National Republican., 1884-12-06
A PARENTS PLANT.
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM CRITICISED
BY AN EX.TEACBER.
An Exhaustive Review Of the Alleged Defects
In Plan and Admlnlstratlon-What Is Said
to be Wrong and How IL Could Be Rcmedied.
To he Editor.

schools, rejoice that some OF our citizons
have public spirit enough to point out
their defects. As an ex-teaoher deeply
intaros,ed In oduc,t;on. I wish 10 add NV
,.N.,s .,,,1s
m,'e 10 tue oiscuss'on' am no B,u"pior'
There are points IN wnich tne pup-
lie schools have decided advantages over
private ones-the buildings are generally
.vo,, mt mn tbo rooms iaroe yo,, hent
.na varmod ond woII vontiI.ted tho soot,
anu warmeo' anu "oii Voh'lia.eu' 'no Se"''
and desks convenient and the congress
sional appropriations large. Some Of tho
schools. too arc we'll taught. The bigb
scbooI rndor ,ho m,nosomont AZ NJ
p.., !, - -, -s.-
raul !" inarkeu usueoess III iioS' rospoo's'
and the eighth grade schools arc goner-
orally good. But, descending In tho
scale, the good schools become more and
more rare, and below tho NTH they dis
appear altogether. This does not agree
with the pufis by courtesy so frequently
published by the esuperintendent, nor with
the estimate OF some parents whose vanity
has been hattered by high percentages
for their children; but IL VIII DO sus-
tained by the immense majority oil parents,
and especially by laooring mon ana others
OF small incomes who have submitted to
many privations to Keep their children at
school bvo long years to ind them at last
disgusted with books and unable to read
or write decently. A single winter at
good country school would have yielded
better fruit.
The i've lowest grades, which contain
% per cent. OF oil the pupils, are strangled
with red tape. In the first year about
twenty little tots nre put together In one
room, under charge of teacher selected
for her want Of experisnce-sometimes
just out Of Miss smiths training school.
Much OF the time Is spent In Keeping
order; in making the children take
position" which means folding the arms,
sitting up straight aud looking at the
teacher; in having them march in and
out; In examining them. The teacher
keeps books and makes the most volumin-
GUS reports to the superintendent on
blanks furnished by him; the work Is
almost equal to the New fork count;
and, to get rid Of the tons of rubbish thus
sent up the superintendent has probably
sold 1t to the paper manufacturer. If he
had kept 1t the big hail at franklin
building would not hold 1t. But at the
end of the year the pupil has learned
almost nothing, The next year, and the
next, a little more progress is made. How
little, Ia exactly prescribed by the super
intendent. No provision is made for boys
older than their co-pupils, eager to learn
and able to make rapid progress. The
brightest pupil is to learn neither more
nor less than the most stupid. If ad-
'vanced IL must be to tho class one year
ahead Of him-a leap rather too long to be
risked. And so he remains five years to
learn what, in well-ordered school, he
might have learned in one year! How many
Of my readers have known boy in o
country school to begin the arithmetic
and learn 1t thoroughly up to and in
cluding fractions and decimals in six
months session, learning to read within
the same time such book as "Scribner's
Geographical Reader and PrimerP And
yet that is all Superintendent Wilson
aims to accomplish in five years (See
the rules for tho fifth year, For q
laboring man to send his child to the
public schools is waste Of time; they
are made for none except those who can
afford to send their children for the full
term Of eleven years. Why Is so little
accomplished in the proper lines of in
structionP Because Mr.. Wilson crowds
upon the children during the first five
years studies which might be remitted to
a later period. Among those prescribed
for all, without exception, are natural
science, music, drawing, grammar, ana
mobiles peing that every chiid can DC
taught everything, and that child who
cant distinguish YANKEE Doodle from
"Old hundred" may DO put int9 ms
school machine and turned out In eleven
years Beethoven or wagner. To this
hobby the pupils III the lower grades are
eacrinced.
Another reason If, the superintendent
totally misconceives the method oil teacn-
ing spelling. Under this head, In his
prescribed course for the third year, ne
has the Following phrase "Diacriticai
marks and their use-macron and breve."
This IS very learned, but not consoiing to
parent whose child's time has been
thrown away In trying to learn the catch
words used In preparing for examination.
a ionrth grade pupil, In whom the writer
1s interested, had hfty words given her
for examination. The Following are
specimens: Rhombus, Aileghany, anchor,
cupboard, electricity. In her sixth grade
this unfortunate child got many
heauache In Trying 10 master
printed list OF 56O words.
Judge OF them by the Following Iahie-
quah, opechancanough, neronaut Wam-
panoags, eschewinR, Poughkeepsie, catas-
trophes honawa' Canonlcus' schenectady.
To learn these catchwords. for which the
cniio eau nave 10 "se ior years.
If ever, tho time was taken
which should have been devoted
TO parts OF the language having some
meaning for her. In spelling there Is nc
dividing by syiiables, ana the pupils are
rarely good spellers until the seventh or
eighth grade, unless their homo sur
roundings are favorable or they nave a
taste for reading AS to pronunciation
the nasal drawi appears TO DC favored
and the yowels, particularly a. e. ana o,
are sunering greatly. In some OF the
schools papa mas peen turned INTO paa,
Paa, eieotion approximates eiaction, ana
aog mas peoh ehahgeu in.o aang such
trines are evioentIy hot notiGea Dy Mr,
Mlson, out they arc Bladuaiiy changing
the language OF tne peopie; IL mieht DC