The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1903-09-03
Parents and the Schools.

The attention of parents is directed to
an extract from the report OF Superin-
tendent Frank Evans of the Spartanburg
city schools which appears in The State
this morning. Mr.. Evans is one OF the
best superintendents in the country and
has given much thought to the problems
presented by the public schools. What
he says is we'll worth reading and care
fully digesting. He criticises the desire
of parents to put their children to school
as soon as possible. This is all evil that
is not confined to Spartanburg, and it
arises from two causes, first, that parents
show an amiable weakness in believing
that their children are above the average
intelligence, and secondly, because the
child of a busy mother when it reaches
the age of four or five years begins to be
a bother" hanging around and getting
in the way and not knowing how to
amuse itself. 1t is too old to have
nurse, and older brothers and sisters are
at school, so the best thing to do is to
impose it upon some teacher with room
full of 'tots" that have to be told how
to do everything. The ordinary class
room should not have more than thirty
children in it at most. yet IN primary
departments forty or fifty and even sixty
are occasionally crowded in. 1t is lm-
possible to deal properly with this swarm
of infantile humanity, and disappoint-
ment inevitably results when number
of them fail to get passing cards. Ii they
are not prepared for the second grade,
promotion is wrong to them, for they
will inevitably fall farther behind until
they must drop grade in some portion
of the curriculum. Yet hard heart and
some stubbornness is required OF the
Superintendent to enable him to resist
the appeals from pleading or threatening
parents. Superintendent Evans points
out the evil of early crowding by show
ing that it hurries the child along too
rapidly, causing him to finish his course,
if he finishes at all, without having had
sufficient maturity thoroughly to assiml-
late any portion Of it.
Superintendent Evans touches upon
another very serious evil in alluding to
the antagonistic attitude of many parents.
In this respect there is great difference
in the attitudes of former generations
and the present In the halcyon days
before the war pupils were turned over
bodily to the teacher land the word bodily
is no mere metaphor) frequently with
notice that whipping at school would
be followed by a sound whipping at
home. Then the parent possibly gave
the teacher too much discretion. Now
the tendency is to question every act:
Experience shows that the children of
parents who criticise and antagonize the
teacher generally get along poorly and
frequently fall by the wayside. If the
pupil recognizes that the teacher will be
firmly upheld by the parent few cases for
discipline will arise Ii any parent dis
likes to have his child whipped he will
much more easily accomplish his purpose
by promising the child to duplicate every
chastisement he receives from the
teacher, than by saying that his child
must not be whipped.
Superintendent Evans so admirably
points another evil that we quote his
words:
"The chief injury, however, which
parents do the school is sending their
children without the general training,
that steady discipline, that influence for
refinement which the school cannot give,
but upon which it must build. The raw
ness and crudity Of many children who
come from well-to-do homes is amazing.
These children know almost nothing of
the things which in intelligent homes are
the very atmosphere. They have no
fund of general intelligence, they are
in manners, in speech, in voice |
and in mind, and the school has to do for |
them in very limited time and under
very difficult conditions the work that
the home ought to have done under the
best possible circumstances and with the
fullest possible time.
IF these people would only teach their
children at home to speak properly, to
tell the truth and not to use meaningless
slang in conversation with one another,
to modulate their voices and not to
shrek or scream in the streets, to be
courteous and polite in their Manners
work which every parent is expected to
stop criticising methods
and textbooks which they do not gnder-
stand, their children would be better
both morally and physically"
"Words fifty spoken are like apples of
gold in pictures Of silver" These words
should be taken to heart by all who care
TO rear family of cultivated citizens.
Some one else has called attention to
The inconsistency of the parent in admit
ting his own inability to manage his
children and who yet criticizes his
teacher for not doing so. Surely it is
easier to manage three or four at home