USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Plymouth > Town annual report of Plymouth, MA 1900-1902 > Part 7
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5,593
Number of cases of dismissal before close of school session, 1,443
Number of cases of truancy reported by teachers, 49
Number of days of teachers' absence from school, 81
Number of visits made by Superintendent, 830
Present (Jan. 15, 1901) membership of the schools,
1,467
ATTENDANCE.
The whole number enrolled in the schools during the past school year was smaller than for the year before, while the average membership of the schools was a little larger. The percentage of attendance has fallen appreciably from the record of last year. This is largely due, no doubt, to the recent legal requirement that an absentee from school shall continue to be counted as a member of the school until it is known that he has withdrawn without intention of re-
44
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turning; or, in the absence of such knowledge, until ten consecutive days of absence have been recorded against him. Compliance with this requirement explains the diminished percentage of attendance, and shows no relaxation on the part of teachers to secure regular and punctual attendance of pupils. Indeed, some schools, in spite of this more exacting requirement, have made a better record this year than in the preceding one. This is particularly true of the Burton school, which has raised its record from 90 per cent. in 1899 to 94 in 1900.
If we compare the regularity of attendance of the outside schools with that of the schools in the Center, the figures give us the following :
Average membership of outside schools, 187
Average daily attendance, 166
Per cent. of attendance, 88.4
Average membership of village schools, 1,277
Average daily attendance, 1,180
Per cent. of attendance, 92.4
The low ratio of attendance in some of the outlying schools is in part accounted for by the long distances many of the pupils have to travel, over roads not used often enough to keep them passable at all times. This does not explain, however, the record of 95 per cent. in one outside school and 81 per cent. in another. There is little doubt that more care and interest on the part of some teachers and parents, as well as of pupils, in this matter, would result in a better record of attendance.
FINANCIAL STATEMENT.
I. Assessed valuation of real and personal property in Plymouth, May, 1, 1900, $7,800,815 00
2. Percentage of valuation expended for current expenses of schools in 1900, .00428
3. Expense per pupil on average membership, 22.91
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4. Expense per pupil on same for schools of State, 1899-1900, 26.06
5. Expense per pupil on average member- ship on total expenditure for schools in 1900, 29.55
6. State average on same basis, 33.92
7. Average monthly wages' of men teach- ers in Plymouth in 1900. $IIO 00
8. Average monthly paid men teachers of the State. 136 54
9. Average monthly wages of women teachers in Plymouth, in 1900, 42 88
IO. Same paid women teachers in the State. 1899-1900. 52 50
In the financial statement the items are based upon the average membership of the schools. Items 2 and 3 are based upon the whole amount ($35,696.08) which the com- mittee have spent, less the cost of repairs ($2,248.52). The items which make up this amount are payments for salaries, transportation, fuel and care of schoolhouses, textbooks and supplies, and incidentals. The sum thus expended ($33,- 447.52) is by recent act of the Legislature (1900) to be regarded as the current expense of the schools, and is the sum to be certified to the State authorities as having been raised by taxation and expended "for the support of the pub- lic schools." This sum shows an average expense of $22.91 for each pupil in the average membership of the schools. If the estimates were made upon the same basis as last year, the average expense for each pupil would be $19.13,-a slightly smaller amount than was spent last year for the same purpose.
Most of the statistics given above are called for each year by the state authorities for incorporation in their annual re- port. They are here given a little more in detail that those who wish for such information may know definitely how
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much of the money appropriated for the use of the school department is spent, and for what purposes.
SCHOOL ACCOMMODATIONS.
The increasing number of pupils in the North part of the town is rendering the crowded condition of school rooms in that section intolerable. Every school room is full. The primary rooms have an average attendance of about fifty- four children each, and some of these schools are in rooms not large enough to accommodate properly more than half that number.
The need for increased school accommodations is nearly as great in the centre of the town, as at the North. This is especially true of the primary schools. All of the first and second grade schools are, with one exception, crowded. It is becoming a serious question what to do with children who are eligible to attend school, and who apply for ad- mission thereto.
The poor construction of the primary school buildings, which were built built with little or no regard to sanitary re- quirements, renders their crowded condition a continual menace to the children and teachers who occupy them. This is particularly true of two school houses-the North primary, a two-room building, and a one-room building on Oak street. which have an attendance of more than 150 children. Both houses are old, dilapidated, and with no means of ventilation except doors and windows; their construction and present condition prevent their being made suitable for school pur- poses except at a large expense. It would probably be more expensive to put them in satisfactory condition than new, well-ventilated buildings would cost in the end. Immediate steps should be taken to provide more school room, and to make more habitable by some simple and effective means of ventilation, many of the schoolrooms now in use.
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PRIMARY SCHOOLS.
The membership of the schools at present is 1.467. Of this number 792, about 54 per cent. of the whole number, are in the primary schools-grades one to four, inclusive-and dis- tributed in twenty-one school rooms, giving an average num- ber of thirty-eight pupils to a teacher. This average would be reasonably satisfactory if it represented the real number cared for by each primary teacher; but it does not. It is the average of fourteen and sixty-two in one case, and in several other cases the complementary number is over fifty. This is altogether too large a number for one teacher under the best conditions, and when the work of such schools has to be done in crowded rooms with little or no ventilation, satis- factory results cannot be expected.
The primary schools are in some respects the most im- portant in the whole school system. They contain the large majority of pupils; they reach a class of children who never go beyond these grades; they give to most children of foreign birth the only glimpse they get of school life and its in- terests, and afford them the only practical knowledge they are likely to gain of an institution the most powerful and im- portant in our civilization, an institution whose stability and continued influence for good will later be placed in their keeping as coming citizens. The primary schools are a potent factor in determining for all those who attend them the success or failure of their subsequent school life, and the at- titude they will assume later toward American institutions.
For these reasons the primary schools should be made the best possible. No reasonable expense for teachers or equip- ment should be denied them. Sufficient compensa-
tion should be offered to enable the school depart- ment to demand and secure the best teachers. School accommodations should make it possible to assign a reasonable number of children-from thirty to thirty-five- to each teacher. The school rooms should be attractive,
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healthful places, where children can be taught and trained by means of the best personal influence and by a refining en- vironment. It is a false economy which denies the power to secure any or all of these prime requisites for successful school work. No one who is unfamiliar with the many needs of these schools, and the difficulties under which some of them work, can appreciate how well, under the circum- stances, their work is done, or how much better it could be done under the best conditions. But the best results must wait upon larger opportunities furnished by an increased expenditure in support of the primary schools.
GRAMMAR SCHOOLS.
The grammar schools include grades five to nine. These schools have at present a membership of 552 pupils, about thirty-one per cent. of the whole school membership. They occupy twelve school rooms, giving an average number of forty-six pupils to a teacher. In schools as widely scattered as ours, it is not possible to assign to each teacher the average number of pupils; the numbers vary in the different rooms from seventeen to fifty-six. The average number is too large for any one teacher to care for. The burden for the teacher perceptibly increases as the number grows beyond thirty-five or forty, and the work of the school is most likely to deteriorate.
Few changes in the course of study for these classes have been made during the past year. There are several subjects pressing their claims for admission. Physical culture and more nature work in all the grades; Latin or French, or both, in the ninth grade; Concrete Geometry, and more Algebra in place of Arithmetic are all waiting for places in the curriculum. All these admissions and changes would be useful, no doubt, if place and time could be found for them; but it would seem that the limits of time and ability of both children and teachers had been
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reached. It is becoming the conviction of wise educational leaders that the grammar grade courses of study need prun- ing,-that too much of the new and old has accumulated in them; that much that is new needs restating, refining, and reforming to render it most valuable for educational pur- poses; and that much that is old needs further changing and curtailing to meet the requirements of the schools of today; -less of arithmetic, confining it to the essentials, beyond which it has little comparative educational value; less of geography, and more of the sciences of which it is a col- lection; less time given to history as it is often taught-dry facts and dates, wars and rumors of wars, and more of that study of men and women whose lives and characters are an ever inspiring source of interest and reverence, and whose fame and influence make them citizens of all time and of all lands. Not a larger number of subjects of study, then, but the elimination of burdensome and useless details is the need of the times, if we recognize, as we must, that the enrichment of courses of study may be accomplished at least as much by the quality of the work done, as by the number and variety of subjects attempted.
The work of the grammar schools during the year has, in the main, been good. The discipline is firm and reason- able, without undue severity. A commendable degree of zeal and earnestness has characterized the efforts of both teachers and pupils in carrying on their work. The clos- ing exercises of these schools were held at the High School, June 30, 1900.
CLASS OF 1900.
Cornish School.
Daisy Maud Pratt. Helen Phillips Lynn. Mabel F. Read.
Alton F. Pratt.
Henry Gray Whitmore.
Herbert McMaster Carleton. Susie M. Barrows.
Helen Loring Barnes.
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Frank Roscoe Fletcher. Ruth R. Moore.
Ethel Weston. Fred Carlton Brown.
George Herbert Roberts.
John H. Hathaway.
Hattie Mary Muti. Bertha Elwood Milburn.
Kate Bradford Stranger.
Annie M. C. Anderson.
Herbert W. Rouse. John Bodell.
Arthur J. Bartlett. Edward R. Belcher. Bertha May Boudro.
Maurice John Ruprecht. Annie May O'Brien. Sadie M. Hatton. Bessie Rogers Holmes. Andrew L. Lafayette.
Charles Norman Smith.
Leon Henry Beytes.
William H. Dunham.
Mount Pleasant School.
Ida May Sampson.
Richard Thomas Eldridge.
Etta Barnes Saunders.
Annie Sullivan.
Grace Lincoln Whiting.
Caroline Wethers.
Wm. Russell Pierce Chandler.
Chiltonville School.
Elizabeth Rudge Woodason. Louise Lindall Woodason.
Manomet School.
Walter Howard Holmes. Alice Francis Wood.
Ellisville School.
Benjamin Ward Ellis.
. HIGH SCHOOL.
The whole number of pupils enrolled at the High School during the school year, 1899-1900, was 138, and its average membership, 125. The current expense of the school for the past year was : Teachers' salaries, $5,250 00
Carlton Whiting Holmes. Arthur Lewis King.
William Irving Pearson. Gerald Shoughnessy.
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Janitor, 350 00
Fuel and light, 600 00
$6,200 00
The expense for fuel and light is estimated, but doubtless the sum stated covers the actual cost. The High School has at present a membership of 123. The work of the school is carried on in four courses as follows :
Boys.
Girls.
Total.
Classical Course,
8
2
IO
Scientific Course,
2I
I6
37
Literary Course,
I
33
34
Commercial Course,
27
8
35
Doing special work,
I
6
7
123
Each of the four courses named above requires ordinarily four years for its completion. The student in the Classical course sometimes needs to do an additional year's work to meet college requirements for admission. Indeed, this added year's work is coming to be more and more necessary as the requirements for entrance to schools of higher learn- ing become more exacting. Many high schools have length- ened one or more of their courses from four to five years to meet the more rigid demands for entrance to the schools above them.
Those of us who have not for some years been in close touch with high school work, do not realize its growth in variety of subject matter, and in exactness of scholarship. In the high school of today "the courses of study are fairly comparable in scope and richness with those given in most colleges thirty years ago. They do not, indeed, include all the subjects then offered by the colleges, and they presuppose less maturity in the student; but in point of definiteness of aim, earnest effort, insistence upon high ideals, inspiration to noble endeavor, fertility of resources and skilful and stim- ulating instruction, the high schools do not suffer in com-
Plymouth 9
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parison with the colleges of today. A boy who has credit- ably completed the course of study in a good high school is as well equipped for a business career, or for the serious study of a profession, as most graduates of colleges thirty years ago. These facts cannot be brought to the attention of the people too frequently. or enforced with too great em- phasis. Public opinion is likely to be unduly influenced by critics who magnify slight defects, real or fancied, in the public school system, and overlook its abounding merits. They assert that the system is not in accord with the require- ments of every day life, and demand large modifications in its principles and methods to make it, as they say, practical. The efforts which many high schools are now making to meet the popular demand for training in the Commercial branches are not to be deplored; but it is important to em- phasize the fact that such training has little educational value if it does not rest on a secure foundation of general study. All courses designed primarily to meet vocational ends are likely to be narrow and superficial; and they are singularly dangerous, because their superficiality is so skilfully con- cealed."
The success with which our high school is meeting the increased and increasing demands for broader and richer scholarship will not suffer, in the main, in comparison with that gained by the better class of high schools of the state. The school is fairly well equipped, and is efficiently con- ducted; its purposes and aims are high, its spirit good, its courses well planned, and its work quietly, earnestly and suc- cessfully carried on.
The graduating exercises of the class of 1900. Plymouth High School, were held Thursday evening, June 21, 1900.
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CLASS OF 1900.
Diplomas.
Herbert Spaulding Avery. Ednah Gertrude Barrett.
Arthur William Belcher. Bessie Rogers Bradford. Morton Collingwood.
Alfred Lawrence Coupe. William Leslie Doten.
Arthur Sylvester Douglass.
Edna Margaret Fletcher.
George LeBaron Gray. Cora Francis Harlow. Helen Frances Holmes. Annie Evans Lewis.
George Merton Read. Florence Evelyn Savery. Lucy Williams Shaw.
Harold Jefferson Weston.
Nina Porter Wood.
Certificates.
Grace Howard Bradford. Edith Lyle Fuller.
Vertical Writing.
Vertical script is now in use in most of the cities and larg- er towns of the state. It has the indorsement of leading educational experts, because it is said to be based upon sound physiological and hygienic principles.
This system of writing has been in use in the schools here for about four years. When we introduced the Vertical system, nearly all the teachers wrote the slant hand; and they were expected to teach the vertical to children, nearly all of whom had been trained to write the slant hand. We have had no special instruction, aside from a few general talks on the subject, to help us. Less time has been given to drill in vertical writing than was spent upon the slant system. Under the circumstances the results gained have been fairly satisfactory. Children take to vertical writing naturally, and learn to write a legible hand quickly and easily. In the early years the writing is more drawing than writing, per- haps; but even this circumstance has its compensation in practically forbidding in the first years at school, that run- ning, scrawling, illegible hand, so hard to overcome later.
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With a reasonable amount of care and drill in vertical script, the large majority of a class will develop into writers of a neat, legible hand; the same amount of care and drill in the slant system would produce only a few whose writing could be classed as good.
Vertical script is not quickly written. Children take more time to write a page employing the vertical writing than when employing the slant. Tests made elsewhere seem to prove, however, that no more time is needed for the one system than for the other, provided both be written with equal legibility. Even if this were not true, we can afford to sacrifice a little time in order to secure neatness and legibil- ity in penmanship.
SLOYD.
The following communication was made to the School Committee June 9, 1900 :
To Mr. W. S. Kyle, Chairman of School Committee-
"The Lend-a-Hand Club having successfully conducted the Sloyd School for ten years, find that for various reasons it must be discontinued under the present management. The work seems of too much value to the boys to let it drop en- tirely without making an effort to provide in some way for its future.
If it is possible, and you deem it advisable to incorporate it in the public school system, the Club makes the following offer: To furnish new benches and tools, and everything else necessary to equip the school, if the town will provide a room and a teacher.
It is sincerely hoped you will think favorably of this plan."
EMMA B. ATWOOD, Secretary.
PLYMOUTH, May 18, 1900.
The committee recognized the generous and disinterested motive shown in this offer. Of the value of the work thus
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provided for if the offer could be accepted, there could be no question. It was seen to be entirely feasible to incorporate the sloyd in the regular course of school work if funds to sustain it when introduced could be provided. Notwith- standing the fact that our school course is crowded, and that every dollar, at the disposal of the Committee, was needed for other school purposes, the Committee decided to accept the offer and prepare for the work. This action was taken for three reasons : the educational value of this form of manual training; the comparatively small expense at which the work could be carried on aside from the salary of the teacher, and the great improbability that so generous an of- fer as the one at hand, would be duplicated in the near future.
The schedule for the Sloyd is at present as follows : Boys from eighth grade, Monday p. m., 1.30-3.30.
Boys from seventh grade, Tuesday. a. m., 9.00-10.30.
Boys from seventh grade Tuesday a. m., 10.30-12 m. Boys from ninth grade, Wednesday a. m. 9.45-12 m. Boys from eighth and ninth, Thursday a. m., 9.45-12 m.
This gives about two hours' work each week in this sub- ject to 120 boys. The work of each school from which boys are absent at Sloyd goes on as usual,-as though the boys were absentees in the ordinary way. That is, the or- dinary daily program is carried out, so that the other mem- bers of the school who are not at Sloyd may not lose any work by reason of the absence of the boys. On their re- turn, the boys make up the work which the others have done in their absence.
We are not justified in adding this work to our present crowded course of study, or in allowing it to share in an already insufficient appropriation, unless we are convinced that its introduction will distinctly contribute to the efficiency of the work of the schools. We believe that Sloyd will do this.
The chief value of Sloyd is not that it will directly help
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children to earn a living, or fit them for a trade. Its main purpose is not to make children skilful in the use of tools. Such a narrow mercenary aim has no legitimate place in any system of general education; such training is not the express business of the common schools. The chief value of Sloyd is that it has in it elements and interests, as well as methods of training, not found in any other school work which we are doing. It furnishes another point of contact, another im- portant means of influence, another avenue of approach to the child, which has been found to lead to excellent results in his development. Its main purpose is the same as that of every other phase of legitimate school work,-to develop in all who come under its influence a better physical growth, a larger power of thinking clearly, a greater strength of char- acter and power of will.
The Sloyd room is well equipped with all apparatus necessary for doing the work well. The exercises in Sloyd require only the use of hand tools, and these, by general consent, yield larger educational results in proportion to their cost than the apparatus used in any other form of manual training. It would be better if the Sloyd work could be ex- tended so as to give the girls as well as the boys a part in it. It furnishes an educational drill as well suited, perhaps, to one sex as to the other. But to extend the work to the amount necessary to include in it more than twice the num- ber of pupils now accommodated, is not possible with the present financial resources of the school department.
THE WORK OF THE SCHOOLS.
No important changes in the course of study, or in the methods of teaching have been made during the year, and none are contemplated. Fewer changes than usual have occurred in the corps of teachers. The schools have ex- perienced no serious interruptions, and their work has been done quietly, earnestly, and with good spirit. Both teach-
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ers and pupils have done their work with fidelity, and in most cases with efficiency.
The school of today makes large demands upon the teach- er With the increased number of pupils she has to care for, and the multiplicity of subjects she has to teach, her task is as difficult as it is important. She has need of a generous equipment both by nature and by acquirement to render her work a success. She should possess that broad culture which gives her a lively interest in every field of truth, as well as that professional knowledge which enables her to see the subjects she is to teach in their right relation to the child to be taught. But her supreme need is the ability to impart these subjects of study in such a way as to broaden her pu- pils' horizon, and extend their interests,-to know how to really teach these things, and make them the efficient means of developing in those entrusted to her care, health and vigor of mind and body. This is the aim of the school, and to ac- complish anything less is a failure to meet in full measure the purpose for which the school is established and supported. It is the serious duty of this community to see that this pur- pose is sustained, and that success is achieved in every one of its schools; and to this end to furnish them all needed sup- port, both moral and financial.
In conclusion, I wish to express my appreciation of the helpfulness of the Committee in carrying on my work, and of the hearty co-operation of the teachers in all that con- cerns the best welfare of the schools.
Respectfully submitted, FRANCIS J. HEAVENS. Superintendent of Schools.
PLYMOUTH, Feb. 1, 1901.
REPORT OF TRUANT OFFICER.
To the School Committee:
I have the honor to submit my annual report for the year ending Dec. 31, 1900:
A large number of calls from the teachers to look up ab- sentees from school have been received, and all cases have been investigated. Many of the children were found ab- sent because of sickness.
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