Norwich bulletin., 1910-10-25
POOR SHOWING FOR THE
STATE OF CONNECTICUT.
1T is Last in Rank in Proportion Of
Children to Get Common School Ed
ucation

That the state of Connecticut ranks
last among the New England states
in the proportion of her children who
receive Il common school educatio
that Hartford and Middletown are tied
for fourth place among the Connect
cut cities in this respect, We're some of
the interesting statements made at the
meeting of the Connecticut State
Teachers association by DR.. Leonard
p. Ayres of New York city.
DIR. Ayres is associate director of
the department of child hygiene of
the Russell Sage foundation, and for
mer general superintendent of schools
for Porto Rico. He is in charge of
dation and for the past three years
has been conducting Investigations of
the backward children problem.
''rhe study of the laggard pupils in
the elementary schools of New Eng
land DIR. Ayres said, "hlis shown that
school in Maine continue through the
eighth grade; in Massachusetts 20 per
cent. are carried through the element
airy schools; while Vermont comes
next with 81 per cent New Hamp-
shire IS per cent, Rhode Island 81.
and Connecticut comes last with over
half Of the children who enter the
schools leaving before they reach the
final grade In Connecticut only 40
per cent of the entering pupils in
titt elementary SNtiotlS NplllEitlc tlit
course.
BY common agreement" continued
Dir. Ayres, law makers and publicists
have come to hold that the education
furnished by our common school
course is the minimum which may
safely be allowed the future citizens
of this democracy. When, then We
discover that half of our children are
not receiving this amount of educa
ton, the problem presented is a grave
one.
Let us consider what this really
means. To the state this means that
the men and women who must soon
take up the burden of citizenship are
Woefully ill-prepared. Think for a mo-
nlent of the studies which the pupil
who drops out of the fifth grade fails
to get. He has but slight knowledge
of geography; he has had no formal
grammar of his own language: he has
had no study of civics; his knowledge
of the history of his own country is
limited to stories about some of it's
great men. The subjects which he
fails to get are precisely those sub
iects which are designed to fit him for
citizenship.
During the past two years there
have been conducted several laborious
and costly Investigations to discover
why we have so many backward chill
dren in our schools and what the rem
edies are Among the causes which
these Investigations have brought to
light may be mentioned the compul
sorry attendance law, which provides
tina Ia child shall attend school for
seven years-from the ages of Z to
14-whcras our school courses are
either eight or nine years in length.
Another cause is the fact that our
courses of study have unconseiously
been fitted to the needs of the BRIGHT
rather than the average child. This
hX- that in the
try as whole children Who are maxi
ing slow progress in school are ten
times as numerous as those who are
making rapid progress. The course of
study does not fit the average child.
Another cause is irregular attend
ance, and here the parents are more
responsible than the schools. In few
American cities are as many as three
fourths of the school children actual
ly present in school as much as three
fourths of the time. Another cause is
the fact that our school courses are