USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Manchester > Annual report of the school committee of the city of Manchester, N.H. for the year ending 1881 > Part 2
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help of the police department is no longer necessary. The management of the matter rightfully belongs to the school authorities. Acting upon this view, after repeated failure of other plans, the Board applied to the legislature for au- thority to appoint a suitable officer and to define his duties. An act was drafted, applying to this city only ; but so ap- . parent was the wisdom as well as the need of the proposed change, that a general law was passed, giving all commit- tees in the State the same powers.
This Board immediately appointed Mr. Samuel Brooks as truant officer, and gave him charge of all matters relat- ing to truancy. He is also authorized to issue certificates for employment in the mills, and is required to see that all employment laws are enforced. He has shown great fitness for the position. The following abstract from his daily re- ports to the Superintendent, for the last four months, shows what he has accomplished, so far as figures can ex- plain the peculiar work of such an officer : -
Number of children found upon streets in school-
hours
446
Number of absentees reported by teachers 262
Number of these reported voluntarily returned to school 71
Number of these caused to attend school 176 ยท
Number placed in 'school not attending before . 208
Number of children found in mills employed without certificate 175
Number discharged from mills 201
Number temporarily confined in police station . 6
Number visits to parents 418
The issuing of certificates for employment of children in the mills, and attending to their discharge, will require a large portion of the officer's time, in vacations as well as in
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school-time. It is gratifying to the friends of education, that the city has at last provided for a just and successful dealing with the matter of truancy. To doubt the expe- diency of continually employing a truant officer in a manu- facturing city of thirty-five thousand inhabitants, would indicate ignorance of the facts of truancy, or indifference to a great evil.
In August, the Board completed the revision of its rules and the regulations for the public schools. Two changes only are of interest to the public,- the
MANNER OF ELECTING TEACHERS,
and a reduction of school hours
All teachers hereafter chosen are to serve on trial for twelve weeks, at least, before election. This is believed to be the true way to obtain good teachers. Actual practice in the school-room is the best test of competency. . A competi- tive examination reveals but little of the ability of the candidate. Within the past year, a teacher who ranked highest in such an examination has proved a failure ; and one who was lowest in the list is now one of the best pri- mary-school teachers in the city. The choosing of good teachers is beset with all the difficulties of the civil-service reform. The absurdity of relying upon a competitive examination alone is apparent in both. When an examina- tion has shown that an applicant knows as much of the branches to be taught as the pupil is expected to learn, an actual trial in the school-room may be trusted to tell the . rest. This has been illustrated in our Training School. Teachers have been examined before and after serving in that school. These examinations showed scholarship, and nothing else. The real test of ability to teach was in the school-room.
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The rule providing for semi-annual examinations in March and November will be of interest to those desiring to teach in our city.
By vote of the Board in April, the
SCHOOL TIME WAS REDUCED
from six hours to five hours in the middle and grammar schools, and, by the adoption of the new rules in June, the same reduction was made in the High School. The hour taken from the school time each day amounts to a week and a half in a year. According to the present schedule, the schools will be in session about thirty-seven weeks of twenty-five hours each. In the last five years, there has been a reduction of school time in this city, in hours and number of weeks, amounting to four and one-half weeks. The average actual time now given to study aud recitation is four hours and twenty minutes each day.
While referring to this subject, we note the interesting historical fact that, one hundred years ago, a school was kept in Manchester (then Derryfield ), the same number of weeks as in 1881. The first school vote recorded in Decem- ber, 1781, was as follows: " Voted, that the town hire a school-master nine months this year coming."
HEALTH OF PUPILS.
So far as hours affect the health of pupils, the reduction will be a great gain, if our teachers do not attempt to do in five hours what was done in six. Five hours of worry over hard lessons and harassing recitations are worse than six hours of natural study. The health of pupils suffers as much from incompetency of teachers in this respect, as from any other cause. The success of the celebrated Quincy schools is due to the fact that their methods are natural. A visit to the schools there, finds the children more active,
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and apparently more stimulated, than the pupils of ordinary schools ; but there is an entire absence of fret and anxiety. The children are completely interested in their lessons, be- cause the teacher teaches, and does not drive them to im- possible tasks. They go out from the school happy and unburdened, to enter into their play with zest, and to sleep well at night. The Quincy system is simply a discovery of some of the principles of mental development established by the Almighty when He made the human mind, but which have been hid from wise and prudent committees and teachers, and revealed unto babes.
. The responsibility of the School Committee for the health of pupils is summed up in three things, - well ventilated school-rooms, a reasonable course of study, and competent teachers. Over against these, are exercise, food, dress, and sleep, to say nothing of companionships, amusements, and reading, each tenfold more potent than the school for or against health, and all depending upon the good sense of parents or guardians. Reduce school-hours to the mini- mum, and the majority of the children of large cities would still lack bodily vigor. Boys and girls bred in the country, accustomed to the open air and trained to labor, have always been coming down from the hills and carrying off the prizes of the city, and probably will continue to do so. It has been said that "the great city is the grave of the physique of the race." With equal truth it might be said that the grave is prepared during school life ; not because of too much study, but by the neglect of physical training, both in and out of school.
Upon the plea of injury to health, the practice of sending to the parents upon a card a record of scholarship and de- portment was discontinued at the end of the summer term. It was charged that the use of these cards produced a hurt- ful stimulus among the pupils, by comparison of their
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relative standing in the different classes. At the request of many parents the plan has been restored. It was to be ex- pected that parents who took an interest in the schools would reluctantly give up a plan by which they were kept . constantly informed of the regular attendance and progress of their children. A healthy rivalry among scholars is always desirable. Emulation is the main-spring of all suc- cess in life. Without it teachers would accomplish little. Still it is a dangerous thing in the hands of some of our teachers. A modified form of card will be adopted, in- tended to avoid danger hereafter, from a system which can do no harm except when improperly used.
In this connection we refer to a kind of emulation that has been introduced into the schools of France and other foreign countries, called the
SCHOOL SAVINGS BANK.
The children are encouraged to save money. The teach- ers receive the penny savings of the scholars to a certain amount, which is then deposited in the town savings bank. This is a species of " cramming " which ought to commend itself to the Yankee people, unless they have lost their tra- ditional love of money. The encouragement to save natu- rally stimulates to earn, and this plan is probably the best yet devised. to secure habits of industry and economy among the children of cities. It has never been tried in America, but there seems to be no reason why it should not succeed.
NEW TRAINING SCHOOL.
The reorganization of the Training School, which the Board has just adopted, is a measure of the highest im- portance to the future welfare of our schools. The new
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plan provides for the training of teachers for all grades below the high school. All teachers admitted will be re- quired to take a course of study in methods of teaching. The old Training School was a practice school only. Nine- tenths of those admitted were graduates of our High School. They have become teachers without any special study. They have copied what they saw in the Training School, good or bad. Such training is evidently very imperfect. The new school is expected to give thorough training in study and practice. It will furnish a home normal school for the young women of our city who desire to teach, and the city will have a home supply of teachers equal to the best. The old Training School did an admirable work. It was narrow in scope and imperfect in methods, yet nothing connected with our school system has yielded more profitable and practical results. While the Board hope that the new school may be of still greater service to the city, they do not disparage the work of Miss Bunton and her associate teachers. They did not attempt, nor were they required, to give normal instruction. They have accomplished all that was demanded of them, and their services deserve a grateful recognition.
That would be an incomplete record which only recited the results of a single year, and took no note of the far- reaching and lasting
RESULTS OF EDUCATION.
Education means more than statistics can reveal. The late President Garfield, speaking out of his own great knowledge of education, said that its three great objects were " conscience, intelligence, and patriotism." He put conscience first, and thoughtful men know that he was right. Book intelligence has been exalted until arithmetic stands for honesty, and smartness for honor. The times
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call for education in practical manliness, - manliness that includes industry, honesty, temperance, purity, and rever- ence. There are parents who are asking why it is that boys come out of the schools with no taste for a literature better than a dime novel, no aspirations above a cigar or a pistol ; no disposition to earn their own living ; no ambi- tion to make the most of themselves in life. What price, it is asked, would be too great to pay for teachers to whom they can trust their children to be made manly as well as learned. In our school system the teacher is becoming more and more a power to give the child " conscience, in- telligence, and patriotism." By the time school life is ended it is generally forever settled whether the coming manhood shall be noble and aspiring, or degenerate and worthless. The stream cannot rise above its fountain. The school-boy will have his model in the teacher; the character of the teacher depends upon the standard set by the men who choose him, and they are the choice of the people. The history of our city records an unfailing inter- est in our schools. Let us hope it will continue unabated. May their interests always be intrusted to citizens compe- tent and willing to give to public education the attention which its importance demands.
MARSHALL P. HALL, For the School Committee.
MANCHESTER, Dec. 31, 1881.
SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT.
To the School Committee of Manchester, -
GENTLEMEN :- In accordance with your rules, requiring an annual report from the Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion, I herewith respectfully submit the following as my fifth report, the same being for the year 1881, and the twenty-sixth of its series : -
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
The general condition of the schools cannot be truth- fully said to be greatly different from that of a year ago. Whatever of progress has been made is chiefly the result of that healthy growth which comes from a faithful dis- . charge of daily duties, well performed, by those most di- rectly connected with the schools ; and the number of our teachers who have contributed to such a result is sufficiently large to warrant the belief that there has been some prog- ress, an attainment of some higher standard for the schools as a whole. An advanced standard in a few schools has, indeed, been quite perceptible ; and an observance of the study, patience, and perseverance which have brought about the improved condition of certain schools has afforded me the greatest pleasure of the year. It is difficult to discuss the character of schools apart from their teachers ; for the saying is as true as trite, that "as is the teacher so is the
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school." So it comes to pass that Manchester has excellent and good schools, chiefly because she has excellent and good teachers ; likewise, not to put it too harshly, she has some quite ordinary schools, because she has some quite ordinary teachers.
Comparisons of the fitness of teachers, by casual observ- ers, are frequently quite unjust. It very often happens that a sort of brusqueness in a teacher's ways is mistaken for smartness, that tact in management is mistaken for faculty to teach, and that necessary delay to correct the errors and make up the deficiencies of a predecessor is mistakenly re- garded as a failure properly to advance. It does not follow because a teacher has grown somewhat old in the service, that such a one is therefore necessarily more antiquated in methods of teaching, is more largely lacking a knowledge of human nature and the operations of the mind, or is less likely to exercise a fair degree of judgment in the management of a school, than a younger person who has a better, perhaps because a later, training. General rules have their exceptions in this matter, as well as in others ; and I think that by the work performed and the results attained, thoroughly known and understood, should individual teachers alone be judged. Nor in a graded system of schools like ours can the work of a teacher always be intuitively understood. It is not infre. quently a matter for investigation, if one would know it- The real results are not always apparent, nor are the ap- parent ones always real. In one building the momentum given a class by one or two uncommonly strong teachers may carry that class through the next grade commendably well ; indeed, so that, though the teacher of that grade be weak, the class, when compared with others of the same grade, does not for the time appear to suffer. Yet in an- other building a really strong teacher in the same grade as
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that of the weak teacher, to whom reference has just been made, may appear to be the inferior, because it is not seen that such a one is embarrassed by the short-comings of, it may be, one, two, or three predecessors. Hence in a graded system of schools, where the work of a teacher is largely affected, in most instances, by the work of one or more predecessors, it is frequently necessary, in order to understand the real efficiency of the teacher, that the non- professional observer should critically note the work of that teacher for several terms ; and that, too, in connection with an observance of the work done by predecessors; and an attainment of a knowledge of the material of which the several classes may, in the meantime, be composed. It is not designed to intimate, however, that the ordinary ob- server may not very soon distinguish between a decidedly good and a decidedly poor teacher ; but when a teacher is expected to accomplish a certain amount of work in a speci- fied time, and is held accountable for the result of that work, then it is important that he who would judge of that work and its results should know whether or not the teacher concerned has first to make up the deficiencies of one or more weak teachers.
In general, it may be said that teachers belong to one of two classes,- some to the class of those who attain so much of the semblance of the true teacher that they go through a certain routine, best characterized as an order of exer- cises, which seems to be thought necessary during five hours a day, with but little apparent thought of the rela- tion the work of one day has to that of another, or of the relation the training of their pupils has to the work of life; others, earnest souls in whatever they undertake, belong to the class of those who so thoroughly devote themselves to an attempt to do their whole duty that they are soon in love with the work for its own sake, finding that they are delving
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in mines of unsurpassed richness and excellence, which are limited only by the possibilities of the human mind. In the former class, we find those teachers who feel that they are but a wheel in the great machinery of our schools, and that simple weakness upon their part will not work greater injury than to throw the strain upon another. In the latter class, save the very few who are born to teach, we find our good teachers, those who recognize no ma- chinery, who act as though they personally expected to be held accountable for the character of the training of the children under their charge. These two classes also have their exceptions. The former contains an occasional par- tial success ; and the latter, an occasional partial or com- plete failure. The teacher whose chief thought is in other directions than that of school, may yet while about the work of the school-room exhibit so much of tact and judgment in conducting the work of a school as to blind the super- ficial observer to the teacher's neglect properly to prepare his daily work, and to his consequent defects in methods of instruction ; while, on the other hand, one whose heart is enthusiastically in the work may have so little tact, judg- ment, and power to impress, or control, that most excellent aspirations and fine abilities to instruct prove compar- atively worthless in such a one for the office of teacher. It therefore requires more than an ordinary knowledge of the characteristics of the true teacher always to enable one justly to discriminate between those teachers who are ap- parently good and those who are really so; and this is especially true, for reasons already given, in attempting to pass judgment upon teachers working in a graded system of schools. '
From these considerations, I am led to point out two ways in which I think the real merits of individual teachers might be so palpably evident that there could be scarcely
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two opinions in regard to their usefulness. The first of these ways is not, in some other places, any longer an ex- periment, but a successful experience. I refer to what is known as the " departmental system " of instruction. This system is based upon the modern idea of a division of la- bor for the purpose of securing more perfect results in its several departments. My grandfather, though professedly a farmer, constructed his own carts and sleds, made his own barrels, and shod both his horse and his family. The mod- ern farmer has better carts, sleds, barrels, and shoes, be- cause they are made by specialists. Departmental instruc- tion is the work of a specialist. It consists in requiring a teacher to devote himself to the work of giving instruction in some one subject, or kindred subjects, as, for example, in reading ; while another teacher instructs the classes in arithmetic, another in penmanship and drawing, another in grammar, and so on to the end of the list of studies re- quired to be taught in a given school. This system of in- struction is in vogue in our High School, as well as in most other schools designed to furnish secondary instruction ; and I do not see why the plan would not be advantageous to a well organized grammar school, properly officercd. At any rate, it would so locate individual responsibility among teachers that any part not well performed could be unmis- takably charged to the account of the proper delinquent.
As, however, the departmental system of instruction is not advocated by leading educators for schools of lowest grade, I will proceed to unfold my second plan for making appar- ent to all concerned the comparative, if not real, merits of individual teachers in a system of graded schools. Neither is this second plan original with myself ; but for the want of a name, I will characterize it as the " consecutive sys- tem," since it consists of a teacher's following up the work of classes for two or more years. To apply the consecutive
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system to those of our schools below the high-school grade, I should advise that primary teachers accompany classes through the work of the first three years, that mid- dle-school teachers accompany classes through the work of the two years assigned the two middle-school grades, and that the lady assistants in the grammar schools accompany classes through the work of the first three years in the grammar-school grades. I would make the divisions in this way, because I presume that our teachers, in general, are in those grades, classed as primary, middle, and gram- mar, for which they have most taste by reason of the na- ture of the studies in the respective grades, or by reason of the age of the children thus represented. Under such an arrangement a pupil would have but four different teachers, including the master of the grammar school, before he should be ready for the high school; while under our present arrangement the pupil has no less than eight differ- ent teachers before completing the grammar-school course. Now I think it should be evident to every one that there is more or less loss of time and teaching power involved . in every change a teacher experiences in the reception of new classes, for of necessity it takes several weeks, often months, for a teacher to acquire a full knowledge of all the individ- ual peculiarities of a class of fifteen or twenty pupils ; and it is only when a full and free acquaintance is mutually es- tablished between the teacher and the pupil that both can work to greatest advantage. Then, too, the teacher, aware that she is to have charge of the same classes for two or three years, and will have the privilege of directing their work through the whole of one of the three distinctive periods into which our elementary schools are divided, the teacher, I say, under these circumstances will attain a more comprehensive view of the science of teaching, for she will more fully realize the relation of the work through several
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classes ; and, as often as over the ground, she will apply her art with increased effect. Moreover, the satisfaction the true teacher would experience in witnessing for so long a period the development and growth of her pupils should, I think, make her desirous of embracing the opportunity to try the experiment ; and any teachers who may feel they are not fully appreciated, as well as those who are conscious of their powers, if afforded a chance to test the " consecu- tive system " of instruction, would have an opportunity to show what they could do under favorable circumstances.
At this point I shall make the two following recommen- dations : First, that pupils be transferred from one room to another but once a year, in accordance with the plan and for the reasons which were suggested in my annual report last year, the time of transfer being at the opening of the fall term, and the chief reasons, that the rooms of the mas- ters of the grammar schools may be filled throughout the year, and that there may be relief for the crowded condition of the lowest-grade primary schools during the fall term ; second, I recommend, for the purpose of infusing more inter- est into the schools, and for the sake of affording the com- mittee an opportunity to observe the merits of the different systems of instruction, that the departmental system of in- struction and the consecutive system be both introduced into the schools during the coming year. I do not advise a whole- sale introduction of either of these systems of instruction at once ; but I think that both, one in each school, might be successfully tried in two of our large grammar schools. One of these schools, I believe, is quite favorably organized for the introduction of the departmental system of instruc- tion, and one of the others is equally well adapted to the introduction of the consecutive system. The consecutive system might also be tried in one or two other schools of
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lower grade, under the direction of the committee on studies, and at their discretion.
Before passing from these general considerations, it may be well to add, that within the past year there has been placed in the schools a revised course of study, which con- templates rational or "natural " methods of instruction ; and this course has been supplemented by aids for object illustration in the shape of material for practice, where needed, to show the significance of linear, dry, and liquid measures. Blocks for illustrating numerical combinations have also been furnished teachers of lowest primary grade, and the lower grades have been supplied with considerable fresh matter for supplementary reading. Teachers in gen- eral have had a limited supply of Swett's and of Sheldon's manuals, designed especially for the aid of teachers ; models for drawing geometrical forms from objects have been placed in the more advanced grades, and drawing manuals in the lower grades ; and Prang's Natural History series, and his plates for illustrating the trades and occupa- tions, have been placed in the middle schools. The revised course of study, thus supplemented by aids in teaching, has been worked more or less successfully in proportion to the degree in which teachers have comprehended its scope, and exhibited genius and effort to carry out its requirements. In these respects there has been considerable difference, as might be expected ; but it may be said that some have made much progress, and that some others appear to have been laying foundations which, if perseveringly built upon, should also improve other of the lower-grade schools, -the grades for which the changes made in the course were de- signed chiefly to affect.
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