The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1898-03-03
Save the School Children.


the invitation given parents and teach
ers by the Record Union in issue Of
the 24th ult. L would say that the sug-
gestions of Professor karsner, the Phil
adelphia sanitarian, regarding proposed
reforms in school work should have the
support and approval of the School
Department and of all parents in Sac
! ramento.
! But in one regard | think the Rec
ord Union" conveys wrong impress
sion. 1t is not only the custom of
/ teachers in many classes of the gram
mar grades to detain after school from
one TO one and a half hours. and by the
week. but also commands are given for
enough work to be done at home to oc-
eupy the full attention and require the
best efforts of pupils three to four hours
evenings. An apt, faithful student
might finish by 10 p. m, but II and
1870 m. has often been the time for
completing work under my own obser-
walton, and the work must be copied
in the most careful manner for the
! teachers eyes. The majority of par
ents Of children in the grammar grades,
who interest themselves at all, WILL /
! dare say, agree that there are few
school evenings when they have been
exempt from schoolmaster duty.
! have even known of home work be-
/ ing given in the primary grades to chill
dren seven or eight years old. which
taxed not only the children, but the
parents for the whole evening. l do
not, however, think it a custom in the
primary schools. The mother of a sew
-year-old said yesterday that she had
rebelled at the work openly and refused
| to DO it, not only because injurious to
/ her boy, but if the given tasks We're
! accomplished she lost her whole even
! ing socially, or was obliged to work
| from > until s p. M. to gain her own
evening.
In another household whose daughter
is in the eighth grade, the elder brother
claims to be the teacher of her history
another son takes charge Of spelling
and grammar. the father helps in the
arithmetic tasks, the mother does the
kicking, and the teacher draws the sal
airy.
| 1t is useless to complain, the system
| is such that one cannot have a child
exempted when the whole class must
do the given work or bear the penalty
of missed lessons, or what to an earnest
child is too severe to be borne, poor
| showing in the written reports. Educa-
! ton means drawing out or developing
the pest in ones ability. II would mat
ter little to a thinking parent the rank
| ing o" condition Of a report, provided
| the child had obtained in his daily work
and school life the essential habits of
concentration, carefulness and earnest
ness IN work and a live interest: but
as a fact many, too many, students ac-
quire none of these, and are graduated
/ ignorant, tired and listlass.
| For instance, q graduate of the
/ grammar department, on being ques-
! toned lately, thought the opposing
parties in the war of the Revolution
We're Spaniards and English, and an
/ swered, when rebuked for ignorance on
fact so important: Why, didn't CO.
| lumbns settle America? Were not the
people Spaniards ?"
| The work of year and a half in his
tory was really blank, so far as that
| pupil was concerned. That parent had
evidently been a poor task master, not
to speak of the weeks OF time devoted
to that study in the schoolroom. That
was education that did not educate
Such ar all-round lack of interest would
seem incomprehensibIe: that boy alone
was not to blame; he should never have
| been permitted to graduate with such
evidau. slackness and carelessness.
If mere life and magnetism were put
into the daily work, five hours Of hon
est and concentrated work should be
a sufficiently long time for vital, mental
work. Nothing less should be permit
/ cd 1.ov~gn6 ? h G. r,f4
| hours-the songs. recitations, calisthen-
les which are very necessary in the
prolonged sessions. Five hours Of con-
/ centrated thought is enough for any
| pupil to the age of fifteen An alert
teacher makes an alert class, not alert
for 4 v hisper or the dropping of a pen
ell children have been daily punished
for such). Home work would then be
/ unnecessary.
Many teachers will answer. zone can
not be expected with a class of forty
or fifty pupils to do more than hear
rotations; one has no time TO teach !"
I maintain that if an interest is kept
alive. and the teacher is alive, 1t is not
necessary TO hear the recitations Of an
entire class each day. A portion at a
time is sufficient. Much Of the work is
written; much can be done at the black
board: the rivated attention of the class
on The work of four or five or ten pu-
pills, or the energetic work of the teach
er. will be as telling in results as
though each recited. The average boy
viii not worry himself too much about
his home work or rank, but the girls
health and energies are imposed upon,
when she should be most carefully
guarded and preserved.
She IS allowed TO sink to her rest at
night thoroughly exhausted, with no
time for physical recreation. pleasant
family pastime, knowledge of anything
but The text books. The very necessary
accomplishment of music. or the cheer
fulness OF song, must be sacrificed be-
cause her teacher, whose mistaken re-
gard for her own rating with the board
or in the eyes of her Principal, and
whose ignorance or thoughtlessness
would grind out of a child, Ike a ma
chine, so many facts per night, or so
many as can be stuffed or forced
In my own family. as the children sell
dom arrive home until or 4 80 r. M.
] viii not permit study during the re-
naming time Of sunlight, but as soon
as supper is finished out comes the
home work, regardless Of digestion, rec
reatioa, or anything else 10 be desired,
and their teachers this year seem far
more thoughtful than some.
\ young girl in another class was re-
quirad to do fifty-two examples in
arithmetic for home work in one week.
| besides work IN every other text book.
| history, physiology, spelling. etc. It
was an outrage on the childs physique