Connecticut western news., 1879-10-22
Our School system.

Charles Francis Adams, Jr., has issued pamphlet explaining the causes and results of 8 revolution ihsthe school system of Quincy, Mass. In 1873 the directors of those schools reached the conclusion. that there had been no improvement during the preceding ten yearsin the methods of instruction employed, while during the same period the cost of in- strudtion had increased from six to fifteen dol lars for eaeh~child. The discovery of the con dition of affairs was made through @ change in the manner of conducting the school ex- aminations.. Previous to- 1873 the pupils had been examined by the teachers in the familiar routins exercises, while the committee sat like ignorant but amused spectators. But in the year named one or two intelligent members demanded that the examinations be taken out of the old and well worn rut and entrusted to the committee The result was disastrous to both teachers and pupils. The entire hol. lowness of the system was revealed, and in the language of Mir. Adams 'the schools went to pieces" It was found that while the pupils who were about to complete the gram, mar. course could parse and construe sen tences, and point out the various parts oi speech with great facility, repeating readily and with correctness the rules of grammar applicable to each case, they could not, when called upon, 'write an ordinary letter." and they were utterly unable to apply the rules and principles they had so painfully learned They also read with great facility the familiar pieces in their school readers, but when hand ed atf ordinary book which they had never seen before, the greater part of the pupils could's'nerely stammer and bungle along"
 The conclusion was reached that new de- parters'was necessary for pupils who could neither speak nor spell their own language very.perfeetly, nor read and write it with that ease and elegance which is desirable. The committee accordingly determined on radi- cal and complete revolution. Instead of trying to teaeh.a little of everything only to secure naught but ''smattering, veneering and cram,' D it was decided to teach few things we'll and to this end reading and writing were to be treated as elementary, and taught in the pri-
 
 scholar who could not read at sight and write with comparative ease was to be promoted to the grammar grades. A superintendent who had studied the art of teaching in Germany was put in charge, and the entire execution of the new system entrusted to him. He threw the grammar out of, the schools, and the reader, speller and copy-books soon followed These studies were no longer to be taught n regular succession, but together. The alpha bet Bas- abolished Reading at sight and writing off-hand were made the basis of the new system, and constant practice, as in learn ing to swim, skate or play ball, was to be the means for attaining results, Children learned words instead of letters first, and became ia. miliar with the alphabet. and various signs without instruction, and by the use of that perceptiFeness which is so handy in dealing with ,ngtpre Thus the child does not learn to discern horse by being shown an eye, a limb and the. body in separate parts, but he takes in at first glance the entire proportions of the animal and learns it's various physical characteristics afterwards.
 The experiment has been fairly tested by a six-ysars trial. It has proved eminently suc- cessful The interest in the school room was immediately increased, the alphabet was rob- bed of it's terrors, and the processes proved not Fearisome. The grammar school pupils of Quincy who have been trained under the new system, or rather absence of system, can not only read at sight, but put their thoughts upon paper with ease, accuracy and sometimes elegance, and this without being burdened with a. practically useless jargon concerning the parts of speech, and without having de- yeloped the memory at the expense of the reasoning faculty by learning the parsing rig marble. The introduction of new system and new teachers involved considerable ex- pense at the outset, but in the three years from 1875 to 1878 the cost per pupil was re- dpsed from S1s.A to $l5.6s.