In order to find a place in the elementary school for the several
branches recommended in this report, it will be necessary to use
economically the time allotted for the school term, which is about two
hundred days, exclusive of vacations and holidays. Five days per week
and five hours of actual school work or a little less per day, after
excluding recesses for recreation, give about twenty-five hours per
week. There should be, as far as possible, alternation of study-hours
and recitations (the word recitation being used in the United States
for class exercise or lesson conducted by the teacher and requiring the
critical attention of the entire class). Those studies requiring the
clearest thought should be taken up, as a usual thing, in the morning
session, say arithmetic the second half hour of the morning and grammar
the half-hour next succeeding the morning recess for recreation in the
open air. By some who are anxious to prevent study at home, or at least
to control its amount it is thought advisable to place the arithmetic
lesson after the grammar lesson, so that the study learned at home
will be grammar instead of arithmetic. It is found by experience that
if mathematical problems are taken home for solution two bad habits
arise; namely, in one case, the pupil gets assistance from his parents
or others, and thereby loses to some extent his own power of overcoming
difficulties by brave and persistent attacks unaided by others; the
other evil is a habit of consuming long hours in the preparation of a
lesson that should be prepared in thirty minutes, if all the powers of
mind are fresh and at command. An average child may spend three hours
in the preparation of an arithmetic lesson. Indeed, in repeated efforts
to solve one of the so-called “conundrums,” a whole family may spend
the entire evening. One of the unpleasant results of the next day is
that the teacher who conducts the lesson never knows the exact capacity
and rate of progress of his pupils; in the recitation he probes the
knowledge and preparation of the pupil, plus an unknown amount of
preparatory work borrowed from parents and others. He even increases
the length of the lessons, and requires more work at home, when the
amount already exceeds the unaided capacity of the pupil.
The lessons should be arranged so as to bring in such exercises as
furnish relief from intellectual tension between others that make
large demands on the thinking powers. Such exercises as singing and
calisthenics, writing and drawing, also reading, are of the nature of a
relief from those recitations that tax the memory, critical alertness,
and introspection, like arithmetic, grammar, and history.
Your Committee has not been able to agree on the question whether
pupils who leave school early should have a course of study different
from the course of those who are to continue on into secondary
and higher work. It is contended, on the one hand, that those who
leave early should have a more practical course, and that they
should dispense with those studies that seem to be in the nature of
preparatory work for secondary and higher education. Such studies as
algebra and Latin, for example, should not be taken up unless the
pupil expects to pursue the same for a sufficient time to complete the
secondary course. It is replied, on the other hand, that it is best to
have one course for all, because any school education is at best but an
initiation for the pupil into the art of learning, and that wherever
he leaves off in his school course he should continue, by the aid of
the public library and home study, in the work of mastering science
and literature. It is further contended that a brief course in higher
studies, like Latin and algebra, instead of being useless, is of more
value than any elementary studies that might replace them. The first
ten lessons in algebra give the pupil the fundamental idea of the
general expression of arithmetical solutions by means of letters and
other symbols. Six months’ study of it gives him the power to use the
method in stating the manifold conditions of a problem in partnership,
or in ascertaining a value that depends on several transformations of
the data given. It is claimed, indeed, that the first few lessons in
any branch are relatively of more educational value than an equal
number of subsequent lessons, because the fundamental ideas and
principles of the new study are placed at the beginning. In Latin,
for instance, the pupil learns in his first week’s study the, to him,
strange phenomenon of a language that performs by inflections what
his own language performs by the use of prepositions and auxiliaries.
He is still more surprised to find that the order of words in a
sentence is altogether different in Roman usage from that to which he
is accustomed. He further begins to recognize in the Latin words many
roots or stems which are employed to denote immediate sensuous objects,
while they have been adopted into his English tongue to signify fine
shades of distinction in thought or feeling. By these three things his
powers of observation in matters of language are armed, as it were,
with new faculties. Nothing that he has hitherto learned in grammar
is so radical and far-reaching as what he learns in his first week’s
study of Latin. The Latin arrangement of words in a sentence indicates
a different order of mental arrangement in the process of apprehension
and expression of thought. This arrangement is rendered possible by
declensions. This amounts to attaching prepositions to the ends of the
words, which they thus convert into adjectival or adverbial modifiers;
whereas the separate prepositions of the English must indicate by
their position in the sentence their grammatical relation. These
observations, and the new insight into the etymology of English words
having a Latin derivation, are of the nature of mental seeds which will
grow and bear fruit throughout life in the better command of one’s
native tongue. All this will come from a very brief time devoted to
Latin in school.
_Amount of time for each branch._
Your Committee recommends that an hour of sixty minutes each week be
assigned in the programme for each of the following subjects throughout
the eight years: physical culture, vocal music, oral lessons in natural
science (hygiene to be included among the topics under this head), oral
lessons in biography and general history, and that the same amount of
time each week shall be devoted to drawing from the second year to the
eighth inclusive; to manual training during the seventh and eighth
years so as to include sewing and cookery for the girls, and work in
wood and iron for the boys.
Your Committee recommends that reading be given at least one lesson
each day for the entire eight years, it being understood, however,
that there shall be two or more lessons each day in reading in the
first and second years, in which the recitation is necessarily very
short, because of the inability of the pupil to give continued close
attention, and because he has little power of applying himself to
the work of preparing lessons by himself. In the first three years
the reading should be limited to pieces in the colloquial style, but
selections from the classics of the language in prose and in poetry
shall be read to the pupil from time to time, and discussions made
of such features of the selections read as may interest the pupils.
After the third year your Committee believes that the reading lesson
should be given to selections from classic authors of English, and
that the work of the recitation should be divided between (_a_) the
elocution, (_b_) the grammatical peculiarities of the language,
including spelling, definitions, syntactical construction, punctuation,
and figures of prosody, and (_c_) the literary contents, including the
main and accessory ideas, the emotions painted, the deeds described,
the devices of style to produce a strong impression on the reader.
Your Committee wishes to lay emphasis on the importance of the last
item,--that of literary study,--which should consume more and more of
the time of the recitation from grade to grade in the period from the
fourth to the eighth year. In the fourth year and previously the first
item--that of elocution, to secure distinct enunciation and correct
pronunciation--should be most prominent. In the fifth and sixth years
the second item--that of spelling, defining, and punctuation--should
predominate slightly over the other two items. In the years from the
fifth to the eighth there should be some reading of entire stories,
such as Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Rip Van Winkle, The
Lady of the Lake, Hiawatha, and similar stories adapted in style and
subject-matter to the capacity of the pupils. An hour should be devoted
each week to conversations on the salient points of the story, its
literary and ethical bearings.
Your Committee agrees in the opinion that in teaching language care
should be taken that the pupil practices much in writing exercises
and original compositions. At first the pupil will use only his
colloquial vocabulary, but as he gains command of the technical
vocabularies of geography, arithmetic, and history, and learns the
higher literary vocabulary of his language, he will extend his use of
words accordingly. Daily from the first year the child will prepare
some lesson or portion of a lesson in writing. Your Committee has
included under the head of oral grammar (from the first to the middle
of the fifth year) one phase of this written work devoted to the study
of the literary form and the technicalities of composition in such
exercises as letter writing, written reviews of the several branches
studied, reports of the oral lessons in natural science and history,
paraphrases of the poems and prose literature of the readers, and
finally compositions or written essays on suitable themes assigned
by the teacher, but selected from the fields of knowledge studied in
school. Care should be taken to criticise all paraphrases of poetry in
respect to the good or bad taste shown in the choice of words; parodies
should never be permitted.
It is thought by your Committee that the old style of composition
writing was too formal. It was kept too far away from the other work of
the pupil. Instead of giving a written account of what he had learned
in arithmetic, geography, grammar, history, and natural science,
the pupil attempted artificial descriptions and reflections on such
subjects as “Spring,” “Happiness,” “Perseverance,” “Friendship,” or
something else outside of the line of his school studies.
Your Committee has already expressed its opinion that a good English
style is not to be acquired by the study of grammar so much as by
familiarity with great masterpieces of literature. We especially
recommend that pupils who have taken up the fourth and fifth readers,
containing the selections from great authors, should often be required
to make written paraphrases of prose or poetic models of style, using
their own vocabulary to express the thoughts so far as possible, and
borrowing the _recherché_ words and phrases of the author, where their
own resources fail them. In this way the pupil learns to see what the
great author has done to enrich the language and to furnish adequate
means of expression for what could not be presented in words before, or
at least not in so happy a manner.
Your Committee believes that every recitation is, in one aspect of it,
an attempt to express the thoughts and information of the lesson in the
pupil’s own words, and thus an initial exercise in composition. The
regular weekly written review of the important topics in the several
branches studied is a more elaborate exercise in composition, the pupil
endeavoring to collect what he knows and to state it systematically
and in proper language. The punctuation, spelling, syntax, penmanship,
choice of words, and style should not, it is true, be made a matter
of criticism in connection with the other lessons, but only in the
language lesson proper. But the pupil will learn language, all the
same, by the written and oral recitations. The oral grammar lessons,
from the first year to the middle of the fifth year, should deal
chiefly with the use of language, gradually introducing the grammatical
technique as it is needed to describe accurately the correct forms and
the usages violated.
Your Committee believes that there is some danger of wasting the time
of the pupil in these oral and written language lessons in the first
four years by confining the work of the pupil to the expression of
ordinary commonplace ideas not related to the subjects of his other
lessons, especially when the expression is confined to the colloquial
vocabulary. Such training has been severely and justly condemned as
teaching what is called prating or gabbling, rather than a noble use
of English speech. It is clear that the pupil should have a dignified
and worthy subject of composition, and what is so good for his purpose
as the themes he has tried to master in his regular lessons? The
reading lessons will give matter for literary style, the geography for
scientific style, and the arithmetic for a business style; for all
styles should be learned.
Your Committee recommends that selected lists of words difficult to
spell be made from the reading lessons and mastered by frequent writing
and oral spelling during the fourth, fifth, and sixth years.
Your Committee recommends that the use of a text-book in grammar
begin with the second half of the fifth year, and continue until the
beginning of the study of Latin in the eighth grade, and that one daily
lesson of twenty-five or thirty minutes be devoted to it.
For Latin we recommend one daily lesson of thirty minutes for the
eighth year. For arithmetic we recommend number work from the first
year to the eighth, one lesson each day, but the use of the text-book
in number should not, in our opinion, begin until the first quarter
of the third year. We recommend that the applications of elementary
algebra to arithmetic, as hereinbefore explained, be substituted for
pure arithmetic in the seventh and eighth years, a daily lesson being
given.
Your Committee recommends that penmanship as a separate branch be
taught in the first six years at least three lessons per week.
Geography, in the opinion of your Committee, should begin with oral
lessons in the second year, and with a text-book in the third quarter
of the third year, and be continued to the close of the sixth year with
one lesson each day, and in the seventh and eighth years with three
lessons per week.
History of the United States with the use of a text-book, your
Committee recommends for the seventh and the first half of the eighth
year, one lesson each day; the Constitution of the United States for
the third quarter of the eighth year.
The following schedule will show the number of lessons per week for
each quarter of each year:--
Reading. Eight years, with daily lessons.
Penmanship. Six years, ten lessons per week for first two
years, five for third and fourth, and three for fifth and sixth.
Spelling Lists. Fourth, fifth, and sixth years, four lessons
per week.
Grammar. Oral, with composition or dictation, first year to
middle of fifth year, text-book from middle of fifth year to
close of seventh year, five lessons per week. (Composition
writing should be included under this head. But the written
examinations on the several branches should be counted under
the head of composition work.)
Latin or French or German. Eighth year, five lessons per week.
Arithmetic. Oral first and second year, text-book third to
sixth year, five lessons per week.
Algebra. Seventh and eighth years, five lessons per week.
Geography. Oral lessons second year to middle of third year,
text-book from middle of third year, five lessons weekly to
seventh year, and three lessons to close of eighth.
Natural Science and Hygiene. Sixty minutes per week, eight
years.
History of United States. Five hours per week seventh year and
first half of eighth year.
Constitution of United States. Third quarter in the eighth year.
General History and Biography. Oral lessons, sixty minutes a
week, eight years.
Physical Culture. Sixty minutes a week, eight years.
Vocal Music. Sixty minutes a week, eight years.
Drawing. Sixty minutes a week, eight years.
Manual Training, Sewing, and Cooking. One-half day each week in
seventh and eighth years.
Your Committee recommends recitations of fifteen minutes in length in
the first and second years, of twenty minutes in length in the third
and fourth years, of twenty-five minutes in the fifth and sixth years,
and of thirty minutes in the seventh and eighth.
The results of this programme show for the first and second years
twenty lessons a week of fifteen minutes each, besides seven other
exercises occupying an average of twelve minutes apiece each day; the
total amount of time occupied in the continuous attention of the
recitation or class exercises being twelve hours, or an average of two
hours and twenty-four minutes per day.
For the third year twenty lessons a week of twenty minutes each, and
five general exercises taking up five hours a week, or an average of
one hour per day, giving an average time per day of two hours and
twenty minutes for class recitations or exercises.
In the fourth the recitations increase to twenty-four (by reason of
four extra lessons in spelling) and the time occupied in recitations
and exercises to thirteen hours and an average per day of two hours
thirty-six minutes.
--------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------
BRANCHES. | _1st | _2d | _3d | _4th | _5th | _6th | _7th | _8th
| year_ | year_ | year_ | year_ | year_ | year_ | year_ | year_
--------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------
Reading | 10 lessons a | 5 lessons a week
| week - |
--------------+-------------- --+-----------------+-----------------+-------------------
Writing | 10 lessons a | 5 lessons a | 3 lessons a |
| week | week | week |
--------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-----------------+-------------------
Spelling | | | | 4 lessons a week |
lists | | | | |
--------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-----------------+--------+----------
English | Oral, with composition lessons | 5 lessons a week |
Grammar | | with text-book |
--------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+---+---+--------+--------+----------
Latin | | | | | | | | 5 lessons
--------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------
Arithmetic |Oral, 60 minutes | 5 lessons a week with text-book | |
|a week | | |
--------------+-----------------|--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------
Algebra | | | | | | | 5 lessons a
| | | | | | | week
--------------+--------+--------+----+---+--------+--------+--------+-------------------
Geography | Oral, 60 minutes a | [1]5 lessons a week with | 3 lessons a
| week | text-book | week
--------------+----------------------+------------------------------+-------------------
Natural |
Science | Sixty minutes a week
+Hygiene |
--------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------------+----
U. S. | | | | | | | 5 lessons a |
History | | | | | | | week |
--------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------
U. S. | | | | | | | | |[1]5
Constitution | | | | | | | | |ls
--------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-----+----
General | Oral, sixty minutes a week
History |
--------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Physical | Sixty minutes a week
Culture |
--------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vocal Music | Sixty minutes a week
| divided into 4 lessons
--------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drawing | Sixty minutes a week
|
--------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------------------
Man’l Train. | | | | | | | One-half day
or Sewing + | | | | | | | each week
Cookery | | | | | | |
==================+========+========+========+========+========+========+========+======
Number of | 20 + 7 | 20 + 7 | 20 + 5 | 24 + 5 | 27 + 5 | 27 + 5 | 23 + 6 | 23 + 6
Lessons | daily | daily | daily | daily | daily | daily | daily | daily
| exer. | exer. | exer. | exer. | exer. | exer. | exer. | exer.
==============+========+========+========+========+========+========+========+==========
Total Hours | 12 | 12 | 11⅔ | 13 | 16¼ | 16¼ | 17½ | 17½
of Recitat’ns | | | | | | | |
==============+========+========+========+========+========+========+========+==========
Length of | 15 min | 15 min | 20 min | 20 min | 25 min | 25 min | 30 min | 30 min
Recitations | | | | | | | |
--------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------
[1] Begins in second half year.
In the fifth and sixth years the number of recitations increases to
twenty-seven per week, owing to the addition of formal grammar, and the
total number of hours required for all is 16¼ per week, or an average
of 3¼ per day.
In the seventh and eighth years the number of lessons decreases to
twenty-three, history being added, penmanship and special lessons in
spelling discontinued, the time devoted to geography reduced to three
lessons a week. But the recitation is increased to thirty minutes in
length. Manual training occupies a half-day, or 2½ hours, each week.
The total is 19 hours per week, or 3¾ per day.
The foregoing tabular exhibit shows all of these particulars.