Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1903-10-12
NEW SCHOOL WORK
Manual Training Being Introduce
ed in Seventh and Eighth
Grades.
CHANGE IN REPORT CARDS
Standing Will be Marked by Letter
Instead II by Per
Cent.

The Rock Island grade Schools TO-
day took up manual training i'll the
seventh and eighth grades, as provid-
| ed for by the board of education last
spring All the apparatus has been
purchased and installed, and the work
will be under the direction Of {. W..
Kent, who directs the high school
classes and under whose tutorage
manual training was introduced here
last season Mr. Kent Will visit each
of the schools having seventh and
eighth grades once each week. Of
course. the work will be introduced in
Il very simple form.
While woodwork is being taught the
boys the girls of the same grades
will be given instruction in sewing by
the teachers in charge of the build
ing. There will be but one class in
manual training and sewing in each
school and one hour each week will be
given to each.
Begin Second Month.
The schools entered today upon the
second month of the fall term. Re
ports sent in at the close of last week
showed an enrolment for the first
month of 1919, of whom 1924 are in
the high school and 1855 in the
grades. This attendance is quite even
ly distributed among the buildings in
proportion to the number of teachers
| employed in each. The Hawthorne
school has 617 pupils; Washington,
1871; Kemble. 233; Lincoln. 500; Eu
gene Field, POS; Irving. 354; Longfel-
low, 337; Horace Mann, 314; Grant.
149.
The report cards for the first
month will be distributed tomorrow
to the children in the CRATES, bearing
the child's record for the first month.
Parents will notice that a change has
been made in the marking system, the
letters f. G., +. and p being used in
stead of the per cent marks. These
characters mean, respectively, that in
the teachers judgment the pupils
work is excellent, good, fair or poor.
as shown by the use of the letters.
While it is not the purpose to repre-
sent the pupils standing in per cents
| at all, the report cards give a table
of equivalents as an indication of the
approximate value of these letters.
Excellent should mean an estimate of
from 90 to 100; good. an estimate
from so to 90; fair. an estimate from
- To so; and poor, an estimate below
- and & condition that may lead to
the pupil being required to repeat the
work
1t is the purpose of the school man
agement this year to use, in addition
To the report card. a form of notifica-
tion to be sent to the parent when
ever the work of the pupil it not salts
factory.
Distinctions Made Too Fine.
During the past year or two consid-
cradle dissatisfaction has been ex-
pressed by school patrons with the
system Of per cent marking that has
been prevalent in the schools for some
years. superintendent Hayden and
the teachers hope that this simpler
system of designating the quality of
the pupils work may prove more sat
isfactory to school patrons and not
be productive of so much unhappiness
among the children as has been caus-
ed in a good many instances by the
fine distinctions made in the use of
per cent standings. As the expression
of the quality of the pupils work by
the symbolic letter has been used in
the schools of the city at different
times in the past, it will not come to
the school patrons as an entirely new
thing. and with the above eXplana-
ton the school authorities hope that
the report card will be as well under
stood by parents in the form used this
year as it has been in the past.