Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-03-09
COMMUNICATED
CONGRATULATED.
Questionable Benefit of School Exhibitions

Questionable Benefit of School Exhibitions
To the Editors Of The Daily Press:
The practice many of our country school,
teachers have of closing their six months
term of school with that humbug, yclept an
Exhibition" is a very Objectionable one,
in many points of view, and it appears
rather singular to my mind how committees
have submitted as long as they have to an
imDosition of the kind. There area few of
our teachers who have decided against the
%propriety of these exhibitions, and | am
glad to see that their opinions are having
some influence with that portion of the
people who desire to see a good, thorough,
well ordered school in every sub district in
the State.
After several years of observation and ex-
perlence, l believe that they can not be
given without injustice to both parents and
pupils; and that there are many teachers
who, without tact, talent or education, !" get
up" and sustain q reputation as educators,
by their success in these trumpery school
" shows" Of course, in a community which
is wide awake, such a mau soon finds his
level but hat there are hundreds of places
in the State supplied by men of this stamp,
is a fact easily established by observation.
In country districts, or small towns, the
large majority of the pupils are the children
of farmers, and from the age of fourteen
their services are required upon the farm for
eight months of the year. Owing to the
long interim between their sessions, the first
month of the remaining four is occupied in
reviewing and getting settled for work.
Now, parents, who wish their children to
receive a good common school education,
certainly expect that under q teacher of tact
ard energy, there would remain to the chill
dren three months for application and con-
sequent advancement. In many cases, how
ever, tie teacher being unable to excite an
interest in the pupils, and taking but little
himself in the actual progress of his school,
has recourse to an exhibition, TO save his
credit and keep his school from absolute
stagnation. In such a school the first two
months are "worried" through with but
little of any improvement. Then COM
mences preparation for the grand exhibition.
Burnt.cork declamations, curtains, dialogues,
&c. fill every bead in school. Recitations
become nominal. All advancement (if any
had previously been made) stops short, and
all the mental discipline and knowledge &C.
quired in the four or six weeks preceding
the affair, is not worth a sous. Fannie
looked "sweet in her blue sash, and Johnny
looked mice in his new jacket" and the
vanity of pa and ma being tickled, they
lose sight of the fact that to "get up" the
humbug, their children have lost weeks of
~time-valuable because limited-and that,
too, without having received in return any
practical or intellectual advancement.
II is time for local directors and parents
to think both reasonably and conscientiously
upon this subject, and to avoid those teach
eTs who depend upon their exhibitions
much as quacks do upon their stunning
advertisements. Let them avoid humbug of
this kind, and institute thorough, rigid ex-
aminatioDs at the close of every term, and
in two years there will be a vast improve
ment in the proficiency of our country
schOois. CON.