Wilmington daily commercial., 1875-05-27
Public schools in sussex,

SUPERINTENDENT GROVES OBSERVATIONS AND Ex-
PER1ENcEs WITH HIS EXAMINATIONS FOR TEACH
ERs-A DEPLoRABLE CONDITION OF EDUCATION
AL AFFAIRS.
Superintendent Of Public Schools Groves has
been giving to the Smyrna Times fuller accounts
Of the deplorable state of education in Sussex.
He states that the public schools are not in opera
ton more than four months in the year, in the
aggregate, and he could but infer that they were
most lamely conducted at best. Instead OF
there being rush of candidates for e1amlna-
tons, of parties anxious to obtain situations as
teachers, as is the rule in other States he found
almost universal determination to evade
the meetings, and as result not enough
candidates presented themselves to supply
half the schools in the county. And OF
those who did present themselves, many came in
a supplicating misunderstanding their ineff-
clency but asking certificate as necessity to
their earning living. Many teachers refused
to apply because they did not consider them
solves strictly i'll the business they teach occa-
sionally, when they want job. He found 9TH
ers regularly employed-as regularly as they
could be-who, after entering the examining
room, desired not to be examined in grammar,
history, geography. &C. for the reason that they
were not in the habit of teaching those branch
es.
The parents in the districts where they taught
did not desire their children instructed in those
studies, they said. One or two candidates could
not tell who was Vice President of the United
States, and in moie than one instance candi-
dates did not seem to know what was meant by
the Presidents Cabinet. Does it not seem dis
couragng that parents should wish their chill
dren to receive no instruction in the language,
history or geography of their country? And is
it probable that such crude ideas should haye
prevailed if we had had the school system we
really need?
One veteran te.cher, we learn, of reputed
proficiency, of whom it was boasted that he
could "cipher through Greenleaf's Arithmetic,
was unable to answer most of the questions on
the science of numbers, and confessed he did
not put those questions to his pupils. For in
stance, he would put scholar through all the
problems Of interest," without teaching the schol-
ar the meaning of the word "interest' or "per
cent" &c,-in short without applying the
printed questions of the book, Or giving an
analysis of the " sums" as laid down, and al is
necessary to decent comprehension of the
science OF figures. So in reading. Most Of the
candidates confessed that they did not pay any
attention to the first part of the readers, to
elocution, infection, emphasis, punctuation, DC.
and from the specimens in reading the Superin-
tendent was fully convinced Of the truthfulness
of the statement
The Superintendent thinks that the real cause
of the primitive mode Of teaching in Sussex is
the lack of text books. The parents really do
not desire that their children should not be in
structed in their country's history and language,
but rather than be subjected to the expense OF
getting new books for every new teacher OF
every new school they may move to, they raise
the point to avoid an expense. they cannol
ri