The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1908-10-24
our SCHOOLS.
The Course of Study---An-
other Able Paper by Prof.
Hand.

There is small but turbulent class
of overwise writer's who periodically
belabor the public schools. In their
Nightmares they see thousands of ten
der children murdered or manned i'm
the public schools and give vociferous
utterance to so much wild nonsense
that they have but one effect-makinp
people refuse to heed them even when
they point out some real defect. Some
OF these writer's have warned us against
one great evil which we have gone on
ignoring-thato of an overcrowded course
OF study. To be brief, some years ago
our educators realized the poverty of
our common school course of study
confined lmostexclusively to the three
RS. A just demand was made for an
enriched course, giving wider range
of subjects to the pupils. A number of
subjects has been added. Now. in or
DER TO encourage individual initiative.
take it, the State board of education
has never prescribed a maximum or a
minimum number of subjects for apy
Icourse. Instead it has adopted text
DOCKS covering rather wide range of
subjects and grouped these into YEARLY
grades, leaving each school to make un
course or courses from this list.
The building of well-balapoed
course of study is the work of an OK
pert. Comparatively few teachers Law
claim to that stage of fitness. Yet each
teacher, or at least each principal, ex-
perienced or Inexperienced, sets about
to make his own course. Theories
preJudices and tastes begin to clash for
the mastery. One teacher is an aritb-
metlc crank and his course has but lit
tie else in 1T; another's favorite subject
is grammar and he makes his pupils
analyze and parse everything in sight.
announcer has no taste for geography and
he practically omits it; another "dotes
on poetry and the whole school is put
to memorizing and reciting gems; while
lot off thorough goingI teachers who
take everything literally put the whole
adopted list into one course and give
it to every pupil in the school.
- Si0"' uoai vi ignorant and unjust
criticism is made against the frequent
and useless change of textbooks r.
would be neither wise nor defensible to
have child use the same reader through
two or three grades, or to use the same
geography through the fourth, fifth and
sixth grades, for instance. If the book
is suited to his advancement when he
pegins II, 1T is reasonable to say that il
rs not suitable two or three years later
In his life. And if teacher were to
keep the child of one of the watchful
guardians of the schools in a fourth
reader, for instance, for three years this
same guardian would make the columns
OF the local newspaper smell of SULPHUR
In decialming against the outrage-then
1all To sign his name. On the other
hand, many of our schools do needlesslv
tax the patrons for books and burden
the children with books. Let me give
concrete cases. / have Just examined
the published course of study in n To-
grade school in one of our towns. In
that course are prescribed 30 separate
texts, exclusive of copy books, draw
ing books, scratch pads, etc. In the
school are 10 teachers. In another To-
grade school, with four teachers, there
are "a prescribed texts. In the first
mentioned school there are 10 separate
texts required in the seventh grade: in
the second mentioned school IL texts
are given in the eighth grade.
Every child ought to have the best
obtainable book in every subject he
pursues, and he ought to have all the
books he needs-books suited to his age
and advancement-but | protest that
the above mentioned courses are out of
reason TO undertake to teach all
these books TO any one child in the al
lotted time would make old Socrates
catch his breath. In the first case il
would seem that the course given was
measured by the physical endurance of
the teachers-l0 teachers pitted against
10 sets of children. In the second class
the physical endurance of the teachers
was no limit-four teachers Ditted
against 10 sets of children