Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1855-05-30
IFor the Chronicle.
COMMON SCHOOLS.

Editors Chronicle As this is about
the season for the commencement of our
Summer Schools, and the attention of
the public seems to be directed 10 that
subject, | would ask the favor Of small
space in your paper, for the purpose of
making few suggestions on that subject.
1t will be admitted by almost all re-
flecting minds, that our Common Schools
are not as forward as we might expect,
from the time spent, and money expend-
ed in supplying them.
The inquiry then naturally arises
what causes can be assigned, why, in an
old, settled, and wealthy country, with
Schools kept from seven, to ten, and
twelve months in the year, so little i'm
provement should be made? Several
reasons might be given, but, in my oPin-
ion, the principle cause is, the employ
ment of so many yOang, inexperienced,
and inefficient teachers.
InesLimating the quali6cationsofteac
ers, should be guided by entirely diff
ferent rules and regulations, from those
adopted by our present School Examin-
ers.
Something more is required of those
to whom we intrust the education of our
children, than merely answering techni-
cal or puzzling questions, most of them
of no practical use and affording no
tes S of scholarship, or fitness for the
arduous, and responsible duties of an
instructor of youth. In these remarks,
l do not wish to be understood as censu-
ring any of our present efficient, and
genuemanly, School Examiners in this
part of the State, for personally have
no cause of complaint. The objections
are to the law itself, rather than to the
administration of it; and some of the
School Examiners, 1 nave reason to
know, agree with me in my objections.
Now let us look to the operation of
this law. Notices are published in some
newspaper, generally in the Spring and
Fall, wherein applicants are notified to
assemble at the County Seats, and be
examined. The applicants are under the
necessity of leaving home, often before
daylight, and travelling, frequently thro'
storms, in these variable, and inclement
seasons, ten, fifteen, and twenty miles,
to the place of examination, and arrive
weary, and exhausted. They a:e then,
without sufficient time for rest and re-
freshment, hurried to the place of exam
| ination, sometimes to the number of SIX
ty, seventy, or one hundred, all IN one
room, and here commences a hurried,
and necessarily very imperfect, exami-
nation. Questions are selected OF little
or no practical use, and those who are
fortunate enough, "partly through de-
sign, and partly through mere accident >
to answer the questions, are duly licens-
ed to teach a Common School for three,
or six months.
While those, who, from difidenee, or
physical inability, to endure the fatigues
of such examinations, however high they
may stand in public estimation, however
successfully they may previously have
been in teaching. for failure to answer
certain questions. are rejected.
There are probably, on an average,
from one hundred and fifty to two humid
red applicants for examination in each
County in this part Of the State.
At the lowest estimate, it costs them
$500 each, to go to the County Seat
and spend the day, and travel the most
part Of two nights. This journey, per-
formed twice in each year, costs the
teachers of each County from six to eight
hundred dollars a year greater pro-
lessional tax than is paid by Lawyers,
/ Clergymen, Physicians, and other pro-
fessionS, put together.
A young man, wishing to follow the