USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Somerville > Report of the city of Somerville 1889 > Part 10
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The course of study should comprise largely object lessons, draw- ing and construction, reading and language, including spelling and writing, sewing for the girls, and some other form of manual train- ing for the boys, with as little text-book work as possible, in fact, with no information study from text-books. It may not be possible to take up this work at present, but I suggest it for the Committee to think of for the future. At that time, or at any time, I shall be pleased to elaborate my views and plans for more definite action. I have only a word or two further on the subject at this time. I do not wish it to be understood that I would lengthen the school year. The present calendar has been established from the experience of many years and of many cities and countries. The rest periods are
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absolutely necessary for teachers and pupils. I would be the last one advocate depriving children of the opportunity for physical rest, for recreation, and growth to be enjoyed at country or seashore retreats, but for those less fortunate, who have to spend the long, hot weeks in city streets, kind mercy pleads for shelter and healthful occupa- tion. The summer school should differ from the regular day school in the character of the occupations, and consequently in the faculties exercised.
From necessity, our regular work taxes the memory in the acqui- sition of knowledge from books. The vacation school should, on the other hand, relieve the memory of its usual labor, and exercise chiefly the observation and constructive faculties. It would be a great mistake to continue the regular work of our course of study, not only because it would disorganize the grading, but because it would be an overstrain upon those who continued the summer work, and, in fact, it is doubtful if a voluntary school could be maintained upon the same programme. Rest is change of occupation, and not the absence of all activity. Overworked faculties can be restored by the activity of other faculties. Elementary science, and manual training, and kindred work, with readings of nature, etc., should constitute the course in such a school. In the city of Newark, N. J., such schools have been maintained for four years. In 1887, the en- rollment was 1482. That year Superintendent Barringer said : " The children were well, contented, industrious, and happy. The manual work in the line of sewing was, if possible, more interesting and satisfactory than in '86. There is here an excellent opportunity to give a large amount of hand training in modeling, drawing, writ- ing, object handling, manipulation, etc. I would recommend that ample opportunity and means be afforded next season for greatly in- creased work in this direction." In 1888 the enrollment increased to 1849, of which number 1521 attended public school all the year, 291 came from private schools, and 37 had never been to school before. The Superintendent says, "No measure adopted by the Board of Education has given more complete satisfaction than the organiza- tion of these schools, three years ago, in those sections of the city where the families largely remain at home during the long summer vacation. It was a matter of great surprise to many to see the hundreds of children willingly and gladly crowding into these schools within one week after the close of the regular term in June.
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It is taken for granted that children dislike generally to go to school. These summer schools seem to contradict this assumption. Chil- dren, almost without exception, when properly employed and in- structed, love to be there, and will go from choice."
This is a subject for the consideration of the Committee.
TRAINING OF TEACHERS.
There remains one other subject to be spoken of in this connection to complete, for the present, the general view of our school system as it looms up before us, a subject which must be considered at some time and is even now pressing itself upon our attention.
Forty per cent. of our teachers are graduates of Normal or train- ing schools, seven are college graduates. Of the remaining number the majority were appointed after experience elsewhere. The others have become teachers without much preparation, except what could be gained by observation and practice as substitutes, and some of these are among our best teachers. In such cases they have had to learn by practice and experiment through varied and doubtful ex- perience what they might have learned in a training school in less. time and at less cost to the pupils experimented upon. With every graduating class the number of young ladies who wish to teach in- creases. I have advised all who come to me to take a course in some State Normal school or good city training school. Some have done so, while others are not able. There are now several graduates of this year visiting in the schools under my direction. We have no opportunity to give them instruction, but they pick up something. After several years' experience with training classes I can appre- ciate the value of such training and the painful and hopeless waste of time suffered by those who try to pick up what they can by visit- ing. I am in favor of appointing only trained teachers. I have been an ardent advocate of professional preparation for teaching for many years and have yet seen no reason to change my ground. This I know to be the sentiment of this Board ..
We shall doubtless be able to secure experienced teachers to fill all our vacancies and may not have to resort to the establishment of a training school to supply our needs, as many cities do ; nor am I prepared to advocate such a school here to give our High School graduates a technical education. It is sometimes argued that since a young lady has spent so many years in our schools the city is under
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obligations to compensate her for that time by further fitting her to teach and giving her a position. It does not occur to her that she is under obligations to the city which has been to the expense of edu- cating her in its schools.
There are, however, some considerations in favor of providing some training for our graduates who wish to teach and who cannot go from home to attend a normal school.
1. We are constantly in need of substitutes ; the demand some- times exceeds the supply. We are obliged to call in young ladies who may be waiting for such work and who have had no training. The result to the schools for the time, and often for longer, is de- moralizing. It would be a great advantage to have substitutes at hand competent to take up the teacher's work.
2. Many of these graduates are naturally endowed for teaching ; they are good material. of whom we ought to take advantage, and might be lost to the profession and to the city if we should not train and employ them. It is thus a method of procuring valuable teach- ers at less expense.
3. As the methods of teaching vary greatly throughout the State and in the several Normal Schools, we are constantly adding to our force those who do not work as we do and who may have to spend some time getting familiar with our system. If, on the other hand, we trained some of our own teachers, we could thus easily im- press our principles and methods. This point is urged by many edu- cators ; but, in my judgment, has its limitations. It is always of great importance to bring in to the city teachers of valuable exper- ience from abroad, with ideas fresh from other fields. A school system cannot progress that draws no sustenance from outside of itself, but reproduces only its own kind.
4. Inasmuch as the Normal Schools cannot supply teachers to meet the demand, it is argued that cities should aid the State by es- tablishing training schools. as only in this way can we expect to fur- nish the whole State with trained teachers. Whether our city is ready to engage in such a public spirited undertaking, it is for her to say.
The state of the case is this - that graduates of our High School are constantly finding employment as substitutes, and gradually working into our schools as teachers, without the necessary prepara- tion. The question is, can we afford it? This will continue unless we do something to fit them for the work.
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It isIfor, the Committee to say whether a class shall be organized. There are training schools or classes in the following places in Mass- achusetts : Adams, No. Adams, Cambridge, Chelsea, Gloucester, Haverhill, Lawrence, Leominster, Lowell, Pittsfield, Quincy, Spring- field, and Weymouth. The best plan is to assign one of the regular schools as a training school, provide it with model teachers, super- vised by a critic teacher or principal, and arrange a course of study and practice for the students. The course of study would embrace lectures and reading on educational subjects, including the history, principles, and methods of teaching. The practice would include observation and teaching under supervision .. Such an institution may be remote, but the subject will bear thinking of. When it does come, a thorough investigation of the subject should be made and the experience of other cities obtained.
There are now several young ladies, some of them graduates of Normal Schools, who have been assigned to certain schools as visi- tors. I think it would be well to authorize the Superintendent to prepare some plan of systematic visitation, to be accompanied by a course of reading and a series of meetings. This should not be dignified by the name of a training class, but may do some good in a modest way. I invite your attention to the report of Mr. Walton in the Fifty-second Annual Report of the State Board of Education.
METHODS OF TEACHING.
I have not taken up the various subjects of instruction pursued in the schools, because it would only lengthen the report and add little to its value. The methods of teaching have not materially changed except as new light has been brought to bear upon them and experi- ence has taught improvement.
During the year much attention has been given to Observation Les- sons, Reading, Language, Geography and Arithmetic, besides the special subjects mentioned elsewhere. Several grade meetings have been devoted to these subjects in which the teachers have taken part in the discussions. I have issued supplementary instructions on the methods and details of the work - by means of circulars on all these subjects. Extracts from these circulars I would like to have printed at some time and thus be in a convenient form for the teachers. Great interest has been taken in the meetings of the Teachers' Association, and we believe that happy results will follow
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this institution. On these occasions aside from what we have had to say the teachers have heard from Hon. J. W. Dickinson, LL. D., Secretary of the Board of Education ; Prof. Henry T. Bailey, State Agent for Drawing; Dr. C. W. Emerson, President of the Monroe College of Oratory; Mr. R. C. Metcalf, Supervisor of the Boston Schools ; Mr. Charles F. King, Principal of the Dear- born School, and Mr. W. S. Parker, Master of the Everett School in Boston. It would give the teachers and the Superintendent pleasure to see more of the members of the Board present at their meetings.
The drawing teacher has had grade meetings to present the work and the methods in that subject, and has issued a series of circulars of instruction on the course and the use of the books and material. I am convinced that the teachers throughout the city are teaching this subject intelligently and effectively. I see a great interest in the work on the part of teachers and pupils, and the results we ex- pect to show you at no distant day. The progress made in drawing and sewing is sufficient to convince us that the selection of teachers to conduct these important branches was very fortunate.
PHYSICAL CULTURE.
As previously stated, this subject has been presented to the atten- tion of the Board and has been assigned to a special committee for consideration. It has been brought to particular attention by the experiments going on in Boston through the generosity of Mrs. Mary Hemenway, who has established the Boston School of Gymnastics on the Ling system, by the public exhibitions at the Allen Gymnasium, by the exhibition at the Y. M. C. A. Hall in our own city, by the complete and conclusive report on the subject by the Boston Super- visors, and especially by the most successful educational conference ever held in the country on any one topic, the meetings in Hunting- ton Hall, Boston, on Friday and Saturday of Thanksgiving week. This subject is of vital importance, as upon its disposition depends much of the future results of our educational progress. This is not too broad a statement when we consider that education comprehends and necessitates the harmonious development of the child physically, intellectually and morally, and that the education of the whole being is impossible without the proportionate education of the parts. Edu- cators from the time of Solon to the present day have maintained this principle, and fortunate are we if even at this late day we may
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realize its importance. On the other hand, there are men now living who consider it sufficient to let a child run wild to afford him all the physical development he needs.
Nature brings into the world beings physically and mentally perfect, endowed with instinct and intuition to enable them to begin a career of self-preservation and development. Nature sur- rounds this being with all the influences necessary for the beginning of that development. The instinct of play and the objects to play with develop the physical growth in natural ways, while it affords equal opportunities for the acquirement of knowledge and the de- velopment of the faculty of perception. As the child grows these advantages enlarge, and the necessity for directing the energy and providing the means increases. The history of the human race is the history of the development of the physical, mental and moral man, but the history of education is mainly the history of the de- velopment of the intellectual powers. The accumulated experience of all mothers in the training of their children would show that from the first dawning of consciousness the use of materials has been directed to the training of the mental faculties, while very little has been done to train the physical powers except possibly the use of the limbs in walking ; in all other respects the child is left to nature.
We have no statistics to show the consequences of the neglect of physical training, that is, results that are chargeable to that cause, though much is made of the ignorance resulting from neglect of in- tellectual training. It is impossible to state what might be the re- sults, both intellectually and physically, of proper physical training equal to that expended in mental development. The amount. of physical degeneracy and death among children is more appalling than the consequences of the neglect of intellectual training. It remains a serious consideration whether the loss of health, lack of vitality and physical perfection, would not be greatly lessened by a system- atic and scientific care and education of the physical being from in- fancy. One of the aims of education is to teach man how to con- tinue his intellectual progress and develop a love for learning, yet few people either know how to preserve health or care enough about the acquirement of physical strength, proportion and efficiency to devote the smallest portion of their time to that end. I wish to call your attention to an admirable report on this subject, made by a special committee of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and pub-
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lished in the Fifty-second Annual Report of the State Board of Edu- cation, from which I take the following paragraphs : "No child will achieve his best usefulness whose moral and physical powers are left uncultivated. It is not alone mental strength which is needed for successfully wrestling with the world. For the children who re- ceive their only preparation for life in the Public Schools, it is true that much besides what is learned from books is necessary for success in life. Manual training has only of late begun to find a place in our school-rooms. It should be welcomed by physicians as well as by sociologists. Apart from the direct utility of sewing and cooking for girls, or of the use of tools for boys, there is a physical advan- tage in the training of groups of muscles to co-ordinated action ; and disciplined muscular action is itself no slight stimulus to the brain. The time has come for further extension of this principle. Not only the brain, but the eye and hand, and not only these, but the whole muscular system should receive a training which will make the indi- vidual efficient in whatever field he elects to work."
A comparison of our children with those from across the sea indi- cates a lack of bodily strength and vigor, self-possession and self- control on the part of American children. I have had the oppor- tunity of observing this during the last eight years, where I have come in contact with children of many European countries. Dr. E. M. Hartwell, of Johns Hopkins University, having spent some time in Scandinavia, said, recently, " In Norway and Sweden, school and military gymnastics have long been fully organized, and are obliga- tory. The teachers of school gymnastics in Sweden are, as a class, superior to those in Germany, being more thoroughly trained for their business. Accordingly, the effects of gymnastic training in the schools are more clearly discernible in the grace, vigor, and erectness of the Swedish school children."
The importance of physical culture has been recognized by educa- tors in all times, especially in those ages when the value of educa- tion has been recognized as essential to the integrity of the State. In Athens the State took the direction of physical training, while the intellectual was left to private instructors. Education in Rome was physical and moral. The training was not for perfect physical condition for its own sake or for intellectual or moral results, but for practical purposes ; the highest type of a soldier or a citizen must be strong and robust of figure, courageous, obedient, and devoted.
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On the other hand, during the first century of the Christian Era, the body was regarded as the enemy of the soul, and was subjected to all manner of degradation, even to fasting and uncleanness. But with the Renaissance, the care of bodily health and the attention to development of strength and manly beauty was again established.
In the next century John Locke may be regarded as one of the foremost educators and advocates of physical training. No matter how radical may have been some of his notions on education in certain directions, his views of the importance of the laws of health, diet, clothing, simple habits of life, abundance of sleep, temper- ance, and little or no medicine, at the same time exercise in the open air, commend his thoughts to careful consideration. The in- fluence of Locke's works may be seen to-day in the robust and athletic figure, the erect and dignified bearing, the fresh, healthy countenances of the Englishmen, especially the English gentlemen and the English ladies. To him also is due much credit for the place out-door sports occupy in England.
No educator more fully realized the nature of a child than Froe- bel, and none more strenuously advocated the establishment of a har- monious education. His system provided for the development of all the human powers, physical as well as intellectual and moral. Self- activity for developing all the bodily powers and for the acquiring of knowledge was one of his cardinal principles. Not only was the body to be exercised for its own growth, but for the acquirement of skill and dexterity ; to this end the games were instituted.
About the beginning of the present century Pehr Ling originated the Swedish system of gymnastics, which has been developed and perfected by his followers, and which is the foundation of the sys- tems used in Germany and other countries at the present day, and is being introduced into England, France, and America.
A report on Physical Training prepared by Mr. Ellis Peterson, of the Boston Board of Supervisors, which has been placed in your hands, sets forth the requisite characteristics of a system that would meet the wants of the present generation. It is needless to quote at length from that report. The recommendation is made that " the Ling system be the authorized system of physical train- ing in the public schools, and that it be introduced into them as soon as teachers are prepared to conduct the excercises."
All so-called systems of Physical Training seem to be based upon
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common principles. The objects are to preserve and maintain bod- ily health, to develop proportion and symmetry of body, to train the powers so that they will readily and accurately respond to the will ; to stimulate activity and facilitate expression ; to cultivate self-pos- session, equipoise, and courage. All maintain that a good foun- dation for the whole system must first be laid ; the source of life, the blood-making organs, must work perfectly ; the nervous system upon which all activity depends, must be sound ; the muscular sys- tem from the body outwards to the extremities must be developed. Upon this point Dr. Pose says : " In judging of the effect of an ex- ercise, we think the least of the muscular development produced. But we think all the more of the effect produced on nerves, vessels, etc., in other words, the exercises have been made to harmonize with the laws of physiology. Health, symmetry, and harmony are re- sults aimed at."
Dr. Dudley A. Sargent says, " The exercises of the young should bring about the co-operation and co-ordination of the muscles. Full contraction of the muscles is necessary to the generation of animal heat and aids to force the warm blood through the tissues and back to the heart ; in order to secure harmonious development, weak parts must first be made strong ; sufficient muscles should be called into action at one time to stimulate the action of the heart and lungs and increase the circulation and respiration."
The Ling, or Swedish system, which has many advocates and is recommended by the Boston Board of Supervisors, has all the char- acteristics of a complete system and could be very easily established for elementary and grammar schools. Some modifications might be made as circumstances should require. The exercises resemble the best light gymnastics practised in our schools somewhat, but are performed without music, at word of command. In the high de- partments apparatus not differing essentially from that used in the German Turnverein and the American gymnasiums is employed. There are also excellent exercises practised by other schools of physical culture that might be added to increase interest and cul- tivate graceful movement and gesture.
The games of the kindergarten are admirably adapted to the chil- dren in the first primary years. Out of door games and sports should be encouraged as much as possible. Military drill for the boys of the High School should be provided, and the establishment of classes
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for manual training would furnish opportunities for vigorous exercise and for the training of the hand and fingers to skill and handicraft.
Dr. Sargent says, " What America most needs is the happy com- bination which the European nations are trying to effect, the strength giving qualities of the German gymnasium, the active and energetic properties of the English sports, the grace and suppleness acquired from the French calisthenics, and the mechanical precision of the Swedish free movements, all regulated, systematized and adapted to. our peculiar needs and institutions."
Dr. Hartwell, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, says, " The system which is to become common in this country will'be an eclectic system. It will take from the different systems the parts which are best suited for the school or college where they are to be used, but they must all recognize the fundamental truth of gradual develop- ment. The Ling system," he says, " takes up in turn the muscles- which come in order under the control of a child and seeks to give the pupil erect carriage of the body, strength in the back, in the chest, in the arms, the legs, and so on, seeking all the time not per- formance of special feats, but the establishment of a good founda- tion of the whole muscular system."
On another occasion Dr. Hartwell said in reference to the. Ling system, " On some accounts the Swedish school gymnastics seem to me to be, perhaps, better adapted than the German for the bodily education of the younger classes, and I should say that a Swedish gymnasium would cost less than a similar building in Germany. The Swedish gymnastics are now taught in the boarding schools. of London, Leeds and Bristol, and in a large number of British schools and colleges for girls." Again, "The time is coming, is. possibly near at hand, when our educational authorities will be con- fronted by the same problems regarding the place and value of physical training in its various branches with which European edu- cators have been so long engaged and have done so much to solve. I am far from thinking that such problems can be satisfactorily solved by the attempted introduction of any unmodified foreign system of gymnastics or athletics. But I am firmly convinced that. whoever may be impelled or compelled to provide a remedy for the present lack of genuine physical training in American schools and colleges can readily save time, money and trouble if they will only study the German and Swedish systems of school gymnastics."
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