The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1908-05-02
The Three Rs.


My children are attending school
and they know more now than | ever
expect to. They can sing and sew,
make clay models and do rafiia work.
They have me down and out on nat
ure study and they are strong on the
pursuit OF the good, the true, and the
beautiful.
Il had my eldest daughter write
note of thanks for me the other day
and she scrawled II of I'm characters
that looked like Harry Clements Their
mometer readings on busy day. She
spelled pleasure without the "a and
fail with an 'e'. Then l asked the
boy to foot up column of figures for
me and he tried to make me believe
that eight and thirteen were twenty
two. What's the matter with our
schools, anyway"
The three Rs of proverbial fame are
suffering the fate of plain and faithful
servants In this day of concentration
and the saving Of labor. A child does
not learn to spell because, II a girl,
she will write so badly that spelling
won't count, and, II boy, he will hire
is no use learning much arithmetic as
an adding machine and cash register
will do everything but talk, and short
cut tables enable even a bank clerk
to have his work ready-made. And
yet, aren't We spending deal too
much money on the ornamental and
not enough on the plain foundations?
The Pollard system turned the spell
ing book of our childhood into a curio,
and the children learned to read be.
fore they learned to spell. They hav-
Mt caught up yet. In some schools
the teachers, astounded at the spelling
OF their charges, have started spelling
classes. But the percentage OF bad
spoilers seems to increase steadily.
AS to writing, the mistake seems to
have been in discarding the time hon.
ored Spencerian for the fiat and char.
acterless vertical" handwriting. The
excuse for this was simplicity and
greater legibility, and yet the old copy
books and the treasured letters of our
youth can all be read like print, while
the scrubbed mechanism OF the abom-
Unable vertical hand is not only annoy
ing by its lack of character but often
illegible.
Typewriters have taken the place of
the pen In business life unless one
seeks to be bookkeeper but have we
gained a great deal by not learning
those beautifully shaded characters,
and was not the 35 or 40 per cent of
good writer's, turned out of the old
schools, worth the trouble in the dis.
cipline mental, and manual, that the
exercise afforded.
We are trife too unitarian in this
age and we don't recognize the fact
that the path of accomplishment,
made too easy, becomes mere routine
and has no place whatever in the
moulding Of character or fitness.
The bad arithmetic that our chill
dren are acquiring is not so serious.
Methods have not changed there so
greatly as to make 1t likely that
child will be graduated from school
without the rudiments of number
work" The fault there is an old one
and has always been a problem. It is
the bridging of the young mind from
the theory of the text book to the prac-
tlcal needs or life and this Is not
question so much Of methods as of
common sense.
AS to reading II would be we'll II the
word "elocution" were erased from
the conscious mind. More sins are &C
complished In its name than all the
associated teachers of all the schools
OF oratory can counterfeit. Reading
is really very simple thing. It is
the complex and perverse ideas OF a
few people that make the trouble. Sim
ply teach the child to speak the words
as he understands them and express
the idea as he knows 1t and you have
made an orator. Plain, simple talking
from book-that's all there is of
reading.
Reform, II reform II might be called,
needs only to include systematic teach