The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1914-06-11
FOLLOW LEAD OF OTHER CITIES
New School Year Assures the Children
200 Days of School Attendance and
Is In Keeping With the Most Ad-
vauced Views of Educators.

Lengthening of the school year, late
commencement Of the high school and
an early opening Of tie schools next
fall has caused considerable discussion
among school patrons in the city and
some of them have complained that the
vacation this year will not be long
CROUCH. In reply to these complaints
Mrs. Mary D. Bradford, superintendent
Of the schools, said this morning:
The school board last year voted to
lengthen the school year to forty weeks
or 200 days, including legal holidays
This is the first year that this new rule
has been in operation and since several
Inquiries have been received, and mum
erous comments heard, about the late
closing" this year, it has seemed best
that an explanation should. be made,
and a few facts brought to public at.
tention.
In the first place, comparison OF
the date of commencement night with
dates of the same event for several
years back will show that the difference
is not so great after all. The dates
have been as follows: June 10, 1908;
June is, 1907, June II, 1910; June 16,
1911; June q, 1912; June 10, 1918;
June "a, 1914:
In lengthening the school year to 40
weeks the school board put Kenosha
in the same list in which all the larger
cities of Wisconsin stand, with the ex-
ception of Madison, which still has a
school year Of nine months. Milwau-
kee, Racine Oshkosh, La Crosse, She
boygan, Green Bay, Eau Claire, and
some smaller cities all have forty
weeks.
The general tendency everywhere is
to lengthen the school year. Regular
vacation schools are run in some cities.
Gary, Indiana, has school the year
round. They have four terms of three
months each, three of which terms chill
dren are compelled to attend and the
fourth Of which they may attend, and
majority do attend.
The summer vacation as it exists in
our school system today is an ancestral
trace 1t is relic of the time when
most of the people were farmers who
needed their children at home to work
at household chores. While the child
was. doing chores about home, he was
getting a valuable part of his educa-
ton. He was learning manual dexter
ity and persistence and developing mus
,cular strength. Nowadays, there is no
regular work about home to be done /;
so the need Of shortened school days
has passed. The time that was once
spent by children in useful labor now
goes into idle time on. the streets In
a city like Kenosha where there are
no public Fairgrounds with supervised
kplay, the idle summer hours often mean
the learning of unbenefcial, if not
harmful things. For learning is a pro-
cess that in healthy children can t be
stopped any more than food absorption.
If they aren t learning good things,
they are learning bad things If they
are relocated to the cutters by city con-
ditions, they learn filth. 1t is to keep
the child off the streets and to fill his
time with useful activities that cities
are providing vacation schools.
Only a few of the thousands of chill
dren whom the schools Of Kenosha will
release in a few days can look forward
to vacation in the country. No
pheasant summer cottages at the lakes
are waiting for this great majority,
They must spend July and August right
here, seeking out such play places as
they find, and such companionship as
they please. The possibilities for dam
aging influences have been cut short
a little by the addition of ten days to
the school year.
Now, / will ask the people who are
complaining about the lengthening OF
the school, to consider few facts
which our school statistics reveal and
which anybody can con firm by figuring
a little.
A child is in school FIVE and one-half
hours day. The school year, this
year, will contain 1913 school days, fol
there will be deducted legal holidays
and other days amounting in all tc
seven days.
If child attends every day, he will
have been in school 1861 hours. There
are in year total of S760 hours. Ii
you compare these numbers, you vii
find that the child, who is present all
the time, is in school something less
than one-eighth of his time The other
seven-eighths, the home is responsible
for. To express this fact in another
way, the child is in school one hour
for every seven he is out Of school.
To be sure, considerable of the time
spent out of school is sleep-time. But
reckoning nine Lours as the time spent
in sleep, as it should be for growing
children, they will spend in year II
sleep 1885 hours. Deducting this mum
Der Of hours from the total hours in q