The Mena weekly star., 1909-12-09
SCHOOLS AS THEY EXIST AND HOW TO MAKE THEM BETTER ESPECIALLY FOR STAR PROF.
 

1 osSJ VA NOAAAhAAA1 0F(A h~1h'VAo AOAE3 t%A ter they are understood? When s lesson is thoroughly understood, why not pass to another? But these questions will be answered in their proper order and in another place. Adopting the reader as the basis of classification for the country school, we proceed to suggest the necessary divisions, VIZ: Primary. Ietermed- fate and Advanced.
 A careful study of the classifica- ton as adopted in all foreign coun- tries, and in our own so far as uni formity is concerned, reveals the fact that nearly all concede the prac- ticality of dividing the rural school into three divisions for the purpose of examinations and pro motions. All pupils reading in the First and Second readers should be classed in the Primary division, no matter whether they have all the number work, oral language, etc, necessary to complete the required course or not.
 All pupils who read in the Third and Fourth readers should be con sidered in the Intermediate division and so ranked in all records or re- ports, whether they are possessed of the required advancement or not; in other words simply class all in these two readers as belonging to the h. termediate division.
 All pupils who read in the Fifth reader tor some equivalent classic) i, pupils who have dropped the reading exercise, should be chased in the Ad- vanced division, whether they have completed the work of the other branches as selected for the Inter- mediate division or not.
 The classification under this plan would appear about as follows:
 Divisions.
 PRIMARY-First and econd Readers.
 INTERMEDIATE-Third and Fourth Readers.
 ADVANCED Fifth Reader.
 Such scheme begins the classifi- cation of the school at once; pupils can understand that they are to be classified under the Division in which their reader falls; many of them will not have the required branches for the division in which they be- long, however.
 Proceeding upon the above basis for classification, it will be necessary to consider the several branches to be studied in these divisions, in the Primary Division it is often the case that pupils are pushed forward in the reader to the neglect of Number Work. Penmanship. Language and Spelling. Under our present lack of anything like system each teacher is left to do as much or as little of this work as he desires, and having no supervising force to which he must be accountable in this divi- sion, he either rides a hobby of certain branch, to the exclusion of others. or else he neglects them en- tirely. The writer has had the op- portunity to canvass large number of rural schools in his past years and affirms that he has inspected many where no number work was attempt ed, but a text in arithmatic was found in the hands of Primer and First reader pupils long before they could read in monosyllables intelli- gently. He has inspected a large number of schools in which no at tention was given to Language, al- though the readers were well adapted to the direct application of found a. tion principles in this much neglected subject. While he is 10th to admit it, he has visited quite a number of rural schools in which the children were absolutely forbidden the privi- lege of using script (this was not in Arkansas), and who were compelled to print everything copied from the time they entered the First reader until they passed through the Sec ond reader. It should be remem- bered that pupils as ready learn the use of script as they do the printed forms, and that the former is con stantIy used through life, while the latter is seldom if ever used. | (ro be continued