Omaha daily bee., 1883-06-25
STATES AND PENCILS.
A Glimpse at The Work Of The Omaha
Public Schools.
The Methods Adopted and Systems
Pursued by Teachers.
The lower Grades as They Appear
ut the Central school.

Inc puDllc SCHOOLS Oh onlana might as
well be in France for all the people here
know of Them" said one of the brightest
of the lady teachers at the Central school
Friday to a reporter of THE BEE, who
was emf there to write them up. Dot
ting the city at all points are its public
school buildings, many of them costly
structures, filled with busy little boys
and girls working nine months in the
year, yet they are seldom visited and still
less frequently described. The Central
school building, better known as the
High school, was found to be very much
crowded, rooms and halls that were never
intended for use as school rooms
filed with desks and ap-
paratus which will be
placed in their new buildings when they
are completed. But this appears to
make no difference with the orderly ap-
pearance of the school. The thousand
scholars in the central school building as
cend and descend the stairs, go from
room to room, arrive and leave with per-
feet system and department. There are
twenty rooms in the graded department
with, at the present moment, 1874 schol-
ars, and in the high school proper are
five more teac ers with about 80 students,
making 954 in all.
THE FIRST GRADE.
Miss Schlesinger has in her room fifty
four little boys and girls, who compose
the A class, the very first step in the long
upward course of the eight grades. These
children have never been at school be-
fore, and are here taught their letters, to
spell by sound and to read easy sentences.
The children had evidently bestowed
great labor upon their slatesl which were
all neatly printed. A class of about
twelve were reading from the first reader
of the Appleton series, a very excellent
work prepared by the superintendent of
the Cleveland and st. Louis schools and
the instructor of elocution at Yale. The
children are first taught the words as
whole words, the sounds are then desig-
mated, and finally the letters of the word.
1t will be seen that the A b c system has
become a thing of the past. The reading
was astonishingly good and enterely free
from that jerky and discontinuous pro
nunciation of words so commonly noticed
in small children.
Miss Buchanan has about forty little
ones of the B and G class, quartered in
the front vestibule of the high school
building, which is used as a schoolroom
temporarily. The children are taught
here to combine numbers from one to ten,
and their ciphering is neatly done. In
A.. 100, o1a, @Lo Good 1na,A,, -, ,y,;t;rn,
are given, the letters being copied from
models drawn on the blackboard by the
teacher. The desks in this room are If
a new pattern, handsomely finished. At
recess every book and slate was seen
exactly in the center of each desk, and
there was a general air of neatness.
THE G GRADE,
Miss Mack has the c class of the first
grade and the A class of the second,
including fifty boys and girls. The
most interesting thin" noticed here was
the mode of teaching language, known
once as object lessons. There are a
number of highly colored pictures used
in this exercise. Taking up one of
these the teacher describes the scene rep
resented to the scholars, and then
they write what they can about
it on their states. The
BEE representative selected a picture
known as "The Birds Funeral" and de-
sired that something be written upon
that, promising that the best essay should
be printed in The BE. There was i'm
mediately a brisk and excited cleaning
up of states and a bending over them of
busy heads, while little brows were
wrinkled and little fists clenched tightly
about the pencils. Now and then one
would rub his head or gaze i~ntently at
the ceiling, Just as we all do in compost
ton. At the end of five minutes the
work was examined, and the following by
Anna Kalish, aged eight, decided to be
the best in penmanship and length:
81 can see two girls and four boys in
the picture, a boy and a girl are drawing
the cart, there is . little dead bird, and
the little bird will be in the grave, the
little boy is crying"
This room and the Two lower ones are
dismissed at $3.50. Before leaving, Miss
Mack's scholars sung this pretty verse, il
which they are always careful is substi,
tute Monday for Tomorrow" wher
Saturday comes around.
Our play is DER, our work is done,
Our books are in their places,
And to our homes we'll quickly run,
With cheerful hearts and faces.
So now we part, with right good cheer,
Without a thought of sorrow,
And say 'Good night" our teacher dear,
Wen all come back tomorrow"
THE THIRD GRADE.
Miss Johnston has fifty-four scholars il
the B and G classes of this grade. w,
were just in time to listen to the morn
ing exercises, first a rousing negro melody
and then a number of admirable selec
tions acclaimed in unison. The pupils
stood in lines down the aisles, ''rows o
liquid eyes of laughter and ~recitet
wildly, intelligentlY and with excellent
gestures, 'Old Time Punishment, 1.-THE
Smack in SCHOOL, :: he famine scene il
Hiawatha, and Garibaldi's address to hi'