The times and democrat. [volume] (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1881-current, 1908-11-03

The High School. Situation
Counting the increased facilities
added this year, it is easily demon
strable by figures that the public
high schools Of the State, aided and
unaided, have increased in efficiency
more than twenty-five per cent since
January l, 1907. IN more than one
fourth of them the efficiency has
been doubled within that time. Fhe
chief increase is in the quantity
and quality of the teaching force,
thus giving longer recitation Pc
RODS, a wider range of studies. and
heightened courses OF study. The
State appropriation OF $4,000 has
beer the chief instrument by which
these improvements have been
brought about, but it must be ad-
mitted that even with this lever 1t
has been a task of magnitude to Sc
cure this increased efficiency. 1t has
required courage and watchfulness
on the part of the State High School
Board to prevent the schools from
taking the State aid for the hlgn
school, then turning it into the COM
mon school department without one
particle of increase Of efficiency IL
the high school.
The Introductory statement might
lead the uninformed to think that
our high schools are now satisfacio-
ry. Far from it. There are now not
far from lao public high schools
comihe within the minimum ,defini-
ton of high school under the pres
ent high school law-one teacher
giving all his time to not fewer than
fifteen pupils above the seventh
grade or. seventh school year. OF
these 14O schools, 25 have one
high school teacher each, 80 schools
have two teachers each, and the re-
naming ones more than two teach
ers each. Only six schools have each
the full teacn.ng time of five teach
ers or more.
In nearly all the one-teacher hign
schools the recitation periods have
been advanced to 80 minutes each,
nothing less than 20 minutes being
accepted in the aided schools. In
those with two or more high schocl
teachers, fully three-fourths have
40 and 45-minute periods, while i
few have one hour periods. In al
aided school of this class nothing
less than 80 minutes is accepted.
The greatest single gain has been
this lengthening OF the recitation
periods, and upon the whole the
situation in this respect is salts
factory.
Some noticeable improvement III
the competency of the teachers has
been made, but In this respect condis-
ions are far from satisfactory. Many
places are willing to pay from S1,2Ou
to S1,500 for supervising principal,
but give him cheap assistants. 1t
is utterly useless to talk about get
ting q competent and experienced
woman, fitted to do high school
teaching, at $40 month, or man
who has shown himself qualified,
at $50. 1t is painful 70 me to say
this, for among Just such teachers
are some of my best personal friends.
But l know only too well that the
standard of the high schools depends
upon the standard of their teach
ing force. Let me tell some things
have seen and heard. | have seel
more than one high school, teach
wrestle half-hour with an ordinary
problem in Wentworth's Practic*l
Arithmetic, book usually compl y
ed in the Sth grade. In Tarr's Phys
ical Geography, book really too
difficult for the Sth grade where it
is usually found, l nave seen teach
ers cover enough ground in one 30
minute recitation to have given
profitable work for three such Pc
RODS. In one history recitation
have seen the class read the text
IKE a fourth reader for one-half the
time, then listened to the teacher
ask twenty to thirty wholly unrelated
questions each suggestive of the
answer expected. Day after day
see teachers va;nly attempting to
teach English grammar and punctu-
alton from the rules and the few
examples given in the textbook, and
seemingly oblivious to the fact that
every textbook the child uses Is full
of the very illustrations needed.
Latin Is usually referred to as dead
language; it might with propriety re
called deadly in some instances.
Not q few hig schools pupils after
two years of Latin study are unable
to separate word into its sylables.
or to determine the length of sy,-
liable. In translation it is no uu-
common thing to hear such as this:
"Gallia-Gaul, est-is, omnis-all, divisl-
divided, in-in, partes-parts, tres
three" etc. AS specimen product
of he vigor Of the Latin grated
upon the flexibility of the English,
note this: The army having been
drawn up more as the nature OF the
place and the slope Of the hill and
the necessity of the time than as
the order and plan of military things
demanded, since the different legions
some in one part and some another
were resisting the enemy and the
thick hedges having been cast down. "
etc. (See Caesars Gallo War, Book