USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Town annual reports of the several departments for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1848/49-1855 > Part 42
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South Worcester. This School was under the charge of Miss Avaline Williams, till nearly the close of the year, when she was succeeded by Miss Martha Bigelow. The School has always maintained a good reputation for order, good attendance, and general improvement ; doing credit to its industrious and capable teacher.
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Quinsigamond. During the Winter of 1853-4, this School was kept by Mr. Hosmer. This gentleman exerted himself in behalf of the School, but showed some want of previous experience. He was not a good disciplinarian, and in his instructions relied too much on lectures, which though of great value in connexion with thorough recita- tions, should never be substituted for them. In the Spring, the Committee left to the district the selection of a succes- sor. Miss Julia E. Perry was unanimously recommended, and at once appointed. This young lady has good quali- fications as a teacher. Being a native of the district, she can more easily command the confidence and love of her pupils ; while perhaps, for this very reason, it will be more difficult for her to command, at once, entire deference and subordination, attributes equally important to a School. The parents in this district deserve honorable mention, for the interest they have always taken in the education of their children.
Blithewood. This small School was at first under the charge of Miss Henrietta M. Swift, who has many excel- lent qualities as a teacher ; but on account of some difficul- ties and dissatisfaction which arose in the School, she re- signed her place at the end of the Summer term." She was succeeded by Miss Melinda Andrews. . Good progress was made by most of the pupils, in spite of the evil of too fre- quent a change of teachers; and the present teacher pos- sesses the love of her scholars and the confidence of their parents.
The house is a new and convenient one; but it is a strange and unaccountable oversight that not the slightest provision should have been made to secure a suitable ven- tilation. The connexion between pure air, and a sound education is very intimate.
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Pond. No dissatisfaction has reached the ears of the Committee, from this district, during the past year,-a rather rare circumstance in its history. The School is now under the charge of Miss Lydia A. Perry, and is believed to be in a fair condition, as regards numbers and attain- ments.
Adams Square. This is one of the very best of our Suburban Schools, and always a pleasant one to visit. Miss Almira H. Fuller has taught the School for several years, and is excellently adapted for her profession. The annual examination was well attended, and did good credit to the School.
Burncoat Plain. This School has been thought a diffi- cult one, and under Miss Gleason, the teacher for the first half of the year, it was not materially improved. Miss Jacobs, the next teacher, during six months, effected a com- plete revolution, and it bids fair to become one of the best of our suburban schools ; thus illustrating the proverb " as is the teacher, so is the school."
Northville. This School was at first under the charge of Miss Abby Goodale, who, though a competent and faith- ful teacher, was less successful here, than in some Schools which she had before instructed. She was succeeded by Miss Maynard, who had previously taught the School. This lady is one of our best teachers, and has a happy fac- ulty of commanding the love and interest of her pupils. The examination was very creditable. The Winter School began well, under the charge of Mr. Prouty.
Chamberlain. This School has been under the charge of Miss Mary J. Mack for the last two years. She has been
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very successful as a teacher, commanding at once the con- fidence and obedience of her scholars ; and laboring faith- fully, though this is the smallest of our Schools, averaging only 14.
North Pond. During the Winter of 1853-4, this School was taught by Mr. Newell, with creditable results, espec- ially in Reading and Arithmetic. The Summer term was taught very successfully by Miss Shepherd, a young lady who has all the qualifications of a good teacher.
Providence street. This School is the nearest to the city of our suburban schools, and is a very good specimen of them. The teacher, Miss Williams, is patient and every way competent, and the loss of her services is to be regretted.
ADULT SCHOOLS.
Young Men's School. This School has been kept during four months of Winter, for many years, for the benefit of apprentices and other young men who are prevented by their employments from attending our permanent Schools .. The teacher has for several years been Mr. Nathaniel Eddy. During the first two-thirds of the term, the average is about fifty-five, but during the latter part, the number is very much reduced, as the pupils disperse to their various em- ployments. Many of the scholars have been trained to habits of industry, and bring those good habits to School with them. There is, however, another class of young per- sons who come here in the hope of atoning for their earlier neglect of school and study ; but they too bring with them the old habits of idleness ; they soon become irregular and troublesome, and only hinder the real progress of the School.
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In spite of this and other embarrassments, however, this institution is a credit to the teacher and to the city. The regulations and requirements are the same as in our other Schools ; the age of the pupils varies from twelve to twenty, and the studies pursued are Reading, Spelling, Writing, Arithmetic, Algebra, Book-Keeping, Grammar and Geogra- phy.
Evening Schools. In some German states, the law re- quires all apprentices to attend school, during a certain number of evenings in every week. Of late years, free schools of this description, have become common in our large cities ; though they have usually been supported by individuals, rather than by the public School funds. The advantage of the public system is in its greater regularity of instruction ; the advantage of the voluntary system is, that there are commonly more teachers, a thing very important where so much is to be accomplished with so many pupils in so little time. Our School is however kept for four nights in the week, a greater number than is usual in such Schools,-and more time is therefore allowed to the teach- er. Nevertheless, an assistant instructor is much needed in the earlier part of the winter, when from seventy to a hundred are to be taught. We refer now to the School for the more advanced pupils, which is kept by Mr. Nathan- iel Eddy, in the Main street school house. The studies in this School are Reading, Spelling, Writing and Arithme- tic. The scholars are commonly from fifteen to twenty years of age, and of various nations and colors.
The chief obstacle to the usefulness of the School, seems to be the great irregularity of attendance. It seems a mis- take that no Register has been kept in the School, as that has always a silent tendency to discourage irregularity, even
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where no rigid rules are enforced. A more stringent meas- ure has however been suggested by Mr. Eddy. He re- commends that each pupil should deposit a dollar at the beginning of each month, to be forfeited to the city unless he shall attend at least twelve nights out of the sixteen.
This inconvenience is less strongly felt in the Primary Department of the School, which is kept in the school house on the Common, under the charge of Mr. O. P. Gil- bert. The average in this School is about fifty scholars, who attend more regularly, partly from the more conve- nient location of the School, (as they come chiefly from Pine Meadow and Fox's Factory,) and partly also because they are less interested in lectures and other meetings than the more advanced pupils.
The almost entire absence of female pupils from these Schools, is a defect which might perhaps be corrected. Evening Schools in other places are more fully attended by females than by males. This is true, not merely in factory towns, as Lowell and Newburyport, but also in places like Salem and Roxbury. The original plan in this city (in 1850) provided for a separate School for females, and this was sustained during two Winters, and then died a natur- al death. It may be, however, that with the constant in- crease in our population, a renewed effort might be more successful. There are certainly many foreign women among us who cannot read or write, and not a few American girls who might devote to study two evenings in a week, with great advantage to themselves.
PRIMARY SCHOOLS.
Our whole educational system rests upon this class of Schools, humble and uninteresting as they seem to many.
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Some one has even said, that nothing is required of a Pri- mary School Teacher except poverty and patience. Judg- ing from our rate of remuneration, one can hardly wonder at this sarcasm. To expect of these Teachers great gifts and graces, is indeed like the demand which Dr. Johnson · satirized, of " all the celestial virtues for seven shillings a week." Yet after adding $50 to their salaries during the last year, we have perhaps earned a right to say something of the qualifications which their office requires.
The simple truth is, that there is no class of Schools so dependent upon the personal character of the Teacher, as the Primary. In more advanced Schools, the lessons are systematically learned from text-books, and all the arrange- ments of the School are the result of long tried rules and established principles. But the Primary School Teacher must be her own rule, and her own text-book ; her pupils come from every variety of home, to learn what school and study mean, and as she is, so will they be. No power or acquirement of hers will be wholly wasted ; no grace of character or manner superfluous.
First, she must have love, fresh, warm, overflowing. Her cordial sympathy must find none too young, or too care- less, or too rude, or too dirty, or too dull, for its embrace. There is a heart beating, warm with God's own life, be- neath every little soiled frock, and ragged waistcoat ; and if her heart does not go forth, strong and eager, to meet that younger one, then she has mistaken her vocation and had better abandon it. A school room without love, is a world without a sun.
Then she must have decision and firmness, prompt, clear, unflinching, unwavering. There can be no greater mis- take than to suppose that children attach themselves only to those who indulge them. On the contrary, they love
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to be governed; and turn with greater satisfaction, in the end, to those who control them, if that control be only affectionate, quiet and consistent. In regard to punish- ments, we commend the German proverb, that a good teacher can govern without corporal punishment; but that one who cannot govern somehow, is no teacher at all.
She must have good nerves and a cheerful temper ; in mercy both to herself and her scholars. How would she like, at five years of age, to be incarcerated six hours a day, with ninety other little victims, under the charge of a hasty, petulant, fidgetty, unreasonable woman ? None of our Schools, it is hoped, answer to this description. Yet who is always equable ? Who that has ever taught a School, but can remember those uncomfortable days, days when everything seemed to go wrong, without a visible cause,-and the brightest pupils appeared to grow stupid, and the most docile, troublesome,-and the good scholars were vexatious, and the bad ones intolerable ! “ What makes these children so different from usual," ejaculates the wretched teacher. Then conscience answers, "The difference is in you. It is in your own nervous irritability that the change consists ; your late hours-or your coffee -or your disregard of the laws of digestion and exercise, -these retaliate upon you, and you suffer, and these poor children are not the criminals, but the scapegoats. Half the relation between teacher and pupils is magnetic, and any change in yourself, vitiates the whole."
Then the teacher must have system. If half the disci- pline of the School is magnetic, the greater part of the remainder consists in methodical arrangement. A School which is unsystematic, never can be quiet, as no oiling will make machinery run smooth, unless the several parts are made exact and true.
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Tact is also essential, in large proportion. Most chil- dren are plastic creatures, after all,-easily turned and per- suaded, by a quiet and skilful guide. Then in explaining anything to pupils, what quick perceptions are needed, to see the matter as they will see it, and present it accord- ingly. Children take in ideas much more readily than we are apt to suppose, if there is plenty of illustration, and plenty of detail and narrative.
Of the necessity of boundless and endless patience, we need of course say nothing. That, at least, is a requisite which none will question.
She must have vivacity. It is said that " about twenty · years ago, teachers in Prussia made the discovery that chil- dren have five senses,-together with various muscles and mental faculties,-all of which, almost by a necessity of their nature, must be kept in a state of activity, and which if not usefully, are liable to be mischievously employed. Experience has now proved that it is much easier to fur- nish profitable and delightful employment for all these powers, than to stand over them with a rod and stifle their workings. Nay it is much easier to keep the eye and hand and mind at work together, than to employ any one of them separately. A child is bound to the teacher by so many more cords, the more of his natural capacities the teacher can interest and employ." In Prussia, no teacher uses a text-book (except in reading-lessons,) and no teacher sits while in School. " The teacher is the mainspring of the life of the School, throws his own zeal into everything, kindles his scholars into enthusiasm over the formation of a pencil-stroke or the articulation of a syllable, and charges them with his own electricity. It is the difference between a public speaker in all the freshness and variety of elo- quence, and one reading sleepily a passage from a book !
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This animation is especially the characteristic of Primary School Teachers in Prussia; after the habit of attention is once formed, it is easy to retain it; and the manner of teachers of advanced Schools is more calm and didactic."* But how common is the complaint, even among our best teachers, of the difficulty of fixing the attention of their scholars even for five minutes. The difficulty is in them- selves, that this faculty has not been trained in them, as in those highly-educated Prussian teachers. Yet they might at least see where the defect lies, and constantly aim at that high standard. If each had a smaller school, and no assistant, the task would be easier.
For these same reasons, the teacher needs ingenuity, to devise means of rousing and interesting her pupils, instead of continuing the same dull routine forever. It must be kept in mind at every instant, that children are not ma- chines, but live creatures, and are to be treated according- ly. Every teacher admits the immense advantage of vocal music in Primary Schools. Then why not try in other ways, to produce similar effects ? Why oblige the children always to sit up straight, in uncomfortable little arm chairs ? Introduce calisthenic exercises, and a variety of attitudes. Why oblige them to walk directly to their position in the class, at recitation-time, and directly back ? Let them march and counter-march in strict order for the space of one minute, and it will please them as much as if a mili- tary company passed the window. In the higher Schools, time is a thing to be carefully economized ;- in the Pri- mary School, to be wisely expended. Every harmless occu- pation that makes variety, is therefore a valuable discovery. Such for instance, is Drawing, which has been introduced
* Horace Mann's Report on Public Instruction in Europe,-7th Annual Report. We commend the whole Document to the attention of every teacher.
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very successfully into some of our Primary Schools, during the past year; we mean Inventive Drawing, on the plan admirably explained by Prof. Whitaker before our Teach- ers' Institute, and almost as clearly in his cheap little man- ual. Any teacher might adopt it, without any previous artistic knowledge; and it educates the pupil's sense of form, and prepares the way for firm and clear handwriting. For a more quiet employment, we might mention sewing, which was formerly universal in our public Schools of every grade, and which is just being re-introduced into the Boston Schools. Many parents would be willing to cut and baste easy work for their children, and the teacher might do it for others, and still save time thereby, through the diminution of more unpleasant duties. For it would give tranquil occupation for many vacant and uneasy mo- ments and many idle hands that else would find " some mischief still." Anything is better than the theory which
* Pestalozzi's maxim was, " without drawing, there can be no good writing ;" and Horace Mann says that in the European Schools he could almost always tell whether drawing was taught, merely by examining the copy books of the pupils ; so uniformly superior was the handwriting in those Schools where it had been introduced.
It is the peculiarity of Mr. Whitaker's plan that the pupil begins, not by imitat- ing designs, but by practising elementary lines and their combinations. He first learns to draw a single straight line, then two straight lines, making an angle ; he then combines these lines in a variety of ways, and the theory of angles is ex- plained. The number of lines is then increased ; combinations of angles are intro- duced, and the children are encouraged to invent as great a variety as possible, thus proceeding to polygons of all kinds; and finally come curved lines and curvilinear angles and figures. Lessons have been given in this way in the Main street and Front street W. Primary Schools, once or twice a week, for an hour each ; excit- ing great interest among the pupils. This interest is not confined to the older classes, even the younger children sometimes suggesting new and ingenious combinations.
Of course every new exercise requires some especial labor from the teacher, at first ; but one who grudges some such labor, for the sake of an ultimate good, is not fit for her position. Every day of familiarity makes the work less difficult.
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still lingers in some of our Primary Schools, that children of four and five are to be compelled to sit absolutely still, at certain parts of the day, without occupation, from thirty to sixty minutes ; a demand not only preposterous, but cruel.
Finally, she must have as great a variety of information as possible, and be as ready to open her stores as the most indulgent aunt or grandmother. Think, while we complain that children do not answer our questions, how little pains we take to answer theirs. We compel them to learn things which do not interest them, and then refuse to explain to them a thousand things which do .* The perceptive or- gans are developed first. Every child, for instance, is a born naturalist; yet we check that tendency, and oblige it to learn about latitude and longitude. How much good may be done by a very little knowledge of any branch of Natural History, in a Teacher ! What a blessing to any child to have been trained in habitual admiration and in- terest towards the beautiful wonders of God's Universe ! If Jesus drew wisdom from the lilies, can we teach our children nothing from all the lavish wealth of Nature around us ? Yet observe the difference in teachers. The child's handful of dandelions and clover, which one sweeps angrily away as " rubbish," another makes the means of instruction which will never be forgotten. Perhaps a boy, in recess-time, brings admiringly to the instructor, some brilliant caterpillar. She shrieks and runs away, while all the little girls scream in sympathy; the poor innocent cause of offence is indignantly ejected by the boys, and trodden under foot, with impulsive, half-unconscious inhu- manity. The same experiment is tried in another School.
"There is a little book which will be found a very valuable help in this respect, " The Science of Things Familiar."
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The teacher, unreluctant, receives the uncouth wonder in her hand, and gives to her eager little audience the strange story of its future career; describes to them its weeks of caterpillar life, its burial in the dark tomb of the chrysalis, and its bright resurrection into a lovely winged creature, whose nourishment is honey, and whose home is air. Should the moment prove favorable, perhaps the young spirits are led a step farther on, in thought, and aided to pass from Nature up to Nature's God, and to reverence the fair symbol of their own immortality. Then the poor worm is kindly laid away in the grass, to go on his own course, while the teacher and the children go on theirs.
We are describing no impossibilities, but very simple things, such as have been and may be again. To one who loves children, no situation can appear more important, than that of a Teacher in a Primary School. No one is more to be honored than those who now labor (as many do) with their whole hearts and minds, in this laborious career. If our Schools of this grade have improved, dur- ing the past year, (as it is believed that they have very greatly.) it is because we have had more of such teachers as we have described, and fewer Queen I ogs and Queen Storks. And if these suggestions prove useful, not to Pri- mary School Teachers only, but to those also of higher grade, it will be so much the better.
Probably at no former time, have the Primary Schools throughout the city, been in so satisfactory a condition. They are favorably reported, without exception, by the Sub-Committees- though in some cases, complaint is made of crowded rooms, and the want of convenient recitation rooms. We shall speak particularly only of one School of this grade, which has always offered some peculiar dif- ficulties, and hence merits some especial attention. We refer to the
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PINE ST. PRIMARY SCHOOL. Early in the year, Miss Newton, who had been connected with this school as Prin- cipal, since its establishment, resigned her place. She had labored with firmness and fidelity, and the Committee re- gretted that her impaired health obliged her to seek such relaxation from her duties. The place of Assistant had been vacated, a little earlier, by the resignation of Miss Cutter. It was therefore necessary to fill both vacancies, and we were fortunate in securing the services of Miss Doane and Miss Cross, who have labored during the year with admirable zeal and great success. It is often urged as an excuse for harshness in a teacher, that her school is composed of bad material, or is in a difficult neighborhood. Surely if this plea were available anywhere, it would be in the Pine St. School. Yet these teachers have found it possible to unite firmness and kindness, and win not only the respect of their pupils, but their love. This school, beyond all our other Primaries, requires close attention and great patience from the Committee. Most of the scholars are the children of those who enjoyed no such advantages in their own youth, and are apt to underrate them :- of a foreign birth and peculiar faith, they regard our efforts, often with the warmest gratitude, but often also with indif- ference, or even with suspicion. These evils can only be removed by a patient kindness, and a wise, firm energy.
SECONDARY SCHOOLS.
Schools of this class, under our present system, have 1 peculiar obstacles to contend with, and are commonly the source of far more anxiety to the Committee than those of any other grade. The pupils are less docile than younger ones, and have less self-control than older ones. Thus arises a difficulty in discipline, which is much increased by
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our system of large schools. It may be regarded an impor- tant principle in school organization, that no teacher should have under her supervision more pupils than she can per- sonally instruct. But in all our large Secondary Schools, the principal has the care of more than twice that number. The younger classes, therefore, coming under a divided control, are not regularly disciplined ; the teachers do not form a close personal acquaintance with the pupils ; the school-room is too large to be readily embraced by the eye of the principal, and the recitation rooms are out of her sight ; while each new recitation brings momentary confu- sion and delay. A School of a hundred scholars, which now requires three teachers in one room, (with recitation rooms,) could be taught and managed more efficiently, with less labor and perplexity, by two teachers, if divided and placed in two rooms ; thus saving the labor of one teacher for another school of fifty.
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