The public ledger. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1913-1968, 1916-03-17
PARENTS OF HIGH
SCHOOL STUDENTS
Are Urged To Read the Following
Article On Home Study
Has Local Application,

! IA letter which Frederick Leigh
ton, principal of the Oswego On. "
High School, addressed to the parents
and published in the Palladium of that
city on February ~
During the past year or two many
parents have expressed themselves az
being greatly surprised when | have
said that the average high school stu
dent needed to study from two to
three hours a day at home
The amount of work to be com
pleted in each subject in the high
school is determined by state and not
by local authorities. Consequently,
about all the local teachers can do, so
far as the amount of work to be as
signed is concerned, is to divide the
whole into about as many lessons as
there are school days in the term and
attempt to get the students to prepare
il
To complete a high school course
in four years, it is necessary for a
student to recite eighteen times a
week, exclusive of laboratory periods
( The average student recites about
twenty times a week. or an average Of
four times a day. The school time Of
each day is divided into seven periods
of about forty minutes each. If stu
dent recites four periods a day, he
has about three forty-minute periods
day, or about two hours, left for
study in school, The average high
school lesson requires from an hour
to an hour and a half for its prepar-
alton. Assuming, then, that a stu
dent has four lessons to prepare each
day and that each averages one and
one-fourth hours, II would require five
hours a day to prepare them. If the
student has but two hours a day when
he can study in school. he must study
three hours day outside of school or
he must neglect his work and take the
consequence, which is usually failure
This, of course, refers to the average
student Some can prepare four les
sons in less than five hours. Others
require more than five hours for the
preparation of four lessons.
OF the hundreds of cases of poor
work which have been referred to me,
fully 95 per cent of them have been
due to the lack of home study. In
nearly every case both the student and
the parent have acknowledged that
there was little or no regular studying
at home. Many of the students have
acknowledged being out from two to
seven nights weeks without even
pretending to do any studying at
home. In some cases the students
have acknowledged that they have
spent an hour or so over their books
at home, but haven't studied. If par
ents whose children are not studying
regularly at home from two to three
hours a day will take the trouble to
inquire at the school, almost with
out an exception they will find that
their children are failing in one or
more subjects and that they can not
complete the high school course in
four years. High school students, like
adults, are quite ready to explain
their failures by laying the blame on
some one else and calling the at
tention of their parents to the fact
that NEARLY everybody failed" A
wise parent can hardly afford to ac-
cept such explanations without in
curing at the school for the schools
side of it, Zone boy explained his
failure to his father by telling him
that everybody in his class failed, ex-
cept one girl, and that that girl was a
Sissy, who studied all the time" In
vestigation revealed the fact that 2l
out OF "a passed above 20 per cent,
and that this boy was the only one I'm
the class who stood below so per
cent?
In September, 1910, 1871 new stu
dents entered the high school. OF these
only twenty-six kept up their work.
remained four years and graduated In
1914. In September, 1918, l49 new
students entered the high school. OF
these only eighty-nine are now In
school and only thirty-nine have kept
up their work. No doubt some of them
left school because the school failed
TO offer such instruction as they
needed. Others left because of f.
nanoial conditions. However, the
strange fact remains that scarcely any
left who kept up their work while
they were in school. Is II not reason
able to suppose that II these students
who left had begun at once. on en-
tering the high school. 10 study reg
ularly and persistently at home and
had stayed at home evenings, that
they might have kept up their work
and remained In school and gradu-
atedf Many students enter the high
school whose parents seem 10 pay no
attention 10 their failures until they
4.