USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > Town of Newton annual report 1885 > Part 14
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in the heating apparatus as will provide for the proper heating of the halls and wardrobes.
6. There is need of more light in the halls of the Hyde, Claflin and Adams buildings if they are to be used perma- nently for study and recitation. It is a serious question, however, if the permanent use of the halls for these purposes will be satisfactory to the patrons of our schools. Should you decide to discontinue the use of these halls, additional accommodations for the Claflin, Adams and Hyde schools will become an immediate necessity.
7. In this connection I would suggest the need of better accommodations for the school at Thompsonville. The leased building now occupied by the school is not suitable for the purpose. It is inconvenient, unattractive, and deficient in regard to light, ventilation, and other essential appointments.
GENERAL CONDITION.
The work of the schools was retarded by a period of excessive heat at the opening of the school year, and was seriously interrupted during the winter months by an unusual prevalence of sickness among the children. By the earnest efforts of teachers and pupils and the hearty co-operation of the parents, these unfavorable conditions were overcome to a great extent, and I am pleased to report that the schools have made substantial progress.
Some improvement has been made in the method of instruction. This is especially true of the instruction in reading and arithmetic. It is also true to some extent of geography and history. The topical method of instruction and recitation is pursued more largely than before and with satisfactory results.
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Special attention has been given to the trainin o pupils to the habit of close and continued application. In those schools in which there are two or more grades each grade recites by itself. If a school has only one grade it is divided into sections, and each section recites separately. If it be a grammar grade, it is divided into two sections; if a primary grade, it is divided into two or more sections. Thus the pupil is given more time for study, for patient personal endeavor, for wrestling with difficulties single-handed, for overcoming obstacles alone and unassisted; in short, for learning to think, and, above all, for feeling the intense satis- faction and exquisite delight that come from the conscious- ness of personal effort persistently put forth and successfully directed. We learn to think by thinking, and to the attain- ment of this object no royal road has yet been discovered. The old-time ungraded district school had one advantage that did much to compensate for the disadvantages of such an organization. It compelled the pupil to do his own think- ing. The teacher had not time to do it for him. To teach a child to think is no easy task. It is much easier to do the thinking for him. And just here, in my judgment, is the danger to our modern system of graded schools. And the more complete the grading, the greater is the danger. There is a constant temptation to the teacher to substitute the pouring-in process with its shallow and ephemeral results, for the substantial and enduring work of mind-training. No teacher of a single grade is ever free from this temptation. It is a constant obstacle to the achievement of the highest success. Years of careful observation have confirmed me in this judgment. The difficulty may be remedied in two ways. Two grades or two divisions of different grades may be assigned to each teacher, or schools of a single grade may be divided into two sections. Both of these plans of organization
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are now in operation in our schools, and we shall have abun- dant opportunity to observe them and to make choice between them. I commend the subject to your consideration.
The discipline in most of the schools has been satisfac- tory. Few complaints have been made to me by either pupils or parents, and, in every instance, the differences have been adjusted without difficulty. This fact is full of encourage- ment, in that it indicates that the people are in harmony with the methods pursued in our schools, and are cordially co- operating with the teachers in their work. There can be little friction in the management of our schools if parents and teachers will confer together freely in a spirit of mutual good- will, having regard only to the advancement of the best interests of the schools.
FREE TEXT BOOKS.
The State Legislature passed an act in March, 1884, requiring the cities and towns of this Commonwealth to fur- nish all text-books and other school supplies free of charge to the pupils of the public schools. This statute went into operation on the first day of August, 1884. The text of the statute reads as follows :
Section 1. The school committee of every city and town shall purchase, at the expense of said city or town, text books and other school supplies used in the public schools, and said text-books and supplies shall be loaned to the pupils of said public schools free of charge, subject to such rules and regula- tions as to care and custody as the school committee may prescribe.
Sect. 2. Pupils supplied with text-books at the time of the passage of this act shall not be supplied with similar books by the committee until needed.
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Sect. 3. This act shall take effect upon the first day of August, 1884.
In compliance with the provisions of this statute, the text-books and other school supplies have been furnished, free of charge, to all the pupils in our public schools during the past year.
The method of purchase and distribution is briefly as follows: The purchases are made by the superintendent on requisition of the head-master of the High School and of the masters of the grammar schools. The goods, with a bill of the same, are sent direct to the master on whose requisition they were ordered. On receipt of the goods, the bill, if found correct, is indorsed by the master, and forwarded to the superintendent. It is then compared with the order-book and is verified as to prices, discounts, &c., and, if found cor- rect, is delivered to the chairman of the Committee on Ac- counts and Printing a few days before the regular monthly meeting of the Board. The head-master of the High School and the grammar masters thus become the custodians of all the books and other supplies used in the schools under their charge, and distribute the same among their several schools on requisition of the assistant teachers. The assistant teachers loan the books to the pupils and are responsible for their safe- keeping and return. The superintendent keeps a book ac- count with each master debiting him with the books he receives, and crediting him with those that are worn out or are transferred to some other district. This account is com- pared with that of the master twice each year. The masters, in turn, keep a book account with their assistant teachers, debiting them with the books delivered to them from time to time, and crediting them with those that they return. At the close of each school year the books are called in by the several masters, and are subjected to a careful inspection.
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Such of the books as are worn out are cancelled, and those that are worth repairing are sent to a bindery for that pur- pose.
Books are loaned to pupils on the following conditions :
1. They are to be carefully used, and not marked or defaced.
2. If a book is lost or injured, it is paid for by the pupil using it.
3. If the pupil leaves school, the books must be returned to the teacher who loaned them.
Practically, however, few books are loaned to pupils for exclusive use, except in the High School. In the five lower grades there are none that are thus loaned. And above the fifth grade the books that are loaned are chiefly those that are used for home study. Many of the books, notably Readers and Mental Arithmetics, are never in the hands of the pupils except during the time of recitation. Each pupil, however, is held responsible for a book while it is in his possession, whether it is for his temporary or exclusive use.
There is always more or less danger of neglect and waste of public property. School property is by no means an ex- ception to this rule. It is believed, however, that the plan we have adopted for the delivery, distribution, and care of our free text-books will be found to be safe and effective.
The number of text-books in use during the past school year was 21,453; the number of reference-books was 1,339. They were distributed as follows :
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Text Books.
Reference Books.
High
2,450
136
Mason
2,990
208
Hyde
1,208
68
Prospect
1,993
119
Hamilton .
758
80
Williams
.
1,574
135
Pierce
2,715
206
Clafiin
1,304
119
Adams
1,107
59
Eliot .
2,291
83
Bigelow
5,839
126
Evening
221
0
Total .
21,453
1,339
.
It is too early to judge definitely of the practical work- ing of the free-text-book law. That it will be attended with some disadvantages, there can be no doubt. The fol- lowing advantages, however, may reasonably be expected to result.
1. It effects a saving of time. Under the system of individual purchases, a delay of a week, or even more, was not unusual at the opening of the schools in September. The cost of our schools is, in round numbers, five hundred dollars a day, reckoning two hundred school days to the year. Viewed from this point, a week's delay becomes a matter of grave importance. Under the present system, the work of the school may begin at once. There need not be a delay of a single hour.
2. It effects a saving of expense. First, the cost of the books is less. The individual pays retail prices ; the city buys at lowest wholesale prices. On account of the excep. tionally large discount allowed on this class of merchandise, the difference between these prices is considerable, some- times amounting to fifty per cent. of the retail price. Again, under the new system the books are used till they are worn
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out. In the case of individual ownership, they are often thrown aside after being used for a few months or possibly & year.
3. It exerts a healthful influence upon character. The pupil is required to use the books with care, and to return them without spot or defacement of any kind. He is thus taught to respect public property. This is a moral advan- tage whose value cannot be estimated in dollars and cents.
4. It tends to increase the average period of school-life.
The purchase of school-books for a large family of children imposes a heavy tax upon the parents. In many instances this tax becomes a greater burden than the parents are will- ing or able to bear, and the children are taken out of school at an early age or are compelled to wear the badge of pau- perism by having their books supplied at the public expense. Under the operation of this law the public school is free to all. It recognizes no distinction between the child of poverty and the child of wealth. Of the large number of children who are enrolled in the lowest grades of our schools, only a very small percentage continue till the highest grade is reached. It is believed that the good effects of this law will appear in the constantly increasing number of those who persevere to the end. The longer the children continue at school, the better prepared are they to discharge intelligently the duties of citizenship. Hence, every day that is added to the average duration of school life is a positive gain to the Commonwealth.
5. It secures to the schools better books and appliances, and a larger variety of them, than heretofore, and thus leads the way to greater flexibility in the work of the school room. This. is an educational advantage whose value cannot be overesti. mated. Indeed, this advantage, in my judgment, outweighs all the others. A single case will be sufficient for illustration :
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Each of our primary schools is furnished with a variety of Readers, and most of the pupils read from five to ten dif- ferent books during the school-year. This would be impos- sible of accomplishment under the old system, for no Com- mittee would venture to require a parent to buy ten Read- ers for his child in a single year. The enactment of this law can be justified abundantly on economic grounds, but I anticipate a still stronger justification of it from its beneficent influence in broadening, deepening, and enriching the meth- ods of instruction in our schools.
Objection has been made to this law, in that it increases taxation. It is claimed that the reason urged for furnishing school-books at the public expense apply with equal force to the furnishing of food, shelter and clothing. This argument ignores the principle upon which the law is founded. The State makes the education of its youth compulsory, and thereby makes school-books a necessity ; while food, shelter and clothing are a necessity independent of State enactment. Furthermore, the State requires the school authorities to prescribe the books that shall be used, and prohibits the use of all others. It leaves to the citizen no option whatever. Under these circumstances the duty of the State is plain. Having made school-books a necessity, it can not neglect to make them free. If it was justified in taking the first step, the second follows as a logical sequence. Compulsory edu- cation and free text-books must stand or fall together.
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SCHOOL SESSIONS AND RECESSES.
The second paragraph of section 4, chapter I, of the printed regulations for the public schools, reads as fol- lows: -
"The grammar and primary schools shall have two ses- sions each day. The morning session shall begin at nine o'clock and end at twelve o'clock, including a recess of twenty minutes at half-past ten o'clock. The afternoon session shall begin at two o'clock and end at four o'clock, with a recess, in the primary grades, of fifteen minutes at three o'clock."
At the regular meeting of the Board, in February, 1883, it was ordered that the morning recess be discontinued for one month, in the grammar grades, and that the morning sessions, in the grammar and primary grades, be shortened thirty minutes. A similar order was passed from month to month till May, 1884. At the regular meeting of the Board, May 28, 1884, it was ordered that section 4, chapter I, of the regulations, be amended so that the second para- graph of said section shall read as follows:
" The grammar and primary schools shall have two ses- sions each day. The morning session shall begin at nine o'clock and end at half-past eleven o'clock, with a recess in the primary grades, of fifteen minutes at half-past ten o'clock. The afternoon session shall begin at two o'clock and end at four o'clock, with a recess, in the primary grades, of fifteen minutes at three o'clock."
The order of the Board contemplated a radical change in school management. Hence it was well to delay final judg- ment till your own observation and the experience of others should enable you to act with that degree of intelligence that the importance of the subject demanded.
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The "no recess" plan has been in operation about five years in this and other states. Among the first places to adopt it, outside of our own State, were the cities of Owego. Albany, Rochester, Troy, Cohoes and Newburgh, in New York. It has been discussed in teachers' conventions, n re- ports of school committees, in educational journals, and in the public press. Its practical working has been observed and carefully studied by thousands of teachers, parents and friends of education. It is a significant fact that, "as far as known, wherever the experiment has been tried it has been approved and permanently adopted."
Charles W. Cole, Superintendent of Schools, Albany, N. Y , in an admirable paper read before the State Teachers' Association of Massachusetts, has discussed this subject with a good deal of thoroughness. With your permission I will quote from his remarks somewhat at length. After a brief history of the plan, and an explanation of the Albany schedule of school sessions and intermissions, which is substantially the same as our own, the author of the paper says :-
" Two conditions must be fulfilled before general recesses can be dispersed with with complete satisfaction: the school- room must be well ventilated and there must be the widest liberty of individual recesses. When these conditions are satis- fied I believe not merely that there will be no danger in omit- ting the general recesses, but that the health, happiness and intellectual and moral development of pupils will be promoted. One of the chief considerations in framing a schedule of school work is, unquestionably, how it will affect the health of the pupil. The schedule herein advocated will promote the healthfulness of school life :
" By preventing exposure to inclement weather. It will not do to say that teachers should take precautions against this danger. The schedule calls for a recess, the
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pupils are eager to play, the teachers are glad to be free, and the weather will not be scanned very closely-it is hard to draw the line-errors of judgment are frequent, and the exposure follows.
" By avoiding the danger arising from the sudden return of children glowing with exercise to a school-room whose temperature has been purposely reduced for sanitary reasons.
" By reducing the liability to injury from accidental collision.
" Not unfrequently have children been seriously injured through the rough play of vigorous boys and girls, who, in their eagerness to make the mos of their brief respite from study, seldom pause in their active sports for such obstacles as smaller children. Indeed, it is marvelous that many more accidents of this kind do not occur in contracted city school- yards. A father, who has four little ones attending our schools, lately thanked me heartily for my instrumentality in removing his anxiety on this score, and assured me that the sentiment was common among parents.
" By affording practically a longer time for out-door life.
"Again, the new plan promotes good order and sim- plifies discipline. It is the unanimous testimony of teachers that fully one-half of the cases of disorder that have called for their intervention in the past have arisen from collisions of various kinds occurring during recesses.
"Still another advantage arising from the no-recess plan is that the opportunities of exercising the petty tyranny, so dear to too many boys and girls, have been greatly lessened. How many a child has stood timidly on the verge of the playground, not daring to enter into active sport from fear of oppression from the little tyrant of his field ! The claim that a general recess develops the traits of character that
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make leaders in active life is, in my estimation, wholly unfounded. The circumstances and the elements of train- ing that evolve leadership are not sensibly curtailed by the lack of school recesses.
" One of the weightiest considerations in favor of the change under discussion is that the opportunities o moral contamination during school-hours are reduced to a mini- mum. During recess the widest, almost the only, opportun ity occurs for the evil communications that corrupt good manners ; while in the school-room, in the presence of the ever-watchful teacher, when attention is absorbed in recita- tion or study, few chances are afforded for the exertion of evil influences.
"Again, the longer interval between he two sessions serves family convenience.
" Still further, the continuity of an unbroken school session tends to concentration of thought upon lessons, and to the formation of habits of study, as well as to the giving of that willing attention so essential to symmetrical develop- ment.
" Another very important consideration is the definitely ascertained fact that our schools are attended much more largely by that class of children whom you will readily recog- nize under the title 'desirable scholars.' Parents who have hitherto dreaded the evils coincident with the commingling of pupils on crowded play-grounds are sending their children to public schools more freely.
" Among all the objections raised to the discontinuance of recesses, the only one upon which any real stress can be laid is that the health of pupils may be materially injured.
" The hygienic objection is, I think, fully met by the provision of our plan which gives to pupils the utmost liberty of personal recess. But, it is urged, is not the work of teachers
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constantly interrupted by this provision? My answer to this objection is, that requests have diminished, not increased. This has resulted partly from the conformity of personal habits to the changed conditions, and partly to the formation of habits of consecutive and absorbing study.
" A wise administration of the new plan calls, without doubt, for several precautions, which suggest themselves naturally. A continuous strain of study and recitation must not be kept upon pupils during the entire session. A few moments' interval for mental rest, with liberty of communi- cation, or for calisthenic exercises, must be given between recitations. Individual recesses must be granted whenever asked for. Various devices have been adopted in order to conform to this regulation without loss of time.
" Those who have the best control and who experience the least trouble, place no restriction upon the privilege. A pupil desiring a recess rises and passes noiselessly from the room and as noiselessly returns. There is no interruption, and, with proper ventilation, there is no possibility of injury to health when the teacher is so completely the mistress of the situation as to be able to use this last expedient without friction.
" When the ventilation is not good, the windows and doors should be opened, and the air renewed, while the pupils march and exercise actively, as often as necessary. Even in well-ventilated rooms it is well to devote a few moments to this purpose about midway of each session.
" The argument has been adduced against the abolition of recesses that it prevents that commingling of children of all conditions of life which has tended to keep alive the democratic spirit so essential to the preservation of our free institutions. Did school recesses furnish the only chance for children to meet upon common ground, there might be some
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force in the argument. But all who are familiar with the daily out-door lives of city children in the streets and parks know that there is no lack of opportunity for the mental and physical attrition which will smooth the rough edges of prej- udice and caste. Add to these opportunities the friction of daily contact in the schools, with the moral influence of its emulations, its victories and its defeats, and there need be no fear of decadence in the democratic spirit hitherto character- izing our public school children.
" Finally, what is the testimony of those who have tried the new plan ?
"Superintendent Ellis, of Rochester, after a year's experi- ence, says :- ' Probably no change of so great importance has ever been made in the management of our schools against which so few objections have been urged, or that has met with such general approval. There is only one point con- cerning which there can be any question raised, and that is the physiological one. All the tests that we have been able to make lead me to believe that when the balance is struck at this point, between the recess and the no-recess plan, it will be found to be on the side of the latter.'
" Dr. Edward A. Moore, of the same city, President of the New-York State Board of Health, has been quoted to me as saying that, upon the whole, he believes the health of school children will be promoted by the no-recess plan.
". Physicians in Albany, Troy, Cohoes, Oswego and other places, who have had the opportunity of studying its practical workings, are well satisfied that this movement tends to the amelioration of the health of pupils.
" Parents and teachers, almost without exception, hear- tily approve the plan.
" It appears, then, that by the adoption of the no recess plan health is not impaired, but is probably promoted ; that
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discipline is eased, that petty tyranny is abolished, that the moral influences of the schools are bettered, or rather the opportunities for evil influences are largely reduced, that family convenience is better served, that habits of study are strengthened, desirable pupils attracted, and, as a consequence of all these results, children are made wiser, happier and better."
The no-recess plan has been on trial in the schools of Newton nearly three years. During that time the morning session of the grammar and primary schools has begun at nine o'clock, and closed at half-past eleven, and the general recess, in the grammar grades, has been omitted. Individual recesses have been given whenever asked for. In this par- ticular the largest liberty has been allowed, and, strange as it may seem, the cases of abuse of this privilege have been very rare. The testimony of the teachers on this point has been almost unanimous. Furthermore, it is doubtful if the number of individual recesses has increased under the new plan. On the contrary, many of the teachers are of the opinion that the number has diminished. It may be added that the children have taken kindly to the change, which is the strongest proof that it has received the approval of the parents.
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