The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-03-28
GRADING COUNTRY SCHOOLS.


We know not in what schools Editor
Beriah Wilkins, of the Washington
Post, had his young ideas trained in
the art of shooting, the copy of the
Congressional Directory published
when he represented an Ohio district
not being readily accessible but we
are led to doubt if his school experience
covered attendance in both the I'M
graded and graded schools, and we are
quite certain he has not brought to the
topic he discusses with SO much GER
tainty of conviction, either extent Of
observation or comparison. Else he
would not have settled the question
out Of hand with such Podsnappian
brusqueness. THE country schools are
necessarily inferior to city Schools" he
asserts, "for the reason that. owing to
sparseness of population, they are not
graded" He then goes on to depict
them, with their one teacher, giving in
structiOn in all the branches to pupils
ranging from the primary to the high
est grades, ''all recitations being con-
Quoted in the presence of the entire
school" The action of a township in
the Western Reserve Of Ohio in abol-
ishing its district schools and merging
them all In one at the center" with
it's grades, is the text for his comment.
We have heard something at times
in this state Of the desirability of grad
ing our district schools, and institute
instructors have lectured teachers on
the evils of the ungraded system and
shown them how they might bring
their schools to a practical grade un
der their present conditions One Of
these, to whom we once listened, told
the teachers how John, who was very
bright in mathematics but dull in
ran on opposite lines, might be grad
ed by checking John in arithmetic and
Susan in grammar while squirting
them up in the studies in which thew
were defective. Thus John and Susan
might move along through the classes
in both studies with mental elbows al
ways in touch. 1t probably never oc-
CURED to this instructor that she was
deliberately advising the intellectual
Gripping of both John and Susan. and
would rob each Of the immense advan-
tages they were enjoying.
With all due Difference to the Post
and its rather dogmatic editor, the as
sumed inferiority of country to city
schools is not due to the sparse ponu-
latton nor to the fact that the schools
are not graded. Where it exists. it is
solely due to three causes: Short terms
Of school, constant change of teachers
and wages that preclude trained teach
ers from seeking employment in them.
Given the same advantage in these
things that city schools have, and
these district schools would not be
necessarily Inferior" but would be
absolutely superior in effectiveness. in
rapidity of movement of pupils in their
studies and in scholarship produced, to
the graded schools of any city. And
the reason is simple, lying in the very
objection made by the Post, because
the recitations Of all the classes go on
in one room. What the Post regards
as fault is the one merit of the coun-
try school, and Of this remaining one
there could be no way devised to rob
it so effectively as by grading it.
The miller may not be able to grind
with the waters that have run by,
but the sponge-like receptiveness of the
child's mind absorbs, consciously or I'M
Willingly, much Of the instruction that
overf1ows the advanced classes while
reciting. 1t is this overflow Of instruc-
ton that the graded school wastes and
the country school utilizes. The child
learns there precisely as 1t learned
what it knew before going to school,
as it acquired its stock of words, not
by teaching, but by absorption. Every
one whose good fortune 1t was to &C