Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1894-03-02
Unnecessary Tests.

iuI urN CONS a Gown sound
t..rh,r v'o oilers t. ~A.,ra clean
500 that neither the state Supcrin-
t"nd,ut nor any mcmhcr II the State
BOARD 81 EiIcAtion, il put on the
same Tt A. were thc teachers in the
Ia" F,t:4afy Examination could.
answer cnoigh ii the printed qnc--
'.un- To- j.r aNAr,!c! u tirst-grtdc ccr-
t.iictte.
For tir>t-gradr certificates candidates
are examined in reading. mental and
written arithmetic, school law and
state constitution, geography, theory
AMI practice OF teaching, English
.itcratr-c, national philosophy, gram
mar P histology, algebra and orthog-
raphy. In all save reading and
orthogralhv. ten questions are given
III each branch, there being six ques-
lions in reading and orthography.
The fact that 50 few teachers
throughout the State obtained GER
tiiicateS oil any grade whatever seems
- have led to some inquiries as TO
whether the standard OF requirements
was not being raised rather more
rapidly than the great majority OF
applicants can follow in their attain
ments.
When the proper normal standard
has been reached, State Boards of
Education should let we'll enough
alone, for a short term of years at
least, or until the business methods Of
the country and the general education
OF the masses require a further ad.
vance in the ability OF teachers.
Arithmetic, reading, writing, geog-
faphy, and the grammatical princi-
pies OF ones mother tongue are like
fossils. Among the masses of the
people, especially the yeomanry OF our
population, these remain the same or
nearly the same from one generation
to another. In word, it is hard to
bring the people up out OF the ruts of
chronic custom. With the rapid ad-
vance in the required standard OF
teachers, it is getting to be a difficult
thing to definitely answer the cues.
ton, "What constitutes q common
school education?"
There should be line of demarLa-
ton drawn somewhere between a COM
mon school education and academical
or collegiate attainment, and when
this line is once drawn by the COM
mon consent of competent educators,
such line should remain intact. For
several reasons it is growing more and
more difficult to provide teachers for
the remoter and more sparsely settled
sections of our country. The people
OF such sections are not able to pay
what teacher of the higher standard
OF qualification would consider living
wages, while those young women who
would gladly take such schools for the
wages offered are not far enough ad.
vanced in the required school
branches to procure certificates at our
stated examinations. Hence the
paucity of schools in the backwoods
sections and the low standard OF edu-
cation among the children of school
age. AS a rule, the children of
country summer schools do not need
college graduates nor even high school
bred teachers to properly instruct them
in all the primary branches BETTING
their surroundings. 1t is the opinion
OF intelligent educators that our State
boards should call halt and let the
required standard of teachers take a
long breath. One thing is certain.
With all our new tangled modes of
stufhng education into the children of
our broad land, our average citizen
ship and statesmen are not q whit
better to-day than they were when our
daddies learned to read in log school
houses and played "Fox and geese"
on the rude benches made from
puncheons with legs made of saplings
stuck into big auger holes.
The poorest child in the most print
tive backwoods settlements of the
country is entitled, under our laws, to
a fair education, but the genius OF the
present rigid administration of public
educational affairs witholds this BIRTH
right boon from hundreds of children
in this State.
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