The Big Stone Gap post. [volume] (Big Stone Gap, Wise County, Va.) 1892-1928, 1900-11-08
STUDY COURSE.

According to promise, made in the re-
port of the proceedings of the teachers
institute, we publish Miss Browns paper
IT, full. Miss Brown said:
am very sorry that ! had not more
time and knowledge to bring to the treat
ment of the large subject assigned to me,
am sure that, being teachers, you can
svmpathize with a fellow-teacher, and so
will understand and appreciate my failure
to do even partial justice to my SUBJECT
We all realize that our town schools, II
they accomplish anything as educators
must of necessity be graded after some
svstem or other. The teaching OF such
schools would be Herculean task Tor
both principals and teachers if they were
otherwise. imagine school of two or
three hundred pupils with no systematic
gradng-pupis of all degrees Of advance
mont from the Young man who is soon to
launch out and make his own way in the
world. to the little tot who has never been
so far away from mother,-these scattered
through each of the different rooms, each
teacher having to run the gauntlet OF all
the studies embraced in the public school
course. Pupils locating themselves in the
different rooms Just as their own fancles
likes, or dislikes lead them TO do Sucf
a condition of affairs would he absurd IL
the extreme We must grade our town
schools and our country schools, also, as
far as can be done.
In the first place the grading OF oul
schools saves much arduous labor on The
part of the teacher. If the school is vel
| GRADED the number of classes is mucl
smaller, not more than two to one teacher
in the town school The classes are more
interested and more interesting, and, i
takes very little more time to teach
large class than a small one.
So, in the second place, the graded
school is more economical, requiring few
er teachers. 1t is much easier to teaci
fifty pupils Of the same cooperative ad
vancement than to teach fifteen pupils o
all stages of progress.
Not only does the system save labor
but il enables the teacher 10 spend thu
time heretofore wasted from lack Of sys
TEN i'm better preparation OF the yariou
lessons 20 be taught The number o
branches to be taught in the difieren
departments of graded school is mucl
smaller than that of mixed school. /
is impossible for teacher in an ungradet
school to prepare himself properly tor hi
work-he has more branches to teacl
than he can possibly prepare. SO tn
system should be productive of bette
teachers.
Graded schools, again, are more easil
governed The teacher can keep the pu
pills busily employed-idleness certanl
creates mischiei-aud it is almost impOs
sble, in large ungraded school, to Sc
that each pupil is properly supplied wit
busy work. Besides this, the pupils ar
more ambitious. Not only does the fea
of falling behind their classmates ten
to good order, but there is also desir
created to excel and prepare for promo
ton 10 higher grades.
Graded schools also furnish education
in higher branches. 1t is not possible 70
all to have the advantages of a college
and the graded school gives, to each chill
who will take it, a thorough English edu
cation, and this is not always given il
some of our so-called colleges. Let IN
tell you OF case which came under m
own observation: A girl who had entere
the fourth grade in public graded school
and was not satisfied with her location
decided to enter college. She remaine
in that college, so-called, two years, whe
she came out full graduate. She ha
simply gotten little veneer. The foun
datiOn was untouched.
What should be the basis of grading
We cannot make age basis, because al
children of the same age has not the sam
development Of mind, or, the same HON
training. Though some attention shout
he paid to age. tor there may he harm i
forcing bright children beyond their mate
as we'll as in holding slow children benin
them. We must settle OH some study tina
fellows most closely the unfolding of tn
child's mind; aud, in my opinion, tina
branch is mathematics, though in tn