USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Town annual reports of the several departments for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1862-1866 > Part 16
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COURSE OF STUDY.
Experiments have been made in nearly all the cities, where the public school system comprises several grades, to ascertain at what age children may profitably enter upon other studies than reading and spelling. Manifestly this question is not to be decided solely by the age of the pupil, but rather by his mental capacity and previous intellectual attainments. To require a child to commit to memory definitions, formulas, and statements,-a mere string of words which convey to his mind no intelligible idea, is not only to impose upon him an irksome task, but to inflict upon him a positive evil; it is giving him a stone when he asks for bread. Grammar, it is now quite gen- erally conceded, has been frequently introduced into schools too soon, before the mind is sufficiently mature to grasp its principles,-thus prematurely prejudicing the child against one of the pleasantest and most profitable studies to which he can give his attention,-a prejudice of which, when once formed, he may never be dispossessed.
A system of education which requires too much of a child, which presents before his mind too many subjects at once, which ignores the fact that the fundamental principles of every science, like the foundations of an enduring edifice, must be laid deep, and, for the most part, so far out of sight as to make very little show, has nothing in it to commend it to our appro - bation, hardly to our. forbearance. It effectually discourages all mental exertion by a persistent effort to pervert mental law. Few persons, not always even committees or teachers, appre- ciate the difficulties with which the untaught human mind struggles in its quest for knowledge. They do not always re- member what imperfect, distorted, and even false ideas they 6
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themselves formed and entertained when they first essayed to study a book, or how often they even now have occasion to cor- rect a mental impression. The mind is educated only as it thinks. It is the work of the school to teach the child how to think to some purpose, to use his mind to the best advantage. The height to which the walls of an edifice may be safely carried is determined by the depth, breadth, and strength of the founda- tions on which it rests. As the primary teacher has the educa- tional foundations to lay, there is none who holds a more important or responsible, and, I may add, more honorable posi- tion than she. It is hers to lead her pupils into a world full of beautiful forms and exquisite mental images, and to unveil . these images before their astonished and delighted minds. It was long ago discovered that there is a beautiful statue in every block of marble. All that is wanting is to get the statue out in a perfect state. There are beautiful mental images in nature and in books. It is the teacher's work to strip them of their superfluous drapery and reveal them to the child in all their symmetry and comeliness.
To attain this very desirable end books have been simplified to adapt them to the young ; but committees and teachers have commonly nullified the advantages arising from simplifying the text books by requiring the children to study the books at an earlier age .. The question is settled without the probability of a rediscussion that the study of grammar cannot be profitably commenced till the child attains such mental maturity as will enable him to grasp its principles. Would not a like postpone- ment of the study of geography for two or three years, at least, till the child can read and spell, and without the aid of an inter- preter, discover the meaning of the sentences he is required to commit to memory, be a decided improvement ? It is more than doubtful whether the primary geographies do not prejudice the child's mind against the study so that it becomes ever more distasteful.
Many years of experience and careful observation induce the belief that it would be expedient to postpone the study of geography, except what may be taught orally, till the children
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enter the secondary schools. The time spent in the primary schools should not be much diminished, but it should be devoted more fully and almost exclusively to the elements of reading and spelling in which there is almost everywhere a manifest deficiency.
No other study occupies so much of the scholar's time in the public schools as arithmetic. The average time given to it by each pupil before entering the high school is a daily recitation for eight years, twice as much time as is given to grammar, eight times as much as is given to history, or physiology, and four times as much as to writing.
If, with so much of the school life given to the science of numbers, our children do not become accomplished arithmeti- cians, a serious defect must exist somewhere. We think that the defects which we discover, and we confess them to be nu- merous, are not so much to be ascribed to defective teaching as to defective books. It is far less the fault of the teacher than of the publisher and the book-maker who have expanded the arithmetics, of which there should never be but two-one men- tal and one written-into a series of five, through each of which the child must wade as through a swamp, and the won- der is that in the attempt he does not oftener get swamped. In these prolix treatises, the principles which ought to be as simply, concisely, and clearly stated as human language can state them, are buried in a mass of words, enigmas and puzzles which distend to fifty pages what ought to be comprised in ten, and every principle is burdened with an array of examples which serve rather to confuse than to enlighten the mind, and by their order, arrangement, and mode of statement, to conceal rather than reveal what the child is seeking to learn.
This state of things imposes an onerous and responsible duty on the committee charged with the selection of suitable text books. But our book committee have not shrunk from the task, or permitted their duty to be neglected. By patient re- search and careful comparison they have canvassed the merits of all the books proposed, and have thus saved themselves the mortification, and the community the expense, of soon changing again.
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This committee, thoroughly conservative and always reluc- tant to recommend a change, became so thoroughly convinced that the arithmetics used in the schools of this city for the last four years (Greenleaf's series) are not adapted to the wants of our children, that, after a careful examination of all the recent works on this subject, they unanimously recommended that we return to the long disused but never surpassed mental arith- metic of Warren Colburn, and that Eaton's common school arithmetic be substituted for Greenleaf's. The schools have steadily improved in arithmetic ever since the change.
Perhaps no book on its introduction into the schools of this city ever received, on the part of the committee, so thorough an examination and so careful a comparison with its rivals as these arithmetics. If the labors of the committee, which were forced upon them by the peculiar and extraordinary course pursued by the publisher and agent of Greenleaf, resulted in a judg- ment adverse to the interest of that publisher and his agent, they may thank themselves for having compelled the committee to make their examination and comparison so complete and thorough that their decision is not likely to be soon revised, or ever reversed.
The study of grammar is commenced, as it should be, in the grammar grade. The committee have long felt the need of some short and simple treatise on this subject which could be thoroughly mastered in two years, since a large number of those entering the grammar grades never complete the course.
These considerations together with the real merits of Bullions' grammars induced the board to substitute them for Butler's which had been the grammatical text book in our schools for many years.
PUPILS.
The whole number of children between the ages of five and fifteen years residing in the city on the first of May, 1863, was - -
- - 4810. A gain in one year of - - - 209.
The number in cach ward was as follows :
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Ward 1, 304.
Ward 5, 817.
" 2, 573. “ 6, 590. " 3, 556. " 7, 786.
" 4, 688.
" 8, 496.
The whole number who have received instruction in the pub- lic schools during either a part, or the whole of the year is 6308, of whom 3110 were males and 3198 were females. Of these 5496 attended the schools in the centre district and 812 in the suburbs.
The whole number in the year 1863 exceeds the whole num- ber in the year 1862 by 536.
The average whole number, that is, the average number be- longing to the schools and occupying seats through the entire year was - - - -
4418.
In the centre district, - - suburbs, - -
- 3868. 550.
A gain over the previous year of - 220. -
The average daily attendance, which from sickness and other causes is always less than the average whole number, was 3773 In the centre district, 3323. - -
suburbs,
-
-
- -
450.
A gain over the previous year of - 105. -
During the first half of the year the average daily attendance was - - - - 3531. -
During the second half it was - - - 3896.
A gain in six months of - 365. - - -
The gain in the daily average attendance would have been much larger than it is, if a great many children in the south- eastern part of the city had not been refused admittance into the primary schools for the want of room.
The ratio of the average daily attendance to the average whole number is eighty-five and a third per cent.
The schools in the centre district educate eighty-seven per cent. of the pupils, the suburban schools thirteen per cent.
Those in the centre district are distributed in the several grades as follows :-
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5 5-10 per cent. in the high school.
7 2-10
grammar schools, upper grade. 1
11 3-10
lower grade.
16 6-10
secondary
21
primary
34
sub-primary
4.4-10
66
truant and evening schools.
A summary of the statistics of the several grades of schools will appear in the annexed schedule.
·
No. of schools.
No. of seats,
No. of teachers.
registered.
No. of scholars
scholars.
Average No. of
Average attend.
Per ct. of attend.
Males.
Females.
Jan. 1, 1864.
yrs. and months,
Average age in
yrs. mo.
High School,
1
212
6
300
176
175
99
111
189
16
3
Upper Grammar,
4
258
6
394
256
245
96
170
224
14
3
Lower Grammar,
8
514
10
626
434
396
91
299
327
12
Secondary,
13
748
14
913
709
627
88
422
491
10
7
Primary,
10
886
15
1151
923
797
86
538
613
8
11
Sub-Primary,
16
1198
21
1867
1271
993
78
932
935
6
5
Truant & Evening,
2
64
3
245
99
90
91
218
27
14
6
Suburban,
13
'711 . 14
812
550
450
82
420
392
10
2
The roll of honor will be found in the appendix.
RESOURCES AND EXPENDITURES.
The aggregate value of the public school property of the city, real and personal, was estimated a year ago to be about $160,000, and the annual expense of keeping it from depre- ciation at about two per cent.
There have been added in the year 1863 the new houses in East Worcester and Mason streets, which, together with their furniture, will increase the aggregate value of the school prop- erty to about $180,000.
RESOURCES.
The resources of the department for the year 1863 were as follows:
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Balance in the treasury Jan'y 1, 1863,
-
$4143 29
Received from the state school fund Appropriation by city council,
- 943 21
-
- 38000 00
$43,086 50
EXPENDITURES.
Ordinary current expenses :
Salaries of teachers,
$27,619 59
Salary of superintendent,
1,400 00
Fuel, -
2,866 46
Sawing wood,
263 49
Books, maps, charts, ink and stationery,
451 56
Printing,
148 18
Making fires and sweeping,
-
907 68
Cleaning,
246 05
Repairs and improvements,
1,604 45
Furnishings, -
590 64
Miscellaneous and incidental, -
285 06-$36,383 16
Extraordinary expenses :
Rent of Temple street house,
$300 00
Insurance, 202 50
Furniture in part for new house, Mason st. 128 73
E. Worc'r, 275 50
Repairs and alterations in Elm st. house, 241 19
New fence Pleasant street yard, 182 58
Fitting up new room Quinsigamond,
191 71- $1,522 21
-
-
-
-
-
$37,905 37
This leaves a balance in the Treasury of $5181 13, which would have been reduced, at least, $1500 00, if the new houses had been completed, as it was supposed they would have been, soon enough to have furnished them before the close of the year. But after these bills are paid there will still be in the Treasury a balance of $3681 13.
In estimating the cost per scholar, the basis of calculation should evidently be the average whole number belonging to the schools through the entire year, and the ordinary expenses of the schools. The custom in this city has been to divide the cost by the daily average attendance, which is erroneous, since
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it costs just as much annually to educate those who absent themselves from school half a day per week as those whose attendance is perfect.
The cost per scholar for this year, correctly estimated, is $8 23 If estimated as in former years the cost is - 9 64
which is $1 72 per scholar less than the average annual cost for the four years 1856-7-8-9, or an aggregate annual saving of - - -
- $6489 56
The relative annual cost per scholar of tuition alone will appear in the annexed statement :
Classical and English high school,
-
-
$22 16.
Grammar schools, upper grade,
lower
-
-
6 85.
Secondary 66
-
-
-
-
5 70.
Primary
-
-
-
-
4 39.
Sub-primary "
-
-
-
.
4 26.
Truant and evening schools,
-
-
-
7 67.
Suburban,
-
-
-
5 46.
-
-
12 39.
VOCAL MUSIC.
Vocal music has been taught in the high, grammar, and secondary schools during the entire year, two weekly lessons of 30 minutes each in the high school and upper grade of grammar schools, and one weekly in the lower grammar and secondary grades. If this subject has not awakened as much interest and excited as much enthusiasm in the schools as we have desired and may have anticipated, the deficiency may be accounted for in part by the fact that the lessons are almost exclusively con- fined to the elements of the science, and that they are too short and too infrequent to sustain an interest, even if it had been once awakened. Much has been already accomplished,-a step has been taken in the right direction, and another year may safely be expected to show much larger and more gratifying results.
Those schools in which music is a daily exercise, taught by the regular teacher, who may choose his own time for it and may drill his classes with the same regularity and precision as ,in grammar or history, will always surpass those which are
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taught by a gentleman, however accomplished, who is never seen in the schools except on his weekly visits of thirty minutes.
WRITING.
This subject has been very fully discussed in former reports. The prominent defects of our present system, or rather want of system, have been pointed out, and the remedy for them-the employment of a skilful and accomplished teacher of penman- ship in the secondary and grammar schools-has been proposed. Until this is done, the writing will be stiff and awkward, with- out uniformity or beauty, and almost without legibility.
There can be no doubt that an appropriation sufficiently large to employ in the public schools a competent teacher of peninan- ship would return to the city in one year a larger premium than the same amount of money invested in any other way.
GOVERNMENT AND DISCIPLINE.
In a community having the wisdom to organize and the enter- prise to maintain a good system of public schools, free to the children of all classes, there can be no controversy concerning the propriety and necessity of exercising over them an efficient control, a firm and consistent government. But even in such a community there are serious differences of opinion as to what constitutes an efficient control, a good government. Those who lose sight of the fact that a government has duties as well as rights, that it may not only enact laws, but must also enforce obedience to them when they have been enacted,-would have every school a democracy, deciding all questions, even of abstract right and wrong, by a majority vote,-the vote of the most ignorant or vicious counting as much in the result as that of the wisest, or the best. Others, again, mistaking a parental government for a government of the parents, would vest the control of the school in the fathers and mothers of the pupils and make their diverse, crude and contradictory opinions the teacher's law. Hardly a greater misfortune could befall a school. Hence the laws of the commonwealth have guarded that point. The legal control of the child passes from the
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parent to the teacher when the child enters the school-room ; but the parent still has an ample field for the exercise of his authority at home. During eighteen hours out of every twenty- four, parents have exclusive authority over their children. If that authority were prudently and continuously exercised, if the child's associates were wisely chosen with the knowledge and sanction of the parents in every instance,-if the child visited no place or person, and communicated with none, either by word or note, without the parent's previous knowledge and approval, teachers might be spared much trouble, committees much pain and parents much grief. On the discipline of a school, as of a family, or of an army, hangs its welfare, its efficiency, and its success. A person who can teach accurately and thor- oughly cannot claim the first rank among teachers, unless he can also awake and sustain the enthusiasm of his pupils and at the same time keep them in the most respectful subordination, cheerfully submissive to his authority and actively obedient to his will. To bring a school into this very desirable condition the teacher must be clothed with all needful authority and be authorized to enforce it when necessary by such means as a wise, firm, and affectionate parent may properly use in disci- plining a perverse stubborn and disobedient child.
The results of the modern attempts to banish corporal pun- ishment from the family and the school, or to abolish it alto- getlier, have not been flattering to the philosophers who have so strenuously advocated it. Instances are daily brought to our notice, such as would convince the most skeptical, if they are honest, that among all the improvements and inventions of the last three thousand years, no adequate and satisfactory substitute for "the rod of correction " has been discovered. And yet nothing is clearer than that the teacher should administer the rod only as a firm and affectionate parent administers to his darling child a nauseous medicine, under the pressure of a necessity which is unquestionable, and then, " more in sorrow than in anger," mindful that the great Master, who teaches and disciplines us all, " in the midst of wrath remembers mercy."
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SUBURBAN SCHOOLS.
No particularly note-worthy changes have occured in these . schools during the year. They have fully sustained their unfor- tunate consistency of character in making a change of teachers in nearly all the districts at least once, and in some of them two or three times.
The progress made has been as much as could be reasonably expected in schools not graded, where the change of teachers is so frequent, and the number of classes are often in excess of the number of scholars.
The brevity of the teachers' terms of service in these schools is not always the fault of the districts, but the teachers them- selves frequently become discontented and either seek promo- tion to the centre district, or leave the service of the city alto- gether.
The Quinsigamond school, which has employed two teachers for several years, was reorganized in the month of May and graded, making two distinct and independent schools, much to the advantage of the pupils and to the relief and efficiency of the teachers.
The South Worcester school ought to be similarly reorganized at the commencement of the next school year, as ought also the Northville school as soon as another room can be added to the house in that district.
ADULT SCHOOLS.
Nearly two years ago the day school was reorganized and, since it now consists almost exclusively of lads between the ages of eight and sixteen years, it cannot with propriety be longer designated as adult.
Since its reorganization it has steadily grown in favor with the committee and the community. Its design is two-fold, first to furnish educational facilities to those lads and youth who can attend school only a part of the year, and who therefore wish to make one or two studies a specialty, omitting others which form a part of the regular course in the graded schools; and sec-
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ond, to provide suitable instruction and discipline for the truants from the other schools, the stubborn and disobedient, and for that class of neglected children to be found in all large cities, who enjoy neither the culture nor the restraints of good parents or of attractive homes, but who, by a life upon the street or in the company of the vile, are exposed to the strongest tempta- tions to vice and crime.
As a reformatory institution it has proved to be useful, con- verting many of the most inveterate truants into regular atten- dants, and restraining many of the mischievous and vicious from their evil course.
In the fall term the pupils became so numerous as to call for an assistant teacher, and the continued increase makes it im- perative to furnish still greater facilities and more ample accom- modations. If the school can be removed from its present locality in Main street to the new house in East Worcester,. where it may occupy two rooms, the work of the teachers will be less arduous and the instruction of the scholars more thorough.
It is due to this school to say, that, in gentlemanly deport- ment, in respect for authority, in submission to law, in deference to teachers, in respectful and proper conduct in the street, the scholars of this school are surpassed by none in the city.
The evening school includes both sexes, many of whom are adults, occupied by business or labor during the day and volun- tarily secking mental improvement in the evening.
THE REFORM SCHOOL.
This is a new enterprise, directly under the charge of the truant commissioners, and supported as a distinct department, but still intimately connected with both the public schools and the police.
It has just gone into operation at the almshouse and has not had time to demonstrate its utility ; but, from what is known of the working of similar institutions in other cities, we think we can safely predict that it will be one of the most humane and successful enterprises in which the city is engaged. It is de-
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signed to furnish to habitual truants, incipient vagabonds, juvenile criminals, the homeless and vicious, a good school and a pleasant home with comparative freedom from temptation, where they may be properly disciplined and be taught habits of cleanliness, industry, and cheerful submission to the authority of law ; in short, to save them from becoming by and by a burden to society and a curse to themselves.
SUB-PRIMARY SCHOOLS.
If any doubt of the need of this grade still lingers in the minds of any, the full attendance of the schools, the rapid progress in mastering the alphabet and the primer, and in the acquisition of the rudiments of reading and spelling, must surely dispel it and convince the most skeptical that the estab- lishment of the grade did not come too soon.
These schools, of course, are not all equally good, equally well taught, or equally happy ; but the children in the poorest of them are better cared for, better taught, happier and more free than when the grade was merged in the primary.
An additional requirement should be made of the teachers in this and in all the grades, that they should teach their pupils to discriminate between the name of a letter and its power,-be- tween what it is called and what it represents. The science of articulate sounds and their modifications, technically called phonetics, furnishes exercises which may be profitably com- menced at a very early age and which should be continued till the art of word-analysis is. thoroughly acquired.
If any grade may prefer a claim for the best teachers, it is this. Indolence, selfishness, impatience, sullenness, and gloom, are nowhere more out of place than here. A cloud on the brow of the teacher is sure to photograph a shadow on the heart of the child, while a cheerful face throws a perpetual sun- beam on his soul.
PRIMARY SCHOOL'S.
The history of these schools for the past year has been one persistent and continuous cry for more room. The erection of
58
two houses gave such assurance of speedy relief as to quiet the popular agitation which would otherwise have ensued from the crowded condition of the schools and from the unavoidable necessity of refusing admittance to many of the applicants.
The need of a primary school in the Salem street house, both to complete the grades there and to accommodate the excess of pupils in that vicinity is so seriously felt that the people are im- patient for the enlargement of the house or the erection of another. The Temple street house in its present state, is wholly unfit for school purposes.
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