USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Plymouth > Town annual report of Plymouth, MA 1884-1889 > Part 5
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But it is doubtless well to write from the copy for a few years. Every child has serious obstacles to over- come. There are general forms which every hand must learn ; the stiff and crooked fingers and the hard grip must be relaxed ; awkwardness of position must be cor- rected. But. when all this is done, and the pupil has acquired a free and easy movement of the hand, he should leave the copy and be himself again.
ARITHMETIC.
This may be truly called the exact science of the common school. It must be exact or nothing. In teach- ing this branch the wants of life must ever be kept in mind. Two things must be sought; exactness and rapidity. These combined make the practical arithmeti- cian. Said a lumber merchant, "I am paying my men a dollar a day for service, I would gladly pay them two dollars a day, if I could trust them to do the work which I need to have done. Most boys, who graduate from the schools, cannot measure a stick of timber, much less a pile of lumber, and the few who can, take so much time that I find it cheaper to do it all myself." Now what is the remedy for this fault of common scholarship ?
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One says that the pupils in the schools never become sufficiently familiar with the simple rules ; especially addition and multiplication ; the advice is to keep them a much longer time in primary drill. But this may be no remedy. The difficulty is in the teacher's treatment of the pupil's mind. It is not in the ignorance of the pupil. These combinations are simple ; it takes but little time to learn them ; once learned, they are always learned ; he knows them just as well when first learned as after a lifetime of practice. How long, now, does it take him to think them out and use them ?
This is the practical question which settles, the measure of his usefulness with the business man. In this lies the fact whether he is worth two dollars or only one to his employer.
It is his quickness as well as exactness in the solution of the numberless little questions in mercantile life which makes him of value. A great deal is said about the practical study of arithmetic, while it is worth far more for something else than for all the practicalness claimed for it. The fact is that a comparatively small part of arithmetic is practical in the usual meaning of that word. We ask the business man to look on his books : he tells us that the work of simple addition is ten times as great as all other processes put together. Here, then, is a truth for the teacher, that simple addition is the most practical rule in business education. We look a little farther and find that a very few figures make the difficulty. Most people can add readily the first five
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digits ; but it is six, seven, eight, and nine that puzzle them. It is here that we find the counting of fingers, the making of pen marks and other devices for hobbling through the harder digits.
Here, then, we have the inference that an important part of the teacher's work in arithmetic is in the treat- ment of these figures. When the same readiness is acquired in the addition of these, that we may find in adding the preceding five, a very great work in practical arithmetic is accomplished. This can be done by daily practice, in mental operations involving these higher digits. In addition to this a great deal of work should be presented to the eye, upon the slate and blackboard. In all cases the idea of rapidity as well as correctness should be kept in view ; test examples in the addition of long columns of figures should be frequent. The same idea of rapidity should run through all the ground rules, and, in fact, all arithmetical calculations.
Were half the time now given to the slow and plodding work of solving "Miscellaneous Problems" devoted to this kind of exercise, the business man would complain less, and the common school boy would redeem himself through the ready application of his knowledge to the common transactions of business.
I have spoken somewhat at length upon these three branches, imperatively required by Statute, not so much to outline what is done in our schools, as what ought to be done in common schools everywhere. I would have it inferred that great excellence in them all is desired.
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I cannot leave this review of studies without a brief reference to some of those more recently introduced into public schools.
DRAWING.
This branch has become almost universal as an edu- cational factor, and has made a good beginning in the schools of this town. . In some of them the proficiency is quite marked. But at present there is a lack of unifor- mity in method, and the success of the pupil must depend largely upon the natural ability, and also upon the en- couragement of the teacher. It cannot be expected that this study will come to its best possible results without a special director. This is a branch in which poor work is better than nothing ; for wherever the soul is struggling to give out its thought in some pictorial form of expres- sion, it should be allowed its deliverance ; rough and rude though it be, it is no more so than were the gems of the highest art which has ever graced the world.
A friendly criticism may be passed upon the method here employed in that it is confined too exclusively to ornamental designing. While this is valuable, it is only a part of the great work. Nature has spread her beauties around us with lavish hand. There is not a soul endowed with the sense of sight, and in which there is a spark of love for the beautiful, but sometimes craves the power of making its own transcript of these scenes. In the true order of development, it appears to me, that drawing from objects, or sketching from nature, precedes designing just as the object precedes the thought.
96 MUSIC.
Here, again, we have a comparatively new branch of study. It has made good progress in our schools, for the time it has been taught.
Music as an educational force has been but poorly understood in this country. It has received but very little help, only a patronizing assent from our leading educators. That they have not understood its meaning is not so much their fault as that of the generation or the schools in which they were reared. The work has been largely done by the daily teachers in the schools. Considering this fact, its progress has been marked, even singular. Were its philosopical relations to other branches better known; were it understood that the pupil would become a better scholar in everything else, a better reader, arithmetician, rhetorician, linguist, through proper musical instruction, there can be no doubt that ampler provision would be made for it in publc education.
When Goethe said that "Level roads run out from music in all directions," he knew what he was talking about. As a result of such thinking a few generations ago, we find that musical education, among public men and diplomatists in the old countries, is as much the rule as the reverse is with us.
Instruction in this branch should be based upon the fact that the musical faculty is implanted in the soul of every child ; that, in nothing has Nature been more impartial, than in the distribution of this gift ; that
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without cultivation, this faculity may become dormant and at length dead, as it often is in adult years ; that it is as much a disciplinary study as any other in the school-room, disciplinary of body, mind and character ; that it should ever be made a medium of thought, the soul's thought which is so often better than the mind's thought. But it should be tempered with all prudence to the age and strength of the child. When properly conducted it is the most fatiguing work in the school. It is exercise of body and mind. Singing continuously and with full voice for a single hour will produce as much fatigue as a day's work in the field. Success in this study will depend very much upon the local teacher. If he or she be alive to the importance of the work, giving it the heartiest indorsement, enforcing the right conditions, among which are order and attention, then it will be a success. If the teacher be indifferent, so will be the school. The exercise being conducted in concert, oppor- tunity will often be sought by the indolent to shirk their duties, while the ill-tempered boy or girl will be quite sure to reveal some bad traits of character. The branch, hereafter, ought to be made one of the rigid tests for promotion. When the best use is made of this divine faculty as an educational power, we may find truth in the remark of a wise philosopher, who said : "Let me hear the songs of a nation, and I will tell you its character."
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LANGUAGE.
In no department of instruction has there been more persistent experimenting. of late years, than in language. It is to be regretted that it has not always been successful. But we have a single outcome which is worth all the cost, in the method of teaching language to young children ; it is that language can best be learned by using it. Instruction is adapted to the age and growth of the mind. At first it is the language of description. This is the special field of mental activity for the child up to the age of ten or twelve years. It is during this period that the mind is suited to the study of forms. Much of the pupil's work should be in writing.
Next we see a growth of the reasoning power. Lan- guage instruction should now become more inclusive, to suit the wants of the growing mind, which like the body needs stronger nourishment. . The different branches of study are now made to yield their mental equivalents requiring the language of reason. From twelve to fifteen is the time for the pupil to learn to talk. Thus we cover the two great fields of intellectual expression. If we ask what mankind are doing most at this moment, or at any moment, the answer is talking. This should be a sufficient hint to the teacher, that the pupil must do his own talking. The interminable, categorical questioning by the teacher, and monosyllabic answering by the pupil are among the distressing features of school life. A language lesson from everything will be the demand of every good teacher. Scarcely any branch in school
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work will yield a better result in this direction than arithmetic, as the pupil explains the reasons of his problem on the blackboard. This kind of work is urged upon all teachers. It is somewhat practiced in the schools, and notably, with admirable success in two or three of the remote ones of the town. With these methods of recitation common English may be well learned before the pupil leaves the Grammar School.
Now for the study of the higher English, give us a full measure of the old mother tongues. The man who talks about the fetich of Greek, is very likely the one who would not omit that study from the liberal educa- tion of his own son. What is it to study English ? Is it to run to the lexicographer and take everything on trust ? No, but it is when the student goes back to the elements of the language himself and does his own original work. It matters not whether there be one word, or ten words, in a hundred derived from the Greek ; it is the study of the perfect model which we want. We place the head of Venus de Medici, or Milo, before the young artist, and why ? Because it is admitted to be the highest expression of beauty on the one hand, or of dignity on the other, which the human mind has ever conceived. They will stand as models until something else appears, confessedly better. Just as much does the student need the perfect model in language ; and just as long as there is good language teaching, just so long will there be minds among our youth-to the great credit of human nature-which will love the beauties of this grand old classic tongue. The
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fetich mongers may rest assured that Sanscrit is coming in, faster than Greek is going out.
I will now speak of some of the hindrances to success in this school system.
ABSENCE AND TRUANCY.
These are among the alarming vices in our public schools. In looking over the registers I find that the amount of absence for the year has been quite large. Good reasons for this state of things are very rare. Cold and sickness sometimes thin the ranks of school in the Winter term. But for truancy there can be no just reason. I am convinced that the causes of these vices are only of the very worst ; that there are many children under no restraint at home, and who are impatient of restraint at school. Whether they attend school at all, depends upon their own will. I learn these facts in their homes and from their own parents. Now, the impor- tant fact is, that such children are getting an education somewhere. Shall it be in the street ? It is for such parents and the community to answer. The tremendous responsibility, resting upon both alike, may be defined, by and by, in unmistakable measure.
Truant children are among the dangerous classes in community. What class will furnish the criminals of the next fifteen years ? Who must suffer ? Who must pay the costs of Courts, of arrests, of trials, of imprisonment, of jails and keepers ? The theory of government is, that the State has a right to the subject. There is the germ of compulsion in the best code of laws. We live and
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act upon this theory. The State has a right to defend itself against the crimes of ignorance. This is a bottom principle, and upon this we build. We levy a legitimate and constitutional tax for the common safety. But the tax payer has a right to demand that there shall be no unreasonable waste of his money. In this foremost state, some portion of educational money is lost in this way. Wherefore is the waste made ? The people of Plymouth need no longer be troubled with truancy, if they will but simply conform to the letter and spirit of the law.
Another hindrance, of which I will speak, is that of insufficient
GRADING.
This generally arises from lack of facilities, rooms and teachers. It results in waste of time and money. The fault is quite common and seems to be on the increase. The schools on Spring and School Streets ought to be graded without delay, so that one shall be exclusively primary and the other sub-primary. They now have the worst possible mixture of grades ; no teacher can do justice to either one. While the primary class is intelli- gent and able to appreciate instruction, the sub-primary should be taught and governed more by Kindergarten methods. The lower grade is a thoroughly demoralizing element of the school. There is no reason why these schools should not be properly graded. They are but a few rods apart, and the matter of distance need not be considered at all. This is generally a very weak argu-
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ment, for it is noticeable that children will run upon business and errands, and in their sports, many times the distance complained of in going to school, and without any harm. Probably. if a great majority of the children were obliged to go twice as far as they now do to school, it would be better for them. The same necessity of grading exists in the Oak Street Primary School.
The next point for correction is between the second and third grades. Here the policy has, for a long time, been shifting ; it might be called worse. Two years ago, it was two third grades and three second grades ; last year it was three third grades and two second grades ; now it is two third grades and three second grades again. Next year it is plain that the order must be reversed once more, unless something better is done. This, in my view, is wrong; the remedy is very simple ; three schools of each grade should be permanently established. This would require another teacher and another room.
The next step, in this matter of grading, should be the establishment of a first Grammar School, to which the present Grammar Schools would be feeders. This would be a great change, but I feel sure that nothing is more needed in this school system. Just here, I would suggest and recommend a change of names for some of the schools. Nobody outside of Plymouth knows what is meant by second and third grade schools. They are terms of designation not used anywhere else to my knowledge. It would seem better to have names com- monly understood. With the grades outlined above,
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and the change of names indicated, the series would stand as follows : sub-Primary, Second Primary, First Primary, Second Intermediate, First Intermediate, Second Grammar, First Grammar and High School.
I now offer a few thoughts upon the last named school as it would be affected by the proposed grading.
At the close of last term, about fifty-five scholars entered the High School. They were generally very young, some of them but eleven years old. It is plain that children of that age are not sufficiently mature to bear and appreciate the rigorous course of instruction in the average high school.
Here, then, is a grammar school in age, numbers, and qualifications. They are prepared only for gram- mar school work, which they ought to continue in a separate school for, at least, another year. But now they enter the High School and take their grammar work with them. One of two things must be true. Either these pupils must work against great odds, in a high school course, or they must, to some extent, drag down the school to their level. These common branches should be completed in the Grammar School. The arithmetic, especially, should never cross the threshold of the High School, except in occasional reviews in the latter part of the course. The pupil should begin the algebra, Latin, and higher English immediately upon entering the High School.
But this feature is not the worst. We now find about a hundred and sixty scholars in the High School,
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taught by three teachers. Every practical educator knows that it is impossible for that number of teachers to do anything like justice to that number of scholars in a high school. The result must be a considerable loss of time and money, and a practical defeat of some of the legal requirements of a high school. The work must be so thinly spread over the course that the best results cannot be reached in anything. In looking at the schedule of work, we find but two or three reci- tations a week in the important branches of algebra, geometry, and Latin, while no time can be found for Greek. It is well understood in schools, where prepa- ration for college is one important requirement, that at least four recitations a week should be required in every one of the aforesaid branches, and still another in the languages, in the form of prose composition. In long and frequent intervals between recitations, the mind loses its hold upon the subject and, consequently, loses interest.
I am not prepared to admit that nobody wants such work done. It should be wanted ; and it will be wanted when the facilities are offered and the right encourage- ments are given. The statute, of long standing, assumes that it is wanted in every town of four thousand inhabi- tants. I will not believe that, in any New England community of seven thousand souls, there are no families and no young people ambitious for a higher education than that attainable in the public schools.
But leaving this view, we find that other important work is suffering. English composition is an essential
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feature in all high schools. Elsewhere this work is invariably conducted by the teachers of the school, who are in daily presence of the scholars, hearing them in recitation, and knowing their habits of mind and thought. Never before have I known it to be done in any other way. But here it has been, for a considerable time, assigned to some third party not connected with the school.
At the present time it is imposed upon the Super- intendent, thus imcumbering his hands with a kind of work wholly incompatible with his general duties. In view of the fact that the territory of the town is very large, necessitating a carriage ride of thirty miles a day to visit a particular school, and that he has the entire charge of vocal music in the schools, it would seem to be poor economy to oblige him to spend one and a half days of the week in reading and correcting school compo- sitions, when the work, if it must be done in this way, might be done by somebody whose time is less occupied, some graduate of the school, at a trifling expense. I do not know of another such combination of work, and do not believe that it exists anywhere else in the country. But the work cannot be well done in this way by anybody. There should be a radical change. With the establishment of a first Grammar department, as before mentioned, this surface work of sentence building, so important in English composition, including form of expression, grammar, spelling, capitalizing, and point- ing, might be largely done before the pupil enters the
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High School. It certainly ought not to be carried, as an exclusive specialty, beyond the middle of the high school course. There should then be a change of method. The pupil should then, with rhetoric in hand, come face to face with the teacher two or three times a week, as in other recitation work, for the purpose of studying the deeper mysteries of the language, invention, style, har- mony, a knowledge of which is indispensable to a thorough understanding of English.
No thoughtful mind will deny that this kind of work ought to be done in an English course. At pres- ent, it cannot be done, through lack of teachers and other important facilities.
The New England High School has two well defined purposes. The first is to give all young people the opportunity of a higher education than is required for the common wants of life. Every community has need of such a class. They become the eyes, ears, and care- ful thinkers of the State.
The next purpose is to prepare young people for college. This is a matter of great importance to a community as soon as its youth are assembled in a High School. It is here the final choice of the pupil is to be made, whether he will go far on, or stop quite short. A great responsibility rests upon the teacher from the moment these relations of High School life begin. He is an intellectual and moral guardian, and one of his first duties is to see what nature has done for the child. Every observant teacher will find in any hundred
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pupils thus assembled a goodly number of gifted minds, marked by a love of learning, a taste for study, an ambition for self-culture, an adaptation for scholarship. School life is not a dead level. Nature has thrown in these shining lights. We know not why ; it is no
business of ours. Omniscience sets a seal upon such foreheads and seems to say, "Here I give five talents and there ten ; see that they are returned with interest." The teacher is often the first to learn the strong points of a pupil's character. Not seldom is a career of honor and usefulness opened before a young man of which he would not have dreamed had it not been for the inspir- ing touch of some master mind in the school. Thus the whole drift of thought in a family is changed ; new thoughts, aspirations and hopes arise ; new plans are laid. There is not a town, of four thousand inhabitants in New England, in which such families and such chil- dren are not living.
If the foregoing remarks are just, the question of supply should be met without delay. I can see how two additional teachers could be usefully employed in that school. But, in default of enough, it is my duty to say that one more teacher, of high qualifications should be employed at once. A new and rather distinct depart- ment might then be formed. This should embrace history, English literature, including rhetoric and composition, elocution and all platform work desirable in these times for training young people to the more or less public duties of life. Such teacher should be an expert
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in the classical languages ; for while the requirements of admission to college are increasingly exacting, I claim that no teacher can do the best work in a higher English department who is not a thorough student in these ancient tongues.
This brings me to a want which must stare everybody in the face. The present high school building is but poorly adapted to the wants of so large a town. The facts connected with it are so patent that I shall waste very few words over it. I do not know of its inferior anywhere. No stranger would say that it was a credit to the people ; it is a dangerous building ; it is a matter of surprise that the patrons of the school do not fear for the health of their children. There is not a solid hour of the year in which the air of any room in the building is fit to breathe ; hot and stifling, or cold from drafts, surcharged with poisonous gases, it can hardly be doubted that the germs of disease. are springing up which may prove incurable later in life.
Again, such a tinder box is the building, that were a fire to start, with the aid of a strong east wind, in one of the narrow, crooked stairways, the means of exit for pupils in the westerly recitation room would be pretty poor. True, they might have recourse to the windows, at the risk of neck and life.
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