Year: 1879

The experiment in common school
i education made at the Massachusetts
town of Quincy, is worth the atten-
ton of all teachers. Quincy is the
home of the Adams family, and that
is family fond of looking after public
affairs and reforming things about
them. Therefore Mr.. Charles Fran
els Adams, Jr., has taken interest in
the improvement of the Quincy schools,
and according to his report they are
unquestionably better for what has
been done to them within four or five
years past.


When the School Committee put
the pupils to the test to see just how
much they were getting from their
instruction, which was furnished them
at cost of more than Sl9 head an
nually, they found that the knowledge
acquired was only superficial, that the
scholars were set to learn certain cut
and-dried tasks, and the measure of
their proficiency was their ability to
give parrot-like answers to ques-
tions on them. They got training of
the memory, but so far as concerned
any real understanding of their studies
and the capacity to use what they had
been taught, they were shamefully de-
ficient The teachers performed their
work in perfunctory way, following
the precedents of many years, and the
youngsters commi+ted facts, rules, and
exceptions to memory without any
great interest in what they were doing,
and without any proper idea of what
it all meant Their time was spent
in cramming their heads with undi-
gested and indigestible facts gathered
from an armful of school books cover
ing a wide range of subjects of study.
Poor boys and girls No wonder
they sometimes played truant and
went to sleep on warm days over their
monotonous tasks.


The School Committees reform be-
gan in the primary schools but first
they succeeded in engaging as Super
intendent of Schools young man of
enthusiasm in teaching, who carefully
studied the German methods, for in
Germany pedagogy has been elevated
to the rank of special science. In
stead of being drilled in the alphabet
after the old fashion, the children were
taught to read before the blackboard
almost without knowing it, getting
their knowledge by practice. When
their interest tagged they were turned
out to play games and to stretch their
legs. School going under such cir
cumstances became a delight instead
of an odious task.


In the higher schools the number of
studies was reduced from seven to
three-reading, writing, and arithme-
tic, the two former including, natu-
rally, not only grammar and spelling,
but also geography and history. They
were taught by incessant practice, not
by the old way of imposing on the
pupils lessons to be learned by rote.
Instead of the Reader of ancient MEM
ory, the teachers used as practice
books biographies, histories, and arti-
cles in the current periodicals. The
pupils were so in the habit of writing
that they grew to write as readily as
they spoke, and, incidentally and in
the way of practice, the art of spelling
correctly was taught, and taught in
the only way in which it can be ac-
quired A boy may stand at the head
of an oral spelling class, and yet when
he comes to write words he may fail
in his photography, as he does in his
command of language when he is set
to the new task of setting down in
black and white what he can talk
about glibly enough.


The results of the experiment, as
Mr.. Adams details them, have been
most gratifying. The scholars during
three years under the new system
have made steady progress; they ap-
proach their studies more willingly,
and show that they really know what
they have been taught. The new plan,
Mr. Adams says, is "a complete mega
tive of the whole present common
school system, founded on faith in
the infinite capacity of children to
know at an early age little of every
thing" That this method of teaching
is the sensible one we can understand,
not only from the results attained at
Quincy, but also from a knowledge of
the manner Of the working of the
childish mind, it's quickness in learn
ing by practice, and inability to grasp
abstract ideas or general principles.
While grammar, the old bugbear of all
youngsters, may seem to them dry and
incomprehensibe babble when Taught
out of the text books, they impercep-
tibly to themselves acquire the habit
of writing their language grammati-
cally, as they learn the habit of speak
ing it with propriety, when they are
taught by practice to express them
selves logically and with clearness and
are corrected in their errors.


All this Improvement has been eff
fected at Quincy, and yet the cost of
public education has been reduced
from S19.25 annually per child to
$15.6S.


PROFITS OF STRONG MEN.-Hanlan