Evening school

“ When you come from your school room at night, leave all your perplexities and cares behind you. No matter what unfinished business or unsettled difficulties remain. Dismiss them all till another sun shall rise, and the hour of duty for another day shall come. Carry no school work home with you and do not talk of your work. You will then get refreshment and rest. Your mind during the evening will be in a different world from that in which you have moved during the day. ”

“ The compulsory evening school will fail unless it induces a demand for recreation of a pure kind which may be associated with the voluntary evening school and continued along the lines of study into the years of adult life. And even if it is impossible for every student of capacity in the continuation school to pass into the university or technological college, it may be hoped that there need not fail to be opportunities for reaching the heights of ascertained knowledge in the University Tutorial Class. ”

“ They have a day school, and evening school three evenings in the week, and Sabbath school twice each Sabbath. The evening schools are for the benefit of the adult apprentices, who manifest the greatest eagerness to learn to read. After working all day, they will come several miles to school, and stay cheerfully till nine o'clock. ”

“ Evening schools are of earlier origin and more highly developed in Europe than in America. In many cities good high-school courses are now offered in evening schools. Many of the best trade and technical institutes give evening instruction equal in efficiency to that given in their day classes, as Pratt Institute, New York; Maryland Institute, Baltimore; and Drexel Institute, Philadelphia. Most business and commercial schools, many Y. M. C. A.’s and some law schools give evening courses. Much of the university extension and university settlement work is done in this way. ”

“ My evening school for adults is full of interest; there is an average attendance of three, hundred pupils. Over one hundred have learnt to read since they began to attend, and almost two hundred pupils will soon need a more advanced book than the one they are now using. ”

“ Evening schools, then, are meant to make up to the young working man or woman for the short period of their early school life, by giving them opportunities of learning thoroughly what in most cases was only learned imperfectly. ”

“ In almost every colony visited the writer discussed with the settlers the advisability of compulsory attendance at evening or afternoon classes. No one was against compulsion, though a number suggested qualifications. For instance, the evening school should operate in the wintertime; the teaching should include subjects useful in farming; in the case of hired men, the school time must be paid for by the employer; the evening school should be a public institution, not a private, charitable, or religious enterprise ”

“ On Wednesdays there is a Juvenile Singing Class, and on Thursdays a class for girls for the giving of instruction in household management, &c. It is in contemplation to begin a night school on another evening in the week, for teaching boys the elements of arithmetic, combined with technical instruction of some kind. ”

“ In the Tompkins Square Lodging House the evening classes were thinning out, and the keeper wailed, "Those with whom we have dealt of late have not been inclined to accept this privilege; how to make night school attractive to shiftless, indifferent street boys is a difficult problem to solve." ”

“ 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. ”

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The pupils are usually persons who are prevented from attending day schools by their regular occupations.
Night-schools are of great variety, their nature in any particular locality depending upon local needs. Before the days of compulsory education many persons took advantage of this means of remedying deficiencies in their elementary education. At the present time there is much more demand for evening classes in high school grade of work and for courses in trade and technical schools. ”

“ In Germany and Switzerland, there exists an excellent system of evening continuation schools, known as Fortbildungs- or Ergänzungs-Schulen, in which the instruction of the children who leave school before fourteen, and of those who leave at that age, is continued. In all these schools drawing is taught with special reference to local industries. In England great progress has been made in recent years in developing evening classes in which the pupils' Continuation schools. elementary instruction is continued with a view to the specialized teaching provided in the technical school. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Connected with the day schools, there are twenty-seven evening schools, with an average annual attendance of 20,000 pupils. These are designed for the instruction of those whose avocations or age prevent them from attending the day schools. Only simple studies are taught in these schools. ”

“ Following this, the dinner hour is enjoyed with the parents, and after that there should always be provision in the daily duties of the father and mother for at least a half hour for the evening romp; so that play and recreation during the school age occupies possibly not more than two or two and one-half hours a day outside of school hours. ”

“ His struggle for a bare living left him no time to take advantage of the public [204] evening school; ”

“ The effort to establish adult evening schools may, perhaps, unhappily not be supported, either by those requiring them on the one hand, or by public countenance on the other, but it is worth a trial, and the offer of Mr. ”

“ The mimic warfare of the evening became at last as wearisome to me as the routine of school in the morning because I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not content with doing those needful things involved in the education of children of school age, the school is reaching far out into the community. Night schools came first, as a means of education for those who could [73] not attend school during the daytime. Every progressive city and town has a night school now, and the scholars who come after working hours use the same expensive equipment that is furnished to the regular classes. Machines, cooking apparatus, maps and blackboard all do double duty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In addition, there are several commodious and well lighted class-rooms in which evening classes are held for the higher education of those pupils who are unable to attend the ordinary schools in the day time. ”

“ Such as cannot attend the moonlight schools can be taught individually at home. Public school teachers, who are already in their schools have the best opportunity. Every one of these I am sure will gladly serve, but in counties where the schools are not in session and where the teacher is not on the ground, former teachers and educated citizens can start night classes in the public school-houses. ”

“ The children like the school at Sleepy Eye. The boys and girls come early and stay late. The school doors open at eight o’clock and are not closed until dark. There are always pupils there from the beginning to the end of that period. The children are not interested in the applied work alone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of the four hours about three and a half are available for lessons, the remaining half-hour being taken up with the general assembly for prayers and a brief [16] interval for recreation; but these twenty-one or twenty-four hours are not spent, as parents are apt to imagine, in poring over books, but are varied by lessons in gymnastics, drawing, singing. Some pupils in large towns remain to dine at the school, and have afternoon teaching in accomplishments. In small towns they return. Thirty hours a week should, I think, be the limit of time given to study for girls of school age. ”

“ And while playing they learn to speak the strange new tongue and to love the pretty flag with the stars that is everywhere in sight. The night school gathers in as many as can be corralled of those who are big enough, if not old enough, to work. The ease and rapidity with which they learn is equalled only by their good behavior and close attention while in school. There is no whispering and no rioting at these desks, no trial of strength with the teacher, as in the Italian ragged schools, where the question who is boss has always to be settled before the business of the school can proceed. ”

“ The schoolhouse is set on the top of a little hill. There are about twenty pupils in the school. At recess and noon we often play baseball. We have a fine teeter and swing. At noons all of the girls and sometimes the boys take their dinners and go out and find some pretty spot in the woods to eat. In the spring-time we often go flower hunting. I never get home in the afternoon until about half past four. After school I play, sew, or help in the garden till supper time. After supper I do the supper dishes, then we all have a nice time sewing, reading, or playing games around the fireplace. ”

“ For the children in elementary schools it is easy to make arrangements. During the three summer months the curriculum might be like that of the Vacation Schools. The buildings, often the only pleasant place in a crowded neighbourhood—would thus be in continuous use, while the children and teachers could get away for their country or foreign holiday, without breaking into any school routine. ”

“ My home instruction was by no means permitted to stand in the way of the “regular school,” which consisted of two terms each year, of three months each. The winter term included not only the large boys and girls, but in reality the young men and young women of the neighborhood. An exceptionally fine teacher often drew the daily attendance of advanced scholars for several miles. ”

“ It has come up through trials, tribulations and struggles innumerable. A night school in every community! If it is an educated community, a night school for more education, for culture and specialization; if an illiterate community, for the emancipation of the illiterates and their new birth into the realms of knowledge and power! ”

“ Of course, where it is possible, a run home between the morning and afternoon sessions of school, and a nice luncheon at the prettily set home table, with mamma smiling at the head, are the very best things to keep children well. Many reasons combine to make this arrangement very inconvenient, however, for most schools. The necessary prompt re-assembling after the noon recess would be out of the question where pupils live, as they frequently do, several miles distant from the school building. ”

“ There are no classes on Saturday afternoon nor on Sundays or holidays. There are no evening or night classes at any time and no student may enroll who is not in a position to devote all the needed time to the pursuit of the work. ”

“ The daily life is laid out with regularity and goes on like clockwork in punctuality. The children rise at six and are expected to be ready at seven, the girls for knitting and the boys for reading, until eight o'clock, when breakfast is served. Half an hour later there is a brief morning service, and the school begins at ten. Half an hour of recreation on the playground prepares for the one-o'clock dinner, and school is resumed, until four; then comes an hour and a half of play or outdoor exercise, a half-hour service preceding the six-o'clock meal. ”

“ Of this the Irish Night School is a complete illustration. The Night School was always opened either for those of early age, who from their poverty were forced to earn something for their own support during the day ”