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 1902 > Part 16
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The large number of pupils at the High School makes an increase of accommodations a necessity. Both old and new buildings are filled and unless immediate steps in this direction are taken many pupils will be obliged to attend other schools. The High School building might readily be altered, and plans have already been prepared which if adopted would meet the demands for a few years at least.
In the Lincoln district, after sending the overflow to the Adams and Hancock schools until all buildings have become filled to above the normal capacity it has become necessary to. hire outside rooms.
The Coddington school buildings still retain the interest of students of architecture as an almost pure example of the up to date school house of fifty years ago. It has yielded a little to the insistence of the law and has received a fire escape upon
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compulsion, and the main building has been provided with modern sanitaries in place of the out-buildings which were in use for so many years. In other respects it is the school house of our fathers and grandfathers. Its fuel bills are smaller than those of any other school except the Washington, because it is inadequately heated by stoves. Its ventilation is main- tained as well as may be by direct drafts from doors and windows. It is the only school house in the city which still maintains a basement school room. The School Board desires to call the attention of the citizens to the need of a new and modern building for this district.
After many delays, work on the new Washington school has begun. This is a just source of satisfaction to the residents of Ward Two, as the old building is in every way unsuited to the work it is forced to do, and the new building of a most modern type and built after the general plan of all Quincy's latest schools, cannot fail to give great satisfaction to all our citizens who have a feeling of pride in their city.
The Quincy school is another building that has largely out- grown its usefulness. In the midst of a section fast growing, it is now crowded to the doors and two rooms in the Poland Block at Norfolk Downs are occupied, while children properly in the district attend the Massachusetts Fields school. The Quincy school, together with the Coddington, would undoubtedly receive the condemnation of the State Inspectors, as unsanitary and unfit for use as school houses, should their attention be directed toward them. Each room is filled beyond its legal capacity, each teacher is laboring with great difficulty to main- tain proper ventilation and the building is in such need of re- pair that although the heating plant is in every way ample for a building of eight rooms, and is handled with great skill by the janitor, he keeping the boilers at the maximum pressure whenever the weather demands it, yet in severe days every means to keep the cold out is taken advantage of, even to the drawing of the curtains to exclude drafts that come in all the exposed windows.
The school lot has suffered greatly because of the large
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amount of gravel taken from the north and west sides and its condition is such as to require a retaining wall which would mean great additional expense.
The School Committee has recommended a ten room build- ing to be erected in the Quincy district and it is hoped that it will soon be in process of construction. The growth of the school population of the city has been phenominal and a glance into the future suffices to show that the growth in the next five years will be proportionately greater. The opening of new building lands, the establishing of great industries and the natural growth of the city, present a most remarkable outlook. Increase of population affects no department of the city government so greatly as it does the School Department.
In the hands of our Superintendent, Mr. Frank E. Parlin, the educational and business welfare of the schools has been cared for in the best possible manner. An inspection of our schools or an examination of our books will show the minute care and power of supervision he has exercised, and to him we extend our heartiest congratulations and thanks for his work so well done.
The above report was presented by a special committee consisting of Messrs. Peirce, Dion and Churchill and was adopted as the annual report of the School Committee, Tuesday, December thirtieth, 1902.
FRANK E. PARLIN, Secretary.
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Report of the Superintendent
To the School Committee of Quincy :
I have the honor to submit herewith my third annual re- port which is the twenty-eighth in the series of annual reports by the Superintendent of public schools and the fifty-third of the printed reports of the Quincy School Board.
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The Physical Side of Education
Education as conceived in the public mind has to do only with books and study-with the training of the intellect-and, although the physical side of education is much talked about in professional circles, it would be difficult to find a system of schools in which the physical side receives due consideration and is adequately guarded against the assumptions of the intel- lectual side ; in which bodily needs and a healthful development do not constantly suffer from over emphasis upon the mere mastery of recorded knowledge ; and in which the dependence of mental vigor, of business success, of social enjoyment and of civic and moral usefulness upon sound health, is fully recognized in practice.
It can hardly be amiss for this Board to consider seriously at this time some of the claims of the physical side and to give its careful attention to some phases of the question as they ap-
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pear in our own city, bearing in mind the condition of several of the school buildings and the over-crowding in many of the rooms. To argue that similar conditions exist elsewhere or that they have always been so does not improve those condi- tion in the least nor make them less harmful in their effects. Unfavorable circumstances may render it necessary to continue a bad practice but the continuance will never transform its bad elements into good ones. No ill-advised revolution is desired, but a careful consideration and the application of well chosen remedies.
In the first place, the practice of hurrying children off to school as soon as they are five years of age is an unwise one in the opinion of the most competent,-of educators and physicians who have most carefully studied the question. A child develops during the first six years of his life more naturally, more sym- metrically, more healthfully and more rapidly, at play in the sunlight and open air than when confined for four or five hours a day in a school room. At this age his physical life is pre- dominant and it is only through the activity of his senses and his body that his awakening mind can best be stimulated and nourished. Ilis business is to investigate and become acquainted with his surroundings, not to gather ideas from books. He should devote his time to the things themselves not to their symbols. He should be given all his time to develop and or- ganize his nervous system, to learn a thousand facts about the material world and to gather a large stock of elementary ideas, without which be is unprepared to appreciate or even to under- stand the instruction at school. His days should be given to free play in which sensation, imagination, thought and action fol- low in natural sequence, in which mind and body constantly co- operate in well-balanced effort and in which the right powers re -- ceive appropriate exercise and none are prematurely employed or overtaxed. The school at best subjects the child to unnatural con- ditions and while it may teach the five-year-old to read, write and count, it does not provide the free, spontaneous exercise best, adapted to his unfolding faculties. Why should not the child be allowed the God given right to grow ? Is it true that he is-
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being educated only when confined in a school room where most of the time he must be quiet and not even talk aloud ? His whole nature is impelling him to speech and to action. Has it. been demonstrated that simply because a child can learn a thing he should immediately be taught that thing ? On the contrary it has been demonstrated that even his physical powers may be permanently dwarfed by too much exercise or too early training. But does not the five-year-old child like to go to school and does not that prove his fitness for the work ? The child likes the school chiefly because his playmates are there. Send them out of doors and his heart goes with them and he will have nothing more to do with reading, writing or busy work. It is the companionship of his little friends and the imitative instinct that makes the school interesting to him. Even with this stimulus in addition to the arts of good teaching one-fourth are unable to master in a year the meager work of the first grade. The teachers labor faithfully and with un- wearying pains but the undeveloped little brains cannot take it in. To my mind, it is little short of cruel to keep these chil- dren in school, for I believe they are permanently injured by this premature training. Had I a young child for whose edu- cation I was personally responsible, he would not go to school with my consent before the age of seven, and I should fully expect him at the age of fourteen to be much better developed and much better educated than if he entered at the age of five. In no other section of this country do children enter school as young as in New England. In most parts they will not be re- ceived, except into the kindergarten, before the age of six. But here we are often urged to take them under five. In this State our legislators have been wiser than our practice, by not requir- ing attendance before the age of seven. I believe most decidedly in education but never at the expense of the health or the com- plete physical development of children. The conditions of human life are such that no amount of schooling will compensate one for the tremendous handicap of feeble health and a weak constitution-for undeveloped muscles, weak lungs, poor diges -- tion, or unsteady nerves. The first six years of a child's life
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should be given to laying the physical foundations of education. Nature will be his best teacher for she will not only develop his physical powers and strengthen his vital functions, but, through the processes of that development, teach him a thousand valuable things he would never learn in the school room.
But, if parents persist in sending their five-year-olds to school, the daily session for these children should certainly be shortened. One session of two hours a day is enough. The average number of pupils enrolled in the first grade rooms of this city is fifty-two and in the second grade rooms forty-eight. It would be much more in harmony with the physical and edu- cational welfare of these children, to divide each of these classes into two equal sections and have one section attend the morning session and the other the afternoon session. This ar- rangement has been tried repeatedly with excellent results, the health of the pupils being better and the progress in school work being quite as rapid. By one familiar with the conditions which necessarily prevail in a large primary school these results are just what should reasonably be expected. The teacher can not work to advantage with more than fifteen pupils at one time, so from two-thirds to three-fourths of the class must con- stantly be left to busy themselves. Thus during the entire session the teacher is able to give no single group of children more than thirty minutes of her time, beyond that, each child is one of the large majority which must wander without a Moses in the educational wilderness. These children can do little without the immediate guidance of the teacher. Not being able to study they are given so-called busy work,-various devices for keeping pupils reasonably quiet, but, as generally used, of questionable value. The children soon weary of it and are fa- tigued by the confinement and inaction, for nothing tires a healthy child more than inaction. How much better it would be for all concerned if half of these children could come in the morning to receive the undivided attention of the teacher for two hours, then be set free for play during the remainder of the day ; and the rest, who have spent the morning in the sun- light and open air, could come fresh and attentive to enjoy
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equal advantages for two hours in the afternoon. The teacher would be saved the severe strain and exhaustion of caring for an unreasonably large number and of teaching in an over crowded room, and the pupils would receive just as much indi- vidual instruction under far more favorable conditions besides receiving the benefits of several more hours each day of free play out of doors. If the primary school must perform the function of a public nursery, then two teachers should be em- ployed for each large class, each teacher having charge of half the class. During the morning one teacher should instruct her section in the school room and the other instruct hers in games and observations out of doors. During the afternoon the sec- tions should change places. For stormy weather a large unfur- nished room should be provided for the out door section. These. suggestions offer a solution of the problem of over crowding in. our primary schools.
Again, the custom of having no recess in the elementary schools above the second grade and of having gymnastics for five or ten minutes at the middle of each session may, for very good reasons, be seriously questioned. At the time the out of door recess was abolished much less was known about children and the effects of long continued study without relaxation than is. known to-day, and much greater benefits were expected from gymnastics than have been realized. It would be very difficult to find an educator or physician who, having carefully investi- gated the questions of brain fatigue, the effects of prolonged study and attention without rest, and the mental side of gymnas- tics, would approve the present practice. In our zeal for edu- cation we are apt to lose sight of its physical side and to count. as lost every moment not given to books and recitations. By continuing intellectual exercises too long, by failing to provide frequent periods of rest for the brain and suitable relaxation for the attention, we needlessly fatigue the pupils and actually diminish their intellectual force and ability to learn. The brain is by no means the only important organ involved in education. The stomach, heart and lungs demand more considerate atten- tion than they receive, for upon them is the brain entirely de-
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pendent for the energy consumed in the performance of its functions. Not only muscular strength but memory, thought and volition are indirectly but nevertheless absolutely dependent upon digestion, circulation and respiration. Therefore, he who would promote not only life but education must not disregard or weaken these fundamental vital processes. No mental func- tion more severely taxes the brain than the exercise of the will ; but the will is involved in every act of voluntary attention whether it be in listening to the instruction of the teacher, in preparing a prescribed lesson or, in inhibiting forbidden action. The attention is the one mental act involved in all school exer- cises-the one constantly demanded. But in gymnastics there is no relief. If anything, the demand upon the will is more ex- acting because both body and mind are under command of strict attention. There is no freedom or spontaneity because the will must respond promptly to the orders given by the teacher. Al- though relief is provided for some muscles which have been re- laxed or cramped while sitting, there is no relief for the brain and voluntary attention ; and the mental fatigue at the close of the gymnastic exercises is greater than at the beginning. Thus certain parts of the brain are kept in almost constant action for two or three hours at a time. This action requires a large sup- ply of blood to those parts of the brain. The delicate blood vessels are distended, and, if the congestion continues repeated- ly too long, they lose some of their elasticity and the conges- tion becomes more or less permanent producing functional weak- ness. Even if this weakness never manifests itself in any pain- ful manner, every argument is against extremes in the ex- ercise of any part of the brain or of any mental function. The moment any educational practice tends to weaken instead of to strengthen an organ or function it becomes, at least so far, a bad practice. During study the brain requires a large quantity of blood not only to provide new material for building up wasted tissues but to remove the waste products, so the supply to other organs and parts of the body is diminished. If the flow to the head be continued too long, not only does the brain suffer from the congestion but the other organs suffer from insufficient sup-
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ply. At frequent intervals the circulation should be allowed to ·equalize itself, and exercises should be introduced which will withdraw the blood from the congested parts and send it in larger quantities to the extremities of the body. For this pur- pose nothing is equal to free and vigorous play in the open air. If the blood is to be rich in materials for building up exhausted and broken down tissues, there must be an adequate supply of nutritious food and the processes of digestion must not be checked. But rich blood is not enough. If it is to carry life to the tissues, it must throw off a part of the burden of waste pro- ducts and be well oxygenated by passing through the lungs filled with pure air. If the tissues are to be relieved of their waste matter and are to be renewed, the blood must flow in ample quantities to them. These processes are fundamental to human life and no school practice should too much interfere with them. Study, especially in the positions usually assumed by pupils at their desks, tends to interfere with digestion and res- piration, to reduce the rate of circulation and to cause large quan- tities of blood to flow to the head. Active voluntary physical exercise not only quickens and equalizes the circulation but stimulates the various secretory and excretory organs to a healthful performance of their functions. The digestive fluids flow more abundantly, the skin and lungs do their part in eliminating waste products and the kidneys are not over taxed. The trouble with gymnastics is that they give no relief to the mind and brain at the very points where relief is most needed." Upon the mental as well as the physical side there is a wide dif- ference between the effects of instinctive, spontaneous play out of doors and those of gymnastics performed under orders in the school room. For school children the best form of physical exercise is free, spontaneous play in the open air. To confine children for two or three hours at a time and require them to be quiet and attentive to study, especially in poorly ventilated rooms, seems to me a sin against childhood and health. If the pupils were given fifteen minutes upon the play ground each session, they would accomplish more in their studies every week than they now do. The results of a school exercise cannot be measured by the time
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spent upon it, but by the interest and intensity with which it is performed. A fresh, attentive, wide-awake class will learn more in fifteen minutes than " "a tired, inattentive, listless class will accomplish in an hour. After each period of work there should also be a few moments of relaxation-of freedom to talk and quietly move about. To secure the full benefits of an out door recess and to avoid possible evils, teachers should go to the play ground with the pupils and join in the games. All would return to the school room refreshed. Of course all the teachers could not go out at each recess as some would be needed for various duties in the building, but they could take turns. Although some would be opposed to an out-of-door recess at first, it would not be long before most teachers seeing the benefits to the children and to themselves would heartily approve the change.
The next matter on the physical side of education which should receive more attention is that of the sight and hearing of pupils. A careful examination of the eyes of over 200,000 per- sons shows that the eyes of nearly all children are normal on entering school, but before completing the elementary course about one-fourth have become nearsighted or otherwise defect- ive. The raw material of all knowledge comes to the mind through the senses and they are the only channels through which the world in all its myriad manifestations of form, action or beauty can be known. Touch, sight and hearing render royal service to the soul. But if they be defective, the service they render, the ideas gathered through them and all knowledge in- volving those ideas, are also defective. Hence the importance of testing the sight and hearing of pupils on entering school and. at regular intervals for several years thereafter. With very little apparatus the preliminary tests can be made by the prin- cipals. By the preliminary examination those cases needing ex- pert examination and treatment will be discovered. Such cases should be reported to the children's parents who should at once consult professional skill. By correcting defects when they ap- pear and by giving a little careful attention to conditions of work, not only are the children greatly assisted on the road to-
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education but are frequently saved from lasting injury to sight. and hearing. At least in the assignment of seats the conditions may be made more favorable for the unfortunate. Much of the so called dullness of pupils is directly due to defective senses, suitable glasses often clearing up the entire gap between failure and success in school work.
There are also the mentally defective children. Some of these are only slightly abnormal and may be properly taught by the usual methods, but others are so defective that the public schools can do nothing for them. "They' require much of the teacher's attention, are the source of constant annoyance and frequently a menace to the peace and safety of the other pupils. Unquestionably such children should not be allowed to remain in the public schools. Their parents should be urged and assisted to send them where the facilities and methods are specially adapted to their needs. But generally parents do not take it kindly when a teacher expresses the opinion that their child is mentally weak. They usually resent it as a reflection upon themselves and attribute the child's failures to the incompetency of the teacher. What is needed is the professional judgment of a com- petent physician whose duty it shall be to examine all mentally defective children in the schools and decide the question of their fitness to remain. This duty could very properly devolve upon the medical inspector whose frequent visits to the school would give him opportunity to observe such children under various. conditions. Of course it is taken for granted that in every well regulated system of schools there is regular medical inspection. In many places the generosity and public spirit of the local medical profession provides at the request and under the direc- tion of the school committee such inspection without charge.
Finally, I wish to call your attention to the old, dirty, grimy books which pupils are often compelled to use when, for any reason, adequate fresh material is not provided. There are many books in regular use in our schools, which I would not al- low a child of mine to handle. It is an unwise economy which saves a few hundred dollars by requiring the school children to use day after day these filthy disease-laden books many of which
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are so worn they will hardly hold together. A pupil can retain the same pencil or pen-holder until it is worn out but when he has finished with a book it is passed on to another pupil and from him to another, year after year, until, having lost much through long service and accumulated much from unclean hands, it is re- luctantly cast aside. Care should be taken to have the books numbered and to see that each pupil gets regularly the number assigned him. Before these books are given out to another class they should be inspected, and every one found unsuitable for further use on account of its soiled condition should be burned and a new one purchased to take its place. Free text- books have proved a great blessing in many ways, but, unless proper hygienic conditions are insisted upon, they may prove a great menace also.
School Population and School Accommodation
Few persons are aware how fast the school population of Quincy is increasing, how rapidly old school buildings are out- grown and new ones filled up; and many wonder why there should be a constant demand for additional buildings. Briefly stated the reason is simply this, during the last few years the in- crease in pupils has been greater than the increase in accom- modations. The school census this year contains three hundred forty more names of children between five and fifteen years of age than it did last year, and the average annual increase for the last three years has been over two hundred. A building like the Cranch, Gridley Bryant or Massachusetts Fields by overcrowding will house four hundred fifty pupils but can properly accomodate only four hundred. Thus it will be seen that, if the present pupils were adequately provided for, the rate of increase con- tinues the same as last year, and all the old buildings remain in use, at least two nine-room buildings would be required every three years. But neither of the conditions is properly ad- missible. The first is already contrary to fact, there being two overflow rooms in the Quincy district, a room occupied in the basement of the Coddington which is unfit for class use, a room
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