USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Quincy > Inaugural address of the mayor, with the annual report of the officers of the city of Quincy for the year 1901 > Part 17
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There are classics for children as well as for grown persons. The nursery rhymes, fairy tales, fables, myths, folk- stories, stories of adventure and heroism, which have come down through the ages to gladden the hearts of children, should be allowed to continue their natural and wholesome work. The school reading, especially oral reading, should be largely the literature of imagination, of feeling, of power, because it is best suited to the minds of the children and affords the best means of developing expressive reading. Science and information readers, textbooks in history and geography have never been satisfactory reading books.
Some children are fortunate enough to find in their homes an abundance of suitable mental pabulum but many of them find there nothing outside of the newspaper and some'not even that. Not being allowed to take books from the public library before the seventh grade, a large number of children find their only appropriate reading matter in the schools. It is therefore very important that this supply be both well adapted to. their needs and large enough to give variety and freshness, not only for oral but for silent reading And it is much more desirable to lend the pupils good books for home reading than to assign home lessons in other subjects. The boy or girl who likes to read and likes good books is safe from the invidious, corrupt and enervating influence of literary trash and filth.
A few children read too much and in a very superficial manner. Reading with them is a dissipation. They skim through a book just to intoxicate their passive minds. Reading in the right way requires an active mind. One needs to think, to construct scenes, to recall experiences, to challenge state- ments, to examine motives, to weigh arguments, to judge of conduct and to accept or reject conclusions. The schools
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; should try to teach children how to read a book so as to get most pleasure and benefit from it. It is by no means true that the greatest reader profits most from reading.
Having taught the mechanics of reading, established the habit of reading, developed a taste for good literature and trained the child in right reading habits, there remains one thing more and that is to introduce him to books-to the public library.
Every public library should have one room on whose walls are shelves well stocked with children's books, selected by those who not only know good literature but know children as well, and to this room the children should have free access. In such a room a child may become acquainted with books by looking at them in the long rows upon the shelves, by taking them down, handling them, reading their title pages, glancing at the pictures, reading here and there, and foraging among them until one is found which satisfies his taste. How can a child ยท ever become really acquainted with books by looking through a catalog, selecting a book by guess and having it handed to him over an impassible barrier, only to find on examination that it is not at all what he desired or expected ? With a cata- log a child is as helpless in selecting satisfactory books as is a rustic in ordering a dinner from a modern bill of fare. If each could only see and but taste, he could select what would please him and satisfy his appetite. But some one objects that books would be injured or lost. Better injure and lose books than injure children and lose readers. The experience of those libraries which provide such a room does not substantiate this objection, however, for they find the loss very slight and the injury only from greater use.
The reading as arranged for the first six grades is as follows :
FIRST GRADE : Cyr's Primer ; Blaisdell's Child Life-A Primer ; Cyr's First Reader; Blaisdell's Child Life-A First Reader ; Beckwith's In Mythland; Hiawatha Primer ; Welsh's Mother Goose-Nursery Rhymes ; O'Shea's Six Nursery Clas- sics ; Norton's Heart of Oak Books, Book One.
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SECOND GRADE : Hiawatha Primer ; Cyr's Second Reader ; Blaisdell's Child Life-A Second Reader; Carroll's Around the World, First Book ; O'Shea's Perrault's The Tales of Mother Goose ; Baldwin's Fairy Stories and Fables; O'Shea's Old Eng- lish Wonder Stories; Scudder's Fables and Folk Stories ;. Cooke's Nature Myths.
THIRD GRADE : Cyr's Third Reader ; Blaisdell's Child. Life-A Third Reader ; Hans Andersen ; Baldwin's Old Greek Stories ; Shaw's Big People and Little People of Other Lands ; Pratt's Stories of Colonial Children ; Andrew's Seven Little Sisters ; Eggleston's Stories of Great Americans; Carroll's- Around the World; Second Book; Grimm's House-hold Tales.
FOURTH GRADE : Burt's Herakles ; Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha ; Baldwin's Fifty Famous Stories Retold ; Kupfer's- Stories of Long Ago ; Shaw's Discoverers and Explorers; An- drews' Ten Boys; Holbrook's Round the Year in Myth and Song; Ruskin's The King of the Golden River; Eggleston's- Stories of American Life and Adventure; Carroll's Alice in Wonderland ; Ewing's Jackanapes.
FIFTH GRADE : Burt's Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca ; Swift's Gulliver's Travels ; Bradish's Old Norse Stories ; Scudder's The Book of Legends; Mowry's First Steps in the History of Our Country ; Hawthorne's The Wonder Book; Clarke's Arabian Nights ; Whittier's Child Life in Prose and Poetry ; Carroll's Through the Looking Glass; Schwatka's The Children of the Cold.
SIXTH GRADE : Church's The Story of the Iliad ; Guerber's Story of the Greeks; Longfellow's Children's Hour and Other Stories ; Guerber's Story of the English ; Hawthorne's The Tanglewood Tales ; and Grandfather's Chair; Craik's The Lit- tle Lame Prince ; Guerber's Stories of the Thirteen Colonies ..
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Spelling.
Another subject to which considerable attention has been given during the year is spelling. In recent years this has been the most neglected subject of the curriculum. In many places the spelling book has been banished from the schools as a use- less if not a harmful thing. The pupils were expected to learn to spell incidentally-by mental absorption. The results have not been quite as predicted. It has been found that many pupils who have incidentally learned to spell are apt to spell incidentally, simply because their mental pores and lymphatics are not adapted to that method. Some strongly eye-minded children will spell very well without giving any special attention to the matter but with many, spelling is an art acquired with dif- ficulty. Their spelling is mechanical and, like everything mechanical, is perfected only by careful attention and much practice. One may say spelling is of little educational impor- tance, yet no one forgives a poor speller. A speaker may make mistakes in pronunciation or even in grammar and be pardoned, but let him in writing misspell a word and there is no escape from the charge of illiteracy. Some years ago during a heated presidential campaign one of the leading candidates was actually accused of the crime of having misspelled a word. Few, how- ever, would regard spelling as an adequate test of one's educa- tion, although it is too important to be neglected by the schools.
To give incidental attention to important words wherever found is well but not enough. There should be a special daily exercise in which the pupils give careful attention to the form, pronunciation and meaning of a few new words; and, in the upper grades, to prefixes, suffixes and derivation. Every new word added to the child's vocabulary is the key to new thoughts. The work in spelling should be more than learning the correct arrangement of letters in words. It should be an elementary word study for the purpose of making clear and definite the words the child has already acquired and of adding new words to his vocabulary.
It has been the custom for the teacher to select for spelling, words from the reading lesson or from the textbook in geog-
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raphy or history. This practice as a supplementary exercise, especially for the spelling of proper names, may be valuable ; but, if the only instruction in spelling, it is open to criticism. The vocabulary is not broad enough-many common words are entirely omitted. The teacher selects words that are in his or her vocabulary, and teachers' vocabularies differ widely. The country bred has one, the city bred another; those from poor homes one, those reared under more favorable conditions another; men one, women still another. Not only are many important words entirely omitted but the teacher above, not knowing the words taught in the grades below, duplicates many of them so that the same words not infrequently keep reappear- ing in the spelling lists. Again, time is wasted upon derived forms when the child is familiar with the simple form. If the pupil is master of accept, for instance, there is no need so far as the spelling is concerned of giving him accepts, accepting, accepted, acceptable, acceptor, acceptation, acceptance, unaccept- ed, etc., to the number of thirty or more, for he already has the key to the whole list. Thus it appears that the first thing needed in the teaching of this subject is a carefully selected and suitably graded list of words, for no one would attempt to teach all the words of our language. This list should consist of a few thousand of the commonest English words in their simplest form, except in those cases where a derived form is in more general use. Such a list upon which much time and care had been spent and which had been tested by actual use for several . years was unanimously adopted by your Board, and ordered printed. It has been published in convenient form under the name of The Quincy Word List, and supplied to all the elemen- tary schools. In this list no word appears twice, so the pupils make new acquisitions each week. They master about eight hundred words a year, which means about six thousand at the end of the grammar school course. But as these are chiefly " key words," they should have command of about twenty thousand forms.
As I see it, the order of steps in teaching and learning to spell new words is as follow : First, the form : present the word without division into syllables and without diacritical marks to
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the eye. A correct visual image is the beginning of correct spelling. Marks and division into syllables change the form or appearance of the word and just so far render the visual image defective.
The second is the correct pronunciation of the word. If necessary, it may be presented upon the blackboard properly divided and marked but should be erased as soon as the pupils are sure of the pronunciation. One does not know a word until he recognizes it in its usual form and can pronounce it correctly without the aid of divisions or marks. In the use of words, whether in speaking, reading or writing, one has no such aids. Therefore, he should master the pronunciation as completely as the spelling. There should be pronouncing tests, using the words which have been taught. The third step is the meaning of the word which should be clearly in the mind of the pupil before he attempts to spell it. The form and meaning should be associated constantly. From the fifth grade up, not only the commonest meanings should be brought out but the pupils should be led to discover synonyms and antonyms, care being taken to show the shades of difference between synonymous words. The meaning of a word is made more definite not only by comparing it with words of similar meaning but also by comparing it with those of opposite meaning. Too much in this line must not be attempted at first but much can be accom- plished in the highest grades. Such work promotes clear think- ing and the accurate use of words.
The fourth step is to call attention to the arrangement of letters, if there is anything peculiar or likely to be troublesome ; otherwise say nothing about the arrangement. The last step is practice in using the word both orally and in writing with the meaning in mind. It is better to use it in sentences than alone and better for the pupil to compose the sentences than for the teacher to dictate them.
Usually too many words are assigned for a lesson. It has been our custom on Monday to write neatly and clearly upon the blackboard in front of the class twenty words in groups of five and to teach the first five. On Tuesday these are dictated to the class for spelling and the next five are taught and so on
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through the week. On the next Monday the twenty words of the preceding week are reviewed and twenty new words placed on the board. By this method the words are before the eyes of the pupils a week-long enough to make their forms familiar.
The recitation in spelling is conducted in various ways- sometimes the teacher dictates the words and the pupils write them as a test. Again, the teacher dictates the words and the. pupils write sentences involving the correct use of the words. At another time, the teacher may dictate sentences involving. the correct use of the words while the pupils write them. In the upper grades after some instruction in prefixes and suffixes, the teacher is at liberty to dictate derivatives instead of the words in the lesson.
The benefits of oral spelling are not generally appreciated. It is freely granted that the only use of spelling in practical life is in writing, but in learning to spell the ear-minded child is greatly helped by oral spelling. It also affords a good drill in clear enunciation and correct pronunciation. Every few weeks there should be a review of at least the most difficult words taught during the year, and "a good old-fashioned " spelling match is well adapted to that purpose. It also arouses a real interest in spelling. Two rules should always be observed in connection with it, however, -notice of the words to be used should be given several days in advance, and, during the match, no pupil should be allowed a second trial if he misses the first time. There should be no guessing. In the lower grades oral spelling should predominate.
Manual Training.
Although this subject has been mentioned in previous reports its importance justifies me in again placing it before you at some length. Manual training is no fad. It is older than schools and books. From the time when primitive man began to invent useful implements and to work to express his thoughts in material form he has been building up his brain and educat- ing himself through manual effort. To be sure the name applied
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to such effort has changed but the natural laws involved have not changed, and the benefits received in the form of new ideas, clearer thought, greater skill, a better brain, a nearer mastery of one's powers, a juster estimate of one's worth and a wiser use of one's energies, have ever been characteristic results. Few educational subjects are less understood, or more generally misunderstood, than manual training. It is not mere hand training. No subject taught trains the mind in a better way nor to a higher degree. The hand is not alone but mind and hand constantly cooperate. Manaal training as a method of education is far superior to the purely academic subjects, for it " puts the whole child to school"-mind, brain and body.
The leading biologists, psychologists and educators the world over are practically unanimous in the opinion that manual training of some kind is absolutely essential to the com- plete development of a child. Such development can never be secured by books alone.
The first argument for manual training is found in the physical organization of the child, especially in the central nervous system. The human brain is divided into two main parts-right and left hemispheres-each through nerves being connected with and controlling the opposite side of the body. The most important elements of the brain mass are brain cells and nerve fibers, the fibers being outgrowths from the cells. The functions of the cells are to generate or modify nerve energy and of the fibers to conduct that energy to or from the cells. There are three principal classes of nerves-those con- necting the various sense organs of the body with brain cells, those connecting cells in different parts of the brain and those connecting the brain cells with various muscles and glands of the body. The cells in different parts of the brain differ widely in form and function. Those in one part, when active, produce in the mind the sensation of sight ; those in another part, hearing ; in another part, smell ; and so on with all the other sen- sations. Now the cells over a considerable area of both hemi- spheres of the brain are motor cells, that is they control the myriad muscular movements of the body-of trunk, limbs,
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hands, face and vocal organs. Every voluntary movement is caused by the discharge of nerve-energy from some of these cells through the motor nerves which lead to the muscles involved. Each cell in the motor area of the brain does not control all the muscles, however. One group of motor cells controls the muscles of the leg, another those of the arm, another those of the lower part of the face and so on-for the eyes, vocal organs and other parts of the body. Although by no means the only parts of the brain called into exercise by manual training, these motor areas are the ones directly affected. Every con- scious mental action or state is the result of the discharge of nerve-energy along the fibers and through the cells of the brain and the character of that result depends upon what cells are involved. At birth a child has as many brain cells as he ever will have but comparatively few of them are developed. Most of them are unorganized, without fibers and incapable of perform- ing their functions. Before they can fully perform their work the cell-bodies must change greatly, must send out fibers and generally the fibers must become covered with a medullary sheath. It is only through much appropriate brain exercise that these changes come about and the cells become completely functioned. The mentality of a person depends directly upon the number of well organized or functioned cells in his brain, not upon the brain mass. The better the organization of a cell the larger the number of its branching fibers and the greater the numbers of its connections with other cells.
Again, it is found that this development must come during the period of brain growth. That period having passed the " old dog " learns " new tricks" only with the greatest difficulty and then with defective skill. Moreover, the nascent period is not the same for all cells, it being in early childhood for some while for others it is late in youth or even beyond. For instance, the motor cells controlling the large trunk muscles develop early, then follow those from the shoulder and thigh, then those of the upper arm and leg and lastly those of the hand and fingers. This accounts for the awkward movements of children when the finer accessory muscles are involved and is
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sufficent proof of the unwisdom of giving young pupils school work requiring much use of these muscles. Premature training always results in a defective development. One needs only to study carefully the human central nervous system to be con- vinced that some of the usual kindergarten and school work is ill-timed and that the importance of sense and motor training is not generally appreciated.
Education in its last analysis is the modification or develop- ment of the nerve-centers. But those centers can be developed only by means of appropriate exercise and the exercise required by each center is different from that of every other. One can never be well educated by means of books alone. Words can not take the place of things. Sense and motor ideas are funda- mental. The elements of all thought and all knowledge how- ever profound or sublime are sensations present or remem- bered. But sensations whether from the special senses or muscu- lar tension are mental products due to the discharge of nerve- energy through the sense of motor areas, of the brain, and what one will get from books depends upon his stock of elementary' ideas gathered from actual experience. That knowledge is most definite which has worked its way into the mind through the activity of the senses and the muscles, and that thought is clearest which has been embodied by the thinker in some material expression. A variety of means is needed for the complete education of the child. He needs play, games, manual training and work to give the proper motor de- velopment and an adequate stock of motor ideas. Men of force, of affairs, of executive ability are always men whose motor de- velopment was not neglected. To move is not enough. Move- ments must be measured, coordinated and controlled. Muscular strength, activity, accuracy and endurance are the results of right motor training. The fountain head of all motor strength and efficiency is the brain, and, if one is to secure his highest possible motor development and skill, the motor areas of his brain, and through them, his whole muscular system must be trained by means of appropriate exercises during his growing years. Therefore manual training is especially important in.
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the elementary schools during the years of most rapid growth and development, and the period when accessible to the largest nun:ber of pupils. The common mistake of the past has been in providing it for the high school pupils alone.
Whether we ever heard of manual training in our school days or not most of us received a very thorough course in it on the old farm, in the shop, or elsewhere. Then we did not think of it as having anything to do with our education but now we see it had much to do with it. To-day manual training is needed to supplement the regular academic work, just as the farm, shop or household duties were needed to supplement the meager training of the country school.
Great as are the physical benefits they are only a small part of the benefits of manual training. It is as truly educa- tional as the purely mental training because it calls into. exer- cise all the intellectual powers and requires the application of principles in planning and making something by logical and well chosen processes. All conscious movements not only orig- inate in the mind but yield mental products which in turn be- come the guides of subsequent movements. As motor ideas and perceptions become more clear and accurate, movements become more easy and exact. Shut out of the mind motor ideas and you exclude a whole field of thought and consequently impor- erish all thought involving such ideas. Thus it appears that the poor man's son is no more in need of manual training than the rich men's son, nor the boy who is to be a mechanic more than the boy who is to follow a profession. Manual training is not designed to teach a trade but to give the child a better de- velopment of mind as well as of hand and so better it him for any trade, business or profession. If it be of the right kind, the doctor, lawyer or statesman will be no less benefited than the carpenter or cabinet-maker.
As might be expected manual training reacts most favor- ably upon the other school work. Pupils who spend from two to six hours a week upon this subject find no difficulty in main- taining their usual standing in their other studies and often there is a decided improvement in those studies. It gives the
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pupils an opportunity to apply some of their knowledge before leaving school and to learn the important fact that education actually has some relation to practical life. Nothing will awaken the child's mind more quickly or stimulate him to his best effort more surely than for him to see that he is really do- ing something worth doing. In much of the school work the child's interest and effort lag because he cannot see any use in it all. But in manual training he has in mind a definite, concrete, useful thing to make, and, finding use for arithmetic, drawing, science and other knowledge he applies himself to his books with new interest and increasing success. This mental awaken- ing also reacts in a most healthful way upon the body. The body is more alive. His physical condition is actually changed for the better. It is not unusual to find the general health of the pupil improving from the time he begins regular and syste- matic manual training. He is more active, more careful, more diligent and more contented with school life. That pupils hav- ing the advantages of manual training do more and better work in the same time, deport themselves more satisfactorily, attend more regularly, remain in school longer and have a better phys- ical appearance, is almost the invariable testimony of their teachers.
The effect of manual training upon conduct and character is always favorable. Surplus energy finds a legitimite mode of escape. Results have to be considered before action, otherwise the learner's folly appears against him in material form. Thus he is taught to look ahead and to be more thoughtful. A cred- itable piece of work likewise displays the qualities the worker has put into it and is a source of real pride and satifsaction to him. The boy respects himself and self-respect inspires right conduct. Careful planning, exact measurements and accurate work produce matched parts, tight joints and correct results, which impress upon the boy the importante and the habit of carefulness, patience and accuracy. The moral force of all this is always toward truthfulness, honesty and justice. Of course I do not mean to claim that manual training will make all boys industrious, honest and noble ; only that its influence is in iliit
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