The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-09-01
new SCHOOL PLAN
Studying on Different Basis in
Topeka This Year.
Not a Cram of Details, but More
General knowledge.
ONLY SIXTEEN MORE DAYS NOW
Then Nine Months of Hard
Work for Riddles.
Strange Text Books Will Greet
Pupils in City.
ONLY SIXTEEN MORE DAYS NOW

Only sixteen more days and summer
is over for 5000 Topeka children.
There will be no more swimming, no
more hikes and no more anything but
books and class room. Vacation is
fast drawing to an end.
But the redeeming feature of the
taking up of school will soon be re-
peated by boys and girls classed as
freshies and seniors, kindergarten and
seventh graders. Mothers will no
longer be able to ask favors. 1t will
release every one of the 5000 children
from the vacation position as delivery
boy. errand boy or cook and dish
washer. 1t will mean a rest from the
nasty jobs around the house.
And the children don't know what
they be enrolled in the primary grades
than they will be introduced to
strange text books. new methods of
study and new teachers. The Riddles
will not know that it is the same old
school that they left last June with
only a hated and hasty glance at the
closing doors. 1t will be an entirely
new order of procedure
New Textbooks.
First among the many changes that
the pupils will notice is the mex text
books The Wooster reader will no
longer greet the many pupils with its
same old familiar cover. In it's place
Will DS dH eHllT0ly new DOCK, TedQ0I
by Searson & Martin, improved and
sanctioned by the state textbook COM
mission. Then the arithmetic text,
too, will peek from the covers with
entirely new problems and strange
figures. Before a single student opens
the book, the whole class will know
that there is a difference, in size, text
and contents. The new text is writ
ten by Morey and adapted to work in
the grades from the third thru the
seventh.
Then, too, a new and strange lam
guage book will greet the many pu-
pills of the grade schools. The hated
old Scott-Southwick book has been de-
throned-or possibly abdicated- and
in it's place a new ruler has been elect
ed by the state textbook commission.
Miller and Kincade will rule supreme,
with leniency and yet with firmness,
according to H. B. Wilson, superin-
tendent of schools.
All this will be sufficient to amuse
the returning students for the first
few days OF their new school year. And
then before a single girl or boy has
worn the novelty-and the cover
from the strange texts, the teacher
in a thrilling way will launch on the
years school work. And it will be
more fun than ever before, according
to the teachers, and 'worse'n more
of it," according to the pupils who
whole regime of school work.
PROBLEM attack" will rtare The
pupils in the face 1t will be a buga-
boo, an ogre and an enemy. To the
teacher it will be a savior, hero
and nearly god But soon the pupils
those classed from the fourth grade
up-will forget about the new idea
and even the name of problem at
tack and the new system of studying
will change from the hated, scary ogre
to a kindly friend and true helper.
New Study Plan.
The new system, H. B. Wilson ex-
planned this morning, is a scheme of
studying that has succeeded the old
method of learning.
The pupils will study with definite
problem in unfinished Of cram
ming heads full of pages of useless
and unrelated facts. Instead of being
asked ito tell all about India the
pupil will be asked why that country
is not cool, why it does not produce
potatoes and why is education in that
country so retarded. The new plan
calls for a problem to be solved in
each subject, solid reasoning and logic
as well as study and preparation will
be necessary.
The new method of problem at
tack will be introduced into every
course of study offered in the schools
of the city. The pupils will no longer
be expected to tell the details of sub
ject except in so far as the smaller
points are directly related to the prcb-
+ lem involved Page after page of use
less facts will in this way be skip ped
in the preparation of the lessons
But by no means will the pupil
escape with less studying. In place OF
the many pages in the text that may
be skipped during the year there will
be from four to seven reference books
to which the pupil must go before q
class problem can be solved. Prep
aration of each lesson will take more
work on the part of the pupil and will
undoubtedly result in more firm I'M
derstanding of the subject in hand
according to the teachers.
And still another stranger will greet
few of the pupils this month, L