The aegis & intelligencer., 1907-07-26

overtaXed teachers of ninth grade in
one-room schools, which relief | from
personal knowledge. assert, has been to
the decided advantage of many smaller
children. The eighth grade remains in all
our schools just as it has been for the
past htteen Years. A mistaken idea has
taken hold of many minds concerning
| TINS, which IL is difficult to remove, and
was more than surprised the past year
| 10 discover just few teachers asking ME
II they were permitted to teach an eighth
grade. This class and its entirecoursc is
still preserved intact in all schools, and
is Just as legitimate and free from sham
as any other recognized grade.
nc failure to learn spelling is not due
TO the modern and far more intelligent
and expeditions methods of tcachinq
reading. To demand that a child shall
labor for months to acquire the names
and intricate forms of twenty six arbi.
trary characters, before beginning to read
IS antlquated, and most unscientific.
Letters are only the symbols of the
sounds which really make words: but
words, regardless ofthe particular sounds
or letters composing them are symbols
OF ideas. Any bright child will be read
ing inteliigently in two weeks hv the
modern methods of teaching reading.
and IN connection Herewith will in two
months have also learned his letters, and
be spelling as well as reading.
The modern systems of language teach
ing have been unfairly charged with the
poor spelling found in and out of our
schools. Spelling, as some one has aptIy
SAID, is a species of fcrystallization. Some
MINDS cannot crystalline letters into
Enghsh words, hence never will spell
Inc system is not to blame, the school is
NOT TO blame; 1t rests largely with the
individual
There are, l am sorry to admit. gradu-
ates OF Maryland and all other high
schools who can neither spell, work
arithmetic, nor use good English; but
the same is true of some graduates of all
colleges and universities, and we must
come back again to the individual.
never knew a poor graduate of anv
school who did not hold that school re-
sponsible for his later discovered deficien-
cies.
| happen to have access to some school
statistics of 1916. Permit me to draw n
few comparisons to meet the constant
charge that our boys and girls trained
by modern methods cannot compete with
those trained In the good old tines
In l9Oo, 2oO ninth grade pupils were
tested in spelling and arithmetic, by Civ
ing them the identical questions given to
classes OF high school pupils in 1916.
The high school boys and girls of 1S4G
answered correctly in spelling 4O.6 per
cent, and in arithmetic 294 per cent
while those of 1905 made on the same
questions without previous special prepa-
ration. 51.2 per cent. in spelling and 655
in arithmetic. Careful comparisons are
always safer than mere assertions.
The teaching of phonics does not
weaken the child's powers to spell. if it
really possesses the capacity, because no
teacher worthy Of the name, teaches the
sounds of the letters independently of the
words in which said letters occur-with
the possible exception of the first few
lessons as preliminary to word building.
When the real work of spelling begins
these hrst aids are dispensed with, and
the children are trained in spelling either
by using letters in connection with
sounds, or in most cases by the almost
entire exclusion of purely phonetic word
construction. -
am not an advocate of the eleventh
grade in our schools, believing il to be,
under present conditions at least, i'm
practicable, but fail to see how the
tenth grade has lowered the standard
OF our public schools" since its intr0duc-
ton was in no manner responsible for the
abolition of the ninth in one-ro0m
schools, nor has it, as have previously
shown, placed the ban of a seventh
grade limit to any school in Hartford
county.
There is no device, in all the manage
Prf nd RI .,To
small children, so useful to pupils and at
the same time so helpful to the busy
teacher as legitimate and wisely appor-
toned busy work" 1t keeps many
troublesome children from busy disorder,
adds zest and interest to the otherwise
tiresome hours, and permits teachers To
give attention to one class while Others.
instead of looking for and finding mis-
chief, are learning to expend their surplus
energies in useful occupation.
The sooner we have at least two cleo
tive courses in all our high schools the
better, in my humble Judgment. Each
course should lead to graduation and a
diploma, with the restriction that up to
certain point the curriculum should he
the same for all, in order to insure n safe
and solid basis for future building
Our high school principals should make
a careful and thorough study ofprimary
and intermediate work and methods, and
then be sure that below them the best
work is being done. To know this they
need to be good judges, and to be good
Judges they must not exhaust all their
energies and ambitions in putting gilded
top on frailfoundation-i other words
they must not strive too much to make
a more brilliant display than any other
high school, simply for the name of being
the best in the State" while if rigidiv
inspected from the bottom upward, or
from the top downward, deplorable
weakness will be found in the sub
structure and hollow display III the super
structure.
Let us aim for quality rather than
quantity; for reality rather than show;
and let us demand to be weighed and
not measured"
CHARLES I. WRIGHT,
County Super ntendent.