CHAPTER VII.

DISCUSSION OF QUESTIONS RELATING TO CITY SCHOOL

SYSTEMS.

Introduction-Substitute Teachers-The Departmental Plan in Elementary Schools-ThoroughnessHalf-Day Sessions-Methods of Determining the Fitness of Pupils for Promotion-Examinations as a Basis of Promotion-Primary Schools-Age for Admission to Primary Schools-Physical Training-Summer Schools-School Buildings-Pernicious Methods of Heating School-Houses-Irregu larity of Attendance-Discipline-Incorrigibles and Habitual Truants-Suburban Schools-Evening Schools-Statistics of Enrolment and Attendance in Evening Schools.

INTRODUCTION.

The topics discussed in this chapter refer principally to the administration of school systems; questions which relate to methods and subjects of instruction, courses of study, etc., have been reserved for the Report of 1888-89, in which they will be treated more fully than the limits of the present Report permit.

These discussions are designed primarily to show the status of various questions which affect the progress of public education. The facts stated and the opinions quoted are taken almost without exception from the official reports of city superintendents, as they are by far the most reliable and generally the most accessible source of such information. These reports emanate from responsible officials, and the accuracy of the statements they contain may be relied upon. They are made to boards or officers upon whose approval re-election depends, and are therefore not likely to give expression to hastily formed opinions, or to contain ill-considered recommendations.

It being intended to make this chapter reflect as far as possible the prevailing sentiment upon the subjects touched among men actually employed in educational work, and in contact with the schools, the expresssion of any opinions except those ascribed to such men is generally avoided. It must not be understood, however, that the Bureau of Education approves the specific recommendations made in each case.

SUBSTITUTE TEACHERS.

With the increased attention to the qualifications of teachers and the demand for improved character of instruction has come a realization of the necessity for well-qualified substitutes to fill the places of regular teachers unavoidably absent. Formerly there was little or no method in the employment of such substitutes. The superintendent was usually authorized to employ any one whose services were available, and deduct her compensation from the salary of the absent teacher. It was even required in many places that the absentee herself employ the substitute, and be responsible for the quality of the instruction given in her absence. Under such systems, or lack of system, vexatious delays in securing temporary teachers were unavoidable, and efficient instruction was out of the question.

The extracts below indicate a wide-spread tendency toward reform in this respect, and contain suggestive hints for those searching for means of improvement.

"The plan of paying the substitutes a regular salary, and requiring them to give all their time not employed in filling vacancies to preparation for teaching was new, and it is a decided improvement over the old system." [Superintendent W. L. Steele, Galesbarg, Ill.]

"The committee on examinations prepared a plan which met with the unanimous approval of the board, and by which a certain number of teachers were to be engaged to act as a reserve corps, and to perform duties heretofore discharged by uncertificated substitute teachers. The short experience gained since the adoption of this plan has verified in every respect the predictions of friends of this measure. Principals are cordial in their approba

tion of the change from inexperienced substitute teachers to the reliable, well-educated, and more mature reserve-corps teachers. Heretofore, when higher-grade teachers were absent, all sorts of shifts were made to take care of the class, because the substitute teachers were of such a character that intermediate and higher grades could not be entrusted to their care. We are now able to provide teachers capable of holding, for a short period, the seventh and eighth grades; and it is not too much to say that the absence of the teacher from her class is no longer an event to be dreaded by the principal. The classes fare very well in the hands of the reserve-corps teachers supplied from the office." [Superintendent W. E. Anderson, Milwaukee, Wis.]

"The method of employing and paying 'substitute' teachers should be made more systematic, and success as a substitute teacher should be made a prerequisite for appointment as a regular teacher. With this end in view, I would recommend that the board of trustees of each ward be authorized to appoint a substitute teacher for each five hundred pupils in the schools of the ward, based upon the average attendance for the preceding year, the annual salary of each teacher to be one hundred dollars. Principals should be required to make to the trustees monthly reports of the character of the work of the substitute teachers, and the city superintendent should report, as occasion may demand, any information bearing upon the same matter. A regular record of all such reports should be kept by the trustees, and preference in appointment given to those having the best records. [Superintendent John Jasper, New York City.]

"The plan adopted by the board this year of employing three extra teachers on half pay, with the requirement to spend the whole of each school day in the class rooms and in such school work as may be required of them by the principal or the superintendent, proved a most helpful provisión. Under this arrangement it is now possible for the principals of our large city schools to look after many small but important matters in the different rooms that formerly received but little attention from them." [Superintendent B. M. Zettler, Macon, Ga.]

"The unemployed holders of teacher-certificates constitute the corps of supernumeraries. They are assigned as nearly as possible according to their residence. Each supernumerary has a standing invitation to visit monthly, under the direction of the principals, the schools to which he or she may be assigned. It is believed that this privilege will prove of great value to those who would avoid the mortifying errors of inexperience." [Superintendent Ulric Bettison, New Orleans, La.]

"I am convinced that for the best interests of the school more attention should be given to the qualifications of candidates for positions in our corps of teachers, and especially to the employment of substitute teachers. Every person before receiving an appointment as a teacher should be carefully examined by the proper authorities, not alone as to scholarly attainments, but also in all the requisites of a good teacher.

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"I would recommend, therefore, that a competitive examination, under direction of the proper authorities, of all applicants for positions in the schools, be held annually, and that hereafter no person be elected for a first time to teach in the schools of this district, either as a regular or substitute teacher, who has not satisfactorily passed such examination. Furthermore, I would recommend that, as far as possible, all persons elected to permanent positions shall have demonstrated their fitness by substituting in our schools." [Mr. E. C. Willard, Principal of School District No. 1, Westerly, R. I.] In those cities in which teachers' training schools are in operation, it is usually customary to require substitute work of the pupil-teachers in such schools. Mr. J. L. Terry, the principal of the teachers' training school of St. Paul, Minn., has this to say of the practice:

"Substitute teaching has been a marked feature in our year's work, particularly within the last four months. During the first term we were able to detail certain members of the training class to work with model teachers, subject to summons for substitutes, but later, as the class became smaller and the demand for substitute teachers greatly increased, we were obliged to select from the students in theory those who could best sustain the extra work, equalizing the distribution as far as possible. The result is that the average of substitute work for the year is over three weeks to each member of the class. We do not consider a moderate demand for substitutes any real interruption to our work. We allow for it and accept it as a valuable means for learning to cope with new conditions-a practical lesson in meeting emergencies which a teacher may make even more valuable than uninterrupted instruction in theory. However, we are convinced that a sudden call to work in grades higher than the fifth is a severe tax upon young ladies, of whom our course of study already requires all the work that can well be crowded into a busy year."

THE "DEPARTMENTAL PLAN" IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.

The attempts to adapt the methods of high-school instruction to the elementary grades have not been attended with conspicuous success. No mention has been made of the

subject in the latest annual school reports of San Francisco, Cal., where the system was tried a few years since, and where much was expected of it.

The experiment was also made in Springfield, Mass., in 1887, at the request of the principal of one of the grammar schools. The disposition was apparent to give the plan a thorough trial, for the school controlled by the principal making the recommendation was selected for the experiment. Subsequent reports fail to state the outcome of the movement, and since it appears from the report for 1887 that the teachers of all the schools are to be assigned to separate grades in the usual way, it may be inferred that the plan failed to produce the beneficial results hoped for and was allowed to take its place quietly in the list of unfruitful and abandoned experiments.

The following paragraph leaves no doubt as to the results of the system as tried at Nashua, N. H.:

"The change which the board has made, and which went into effect at the beginning of the present school year-the abandonment of the departmental system in the grammar grades-has proved a wise and progressive measure. There is now less friction in maintaining good order in the school-rooms, the responsibilities being no longer divided. The same is true in regard to scholarship. If a class is doing good work and making commendable progress the credit belongs entirely to the teacher in charge. There is no reason for specialists among the regular teachers of the grammar grades. All who pretend to teach such classes should consider it their duty to be well prepared in all the branches required, not excepting drawing and music. A certain degree of symmetry of ability and attainments is as necessary for a teacher as for a pupil. It will not do to attend specially to any one branch to the exclusion of others equally important, or to consider that being an expert in one excuses an ignorance in another. A specialist's province is not in our common-school branches. A thorough knowledge of all these is as essential to his success as to those of the ordinary individual. Such knowledge is fundamental, upon which all true success beyond must rest. Regarding this change, I have heard no adverse criticism from parents, teacher, or pupil, and I anticipate the best results."

A greater degree of success has attended the efforts made in this direction in Newport, R. I. There the system under consideration has been in use on a small scale for several years and appears to be very satisfactory for the grades into which it has been carried. As described in a report for a former year, by Superintendent George A. Littlefield, it is as follows:

"In the first [highest] two grammar classes, which occupy adjacent rooms connected by a door-way, the departmental plan of instruction has been continued, whereby each teacher, passing to and fro, instructs both classes in certain subjects. The plan greatly economizes the teacher's time and strength, enabling her to present her few subjects most exhaustively and entertainingly.”

Mr. Littlefield refers to the matter in reports subsequent to that quoted, in terms of highest praise. It will be observed, however, that this experiment was made under the most favorable circumstances possible, and although the results obtained in this instance may have been of a very gratifying nature, it does not follow that the plan would operate equally satisfactorily if it were introduced upon the more extended basis that the term "departmental instruction" itself implies.

One other city, Oshkosh, Wis., has experimented with departmental teaching during the year. The principal of the Algoma-Street school says: "At the request of the superintendent, a change was made on the 1st of March from the usual way of teaching. This change consisted in confining each to the teaching of one study in the several grades, rather than the several studies in one, and was instituted in the intermediate departments. This, in these grades and with us, may be called an experiment, though successfully followed in many higher institutions of learning. The change has caused no great commotion, and the results must be summed up later on.'

THOROUGHNESS.

At the spring meeting of the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association, at Washington, in February, 1888, Dr. C. W. Eliot, president of Harvard University, read a valuable and suggestive paper entitled, "Can school programmes be shortened and enriched?" The paper attracted a great deal of attention, and was published in full in the last Annual Report of this Office and in the Atlantic Monthly magazine for August, 1888. The importance of the subject, the prominence of the author, and the publicity it received were such that it may be assumed that the essay came to the attention of a considerable proportion, if not a majority, of the school superintendents. It will be remembered that after pointing out the great need of shortening the time devoted to the studies of the elementary schools the essayist made five suggestions as to the best means of securing the object desired. These were substantially as follows:

(1) Better teachers should be obtained by making tenure of office more secure, and by increasing the proportion of male teachers.

(2) The school programme should be made more substantial, and the work made more interesting and attractive to the children.

(3) "Much time can be saved in primary and secondary schools by diminishing the number of reviews and by never aiming at that kind of accuracy of attainment which reviews, followed by examinations, are intended to enforce. Why should an accuracy of knowledge and of statement be habitually demanded of children which adults seldom possess? How many well-educated adults can add long columns of figures correctly or find the least common multiple or the greatest common divisor of six or eight numbers? Nothing but practice can keep one skillful in these exercises, and we may reasonably be grateful that few people are compelled to keep in the necessary practice. Few adult minds retain accurately considerable masses of isolated facts, and it is commonly observed that minds which are good at that are seldom the best minds. Why do we try to make children do what we do not try to do ourselves? Instead of mastering one subject before going to another, it is almost invariably wise to go on to a superior subject before the inferior has been mastered-mastery being a very rare thing. On the mastery theory how much new reading or thinking should we adults do? Instead of reviewing arithmetic, study algebra; for algebra will illustrate arithmetic and supply many examples of arithmetical processes. Instead of rereading a familiar story, read a new one; it will be vastly more interesting and the common words will all recur-the common words being by far the most valuable ones. Instead of reviewing the physical geography of North America, study South America. There, too, the pupil will find mountain-chains, water-sheds, high plateaus, broad plains, great streams, and isothermal lines. The really profitable time to review a subject is not when we have just finished it, but when we have used it in studying other subjects, and have seen its relations to other subjects and what it is good for. For example, the French programme puts a review of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry into the last year. With all his mathematical powers strengthened by the study of algebra and geometry, and with all the practice of arithmetic which his study of mensuration and algebra has involved, the boy returns at seventeen to arithmetic and finds it infinitely easier than he did at fourteen. Further, the French boy has escaped those most exasperating of arithmetical puzzles which a little easy algebra enables one to solve with facility. Many an educated New Englander remembers to this day the exasperation he felt when he discovered that problems in Colburn's Arithmetic, over which he had struggled for hours, could be solved in as many minutes after he had got half way through Sherwin's Algebra. Is it not an abominable waste of the time and strength of children to put them to doing in a difficult way, never used in real life, something they will be able to do in an easy way a year or two later? To introduce any artificial hardness into the course of training that any human being has to follow is an unpardonable educational sin. There is hardness enough in this world without manufacturing any, particularly for children. On careful search through all the years of the public school programmes now in use, many places will be found where time can be saved and strain lessened by abandoning the effort to obtain an exaggerated and wholly unnatural accuracy of work. It is one of the worst defects of examinations that they set an artificial value upon accuracy of attainment. Good examination results do not always prove that the training of the children examined has been of the best kind."

(4) Children should not be retained in grades for which they are too old. The ambition of teachers which tends to keep pupils too long in the several grades in order that classes may appear well in examinations, and the caution of parents to prevent overpressure, should alike be restrained.

(5) The tendency to diminish the time spent in school should be checked; some steps need to be taken in the other direction.

Concerning but one of these recommendations can there be any serious difference of opinion. An entire change must be wrought in the generally accepted theory of what common school education should be before the ideas embodied in the third suggestion will be carried out. Mastery-accuracy-is the one thing insisted upon more than any other, and the greater thoroughness of instruction is held to be the chief advantage that graded common schools possess over private schools. To cite expressed opinions of superintendents in support of this assertion is not necessary. The object of this recommendation was to lead to a radical change of sentiment in a matter concerning which there had been practical unanimity of opinion-not to champion one side of a question already open.

A diligent search has been made in the official utterances of school officers for an echo to the suggestion. But one has been found, that in the report of Mr. A. P. Marble, city superintendent, Worcester, Mass.

Though hundreds of others must have read Dr. Eliot's essay and carefully weighed his arguments, none was induced to abandon his views upon the value of thoroughness. On the contrary, instructions to teachers and school reports generally continue to teem

with injunctions to aim at absolute accuracy and complete mastery of the subjects taught. Nor is it infrequent that superintendents are found who would add still another year to the usual elementary course of eight years in order to increase the thoroughness of preparation for higher studies and to secure greater maturity of mind and body in the students of the high schools.

The remarks of Superintendent Marble are as follows:

"There is high authority for the opinion that pupils ought not necessarily to be detained upon a subject till it is completely mastered; in other words, that it is quite possible to over-do in the matter of thoroughness. If a pupil is to be kept in a class or a grade, and upon a certain part of a subject, till he knows absolutely all about it so far, he would never advance; for the complete comprehension of arithmetic, for example, is not possible without a knowledge of the higher mathematics; and the elementary knowledge of grammar is not perfect till it is illumined by the light of a broader knowledge. All elementary knowledge appears to be incomplete. Now, with only an imperfect apprehension of the earlier steps, it may sometimes be better for a pupil to advance, trusting to future study to let in the light upon what is now dim, than to keep him groping too long in this dimness for the light, and thus to destroy his interest. It may often be better to promote pupils who are not fully "prepared," than to keep them back. Idleness, indifference, carelessness, are bad habits, which ought to be corrected; but it may well be doubted whether the best cure for these evils is a refusal to promote. Fear of not being promoted is not the best spur to activity. If no other means can be devised to arouse the indolent, it is quite doubtful whether this will do much good. What is here said about the extreme of thoroughness must not be understood as giving countenance to carelessness or a slip-shod kind of study or teaching. By creating an interest in study, and by the very best presentation of every subject taught, the minds of pupils should be directed and led, and made alert and active so far as possible. But, after all has been said and done, there will be many pupils by whom a part, greater or less, will be but feebly comprehended; and the question is, whether they should be detained at this particular stage till they understand and can do as well as the rest, or whether they should pass on.

"In general, it is useless to attempt to bring all up to the same degree of excellence, and it is better to go forward. Our teachers are too conscientious, it is believed, to relax their efforts at all because they know this truth."

HALF-DAY SESSIONS.

There is no doubt that the adoption of half-day sessions in other than primary grades is condemned by a majority of educationists. As to the advisability of their use in the lowest grades there is no general agreement, though it is worthy of note that none of the advocates of the plan are found among the school authorities of the largest cities. In every case in which it has been necessary to divide the classes in these cities into morning and afternoon sections, that necessity has been deplored and urgent recommendations have invariably followed for new buildings in sufficient numbers to restore the schools to their wonted conditions.

The following is from the report of Mr. William H. Maxwell, superintendent of public instruction of Brooklyn, N. Y., for 1887:

"It will be noted that while the number of pupils promoted from the seventh primary grade is larger than that from any other grade, it is smaller in proportion to the average attendance. The cause is easily explained. It is found in the half-day classes organized in many schools. The children attending this grade are younger than those attending any other, and hence their attendance is more irregular. As a consequence, the number of half-day classes is a constantly varying quantity. When the attendance is large a part of the pupils are allowed to come only in the forenoon, the remainder in the afternoon. This system, though never legalized or endorsed by the board of education, has been forced upon the schools by a commendable desire to do everything possible to accommodate all the children whose parents apply for their admission. It is, however, of very doubtful utility. It is questionable, even, whether it serves to any appreciable extent the purpose intended. The statistics show that only about forty-four per cent. of the average attendance is promoted from this grade at the end of each term. This means that the majority of the children are detained in this grade two or three terms. Nor can it well be otherwise while half-day classes are tolerated. If one hundred children, as is not infrequently the case, are placed under the charge of one teacher, it is certainly better, both for them and for her, that she should teach half of them in the forenoon and the other half in the afternoon, rather than that she should try to instruct all of them at one time. But those who come in the forenoon are defrauded of part of their time, while those who come in the afternoon receive only about an hour and a half of schooling each day, and learn but little, if anything. As a rule promotions are made