Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1879-11-01
The Quincy Experiment.


all teachers Quincy is the home of the
Adams family, and that is a family fond
of looking after public affairs and re-
forming things about them. Therefore
Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Jr..i has
taken interest in the Improvement Of the
Quincy schools, and according 10 his re-
port they are unquestionably better for
what has been done to them within four
or five Years past.
When the School Committee put the
pupils to the test 10 see just how much
they were getting from their Instruction,
which was furnished them ut cost of
more than $40 a head annually, they
found that the knowledge acquired was
only superficial. that the scholars were
set to learn certain cut-and-dried tasks,
and the measure of their proficiency was
their ability TO give parrot-like answers
to questions on them. They got train
ing of the memory, but so far rs con-
cerned any real understanding of their
studies and the capacity to use what
they had been taught, they were shame
fully deficient. The teachers performed
their work in perfunctory way, follow
ing the precedents of many years, and
the youngster committed facts, rules,
and exceptions to memory without any
great interest in what they were doing,
and without any proper idea of what it
all meant. Their time was spent in
examining their heads with undigested
and indigestible facts gathered from an
armful Of school books covering wide
range Of subjects of study. Poor boys
and girls! No wonder they sometimes
played truant and went to sleep on warm
days over their mOnOtonous tasks.
The School Committee S reform began
in the primary schools; but first they
succeeded in engaging as Superinten-
dent of Schools a young man of enthu-
siasm in teaching, who had carefully
studied the German methods, for in Ger
many pedagogy has been elevated TO the
rank of special science. Instead of
being drilled in the alphabet after the
old fashion, the children were taught to
read before the blackboard almost with
out knowing it, getting their knowledge
by practice. When their interest flag
ged they were turned out to play games
and to stretch their legs. School going
under such circumstances became a de-
light instead of an OdiOus task.
In the higher schools the number of
studies was reduced from seven to three
reading, writing, and arithmetic, the
two former including, naturally, not only
grammar and spelling, but also geogra-
ply and history. They were taught by
incessant practice, not by the old way Of
imposing on the pupils lessons to be
learned by rote. Instead of the Reader
of ancient memory, the teachers used as
practice-bOoks Biographies, histories,
and articles in the current periodicals.
The pupils were so in the habit of writ
ing that they grew to write AS readily as
they spoke, and, incidentally and in the
way of practice, the art of spelling
correctly was taught, and taught in the
only way in which it can be acquired.
A boy may stand at the head of an oral
spelling class, and yet when he comes
to write words he may fall in his orthog-
raphy, as he does in his command of
language when he is set to the new task
of setting down in black and white what
he can talk about glibly enough.
The results of the experiment, as Mr..
Adams details them, have been most
gratifying. The scholars during three
years under the new system have made
steady progress; they approach their
studies more willingly, and show that
they really know what they have been
taught The new plan, Mr.. Adams says,
is 81 complete negative of the whole
present common school system, founded