COMPLETE THE ELEMENTARY GRADES
Only one half of our pupils complete the elementary schools. This is a grave indictment of our course or of our system. Either our course is too hard and ill adapted to children, or our system is inefficient, if we cannot graduate more than half our pupils from our Grammar schools by
the age of sixteen (the present compulsory limit). A course of
study should be adapted to the average child. With perfect attendanc the num- ber o? bright pupils advanced in the system should exactly balance the number of retarded.
If the course is what it should be, then either our equipment, our methods or our teaching is inefficient and these may be grouped under the head of "the system."
Whatever we may do, a very large proportion of our pupils will ter- minate their school life with the grammar school. Before the age of six- teen practically every one should have finished the grammar school course. Somewhere in that course, probably in the ninth grade a course in Civics and elementary science should be added. The importance of Civics prop- erly taught for future citizens is obvious.
Organized as our schools are, it seems to me a system of departmental instruction in our grammar grades could be instituted to advantage. Each teacher usually has some particular subject that she excels in teaching. She usually prefers to teach that subject. I see no objection, rather many advantages, in the plan of having one teacher teach all the penmanship, another the reading, another the history, etc., in each grammar school.
HOW MANY OF THESE CONTINUE INTO THE HIGH SCHOOL?
Forty-nine of our High School pupils in the Freshman class are from outside towns, or from the Parochial School, therefore, by our records sub- mitted only one hundred and three or less than forty per cent of our own pupils enter our High School. In other words, four out of ten accept the splendid opportunities offered freely by High School instruction.
THE PROPORTION OF OUR PUPILS WHO HIGH SCHOOL
GRADUATE FROM THE
We graduate about one in six of those who enter the elementary schools. The function of the elementary schools it would seem has been to eliminate all who are not abstract minded as "unfit" to do advanced work. The High School receives therefore only the best third of the elementary school pupils,-those who are peculiarly fitted for High School work. It would be fair to assume therefore, that nearly all those who enter should graduate, yet we find that only one half of the number do so. We should divorce the public and the pupils from the idea that the High School is intended merely to prepare for College. Our courses should be such that any pupil below the age of eighteen can obtain instruction vital, inspiring and directly applicable to his life work.
THE RATIO OF THE NUMBER OF PUPILS ABOVE THE COMPULSORY AGE LIMIT TO THOSE BELOW IT
If a school seems useful to the child and his parents, the child does not leave school. It seems fair, therefore, to measure the success of a
25
SCHOOL COMMITTEE
system by the relative numbers who stay in school because they wish to, compared with those who are obliged to be in school by law.
The figures seem to indicate that about one sixth of our pupils drop Jut of school as soon as they are able legally to do so. This is too large and demands correction through grading pupils of similar age together if possible and by giving courses that by reason of their interest and utility will appeal to the pupils and parents. "The quantity and quality of output is the real measure of the efficiency of a school system." The meager preparation with which these children start on their life work is a sad commentary on our school system.
THE FLEXIBILITY OF THE PROMOTION INTERVAL
Our schools have the lock-step of the annual promotion system. The rigidity of our system is its worse fault. No course of study can be devised that will fit the widely varied capabilities of different children. Yet it is a rarity for a child to be allowed to progress in advance of his grade. This is benumbing to the individual and deadening to the schools. The pupils accelerated should approximate the number retarded. I would suggest semi-annual promotions, detached teachers to give a little extra drill to bridge the gap for bright as well as retarded pupils. If the average yearly cost of educating each pupil is $33 as figured by Committeeman Clarkson, we save that sum in dollars and cents to the system every time we acceler- ate a pupil, to say nothing of the advantage to the pupil. Teachers and indeed the public at large are so prone to worship the fetich of a course of study that we should recall occasionally the fact that the pupil forgets nine-tenths of what he learns, therefore, the only question is "Can he do the work in the advanced grades?"
THE MONEY WASTE OF UNNECESSARY NON-PROMOTION
Last year there were approximately 300 non-promotions. At $33 per pupil, this would represent an apparent money loss of $10,000 on the as- sumption that their school attendance terminated at a fixed grade rather than at a particular age limit.
Semi-annual promotions would reduce this loss one-half, and the in- cleased facility of accelerating pupils consequent upon this half yearly promotional system would bring about a considerably greater saving.
THE KIND AND AMOUNT OF HELP THE RETARDED CHILDREN ARE RECEIVING
In the Jackman School, Miss Kimball is in a measure detached and labors with the pupils who require extra help. In the other schools assis- tance of this sort seems to be largely casual and incidental. This should be extended to each Grammar School. Through the students
of the Training School it has been extended in a measure to the Primary schools and should be made general. For the really backward children, who not only do not advance but whose presence in a room demands extra atten- tion from the teacher thus hindering the progress of the normal children, 3, special room should be provided.
THE KIND AND AMOUNT OF HELP GIVEN TO NON-ENGLISH SPEAKING CHILDREN
Children who cannot speak English are put in the first grades. They
26
ANNUAL REPORTS
-
make undue demands on the time and attention of the teacher who should be fully occupied with the English speaking children.
The increasing number of these children will probably cause a special room to be set aside for them where they may be quickly trained to speak English and placed in the grades to which their age entitles them.
THE ATTENTION GIVEN TO THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH CREATION
AND RE-
This most important phase of school work has been largely ignored. No medical examination except in the case of illness has been given. Many of our buildings are wofully unhygienic. The little folks are cramped rig- idly for hours in non-adjustable desks, totally unsuited to them. Our Loors are unoiled,-an item involving an expense of only fifty cents per room, yet in consequence of this neglect the air in the rooms is filled with Fust from the dry boards. I have found no systematic drill in calisthenics. There is a rule that demands the presence of a proportion of the teachers on the school grounds at intermission, yet I cannot assert that its obser- vance is universal. The children's sports with the exception of one school is unsupervised and disorganised. Folk dancing is comparatively un-
known. £ The rooms are uniformly maintained at too high a temperature and no few attempts are made to moisten the dry, superheated air. Towels and soap are rarely found in our buildings. Hygiene is a subject required by law to be taught. We have a splendid series of text books on this sub- ject yet I find their use has been insufficiently emphasized. These things are largely the results of administrative inertia and to some extent, re- stricted play grounds. Their correction involves practically no expense. I have begun their correction and will continue until conditions are im- proved or I am halted by direct mandate of the Committee.
THE ABILITY OF THE PUPILS TO SPELL, WRITE, COMPUTE, COM- POSE AND TO REASON IN ARITHMETIC, GEOGRAPHY, HIS- TORY AND PRACTICAL SCIENCE AND ARTS.
Reading is the essential thing in the Primary schools. By the Aldine method it is quite well taught. Expression should be emphasized more. Writing is taught by a mongrel method and the results are not what they should be, if taught by a definite and tried system. Spelling has been sup- ervised carefully. Arithmetic is not uniform,-some teachers teach it splendidly, others accomplish little and apparently this difference is large- ly sectional. The facts of History and Geography are frequently well taught, but the practical value of these studies as a preparation for citizen- ship is lost in some schools where no attempt is made to reason from cause to effect and to apply to present day life the experiences and lessons of the past. During the coming year, I hope to apply some very definite tests to our arithmetic, spelling and writing at least determine approximately the efficiency of our instruction.
THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF THE COURSES OF STUDY JUDGED FROM THE STANDARD OF SOCIAL VALUES
The community is supporting at vast expense public education. It de- mands that the children shall be educated to become socially valuable citi- zens. Many things are taught here that progressive educators have large- ly abandoned. A large number of the facts taught in Geography, History, Grammar and many processes in Arithmetic are never used and are for-
27
SCHOOL COMMITTEE
gotten. We should aim at the development of skill and power. If they want facts they may be obtained ad libitum from the encyclopedia. By a study made of over two thousand letters of all kinds written by persons in all walks of life, Dr. Leonard Ayers has found only two thousand different words and five hundred and forty-two of these were used seven-eighths of the time. Why then drill on the seven or eight thousand words in many spellers? Is not the ability to write a legible, clearly expressed letter to read and appreciate a good book, to add, multiply, subtract and divide rap- idly and accurately, infinitely more important than any accumulation of mere facts? Is not the instruction of our girls in home-making and home- keeping, in the selection and preparation of foods on an economical and intelligent basis, in proper personal habits as to health etc., by a trained and capable women, infinitely more important than garnering mere facts so often emphasized?
DOES THE INSTRUCTION FUNCTION IN THE HOMES AND OUT OF SCHOOL LIVES OF THE PUPILS?
This topic seems to some extent to involve the preceding. The Home life and the School life should be more closely related. The Parent- Teacher organizations help this. Home gardening encouraged from the school would help. Cooking and sewing surely do and Manual Training would. Personal hygiene, if the instruction is worth anything at all, cer- iainly does its share.
VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR VOCATION
TRAINING.
The Commercial work in our High School is directly along this line. The Cooking and Sewing for the girls probably is, but outside of this nothing is done. Children have been encouraged to prepare for College. Our teachers have given too little thought to the probable future vocations of the children. Neglect of this may mar a bright future whereas a little advice and guidance may make a life happy, successful and useful.
THE DIVERSITY OF THE EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES TO MEET THE NATURALLY DIVERSE MINDS OF TWO THOUSAND CHILDREN
Our Elementary and Grammar grade pupils are held rigidly to one course of book-study. It is better adapted to girls than boys and be- sides it gives the girls training in sewing and cooking but gives the boys no manual work. Only the abstract minded pupils complete the course. In the High School there are several courses differing somewhat, but a lamentable dearth of practcial manual work for both sexes.
HIGH SCHOOL.
A Public High School should prepare the poor man's son to make a living as well as the rich man's son to go to college.
' "Every pupil graduating from a Massachusetts High School should be qualified through knowledge or skill that he has gained in his course to go out and earn his dinner." Marshall.
"I believe that every skill acquired by a child at school or a student in college brings with it an increased mental power, and that the time value of any prolonged education may be correctly estimated by the num- ber of skills the educated person has acquired, and by the strength of mental grip upon the subjects and objects through which the educated man
28
ANNUAL REPORTS
is enabled to earn his livelihood, and to exercise his various powers of en- Joyment." Charles W. Eliot.
There are not three R's in the School curriculum, there are four. The fourth is "Right Living."
Our High School should be the pre-eminent feature of our school
system. In it the Parochial and Public school pupils are united, and thus assuring strength and support from all sects. It is the High School not
merely for Newburyport, but the neighboring towns as well. Outside tuition and income from the Putnam and other funds of the school will total this year about six thousand five hundred dollars. The Wheelwright fund practically provides a college education to many of our graduates, and should have a very stimulating influence. These advantages with wise and broad minded foresight in the past should have given us an in- stitution today that would be a source of great pride to our citizens and added greatly to the educational prestige of our community.
Instead, today we find a school cramped and restricted by a totally inadequate building without a gymnasium and almost without an assembly ball and without any of the manual and little of the vocational training that marks the up-to-date High School of today.
A resolution was recently passed in the School Committee, but action on which was postponed for one year, that all out-of-town pupils be ex- cluded, thus depriving the town of the funds, the prestige and the com- mercial advantage that comes from their attendance, and the school of the magnificent stimulus and advantage given by the influx of bright young students from other towns. Cutting off these students would not reduce
It the running expenses of our High School to any appreciable extent. would relieve the over crowding for an extremely short interval, since in a short time our own pupils will far exceed the present enrollment, we shall have to build in any event and build without the outside tuition that would pay the interest on a $150,000 building. If we once exclude these pupils, their towns will build or make other provision for them and we can never regain their patronage.
By raising the compulsory period practically to the age of sixteen the State compels the attendance of many High School students. A student's time at that age has considerable market value. In justice to all students we should provide training adapted to the needs and capabilities of all. The abstract minded boy or girl can toil to advantage over the text book, but many persons learn almost wholly through the concrete and the prac- tical. Fully three-fourths of our High School girls will be home-makers and home-keepers, yet we compel their attendance at school and try to load them up with algebra, foreign languages without one atom of direct preparation for their actual life work, the rearing of a family and the up- building of a happy God fearing home.
By building a new Primary School building to accommodate the pu- pils in the Temple Street and Training Schools, we could use the lower floor of the Kelley building for the temporary relief of the congestion in the High School building. This is only temporary as I believe our High School building today should number eight hundred pupils and I venture to prophesy that within five years it will attain that number.
I feel a change should be made in the organization of the High School in order that each department may have a responsible head. Where three or four teachers are teaching practically the same subject, their work is
29
SCHOOL COMMITTEE
liable to lack proper co-ordination if there is not some responsible leader. The need of this is especially marked in the Commercial department. A decided improvement would follow the adoption of this suggestion.
I feel too, that in the High School and in the upper grammar grades the proportion of male teachers should be made as large as possible. Boys of this age chafe at purely feminine domination. It is questionable too if purely feminine instruction is best for the girls. One reason often given for manual training in the grades is that it usually brings a male instruct- or into the grades.
Anyone who understands boy nature or even girl nature realizes that athletics have a very important place in school life. Situated as New- buryport is, it seems to me the most practical way to secure proper devel- opment for the pupils is to employ a teacher in the High School who by taste and training is properly equipped to develop this side of school life. instruction in personal hygiene with drill as to carriage, breathing, etc., should be given. When we have a gymnasium connected with our High School these better things will be easily practicable.
There is a tendency to idleness, petty mischief and indifference no- ticeable among some of our High School pupils. This should not be tol- erated among pupils of High School age. The dietum of the Principal should be final in matters of discipline and a high standard of order and industry demanded of al, pupils. Unless this is done among pupils of High School age, the demoralization is always most marked and lamentable. If children learn nothing else in the elementary schools, they should learn to behave. High School education is expensive and willful misconduct should b punished at once by exclusion from the school.
FACTS THAT ARE SELF-EVIDENT.
1. We want good schools for our children now. The children in the schools today cannot wait five years until the city debt is paid as someone suggests. Half a generation of school children will have passed along in that time. It is as ridiculous as it would be for a parent to say he would buy food for his children after he had the mortgage on his house paid. School children should not be compelled to pay the city debt.
2. We must profit by the experience and judgement of others in educational matters. Let us apply this to manual arts and other subjects in the course. Whether the intelligent brain has developed the dexterous skillful hand or the dexterous nimble hand has developed the thinking brain to guide it is undecided. But in either case we can see the educa- tional importance of manual training.
3. We should not wait for the police power of the State to make us remodel our buildings. A man's humanity should be questioned who would force a little child into a school room that is either a menace to its health or a hindrance to its educational progress. The Italians call the primary schools the "houses of childhood." If ours are worthy this term they should equal in architecture, equipment and grounds the best homes of the community. The little children hold a first mortgage covering all our property, public and private, anyway. In a few years they will fore- close and come into possession. Surely it is not injustice but the most obvious justice that a liberal proportion of this future inheritance of our children should be spent on their present education. Education for life in their youth means far more than money for them in after life. School
30
ANNUAL REPORTS
buildings do not mean a money loss, they belong to the city. The farmer who borrows money to build a barn is not poorer by so doing. When we see what European nations are sacrificing for a useless war, we should not hesitate at any necessary expenditure for a cause like our children's wel- fare and education.
4. Inbreeding is an educational menace as well as a eugenic one. Newburyport has done harm to the home teachers as well as to the schools by not injecting more new blood into her teaching force. Her present policy continued for years as it has been, becomes almost educa- tional incest.
5. Commissioner Claxton says "The final justification of public tax- ation for public education lies in the training of young people for citizen- ship." Therefore, the school authorities cannot consistently train young people for citizenship unless they themselves obey the laws of the State.
These laws require:
1. An examination each year of each pupil by the school physician. This should be done and a card record kept of each child during its course.
2. The laws specifically require the teaching of thrift in our schools. This is specifically and efficiently done by the scheme of regular savings extended to each pupil. This can be worked out by a plan involv- ing little attention on the part of the teachers. This should be put in force at once.
6. The teachers following even approved methods in the same work year after year drop into ruts and their teaching becomes listless, mechan- ical and ineffcient. There should be periodically a complete change of methods and conditions. The teacher's self readjustment revitalizes his work and rejuvenates his teaching power.
7. Our schools represent a large investment of capital. They belong to the whole body of citizens. £ We use them for approximately six hours daily for half a year. If by using them for night schools with business and industrial courses of as social centers of any kind they benefit a lar- ger proportion of our citizenship, they should be so used. Our evening schools provide business and industrial courses to take our boys and girls from the streets and make them more economically efficient citizens.
8. Our public schools should be of such a standard that schools maintained by private charity cannot compete with them in efficiency or popularity. Yet we find that one fourth our children are enrolled in the Parochial and private schools of the city. We have no objection to these schools, yet our public schools should be so good that public patronage will naturally gravitate to them.
9. A system proven hurtful and inefficient should be discontinued. It is illogical and wholly impracticable to try to have a School Committee administer the schools when another body of men wholly alien and apart have charge of the buildings. It involves a constant predicament, at once ridiculous, exasperating, wasteful and dangerous. It should be abolished without delay. This same statement applies to the control of health con- ditions in schools by the city Board of Health.
10. Newburyport maintains a system, of schools at about the lowest per capita cost for each child of school age of any city in the Common- wealth. This year we expended $57,000 in schools. Our income from tuition etc., this year will be about $6,500. This leaves less than $51,000 for educating approximately 3000 children. That makes the cost per child attending all kinds of schools in the town about seventeen dollars,
31
SCHOOL COMMITTEE
or just half the average cost of education in the state of Massachusetts. This year miscellaneous items including administration, transportation, books, paper, pencils, drawing supplies, domestic science supplies, sup- plies of all kinds for the High School cost us less than one cent per day per capita. In the matter of books and supplies our constant inqiury is "Is there any waste?" If there is none, pupils should not be denied these things, any more than they should be denied food which they can consume and assimelate.
11. In this day of educational inquiry and phenomenal advancement in methods of teaching and in management of schools, every efficient, live teacher must be a student of the profession. The influence of our de- partment particularly should be directed toward stimulating professional study and advancement among our teachers.
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