USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Town annual reports of the several departments for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1878 > Part 4
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It should be observed also that the depression of business
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operates to fill up the schools. When other business is dull the school business is lively -a fact often overlooked ; and the school census shows an increase of 309 in the number of child- ren of school age in the city.
TEACHERS.
There are now in the employ of the city, one hundred and ninety-one regular teachers, besides the special teacher of music, the twenty-five teachers in the evening schools, and the three in the evening drawing classes. Of the regular teachers, one hundred are graduates of the Worcester Training School, or of one of the State Normal Schools. To any one familiar with the subject, there is no doubt of the great advantage of the special training which these schools give ; it is far better for both the teacher and the pupils that the teacher should, as far as possible, learn the trade in a school provided for that pur- pose, rather than experiment with the children in our schools.
Besides what our teachers do for their pupils by way of instruction in the studies pursued, they do a work in the forma- tion of character and habits of study, which is hardly appreciated by the public. Here is what one of them wrote about an incorrigible boy : "I have tried to teach him to be kind and pleasant, truthful and obedient, and to regard the rights of oth- ers. I have tried to be patient and to teach him by kindness ; I have punished him when I thought it necessary, and have sent him to the principal a good many times. I do not think he has. profited by my efforts as he ought."
Notice with what a good spirit that girl worked. When she seemed to fail she appealed to a higher authority; and it may be that after the weeks and months of hard work and patient interest in the welfare of the boy, such interest as a father or mother would feel, she was rewarded by censure from the parents because the boy did not do as he ought. It would be for the interest of the children, their parents, and the schools, if such teachers as this, and nearly if not quite all of them are of this kind, could hear approving words for what they do and try to do. They are often enough blamed for failures, real or supposed.
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SCHOOLS .- SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT.
On the part of the teachers there is an amount of faithful work for which they do not get credit in the current talk. They suffer and the schools suffer from all sorts of ill-advised criticism by many people who seem to have not much else to do. Little short-comings are magnified; the salaries are made the subject of all sorts of comparisons ; and a good deal is said that renders the teacher's position unpleasant. All this tends to drive from this important calling those who are best fitted for it, and who should be attracted towards it.
It would greatly improve our schools if the position of teacher could be made more secure, and if the question of salaries were left to a competent authority and made less the subject of pub- lic discussion. It tends to diminish the respect of a pupil for his teacher, and consequently to weaken the influence which the latter may exert upon the child, to hear the value and the importance of his service constantly belittled, as is so often done. When by sufficient length of service a teacher has once demonstrated his ability and fitness, he ought to continue in his position without the annoyance of an annual election. The question of salary should not be hawked upon the street like an auction of old furniture or superannuated horses.
READING.
Whatever importance may be attached to any other of the school studies, all urge the prime importance of good reading. To this, much attention is paid in our schools. A majority of the pupils can read well; but it is probable that more time might profitably be devoted to practice in reading in many of the schools.
Elocution is an important part of reading, but not the chief part, as it should be taught in school. After the elementary steps, the main thing in learning to read well is to grasp the thought ; and then, if reading to another, to express the thought by the voice. For these ends the matter should be within the pupil's comprehension. A pupil can learn to read really well, only as he advances in knowledge. Reading should accompany every other branch of elementary study. Much
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practice is required. There is no way to learn to read, like reading. A good reader is not one who has been drilled in a few selections till he can imitate somebody's tones and inflec. tions, but he who can first take in at sight, and then express with his voice the thought of the author. After the first steps no finical corrections ought to be made while a pupil is reading. If he has so grasped the thought that he unconsciously substi- tutes an appropriate synonym, this is an excellence. It is often treated as a blemish. In the more advanced stages no child can become a really good reader by poring over his exercise a long time before reading it aloud. He ought frequently to practice reading at sight. In this way the eye learns to read a line or so in advance of the voice. -
WRITING.
There is no special teacher of penmanship in our schools ; none is needed, for the children as a whole write as well as if they had one. There is an exercise in writing from a copy, several times a week. In this way a knowledge of the correct and graceful forms of letters is learned. Besides this, there is a great deal of writing required in the preparation of other les- sons, especially the lessons in language.
The aim in this study is to acquire ease, rapidity and legi- bility ; and the less ornament the better. The correct position and holding of the pen belong to the early stage. When one is obliged to write much, as many people do in after life, the easiest position is the best; and this has to be varied. There is also an individuality shown in each person's hand writing. This individuality it is not best to suppress altogether in children. Any person who takes the trouble to examine, will be pleased to notice the ease and the skill with which our pupils can express their thoughts on paper. In a few instances children are found who write with the left hand only; this habit ought to be broken up before the child leaves grade Five, unless it be firmly fixed. Children in our First grades learn to write on the slate almost before they learn to read. They use script letters, not print.
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SCHOOLS .- SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT.
SPELLING
Is taught both from the spelling-book and from the words found in the several text-books in use, and such words as the pupils have occasion to use in the various exercises proposed by the teachers. Good spelling is an evidence of accurate scholarship; but a misspelled word is of far less consequence than weakness of expression or illogical thought. It has been said that pupils in these days are not so good spellers as they were years ago. If this be true, it may be accounted for by the vastly greater number of words in common use, than were employed fifty years ago by common school children. This enlarged vocabu- lary is due to the daily papers. The good speller of that day, with whom the comparison is made, was one well versed in Webster's Spelling-book whose words, all in columns, he could spell. If required to write half-a-dozen pages, as our pupils do, it is doubtful whether he could spell any better than they.
Some people object to the use of a spelling-book, and discard it entirely, depending wholly upon the other books in the hands of pupils to spell from. In this way a valuable aid in learning to spell is lost : the law of association on which a good spelling- book is founded.
The safest course seems to be between all spelling-book and no spelling-book; that is, while taking advantage of this law of association, and making use of a good spelling-book, the teacher should insist that the pupil notice the spelling of words as he . sees them. Call upon him to spell the words of an extract which he has read but once.
But it is of prime importance in making good spellers, that the habit of consulting a dictionary should be early acquired and never given up; and this not only for the spelling, but also for the correct and intelligent use of words. It is one of the worst intellectual habits, to use words without some definite idea of their meaning; and yet this habit is very common among grown people. Spelling-book or no spelling-book, every child in the Fourth grade and upward should have a dictionary, large or small, and be taught to use it.
On this subject the important thing for a child to acquire is
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the spelling habit ; that is, the habit of first noticing every word he sees ; and second, looking up every word he has occasion to use whose spelling he does not know. A good speller is merely one who has this last habit; for nobody can spell all the words in our language, and those who make fewest mistakes-the most learned men of the town-simply use the dictionary most. There are certain words which each person can spell; a good speller separates these from all other words by a sharp line, and looks up the uncertain words; a poor speller draws no well defined line, and blunders. The best thing for children to learn is to draw such a line; and then to bring as many words as possible to the right side.
ARITHMETIC.
Number is taught in the First grade and continued to the High School; here, it is succeeded by algebra, geometry, etc. In the first step the ideas are made definite by the use of mater- ial objects and marks ; these combined and separated explain to the child's comprehension, addition and substraction; and the rest of arithmetic is only the expansion of these two - a fact not always kept clearly before the minds of pupils.
As the pupil advances step by step in arithmetic, he is com- pelled to make a logical analysis ; that is, if he has any adequate understanding of the subject. He may write history from mem- ory ; he may repeat facts in geography, and state formulas about constructions and relations in the English language, as he has learned them ; but in arithmetic, if he does anything outside of a mere parrot-like routine, he must rest upon the foundation of his own reason. It is true that if well taught, he will reason at every step in each of those studies ; in this he is compelled to use and rely upon his own reason-he is compelled to reason or do nothing. Hence, in training the mind at the elementary stage which we are considering, no study is of more importance than this.
The reasoning and the process should go hand in hand. The reasoning is a very simple thing if the child's mind is sufficiently developed to grasp it; but there is danger that it may be obscured by the form of words in which it is expressed, and
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that the form may be allowed to keep the attention from the substance. The skillful teacher will insist upon the substance, and not too much upon the expression. And here another difficulty is met: that the child must learn the expression at the same time; but to overcome this difficulty is in itself a highly useful training. Young teachers sometimes fall into the error of trying to explain in words that which is of the nature of an axiom. Two and three are five. When a child finds this out by counting two pebbles with three pebbles and gets the result five pebbles, that is all there is to it; and yet a long pro- cess of what passes for reasoning, something like the following, has been heard : Two and three are as many as the sum of two and three; the sum of two and three is five; therefore two and three are five !
In some children the mathematical faculty is developed late, and they find it hard to understand what is easy to most pupils of their age. There is flexibility enough in the arrangement of our schools to allow these children to go on if they are compe- tent in other respects, and make up what they lack in this study when they are older; and of this flexibility we ought to and do avail ourselves. It is not unfrequent that a boy very defic- ient at eight or ten years of age will at twelve or fourteen mas- ter the whole subject easily. Cases of this kind can be pointed out in our schools. And in some children the mathematical faculty is feeble. This is not a reason why the study should be given up; on the contrary, it is the strongest reason why the faculty ought to be developed.
In some private schools the study of arithmetic is almost wholly ignored ; language, history, music, and literature take its place, and the pupils are not less polished members of society ; but in these the mind lacks a power which it ought to have.
It is thought by some that too much time is spent in our schools on this subject. If so, this is because we attempt at an early age that which ought to be deferred till later; an attempt forced upon us to a large extent, by the early withdrawal of pupils from school. That this immaturity of pupils does cause a waste of time in this study, there is some reason to believe ; but that too much is required, will not so readily be admitted.
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CITY DOCUMENT .- NO. 33.
GEOGRAPHY.
There are two theories as to how this study should be begun : First, that the earth as a whole, a planet in space, should be brought to the attention of the pupil, and then studied in its parts, the continents, islands, oceans, seas, etc. Second, that the child's immediate neighborhood ought first to claim his atten- tion; and that he should then be led to consider a broader extent, and finally the whole earth. The first is the scientific method suited to a somewhat advanced period of scholarship; but it calls for the exercise of a strong imagination and an acquaintance with elementary truths which the child does not possess ; it is unsuited to many children. The second is adopted in the First grade. The child sees objects upon a table, learns to describe the position of each, and then to draw upon the slate a map of the table and indicate the location of each object. From this he advances to a map of the school room with its furniture; then of the school yard, its trees, walks, fountains, boundaries, etc .; then to a map of the immediate neighborhood, its streets and houses, or the adjoining fields. He now under- stands what a map is, and how it represents places. His imagination can picture what is meant by a map of the town beyond his sight, the county which he has not seen as a whole, and so on to the State and to distant countries and continents. His imagination thus steps from the region of the known to the unknown. Later he will be prepared in imagination to view the earth as a whole, a planet in space, and to fit his parts to this whole.
After this preliminary study our pupils take up a familiar text book describing the physical and social features of parts of our own country and other countries ; they next advance to a more minute description of the United States, Europe and something of the other countries ; and in the higher grades they go over the same and complete the general geography of the earth. This plan has been adopted in order that pupils who leave early may not be wholly ignorant of their own country ; at the same time, those who continue in school, study with not less interest that of which they already know the outlines. As the
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SCHOOLS .- SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT.
range of knowledge grows wider and wider, and facts accumu- late, these facts are arranged in cyclopedias for reference ; it is less possible and less necessary to rely upon the memory for them ; it is of vital importance to know where to look for them. It is a serious waste of time for a child to learn the population of cities, the area of states, the length of rivers, etc., except compar- atively and in a general way. For all similar facts cyclopedias are at hand. What he should be taught is the outline, the salient features, and not the details. Only a slight knowledge of the earth can be learned in school. The aim should be and is, to interest the pupils in the study and to put them in the way of further knowledge. For this purpose passing events are seized upon and the places where they occur are studied ; the articles of commerce, where they are produced and why there ; the food and clothing in our houses, whence they come; the great centers of agriculture, of manufacture, of mining and of trade, what is said of those in the daily papers; all these things, brought up incidentally, teach how one may always be learning geography; and these means are largely adopted in most of our schools. The aim is not to teach all of geography, but so to teach it that the pupil will become a constant learner.
LANGUAGE.
Our schools attempt to teach the English language, and not merely grammar. From the first year the child is taught to construct sentences ; and his errors of expression are corrected, both in speech and in writing. A little later he learns the most simple classification of words; further on the properties of the parts of speech and the syntax of the language ; but all through, it is the design to subordinate technical grammar to a knowledge of "how to speak and write the English language correctly," and to some perception of the force and the beauties of that language. There is much to be done in this difficult and important branch of study. In neither relying wholly upon the study of grammar, nor ignoring it entirely, there is more or less inequality of instruction in different schools of the same grade. Some teachers are more capable than others in this direction.
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But it is believed that the pupils, as a whole have gained and are gaining in the handling of English. It would surprise one unacquainted with the present way of doing things, to see in · what good language pupils who cannot "parse" very well, can express their thoughts. One very important thing they learn, which not every one at present in active life practises: To have something of their own to say before they express them- selves -and then to say it.
HISTORY.
This study is regularly pursued only one year before the High School, and is confined chiefly to History of the United States. All else in the grammar schools is done incidentally by individual teachers. The ninth grade is crowded by this study ; the pupils have not time in a single year to digest well the United States for two hundred and fifty years. It ought to be taken up as a pastime, by lectures from the principal, familiar and entertaining, and by reading, one or two years before ; and in the geography, a few snatches of interesting and lively history ought to be interspersed, as a sort of bait to entice children to want to study it more; for after all, it is the men and women who have lived, or who are living in a place, what they did as well as what they are doing, that makes that place more interesting than another.
It is not the plan nor the custom in our schools to give verbal recitations in this subject. Only the principal dates are mem- orized, and but few of them. The philosophy, the causes and effects, the general sweep of events rather than successive occurrences strung on a chronological string, are sought; and quite generally they are attained.
DRAWING.
In the grammar and lower schools two lessons a week are given in this subject by the regular teachers. It has been assumed that they are competent. This is the only strictly " practical " study. It was introduced years ago in response to a demand from the artizans of this manufacturing city. It is
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not a fine art at all as attempted here, whatever phase it may take on elsewhere. It has nothing whatever to do with making pictures, as some people who talk about it, seem to think. To object to it on this ground is like objecting to learning to write because sóme who learn may write poetry. It takes very little time ; and this serves as a recreation. If any popular miscon- ception were to abolish this study, it is only a question of time as to its subsequent reinstatement ; though whether it formerly may not have monopolized an undue amount of time and atten- tion, is a fair question.
MUSIC
is taught by a special teacher who visits each school above the Fourth grade for one half-hour's lesson a week, three weeks in four ; the fourth week he divides among the suburban and the primary schools. The regular teachers drill the pupils on the exercises given, and conduct the singing which is interspersed among the school tasks. As a part of education, music does not end with mere learning to sing ; it is not a merely "ornamental" study; its effect upon the reading, the disipline, the health and the character of pupils is marked. On this subject the excellent report of the Omaha schools, says :
" Who will measure its kindly and constant influence in never ending private conversation ? Who, its influence on health, the power of endurance and longevity, by making habitual the full and unconstrained use of the lungs? Who, its humanizing power, through the medium of song? Let those who oppose it in the public schools consult history, consult science, consult honestly their own hearts, and withdraw further opposition."
These last two can hardly be regarded as studies; they are of the nature of a diversion or recreation, like the recess, to pre- pare the pupils to learn ; the proposition to abolish the recess at each session in order to save the time for study, would not be more absurd than other suggestions that have been heard about schools. For instance, that because teachers are paid for a day's work the school ought to keep open ten hours, like other places of business. The conditions under which pupils study are quite
4
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CITY DOCUMENT .- NO. 33.
as important as the time spent. Before the seed is put in, the ground must be prepared, and afterward cultivated.
The above list comprises all the studies with which our schools are " crowded."
THE INFLUENCE ON CHARACTER.
The usefulness of the schools, however, is by no means con- fined to what pupils learn in these branches of study. They learn how to study ; they acquire a thirst for knowledge; they develop a taste for good reading ; by strict attendance at school they acquire habits of regularity, most useful through life; by contact with other pupils they learn how they themselves com- pare with others equal in age; by this association and the necessary regard for the rights of others, they take their places as members of a civilized community, and do not become boor- ish; by submission to discipline and wise authority they become obedient to law, which makes good citizens; they are taught to be dutiful and truthful; as occasion arises, their generous impul- ses are stimulated and their selfishness is restrained ; above all, there is before them, day by day, a person of superior intelli- gence and character, who, by example, imperceptibly but con- stantly moulds their character. It cannot be admitted that moral training is absent from our schools; in nothing is the influence of these schools more marked; if individual excep- tions to the high character of our teachers can be pointed out, the general truth remains. Sectarian training, it is true, is very properly absent; the moral training is positive.
THE CHARACTER OF OUR PUPILS
is a source of just pride. They are young ladies and gentlemen in conduct, though boys and girls in age. Rowdyism and insub- ordination are unknown in the schools. Fifty years ago they were not unknown. On the street, in public halls, towards older people, and in self-control everywhere, they show the effects of good training, however "military" that training may be thought. It is rare that a pupil is saucy to his teacher. For
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more than ten years in this place where it has often been neces- sary to come into unpleasant relations to some pupils, I have never heard an impudent word. The good conduct of the children in school is remarkable; this conduct evinces an inward grace. They ought to know in this public way that it is observed and appreciated.
TEXT-BOOKS.
Slavery to the text-book, following it rather than the sub- ject of it, is an evil often seen in schools ; hence some people wish to abolish the text-book entirely. A broad and thoroughly trained teacher, capable himself of making a good text-book, could get on well without one; but most teachers are not of this character. Moreover, one of the chief uses of schools is that pupils may learn how to use books; if not, when away from the teacher they have no resources for acquiring knowl- edge. We retain text-books, therefore, with the design that they shall be properly used and not abused.
The cost of these books is a serious item to many parents; but the books need not be thrown away; they are interesting and useful after the school is done. The aggregate cost of text-books would be diminished from one-third to one-half if the books were owned by the city and lent to pupils; this is the practice in some cities of the Commonwealth. But this smaller cost would then fall upon the property, whereas, now it falls upon the parents. The change is not recommended here because the cost of what is already furnished by the public has raised up enemies to the schools.
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