The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1865-06-14
Union Graded school.


features of such an institution were no.
ticed and, incidentally, the work it was
to do and the superior advantages it
would possess enabling it do it.
Our crying need of such a school no
one can question who will, for moment,
look in upon the District and other
schools this is intended to supplant. l
care little how excellent may be their
teachers, what the worth of their meth
DDS or their success in awakening and
satisfying inquiry there is one thorough
going disqualification of which District
schools, from their very nature. must ever
stand convicted. And it is this-it is
utterly impossible so TO classify the 40
or more or less, pupils that attend each
such school that fraction of the teach
ers time every class needs in recitation,
can be allotted 1t. In a school of 40
hardly more than four or five in any
study can possibly or, at least, proftably,
be thrown together in the same class.-
And to get even SO many together in the
same study, frequently one-half of them
must be crowded back and the others
crowded forward, from their true stand
ing. The one grave care of the common
and select school teacher is to prevent
multiplication of classes but let him push
this herding and grouping process to the
extreme land how often this is done TO
the serious detrlment of the pupil, con-
demnng one to 90 over in ceaseless tier
alton the same portion of his arithmetic
or grammar and another, dragged at the
skirts OF the more advanced of the class.
to hurry over what he cannot understand.
every graduate of district school can
tell you) say, in spite Of all his efforts
at classification what teacher of such
school hasn't more classes than scholars.
Thirty Or forty classes for one teacher to
hear in six hours From eight to fifteen
minutes on an average, for each class =
Could DIR. Arnold or even Gabriel him
self do the work and do it even dcceatyy
well |! And yet the writer ATTEMPTED it
when in college and was thought to have
succeeded. Ee ''g,ve satisfaction."-
Every district school teacher attempts il
and most of them give equal satisfaction.
How long will we cling to the insane idea
that recitation need be only memoir
tier exercise-and in ten minutes what n
heap OF questions upon what your author
has written can be asked They are
printed at the bottom of the page don't
you see. and if the pupil only cons them
and their answer well, what countless
broadsides of Ques. and Ans. can be ex-
changed in 600 seconds!
With most pupils of the District school
the recitation hour should be the hour
for instructing, teaching, not hearing
what they have already learned. If a
Prof in College needs 45 minutes, at
least, for his Greak or Algebra class the
common school teacher needs quite as
much for his class in Fractions or in Read
ing.
The book can only open the subject
Everything in the wary of illustration and
practice that can help the child to
broader and clearer knowledge of it il is
the teachers business and duty to furnish
him.
He has no right TO assume the Office
unless he has a wealth of acquisitions that
overlap the subject in all directions and
snch facility of communication that lust
the help the pupil needs can be given and
given effectively, and he be led into new
fields which even his book did not and
could not conduct him. There isn't
much choice in text books, then, the good
teacher is the great teyt book of the
school. BIT the better he is the fewer
classes he will feel he can teach. II is
all he can instruct unless in A b C's or
NtN|' lWO-ScOrc. lie
is compelled TO if he teach District or
select school.
And the superior advantages of the
Graded School, just here, is this. If, in
a school of forty, five eau be fonnd in any
study fit for the same class, in school Of
three hundred, six or eight times that
number can as easily be found qualified
for the same class and these thirty or for
ty are thrown into one and the same class
and recite TO one and the same teacher.
And this classification can be made in all
studies and will run through all depart
ments. The number of classes in such a
school of three hundred pupils will hard
ly be greater than in a school of forty
This is seen in any Graded school. Place
then say eight teachers in such school
and you need very little "ciphering" to
prove that for every minute the common
school teacher can devote to class the
corresponding Graded School teacher can
allot eight minutes. What this added
time and attention will do for scholar
during year who of us can estimate p
An explanation to class of thirty is as
well understood by each as by each of
a class of five. A teacher can more east
ly rivet the understanding of thirty upon
what he is saying than that of lesser