The Portland daily press., 1895-07-11

Following is an abstract of Principal
Hastings paper; the subject being "What
Grammar School Graduate should know
and be able to do:''
There is SO much discussion in these
days regarding elementary education, and
such an unsettling of traditional opinion
and usage, that it seems necessary to state
just what is meant by Il grammer school
graduate should apply the term to one
who has completed that course of public
school education which we demand for
all our children, as distinguished from the
higher education which we freely offer TO
but do not demand of all. Schools of the
former grade we very properly call the
Grammar schools
1t must be remembered that these
schools are not intended primarily to
make scholars, on the one hand, nor
merchants or mechanics on the other;
but rather, good and NOZZLE men and
women, intelligent, law abiding, public
spirited citizens. The grammar school
graduate should, therefore, as the first
requisite be possessed of sound moral
sense, and trained to habits of veracity,
integrity and unselfishness. He should
be able to discuss and disposed to respect,
the rights of others, and be ready to per-
form his consequent obligations. He
should be able to use the English Ian
SoeeSO SOiiCOulJ III oJC.thluS ttlu
and to read written and printed matter
with a good understanding, by which I
mean much more than that he should be
able to call the words.
He should be able to observe and ex-
anime material objects and phenomena
with precision, and with sense of the
importance attaching to all facts of
faithful representation and record wheth-
er by description or drawing of these OBJ
servations.
He should be able to use his hands, and
his body in general. with a fair degree
of deftness, precision and dispatch.
He should be able to make the ordinary
computations in numbers with facility,
and this requires much less time than
has usually been given to arithmetic in
American schools.
He should be able to see the true rela-
tions of the multitudinous ideas which
eye or ear or memory bring to his mind
discerning causes and effects. dissem-
blances and differences; systematizing all
his knowledge, digesting his mental
own mind, in word, he must be able to
think.
He should be able to study by which is
meant the ability to give close and per-
severing attention to any object of
thought suited to the range of his powers
and to use books intelligently in conduct
ing such study; he should know the
students tools and be able to use them in
simple way.
The question what he should know is
already in part answered. He should
possess such knowledge of language, num-
bers, space relations, matter in its inor-
ganic and its organic forms, and of his
tory as will give him these abilities for
such knowledge as will be incidentally
f1 airaiT nf
Tt is fair to demand that he shall know
many OF the facts of geometry, which he
will gain mostly by observation, not by
the derivatiye processes of logic and that
he shall know something of the language
of algebra; though do not advocate the
teaching of algebra in the grammar
school as a separate study.
l am not yet convinced that pupils
whose education is to end with the COM
mon schools should be required to study
either Latin or French or German. The
time given to these studies would neces-
sarily be short, and the facility or knowl.
edge gained very inadequate.
The grammar school graduate should
have a clear knowledge of the leadin
facts of the history of the United States !;
and should possess some true and vivid
pictures of foreign history that he may
gain a broader intellectual horizon.
He should possess considerable store
of memory gems, gathered from our liter
ature American and English. If with
this equipment in knowledge and ability,
our grammar school graduate has those
tastes and ideals which will incite him
to a victorious. industrious, self-respect-
ing life, the school will have accomplished
all that can fairly be demanded of It,
Principal Peck's paper was in substance
as follows; his subject being conditions
of programme making in secondary
schools -
The programme of school is an ar
rangement of it's studies that provides
for their successive order through the
whole time and their grouping for the in
dividual pupil at any time The first
condition of programme making Is the
amount of knowledge and power that the
pupils have upon entering the secondary
school. There is in each place local
standard for the beginning of secondary
education. Important variations in the
programmes will be occasioned by the
character OF the primary education. The
second condition is the amount of knowl-
edge required in the various studies at the
end of the period of secondary education.
In regard to this requirement. for each
study, there is a general concensus of
opinion varying somewhat in different
sections of the country, derived from
what has been done in the past and what
is still doing and expressed in some sub
jects in the requirements for admiss ion to
college, The demands for close articu-
lation Of colleges and secondary schools
is a demand for a wider statement of this
condition, that is for statement in more
studies. A third condition is found in
the degree Of maturity of mind incident
to the different years of school life. A
fourth condition is found in the size of
the school Large schools may have
very broad programme, but smaller
schools should have a narrow but equally
thorough one. A fifth condition is found
in the number of periods of school recita-
tions that pupil can attend daily. 1t
does not completely determine the num-
Der of studies to be pursued at the same
time, since the varying attachments
sought in the different studies admit of
a varying number of recitations per week
These conditions may be met by elective
studies or by courses arranged upon the
basis of the number of foreign languages
pursued.
If to correlate studies is to give the most
important their proper time and the least
important their time the principle has
been taken for granted in the foregoing
discussion. 1t does not seem that the
unification of studies, whether through