The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-04-07

HNNf VIZ ENGA ~ NBoHN IVA NS AS0
class, grade, room, book or subject. Failure
in any single study, as spelling, grammar
whatever that may mean in the various
gradesl geography, history or fractions,
should not hold the pupil from progression
in the substantial work for which our schools
are organized. This purpose is mainly, or
ought to be, to teach pupils how to read, to
write, to reckon and to think. The five or ten
monthly or quarterly examination questions
in each subject, prepared by school COM
mittees, superintendent, supervisors or
principals, are no test of fitness for promo
ton. 1t is II : room teacher, who daily and
faithfully watches the mental growth of
the pupils for six months or q year, who is
the best judge of their fitness for the next
room or grade. No supervisor in an hour
can find by a series of set questions the
mental grasp and power of mind of forty
children. Their teacher knows it from long
experience, and knows who will and who
ought to be advanced without the aid of set
examinations.
In some schools and with some teachers
the examinations become excruciations
They degenerate into a system of terrorism
alike to teachers, pupils and anxious moth
ers. Only those who understand children
know Of the mental strain and excitement
under which children of the upper grades,
or even in high schools, labor when they
know that their rank, in the eyes of teach
ers, classmates, parents and friends, will de-
pend upon the correct answering OF ten dis
connected questions in each of the school
studies. 1t takes the life and loveliness out
OF childhood. On the streets, when you pass
them, the questions are, "Did you pass?''
what per cent. did you get?' and the like.
Not a word of the real business of school, of
the marvels of travel, of history, OF the
treasures OF literature-all to them is cent
per cent.
No estimate can be made of the evil eff
fects of the dominant methods Of examina-
ton on health, more than to say that they
are enormous, and have not been o%veresti-
mated-rather the reverse. Teachers well
know the confusion of mind attending the
nervous state induced in the best pupils by
each examination, and often resulting in
total failure. When occurring at the times
of greatest susceptibility to mental and nerv-
Gus disturbance in girls just passing
into w~omanhood, they have, in
more than scores of known instances,
turned the mental scale to the side of hyste-
ria, nervous shock, and even acute mania. A
good thing in themselves, these examina-
tons have become the bane and eyesore in
many of the city graded schools. In a lead
ing educational center of the State written
examinations occur monthly in each of the
leading studies of the higher grades. The
papers must be examined out of schoo
hours, percented and returned. By the time
one set Of papers is lone half the interval
has elapsed to the next examination. The
result is, the teachers are on the anxious seat
half the time, and the pupils the other hall.
What is the use of it? Why take a day in
every twenty, or a week at the end of each
quarter year, to find out that which teachers
and pupils already know? 1t is a waste of
time, of nervous force; it mistakes the sign
for the thing, means for ends. The best
teachers decry it. If thrown out of schools,
only statistics would suffer. Superintendent
could fill their thickish and rarely-read re-
Indeed, there is a suspicion abroad that the
school superintendent, rather than the
school-teachers are responsible for many of
the evil features of the present system, or,
at least, for their continuance. The monthly
and quarterly examinations, and the
reports based thereon, form an edu-
c~ational hobby which few super
intendents have succeeded in riding
safely, and, if we mistake not, the progress
of outside thought will compel those now
astride to dismount. The world goes in cir
Giles, so do men; teachers get in ruts; the SUI
pervision, being composed of heavier men,
get in still deeper. Language lessons, analy-
sis OF sentences, phonie methods of spelling,
science teaching for babies have shaped these
SiOo'Soi III Z anu many ihiPOA-
tant, though at times overridden hobbies.
Monthly and quarterly written examinations
to test mental power, conducted by persons
who have not taught the pupils examined,
constitute a hobby that overshadows all
Others in our school system. 1t may dawn
on our school men at last that the child is
central and is more important than any one,
or than all OF these methods, which, while
created in his interest, have often proved
stumbiing-blocks to his progress. But these
things are, and we suppose for a time must