Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1914-01-29

DOCK, with a medley of strange names, the definition of which is O
erhed by chance, and a series of vague and abstract notions of law, gov
eminent, and society, which suggest O contrast clearly with nothing
modern; not tt speak of numerous dates and epochs learned for exami-
nation and promptly forgotten. At the period of visitation the classes
were dealing with the year SO A. D., and on at least three occasions
the details regarding Gaba, Ohio, and Vitenius were rehearsed as
faithfully as though julius Caesar had been under discussion. In three
other classes a different atmosphere prevailed. Breaking away from
the textbook, the teachers here were reproducing certain picturesque
and significant personages and making them throb with life to a class
that was absorbed in interest. Only thus has this difficult coursev value
as education. 1t requires teachers with time, training, and imagination,
to be sure, but it requires also a vision on their part that a response
from each pupil is their great object and not the satisfaction of a
threatening curriculum.
The foregoing criticisms of the first year course as a whole are
not to be taken as sweeping denuncation. The considerations urged
are, however, believed to be a valid basis for the conclusion that far
greater attention is at present centered upon carrying out courses as
prescribed, and upon ordering work within courses as planned, than
is spent upon securing for a given child a course that is what he needs
IN aaaptng It's material to his interest and to the conditions of his
assimilation.
found in the statistics of So high schools with regard to student fail
ures in the year 1911-12. The chances of failing in a subject that
year ranged from none in four schools to nearly one chance in four
in another school, the percentage of failure going as high as 236 with
the median at ss. 1t is unlikely that this was due to any considerable
extent to differences in the children in these various localities. It repre-.
sents rather the widely varying tension in the curriculum, acting without
correlation with differences of preparation in the pupils. In city practice
social policy forces a certain uniformity, and the real question is evaded
morally nestionah1e aTLe fr taachor a nd nnn j u 1 Tpi ntnss, " practice
in these smaller country schools. They appear to show the honest
is Of course a diacnt NJ ono that +o o"aloano a ne poo mn
standards of measurement alone cal solve. From another point of view.
and radical treatment the nature Of which is clear IN - scboo1 svstam
that had for it's central purpose the appropriate educational treatment
of each child on the plane of his capacities and disposition, the problem
of how many pupils a teacher was justified in failing would scarcely
appear at all. To-day the blight that we call failure" is allowed to
gather and harden into a persistent mental attitude, a a pupil, with
the sanction OF his school repeats algebra OF Latin grammar from one
to five times. This is certainly a mistake, and it is to be hoped that,
vs. the culture brings u more resources, we shall learn to discern the
beginnings of failure as an order for q change Of treatment an that
we shall possess the facilities and the wisdom to make that change with
confidence and success and at once.
The first and fundamental need, therefore, is greater freedom and
elasticity in order to meet the Individual pupil. This established, there
is pressing need that the curriculum be expanded to meet the enlarged
function of the present-day school, Planned originally for but a single
type of pupil, and at a time when the aim of secondary education had
by no means attained its present scope, it's resources to-day appear
meagre and insufficient. AT a time in a chlds life when he is most
stimulated and permanently influenced by the reality of his surround
ings, Vermont offers him through the animportant first two years in
high school a treatment that is exclusively bookish and can be nothing
else; a half course in botany is the sole exception. A state whose eco
nomic and social problems arr bound up with agriculture, Vermont has
a high school curriculum that is appropriate to a metropolis. Less than
ten per cent. of the pupils in Vermont high schools go to college, but. the
studies that the colleges require Of them crowd out from the curriculum
all forms of instruction, aside from commercial branches, that might
make the other nnetenths of the students happier and more efficient
in their future occupations, whether they be farming o business, teach
ing or home-making. Praise is due to the state department of education
that changes in these respects have long been preached and, in places,
already initiated in Vermont.
Of these newer subjects commercial education is the Oldest and best
understood. In 1911-12, 1863 per cent. Of the enrolment were in COM
roarciol couruoc IN ipcrooco " tbroop r o+ ava, 1OOO 10 Ulo