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 1903 > Part 17
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Parents, when you think that your children are not doing in school as well as they ought, or when you hear something in regard to the school which you fear is not as it should be, you can do no greater good to your children and to the school, than by personally investigating. You may thus, not only influence your children to do better and their teachers to take more interest in them but you may find, as has often been the case, that the reported grievances were unfounded.
Having called attention to the three topics of this report, it is fitting to add in conclusion that good work is being done in the schools of Quincy; that there is great effort on the part of the teachers, inspired by the untiring and well-directed zeal of the Superintendent, Mr. Parlin, to foster what Horace Mann says should be heard in every school,-"the hum of business ; " and to graduate boys and girls of good character, and with right aims in life.
May Superintendent and Teachers receive the co-operation of us all !
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The above report was presented by a special committee consisting of Dr. Record, Dr. Hallowell and Chairman Porter, and was adopted as the annual report of the School Committee, Tuesday, December twenty-ninth, 1903.
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 fourth annual report which is the twenty-ninth in the series of annual reports by the superintendents of public schools and the fifty-fourth of the printed reports of the Quincy School Board.
THE MORAL SIDE OF EDUCATION
The physical side of education having been considered in our last report, it now seems desirable to examine the moral side of education since it is such an important part of education. It certainly is pertinent for all interested in the public schools to ask what they are doing or can do to promote the right moral development of the children.
To insure the highest moral conduct one needs more than a sensitive conscience and right motives! He needs broad in- telligence, sound judgment, a strong will and courage as well, otherwise his acts may be thoroughly conscientious and prompted by good motives but nevertheless unwise and harmful because he lacks knowledge or judgment. It is well to intend the right, but it is also important to know the right.
Careful observation and analysis will convince most persons that man's moral life is closely interwoven with his physical and intellectual life. Some of us have known of cases where moral reform began with a bath and clean clothes.
Many talk as though the human mind were divided into several separate and distinct parts and that the education of one part had nothing whatever to do with the others-as though physical training involves only bone and muscle and that the cultivation of the feelings, the intellect or the will in no way affects the moral development.
The mind always maintains its unity however varied the modes of its expression-whether it manifests itself as feeling,
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intellect or will ; whether the feeling be pain or remorse, whether the intellect acts in the field of mathematics or of morals, whether the will deals with trifles or with truth. It is utterly impossible for one to receive a purely intellectual education. The driest lesson in grammar involves the feelings and the will and, to some degree, moral elements.
Some of the methods of moral education advocated and some of the demands made upon the schools in this connection must be rejected by those who understand the true nature of children and of morals, if they would serve the highest interests of both.
The demand for formal instruction in morals usually comes from those who have little knowledge of the schools or from those who seem to have religious instruction in mind. It is not necessary to discuss this question since with us church and state are separated and religious instruction is impossible. Public funds can never be used justly to inculcate the tenets of any church. Commissioner Harris has clearly shown that religion cannot be taught by the methods used in teaching the school subjects. To learn a creed or catechism is not to learn a religion in any vital or important sense. It is merely learning about a religion-a purely intellectual act, moreover as the children are actually in school only about twelve per cent of the time each year, it would seem that the home and the church, the proper teachers of religion, should find ample time during the remaining eighty-eight per cent for all necessary formal instruction in this subject. Those who ask for religious instruction will do well to . examine carefully the results of such instruction in European schools, as they appear both in the feelings of the people and in the character of the pupils. The whole tendency of modern civilization is towards the complete separation of church and state.
Although religious instruction in American schools is out of the question, there is a position where all can meet in agreement and that is upon the ground of the fundamental moral virtues. Religions multiply and creeds change but moral principles are the same yesterday, to-day and forever, and no sane mind ever questions or objects to them. The great need of mankind every- where is practical everyday ethics. All are willing their children
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should be taught to be honest, just and kind, that they should develop courage, self-respect and self-control, and should learn to be courteous, industrious and patriotic. This field is open and gives ample scope for the teacher's best skill and greatest wis- dom. If properly cultivated, it will yield great good to the chil- dren, a just service to the state and real benefit to religion.
The instruction should deal with moral principles and not attempt to consider all moral subjects. Fine spun casuistry and mooted moral questions should be excluded. Attention should be given to developing a clear moral perception, a discriminating moral judgment and a deep respect for the fundamental virtues. The rest should be left, at least so far as the schools are con- cerned, to the intelligence and conscience of the individual.
But how are morals to be taught in the schools ? Cer- tainly not by set lessons from a textbook upon ethics.
Socrates said, "Now I, Protagoras, when I reflect on all this, am inclined to think that virtue cannot be taught," and un- doubtedly Socrates is right. At least, virtue cannot be taught by a direct formal method of instruction, for such instruction calls into exercise little more than the intellectual powers. It does not necessarily touch the learner's moral life. A knowledge of ethics is good, but it is not morality. Moral development comes from the exercise of the emotions, judgment and will upon moral matters - questions of moral right and wrong and of conduct. One may be master of all ethical doctrine and yet be a knave or he may be ignorant of them all and be a saint. But one cannot feel right and choose right and act right without being 0 - morally right.
Children in the elementary schools are not only unprepared for abstract formal ethical instruction from which they get very vague and incorrect if not harmful notions, but they are very shy as soon as they suspect the instruction is aimed at them. They soon tire and tend to become hypocritical, but hypocrisy is the door through which many vices may enter. Although regular formal lessons in morals are useless or worse, there are times, which the wise teacher will recognize and improve, for direct moral instruction. Something unusual involving a question of right and wrong has happened in the schoolroom or upon the playground or in the community and the school is in just the
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right mental condition to consider seriously the moral aspect of the matter. Generally the discussion should be impersonal. It is not wise to discuss before a class the conduct of one of its members, whether that conduct be good or bad, because the feel- ings of the class become too active for right judgment and because that member is injured by such conspicuous praise or blame. Neither self-righteousness nor loss of self-respect is a virtue. When the class is ready, an apt story will present a moral question in a concrete and acceptable form. If the dis- cussion is conducted in a serious but sympathetic manner and the teacher really feels the importance of the lesson, it will make an impression upon the minds of the children which will not soon be forgotten. Such lessons should not be so frequent as to become common and of no unusual importance in the thought of the pupils, for their very rarity gives them dignity and impressiveness. Much direct moral instruction tends to make the sensitive child morbidly conscientious and unhappy, while it tends to make the phlegmatic child callous and indif- ferent to moral appeal.
By far the most potent and lasting moral lessons children learn at school are from the influence and example of the teacher. These lessons are concrete, objective and real, given in ways the children can feel and appreciate. They are daily lived out before the children's eyes and are involved as prominent factors in the actual experience and life of the children, making them happy or unhappy, calling forth their admiration or dislike, approval or condemnation, inspiring hope, ambition and high ideals or fear, meanness and despair. Children judge the conduct of their teacher and read his character with great accuracy. They do not reason it out. They feel it and know it intuitively. They know when he is lazy and selfish, ignorant and conceited, unfair and cowardly, unjust and passionate, when he is insincere, unkind or unmanly, and they know when he is true, kind, just and noble. A teacher who is courteous, frank and fair, who is master of his work and of himself and who governs his pupils honestly, intelligently and sympathetically, impresses upon their minds in the most effective manner possible the beauty, worth and wisdom of right conduct. He becomes their ideal and in- spires them with a desire to acquire the virtues which he makes
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so pleasant and attractive. They approve even the justice from which they sometimes suffer.
The virtues cannot be successfully assumed by the teacher. He must ring true every time or his pupils detect the counter- feit and despise the fraud. His real character shows itself in a thousand telltale ways,-in the eye and expression of the face, in the smile, in the curve of the lips, in the tone and inflection of the voice, in the little words which slip from the tongue, in the touch of the hand, in the toss of the head and in the very atmosphere of his presence.
Profoundly important as such a teacher is during every period of a child's life he is supremely important during the period from twelve to sixteen, the age at which boys and girls are most susceptible to influences and the moral aspect of things appeals to them most strongly, when they begin to feel that life is calling them to independent action, when ambition is awakened and ideals are formed, the period when a noble influence will do most good or an evil one most harm.
The character of the school government is simply an ex- pression of the character of the teacher. Through it his relations to his pupils are most intimate, his moral qualities most conspic- uous, his influence most direct and impressive. It matters little what he says about justice, honesty, courtesy, kindness and self- control, if his conduct is at variance with his teaching. If in governing his school he practices these virtues, there will be small need of his talking about them, but, if he does talk, his words will be accepted because his example confirms them. Nothing injures children more than the bad manners, capricious temper, hasty judgments, abusive remarks and unjust punishments of their teacher. Scolding and nagging, yield only evil and that con- tinually. Sarcasm alone has permanently injured many a child. It matters not how brilliant his intellect, a cold, selfish un- sympathetic soul has no business teaching children. Pardon the expression, but with children morals are caught rather than taught.
The school government is especially important in the moral development of the pupils because it provides for practice in morals - for completing the moral circuit by carrying the moral judgment into execution. It is not enough for one to know the
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right, he must do it. Moral conduct is the fruit and proof of moral life. The great trouble is not with our moral perception or moral judgment but with our action. Not instruction in the moral virtues but the practice of those virtues makes character. Children should be instructed, should be lead to examine moral questions and to pass judgment upon them, but they must also be led to choose and to act, and to act habitually in harmony with that judgment, ever remembering that the heart of a moral act is the motive which prompts it. Neatness, politeness, prompt- ness, self-control, obedience to law, faithfulness to duty, honesty in work, fairness in play and consideration for the rights and feelings of others should be required of all, and constant practice will tend to make such conduct easy and habitual.
The playground properly supervised is no less important in the moral than in the physical development of the pupils.
One caution the teacher should observe,-a child may some- times be compelled to do what he knows he ought to do, but never what he sincerely believes he ought not to do.
But moral instruction in the schools is by no means confined to the influence of the teacher and to occasional direct teaching. The various studies offer constant opportunities for such instruc- tion. It is indirect but nevertheless impressive and lasting. With a competent teacher, the children will meet in biography, history and literature questions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of justice and injustice, of kindness and cruelty, of courage and cowardice, of self-control and passion, of honor and meanness, which they will judge and approve or condemn with increasing discrimination. Next to the living example of the teacher is the conduct of men and women as represented in litera- ture. It is assumed that good literature, adapted to the age of the child, is provided in abundance. Unfortunately many
teachers either do not see the moral elements in literature or do not know how to use them. They are so taken up with pro- nouncing words, dissecting the language or correlating subjects that the feelings, motives and conduct of the various characters pass unnoticed. But this is better than for the teacher to make every action of the characters a text for a moral lecture to the class. Not the moral judgment of the teacher but that of the pupils is desired. The teacher should not insist that their judg-
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ments agree with his. It is much more important that a pupil be honest in his opinion than that he agree with the teacher. Questions should be asked which will lead the pupils to consider the conduct of the characters, to discuss the conditions under which they act and to judge of the motives and propriety of that action. In this way the moral feelings of pupils will be awakened and the moral judgment made more just and discriminating.
The moral benefits derived from the study of science are not generally appreciated. Its influence works slowly but deeply. It gives steadiness, confidence and serenity to the mind. It banishes fear and superstition ; fosters respect for law, an appreciation of small things and reverence for creative wisdom and power; tends to set things in their right relations and to assign them their proper values ; to place life upon prin- ciples, to make one thoughtful and able to work patiently for distant ends. The best proof of this is the lives of the world's scientists. One who studies those lives will soon be impressed by the beauty and richness of their ethical qualities. The scientists have never been persecutors of their fellow-men. Intellectual honesty leads to moral honesty.
No one familiar with the results of manual training in the public school, among the Indians and negroes or in the re- formatory institutions can fail to discover its moral value. At first it is a sort of muscular morality but it soon strikes in and touches the thought and life of the worker, or perhaps it would be better to say that the ideas of propriety, exactness, neatness, beauty and utility springing up in the mind and working them- selves out through the muscles react upon the life and mould the character. As a boy struggles for the mastery of eye, hand and tool ; as he fashions the material into exact, pleasing and useful shapes ; and as he works by the side of his richer or poorer neighbor he acquires habits of exactness and a wholesome respect for honest work. He gains not only a mastery of materials but of himself. Physical accuracy is the result of mental accuracy. Manual labor under right conditions has always promoted the moral health of the worker.
Those who have carefully observed the effects of a neat and pleasant schoolroom equipped with good furniture and adorned.
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with well-chosen pictures are convinced of its positive moral influence.
Undoubtedly a school can be found occasionally in which the moral influences are not such as are desired but this is a rare exception. It certainly is not true that the moral education of the children in the public schools is being neglected and we believe the morals of children to-day will compare favorably with those of children of any past time.
The schools have their defects but they foster neither anarchy, immorality nor irreverence. An examination of the criminal records or the entries of penal and reformatory institutions will reveal few names of graduates of the public schools. Every worthy teacher desires above everything else that the boys and girls under his instruction may develop into true, noble, law-abiding, man-loving, God-revering men and women-the honor of society, the strength of the nation, the friends of humanity -and those who know the facts believe this desire is being realized to a creditable degree.
HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH
The most important subject in the high school curriculum is English. It is the one subject of which all will make a practical use throughout their lives, in speaking, reading and writing ; yet the methods of instruction both in literature and in composition have generally been less satisfactory than in other subjects. Undoubtedly it is the most difficult subject to teach and there are many unfavorable conditions over which the teacher has no control.
Much is said about the poor English used by high school graduates. Conceding the fact that many graduates do use poor English, it does not follow that the schools are entirely re- sponsible. Children catch their speech from their associates during childhood and bad vocal habits fixed by long practice are exceedingly hard to correct. Many well educated persons who in early years were accustomed to defective language are sometimes chagrined by having some of those faults slip from their tongues at an unguarded moment. Notwithstanding their complete knowledge of the errors the nerves and muscles tend strongly to perpetuate the language habits of childhood. The child who
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during the years he is learning to speak always hears his mother tongue in its purity is fortunate indeed. The school not being able to regulate the speech of the home must take the children as they come and do its best to correct the faults for which environ- ment is entirely responsible.
The school first needs to adopt definite and systematic methods of training its pupils in the use of good oral language. Even some teachers expect this to be accomplished directly through the study of English grammar and rhetoric, but it . cannot. These studies furnish the pupil with a criterion for testing language so that he may know when errors exist but they do not directly affect his speech. One may know every law of grammar and yet unconsciously through habit violate them all. It is only by much practice under intelligent guidance and by constant watchfulness that one can break up old faults and fix new and right habits of speech. The school should furnish and does furnish opportunities for such practice but they are not fully utilized, chiefly because everything in this line is left to the teacher of English. Every oral recitation is practice in the use of English and every teacher should be held responsible for the solecisms which pass un'challenged in his recitations. If he is, the pupils will get five or six times as much practice under guidance as in the English classes alone. Throughout the school correct language should be the invariable standard. When a mistake is made, it is not enough for the teacher to point it out, but the student should correct himself and present his thought in proper form.
A most excellent opportunity for practice in good English is offered in translating foreign languages, but too often no one seems aware of it. To translate the Latin and Greek classics or French and German literature into barbarous English is an exercise of more than doubtful value. One studies Latin and Greek that he may know and master English but when the study leads to constant practice in bad English it is sorry business.
The explanations and demonstrations in mathematics, the descriptions in science, and the recitations in history should always be made to serve as right practice in oral language. The pupils should understand that the language used in a recitation is an important factor. How can the school ever hope to correct
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the speech of its pupils when only one teacher in five pays any attention to it ? Such a ratio is not well calculated to secure rapid improvement. When additional oral practice is needed it may be secured by having special exercises in the English classes for speaking - narrations, descriptions, debates and conversa- tions upon assigned topics.
The study of literature is another part of the work in English. It certainly should be an enjoyable part for both pupil and teacher. The fact that so many pupils find it most dis- agreeable drudgery proves either that the methods of instruction are not well chosen or that the work is not adapted to their ability, or both. Most pupils on entering the high school have read little classic English. This has been the fault of the read- ing course in the grammar school and of the home reading. The first aim in the high school should be to teach the pupils how to read intelligently and enjoyably. This can be done only by reading literature adapted to the development of the pupils. Any. one familiar with the reading prescribed in the " college requirements " and with the usual condition of pupils entering the high school can see at once that much of it is not adapted to their needs and that some of it should not be attempted below the college course. Why then should it be forced upon youth when there is an ample supply of literature which will not discourage reading ? It is exceedingly unwise and unfortunate to require the reading of a classic at such a time or in such a way that it becomes in the thought of boys and girls the very synonym of incomprehensibility and dullness. It is better not to require the reading of a book than to have the reading result in unpleasant memories and a firm resolution never to look at it again.
The first two years of the course in literature should be given to reading for intellectual food and enjoyment, for the purpose of creating an appetite and developing a taste. The pupils should be led to read so as to get at the spirit and mean- ing of the author -- the heart of the book - without the creep- ing, critical, dissecting process. Literary anatomy is out of place here. The pupils at this age need the scenes and characters, the life and feeling, the humor and pathos, the real kernel and substance of the book, the very elements the author labored hardest to put into it; and these are not found by constantly
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chewing the husks of language. The first thing to teach the boys and girls is how to read a book so as to get at its thought and life, and at the same time help them to become intelligent and interested readers of wholesome books; afterwards, when they have some knowledge of literature, some standards for com- parison and judgment, we may more reasonably try to make them literary critics. A sound literary taste and judgment, however, are acquired by reading much sound literature rather than by tearing a small amount of such literature to pieces. We very much doubt that teachers of English use in their private reading the methods they often require of pupils at at school.
During the first two years, at least, there should be much more reading and much less dissecting. An ample list of books adapted to the minds of the pupils, carefully selected from the different classes of literature and including some translations of foreign classics, should be arranged for them and then they should read ; read some in class, read others at home and discuss them in class, read carefully parts of some and all of a few a second time, memorizing short extracts of special beauty or strength. But above all the introduction of the pupils to the world's classics should be enjoyable and not a "grind."
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