The star-independent. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1904-1917, 1914-10-28

receive particular attention. The School Board
should adopt the recommendation without further
delay, so that Harrisburg schools may no longer
handicap their boys and girls by putting them
through an elementary course longer by one year
than that of any other city in Pennsylvania.
The United States Bureau Of Education recog-
nzes eight years the standard length of element
ary courses in the public schools of the country.
The branches of study have been so arranged .in
almost all American cities to allow eight years for
primary and grammar school work and four years
for high school training. Harrisburgs accepted
ideas of education modern enough and practical
enough to include four-year high school courses
with splendid variety of options,-but they have
not yet provided for standard eight-year ele-
mentary course. The ninth grade has no place in
present-day system of education. 1t must be elm
mated in this city as it has been in others.
True, there now but eight grades below first
year high school for boys and girls Of the city who
make high marks and care to finish their grammar
school work in the lesser length of time The excep-
tional pupils, whose quckness in their studies has
earned them high averages have the option of doing
eighth and ninth grade work in one year. Those
who decide upon the short cut to high school, how
ever, must apply themselves diligently during the
an improper gradation in the lower schools causes
to accumulate at the closing of the grammar school
course.
The great disadvantage of the present provisional
arrangement is that boys and girls who are not so
fortunate as to be exceptionally bright are COM
PEELED to spend an extra year between their ele-
mentary and high school courses, as compared with
children in other cites,a year of their lives which,
in sense, is lost never to be regained.
There is no logical reason why there should be
nine grades in the schools of this city or of any
other. The only possible reason for the present ar
rangment is the mere fact that the nine grade plan
has been in force. The primary school of three or
four years was extended grade by grade, to nine
years before the high school was made part of the
public school system. Conditions are now such that
not longer but shorter course is needed Average
pupils are expected in the present day to be gradu
ated from high schools with total of twelve years
OF work to their credit. Harrisburg graduates,
under the present arrangements in the elementary
schools, have OF necessity spent thirteen years in
school rooms of the city.
Taxpayers of Harrisburg may suppose that the
matter OF eliminating the ninth grade from the pub
hc schools involves no financial considerations.
that mere change in the elementary course has no
economic Importance. On the contrary the amount
OF money at stake is far greater than that which
would be required to put up the badly needed new
high school building The expense to the school dis
trlct OF retaining hundreds of children each wear
IN an unnecessary ninth grade is not small item,
and the cash value of the lost time, particularly to
the boys, is lmmeasurable. There would certainly
be no false economy in the elimination of the ninth
grade, with the proper readjustment of the ele-
mentary course of studies.