Los Angeles herald., 1891-06-21
THE SIXTH GRADE.
Mrs. Smiths Class at Six
teenth Street.
Observation. Composition, Pen
manship and Drawing.
Methods Used to Preserve Uniformity
in the Botany Lessons.
How the Children Place Their Knowl-
edge Upon Paper-Free Hand
Drawing and Composition
Writing.

grade at SlXteenth-street school, was
found busily engaged with her fifty
scholars when the HERALD school re-
porter called the other day. 1t was hot
and sultry, and the very spirit of unrest
and mischief seemed to pervade the
school. The end of the term is drawing
near, the teachers authority will be of
brief duration now, and unless the
teacher has won the respect of the class,
the order for the last week will be poor,
and the lessons only farce. That Mrs.
Smith had won the respect of her class
was evidenced by the fact that while
they were inclined to be little restless
and inattentive, yet glance and
smile from Mrs. Smith was
and cheerful attention on. the part OF
the scholars, despite the sultry atmos-
phere.
There is not much that is novel in the
studies OF the classes above the fourth
grade, and the reporter, after watching
an arithmetic lesson and listening to
some bewildering grammar lessons,
turned his attention to the observation
boys and girls.
A stack of compositions were resur-
rected from some closet, and the reporter
read them all; patiently, for there were
a great many OF them; with interest, for
they gave great evidence of talent on
the part of the young writers; with
pleasure, for many of them were nicely
written and some of them were excess
sively funny.
A few words of explanation regarding
the composition writing may here be in
order. The course of study laid out for
the schools says that certain amount
of time shall be assigned to botany and
composition writing. The teachers are
allowed to decide upon methods of
teaching and the subjects to be treated
upon. Every Saturday a teachers
meeting is held, at which all the city
teachers are present. The teachers
meeting is divided into four sections
which meet separately, and to which
the teachers are assigned according to
grades. The primary teachers meet in
one section, those of higher grades
are assigned to the next two
sections, the High school teachers and
Normal primary meet in yet another
section, and the principals have meet
ing by themselves. In these sections
the teachers are sometimes scholars, re-
ceiving lessons from the special teachers
OF drawing, penmanship, etc., so that
they can supplement the special lessons
during the intervals when such special
teachers are on their rounds. In these
sections, also, the teachers decide on
points left to their judgment in the
course of study, and thus there is uni
formity in the lessons on botany and
other special studies.
In their regular order, the teachers of
the sixth grades have taught for botany
lessons the special construction OF the
violet, the geranium and the orange
and it was the violet and orange COM
positions which were submitted to the
HERALD reporter.
Each composition was headed with a
drawing which gave evidence of consid-
erable artistic ability on the part of the
Juvenile penmen, and showed what they
had learned from their drawing lessons.
Miss Minnie Willman, young miss
of Is or 16 summers, was the best COM
position writer in the class. Her COM
position on the orange was a novelty,
being in story form and quite we'll writ
ten. Here it is:
THE ORANGE.
1t was a wonderful seed!
Mary and Willie Rogers found it on
the gravel walk in the front yard.
They took il into the library, where
papa sat reading, and asked him what
it was.
"Why," said papa, sit is an orange
seed"
80, let me plant it, exclaimed Willie,
''and maybe we can have some oranges
when it grows up"
The children went out and found a
nice place to plant it.
Never was seed tended SO carefully
or watched so closely.
Being watered every day, it soon
sprouted.
1t grew very rapidly and was nearly a
loot high, when one morning-alas the
children found it broken and the top
had fallen over so that it nearly touched
the ground.
| Mr.. Rogers looked around and dis
covered Fido's footprints on the ground.
The little tree was fastened up and
was soon growing as well as ever.
One morning, to the children's de-
light, they found two little buds, and
the next morning they were large and
white, although not opened.
When they did open, however, the
children examined them, and found that
one flower had four petals and the
other five.
The stamens numbered about twenty
each, and were white and yellow, and
the pistil was white and yellowish green
They also noticed that the stamens
and pistil were longer than on most
other flowers, but were not 50 broad.
The stamens OF the orange blossoms
are all united at the bottom, and in
number are some multiple Of the mum
ber of petals.
The sepals are short aud broad.
The children watched the flowers
until they had fallen to pieces.
Mr.. Rogers asked Mary what tht
blossoms were good for and she sale
that the bees gathered honey from them
that the petals protected the little
orange until it started to grow, and sht
thought little insects lived in the bios
SONS, for she had seen great many
there.
Willie then came in and said that the
leaves had straight or entire margin
and they grow alternately on the stem
''The bark is thin," he continued
"and is dark, greenish brown"
Our teacher told us today that th'
wood is hard and close grained and wa