The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-05-25
THE SCHOOL YEAR QUESTION.
Opposition TO ANY More school Days
in a Yenr.

in a Year.
Editor Morning News: have noticed
with great care your articles upon the
subject of the extension of the school
year from nine to ten months; and with
all respect, they appear to overlook some
most important facts.
In considering the question of school
time assume that the advocates of lon
ger year are intent-as they should be
upon obtaining the best results; and are
not merely appealing to a feeling which
| is understood to exist amongst ignorant
people, that education can be measured
| and bought by the day, week and month.
as cloth is sold off by the yard. there
fore address myself to the higher motive
and not the lowest.
Let it be remembered that in extending
the time of the school year. the schools
would be going distinctly backward, Fifty
! years ago schools were taught morning
and afternoon, and nearly all the year.
Progress developed the fact that better
results could be obtained by confinement
/ in the rooms during the morning only and
for nine months. There is not a man in
this town who went to school forty years
| ago, and cannot recall the wasted July
| spent in school. But the afternoon of
study and play and the three months of
/ vacation, were found to give much better
results than the old system. AS one of
the most brilliant men living said-refer-
| ring to business life, and in a northern
clfmate-"I can never do whole years
work in twelve months but can in ten
Now, we are urged to discard all these
| experiences, and to go back fifty years.
1t is not question of the number of
days in school, or the number of days
of vacation. l repeat that il is a question
n hn hnG lee Ar1x g.
twelve months will produce them, then
the school year should run twelve months.
If one month of school will secure them,
then one month should be the aim of the
board.
For the purpose of your argument you
have seen fit to call the school year $50
days only. To accomplish this in any
way you must ignore the 104 Saturdays
and Sundays, which no one has been hardy
enough yet to propose as proper school
days. With all such illusory figuring the
fact remains that the school year covers
nine months and excludes only July, Au-
gust and September.
We have an exhausting climate. Is
there anyone bold enough to say that with
the loss of any part of these three months
vacation, either teacher or scholar will
come back to his work in October better
prepared for a hard winters work? Or
that the sum total of the longer year
NNhAl NC AluI6 satisfactory imam IndI OF
the shorter? Is anyone prepared with da-
ia to support such an assertion? On the
contrary, is not all our evidence the other
way?
These matters are governed entirely by
experience. The present school year, like
school hours and school months, now pre-
Vailing, are the result of slow evolution
from the all year and the all day of the
old field schools-boards and teachers in
most cities intensely anxious to produce
the best results; and yet, here we have
a proposition to set aside the whole out
come of this process of evolution, and to
return to an obsolete and rejected method
as if it were a brand new discovery of
an Isaac Newton or a Christopher Column
bus.
Now, let me show you how valuable is
MS discovery of this exploded old the
ory in the eyes of investigators elsewhere.
New Orleans, Charleston, Atlanta, Mo-
bile, Macon, Augusta and Galveston all
work on school year of nine months;
and Montgomery on a school year of
eight months All have passed through
the same course of scholastic life An
started with the longer day and longer
year; and all, after scores of years of
teaching, have adopted the shorter year
as the best and most profitable TO the pu-
pills and the public
In reply, however, to this conclusive
fact the Savannah discoverer feebly says
they indeed? They pay for the best re-
suits, and time has declared them.
Chatham Academy.