The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1875-10-20
OUR COMMON SCHOOLS.
Examinations, and Pro
motions.
BY GAIL HAMILTON.

lt Is never 10 De 1OTSOtLCQ tOaC a
city school of six or eight or ten hum
dred children cannot be so easily and
simply conducted as country school
of forty or fifty pupils. On the other
hand, it is equally important to re-
member that the multiplication of
machinery is not in itself mark Of
excellence; that the greatest attain
able simplicity is just as desirable in
large school as in a small. Machin-
cry is only means to an end. Every
thing which tends to exalt the ma
chinery above the work which it pro.
duces is wrong, and all such machin-
cry is not only useless to the pupils,
but is needless expense to the com
munity which ,sustains the schools.
1t seems to me that our whole sys-
tenn of reviews and examinations in
school is burdensomely cumbrous and
extravagantly expensive. l may as
sumo that the memory of our own
school days is fresh in all our minds.
We can very we'll recall the interest
we took in some studies, the lack of
Interest swe felt in others. doubt
not our experience is almost univers
ally the same. The first breaking of
ground was delightful. We took each
lesson each day with fresh interest.
But when the book was finished and
the two or three weeks Of review came
it was all drag. Neither teacher
nor pupils had the stimulus of novel
ty. / would abolish the whole sys.
tenn of reviews. The very fact that
they are without interest is a strong
indication that they are without ben
eft. But without i review how can
the pupil pass his examinations and
be promoted? l would abolish the
examination, too. No one whose at
tcntion has not been called to it can
guess the burden which the close and
careful Investigation of the hundreds
OF thousands of annual, semi annual,
and tri-annual examination papers in
the grammar schools and high schools
imposes upon teachers. 1t is wholly
dry, uninteresting, and exasperatine
work, and it is equivalent to the en-
ployment of regiment of extra
teacher-force. It is no part of the
natural duty of teacher and cannot
see that it is productive of the least
good. The pupils standing for the
next term or the next year is determ-
ined by it. But the teacher knows
beforehand perfectly we'll what the
pupil standing ought to be; and if
he wants to formulate that standing,
to prevent the possibility OF its being
decided or suspected of being decided
by the pique or partially of the teach
er, to have something to show the
parent as reason for his sons pro.
motion or degradation, there is the
daily record of his daily recitation
and bchavior--a standard just as sta
tistical and fixed and far more trust
worthy.
Multiplication is the very best re-
view Of addition. Division is the very
best review of subtraction. Algebra
is the proper review OF arithmetic,
and rhetoric and logic are the best
reviews of grammar. The cram of
three weeks review preparatory to an
examination has no more tendency to
fasten facts in the mind than the
building up of new science on the
foundations of the old. Every days
lesson should be thoroughly learned
and exactly recorded. That record
at the end OF the term should decide
the pupils rank for the next term. 1t
be has studied faithfully and mastered
fairly, he has derived all the good
necessary from the pursuit. A two
or three weeks cursory ramble over
the old ways, which have lost their
novelty. will but fatigue and bore
him, to little purpose. II he have
been idle and unfaithful, he will not
be likely to recover much ground in
two weeks. Let him feel that it is
minute daily fidelity that must do his
work. and not lazy. careless lcung-
ing for ten weeks, to be made up by a
spasmodic spring at the end. This is
neither scholarly nor business like.
If his daily record gives him the
requisite percentage for promotion,
he is promoted. If not, he remains
where he is. But the faithful and
studious, though necessarily some
what tagging, not to say jadcd pupils,
are not stimulated by the Fictitious
interest of a test examination to tread
over again a path from which their
feet have already beaten out the
greenness and their hands have
plucked the flowers.
l even venture to 60 further, and
question whether a pupils advance
from class to class shall depend so
entirely upon his standing in the low
er class. Ambition is a great spur;
but, first and last, there are many
dull, stupid, plodding children, who
are conscientious and industrious, but
who never seem actually to master
anything. They hang on study and
clutch few rags of fact here and
there; but they are constitutionally