Day school

“ The extended school day, which absorbs the “street and alley time” of the city child, affords ample opportunity for all activities. No activity is continued long enough to cause fatigue, while the constant daily cultivation of each activity provides the constant drill and the thoroughness of training which the ordinary school, with its short day and crowded curriculum, is compelled to slight. ”

“ In the case of glass-house boys who have at their disposal a great deal of leisure time, we expect all of them, under eighteen years of age, to attend the day school at least three times each week for the present, and in the case of all other young persons, of both sexes, whose elementary education is defective, we expect the boys to attend the evening school three times in each week, for at least six months in the year ”

“ The mechanism of the school includes three schemes: that of “work students,” who work during the day throughout the year and attend night school for eight months; that of day school students, who attend school for four or five days and do manual work for one or two days each week; and that of trade students, who receive trade instruction in their daily eight-hours’ work and study in night school as well. ”

“ And my experience of this system compared with others has led me to the conclusion that the form of education which may on the whole claim to be the best is that of a well-organized day school, in which it is clearly understood to be the duty of the masters to give their life to the boys in school and out of school, just as if they were at a boarding school, and in which the boys are distributed into houses for school purposes, just as if they were living in a boarding house. Under such a system they get the best of both worlds, home and school. ”

“ The social intercourse that the child experiences there, the regularity of hours, the teacher's personality, all have their favorable influence in the molding of the child's character. But neither must we overestimate the powers of the school. The school has the child but a few hours a day, for barely more than half the year ”

“ I do not myself see what advantages the day school possesses over the boarding school, save those that are concerned with a particular [Pg 243] facet of morality, and beyond the weakening of a partisanship that is inclined to put a boy in blinkers. There are some very fine day schools in the country, but the day school, especially of recent years, has tended to become an alternative for parents with large families who cannot afford to send their sons to expensive boarding schools. ”

“ The education of children of immigrants in the day schools has always been considered a primary and essential function of the school system. But the training of adults in English and civics has not been generally so considered. Evening schools, through which only can adults be reached effectively, have usually been regarded merely as adjuncts to the day-school system, and hence are maintained when funds can be spared or eked out. ”

“ My own experiences in the night school gave me faith in the night-school idea, with which, in after years, had to do both at Hampton and Tuskegee. But my boyish heart was still set upon going to the day school, and I let no opportunity slip to push my case. Finally I won, and was permitted to go to the school in the day for a few months, with the understanding that I was to rise early in the morning and work in the furnace till nine o'clock, and return immediately after school closed in the afternoon for at least two more hours of work. ”

“ School-board classes came into existence in almost every large town where there was no institution, and sometimes where one existed. Those who uphold the day-school system advance the arguments that the pupils are not, under it, cut off from the influence of home life as they are in institutions; that such influences are of great advantage; that this system permits the deaf to mix freely with their hearing brethren, &c. ”

“ To many of our churches is attached a free day-school for boys and girls, and invariably a Sunday-school—thronged weekly by the youth of both sexes, to listen to the instruction and counsel of competent teachers. ”

“ It is only of late years that an alteration of school hours to suit day-boys has been made, and that a willingness to accept such half-boarders and home-boarders has been put forward as a prominent feature of the School. ”

“ But we fear that an attempt to grade Sunday-schools would stiffen and injure them, for we have but one hour in a week, while the public schools have six hours per day and five days in a week, with a dozen grades of text-books, and paid, disciplined teachers. ”

“ It is laid down as a fundamental principle, that as the common schools are not boarding but day schools, and as the pupils are under the care of their parents or guardians during the Sunday, and a considerable portion of each week day, it is not intended that the functions of the common school teacher should supersede those of the parent and pastor of the child. ”

“ Provision is made for eight hours of school work on the part of the teachers, the first five days of every week of the term, and one hour on Saturday evening. These are daily enjoyed by all the smaller pupils. But all over fourteen years, after enjoying 61⁄2 hours in the school room, are expected to work three hours each day in the latter part of the afternoon, and on Saturdays until 2:30 p. ”

“ At Gary the eight-hour school day with variations in the program to secure play, shopwork, class work, and entertainment is the ideal toward which the system is working. In some other quarters the reduction of formal school work has been advocated on the assumption that outdoor work and play can be supplied by the home or some other agency enough to fill up the pupil’s waking hours. Whatever the form taken by the discussion, one leading tendency appears everywhere: the child’s work should be organized throughout the day. ”

“ In the lower grades the child spends two hours daily in the classroom, an hour in laboratory or shop, half-an-hour in studio, and half-an-hour in gymnasium, an hour in auditorium, and the rest of the day in study, play or outside activity. The older child has three hours for formal instruction, and two hours for more intensive shop or studio work. Children are passing back and forth constantly between home and school, each with his or her own scheme of work, and all the school is being used all the time. ”

“ Applicants for admission must be of good moral character and must bring at least two letters of recommendation as to their moral character from reliable persons of their communities.
The Day-School.—The Day-School is intended for those who are able to pay all or the greater part of their expenses in cash. Students attending the Day-School are required to work one day in each week and every other Saturday. ”

“ In fact, church, Sunday-School, public library, public playgrounds, Y.M.C.A., Boy Scouts, and all 38other child-welfare agencies do not occupy the time of all the children of a city for more than an average of ten minutes a day. ”

“ Then both teachers and students would devote their whole energies to the creation of a happy school, to which all should look forward in the morning, and which all should be sorry to leave at the end of the school day. ”

“ The correlation of day courses with evening continuation courses, the great attention to science, the emphasis on the social and communal bearing of all activities,—all this means a higher type of vocational training than has been worked out generally in the public school. ”

“ Reading a portion of Scripture, and explaining it, with singing and prayer, constitute the regular exercises of every night in the week. On the Sabbath they have different and more protracted exercises. A day-school is taught by two young ladies — embracing all the children under twelve or fifteen years of age. ”

“ The strain of a teacher's life in an elementary school, and the deadening influence of routine work will be realised when it is stated that, besides teaching all the subjects above-mentioned, she is in front of her class of sixty pupils during the whole of the two sessions each day, from Monday morning to Friday afternoon. ”

“ What strikes one at once on coming into the school is the healthy vigorous look of the children, and that their vigour is not merely bodily, but comes out in the course of examination. There is a marked contrast between 8their appearance and their work on the day of inspection, and those of the children in many of the neighbouring schools. The midday meal is good and without stint. It acts as an attraction, and induces regularity of attendance.... Before the school was started the education of the children of the neighbourhood was as low as in any part of the district. ”

“ Owing to an over-zeal for education, children are kept in school from seven to ten hours in a day, and then they are required to work and commit to memory in their free hours, when they ought to be enjoying the fresh air. ”

“ The criticisms of the Gary plan on the ground that the long school day and varied curriculum overload the pupil can scarcely be sustained in view of the fact that the “school day” is not merely a lengthening of the ordinary public school day, but an absorbing, in healthful activities of play, exercise and manual work, of time which would otherwise be spent in demoralizing street and alley or in idleness at home. ”

“ Learning lessons should be assigned to school hours as in France. Children should have an entirely free day in the week; study at home should be confined to the reading of literary works, tales of travel, and the like, which teachers can recommend in combination with the studies pursued at school.
Tasks done at home are inconvenient; they do not increase the independence of the scholar; they are prepared as a rule with excessively free and often unwise help from the parents. At school such work would be done as a rule without help; besides, it is individual and quickly finished. ”

“ As the curriculum is planned in many places, alike in graded and ungraded schools, the pupil is expected to be employed in the school for five or six hours a day no matter what may be his age, and to this work should be added studies at home for the older students. ”

“ I had to read them on Sundays; and the author of those awful volumes was Lyman Abbott's father. He wrote books for the young. People who write books for the young are a tribe by themselves, and little did I suppose I should ever live to respect one. [169]
Rollo was a Sunday-school boy. Lyman Abbott's a Sunday-school man. He combines in himself the excellencies and the colorlessness of the Sunday-school atmosphere. When it comes time to group us as sheep or as goats, I know this, there won't be any question that he is a regular sheep. No capers for him, except the most innocent capers. ”

“ At most boarding schools the day boy is looked down upon. For some obscure reason the day boy always seems to be inferior to the boarder. He is rarely prominent in games or work. One ceases, indeed, to regard him as a member of the school. He comes into form, he writes his prose, he attends corp parade, he plays his games. But, at six o'clock, when the bell rings for tea and the intimate life of the day begins, he collects his books and hurries across the courts and passes into another life. ”

“ Without hesitation he declined what was at once an honour and a privilege, preferring to remain a day-boy. He dearly loved his home, and his opinion was that the advantages of public-school training were much enhanced when combined with home life. His custom was to ride to the College on his bicycle in the morning, stay there for dinner and return home in the evening between 6 and 7 o'clock, the hours following afternoon school being devoted to games, the gymnasium, or some other form of physical training. ”

“ I shall long remember the time when the folly and uselessness of much of the old-time method of teaching first fairly dawned upon me. I was teaching a country school near my old home in West Virginia. This school was located near a piece of land that was wet and marshy, but nevertheless beautiful in appearance. It was June and the day was hot and sultry; when the usual recess or playtime came, I was as anxious as the children were to get outside of the close and stuffy school room into the open air. That day I prolonged the playtime to more than twice the usual period. ”

“ Wednesday of the last week is Visitors' Day, when parents who visit the school at no other time come in large numbers. The work of the industrial departments is on exhibition, and the kindergarten work of the primary department, also the work in drawing and the written exercises in the different subjects taught in the school. An opportunity is afforded also to attend recitations in all the rooms. At noon the class in cooking serves a lunch which demonstrates in a practical manner the proficiency attained in this important branch of domestic education. ”

“ Over the next couple weeks, schools all across the country will be opening their doors. Students will suit up for fall sports, marching band, and the school play; moms and dads will snap those first-day-of-school pictures -- and that includes me and Michelle. ”

“ Nothing is too great, nothing too small, to engage the attention of managers and teachers, if it can be made to minister with advantage either to the bodily or spiritual training of the children. A garden attached to a school may be considered an uncovered schoolroom, where many things are taught which are really far more important than any book-learning. An intelligent master will see more of a boy's disposition in one day by watching him at work among his companions than he could ascertain in a month in the schoolroom. ”