First grade

“ Indeed, it seems that an estimate of a pupil's ability to carry high school work when the pupil is in the fourth grade may be nearly as accurate as a judgment given when the pupil is in the seventh grade. ”

“ In any graded course of study the pupils are expected to earn promotion from grade to grade by attaining a certain required average in their work. In the Junior Course the Pupil’s Book for Work and Study is, as the name implies, both a guide in study, and a means of fixing in mind the knowledge which has been gained. To meet the requirements of this book the pupil must do the daily Bible readings, learn the memory text or texts each week, do whatever reading is required, and learn the hymns that are printed in the book. ”

“ What can be done in the way of introducing subject-matter in history and science and art, that shall have a positive value and real significance in the child's own life; that shall represent, even to the youngest children, something worthy of attainment in skill or knowledge; as much so to the little pupil as are the studies of the high-school or college student to him? You know what the traditional curriculum of the first few years is, even though many modifications have been made. ”

“ Today the school offers and compels a boy to get certain related courses of study which will make him a better citizen by fitting him in a measure for the procuring of an intelligent and adequate livelihood. The school by no means is perfect in this matter, and as long as over fifty per cent. of the boys fail to graduate even from the eighth grade in the grammar school, and but one per cent. ”

“ Every child on attaining the age of six must now attend a Common Elementary School, where during a four years' course instruction is given in morals, reading, writing, arithmetic, the rudiments of technical work, gymnastics, and poetry. ”

“ In several of our American cities the system has matured, during a period of some thirty-odd years, from the kindergarten to the university. These schools have produced whatever results the organism of the graded system is calculated to accomplish. The pupils have passed from the lowest grade, in regular order, in large classes, under similar programmes, in a uniform course, supervised by boards of trustees, and taught by instructors rising in literary attainments from grade to grade through the entire series. ”

“ There it is first sought to develop the child's intellectual faculties, prepare it for school, inculcate habits of cleanliness and morality, and instruct it in the rudiments of reading and writing. Between the ages of six and fourteen children are admitted into the schools, and, nominally at least, go through the plan of study drawn up by the board of primary education, and which is as follows: Reading, writing, geography, spelling, arithmetic, compendium of sacred and French history, linear drawing, singing, the rudiments of physics, geometry and natural history, and calligraphy. ”

“ For example, one of the efforts of the elementary school is to teach pupils to write. It is entirely possible after the school has done its work to find out by an examination of the results how well pupils can write. It is never expected that pupils in the second grade will write as well as pupils in the upper grades. ”

“ It is vitally essential that the teacher foster in her pupils that attitude toward school work that will send the child to the second grade liking his work and well trained in the habit of study. It would seem impossible that a dislike for subjects that are not taught in the primary grades could be traced back, even indirectly, to wrong teaching in those grades. ”

“ No detailed outline of a course of study in literature for the grades can be ideal for all schools because the pupils of a given grade in one school may be much more advanced in the knowledge of literature and the ability to understand and appreciate it than are the pupils of the same grade in another school. Many literary selections, too, might appropriately be taught in almost any grade if the method of presentation in each case were suited to the understanding of the pupils. ”

“ The first life class ends between the eighth and ninth years; the second between the eleventh and twelfth, and since an even more marked change of interests and tastes occurs at the period of adolescence, there are distinct high-school classes. The work within the group is then arranged to give the pupils the experiences which are needed at that age for the development of their bodies, minds, and spirits. ”

“ Experience has shown that the daily life of the individual pupil, and the varied activities of the school can be made to furnish practically all of the theme subjects not only for first year composition, but also for that of the other three years. ”

“ Teachers sometimes look upon the course of study merely as a demand made by those in control of the school system for a large amount of work to be accomplished. The course of study indicates that certain topics in English, arithmetic, nature study, geography, history, industrial arts, and the other subjects of the curriculum are assigned to the grade, and the teacher expects that her pupils will be examined on this work at stated times during the year in order to determine the efficiency of her work and the fitness of the children for promotion. ”

“ Fears will be entertained by some that scholars will be lost from the school, etc. All these various objections should be overcome. The aggressive members should have much patience until the teachers are, as a body, at least willing to forego their fears and misgivings and will give the scheme a fair trial. Harmony will nearly always produce enthusiastic workers.
METHOD FOR GETTING A PROPER GRADE.
1. Make an enrollment of the school as follows:
John Brown, Third Reader, age eleven years, March 16, 1892. ”

“ Another forward step is graded Bible study, graded athletics, graded service, graded social life, and graded mental activities. The work of the school, to hold the boy, must be new and diverse in its interests, and big enough and broad enough to command his constantly changing attention. ”

“ In the fourth grade of a certain elementary school of a Western city there are three backward boys who have been in this grade for two years, though they are bright enough in the things of the street. ”

“ Pupils who complete the eighth grade at fourteen or fifteen years, and then go to a normal school, would complete this elementary course at the age of seventeen or eighteen; and no person who has not reached this age should assume the responsibility for the care and instruction of children in any school. ”

“ Review lists in each grade, worked out on an entirely original plan, aid greatly in economizing both the teacher's and the pupil's time and energy.
The interest of the child is stimulated by the selections, which are particularly well adapted to the grades in which they are used. ”

“ Ten per cent have no education beyond the eighth grade, while half have no more than four years beyond the eighth grade; in other words, the teachers know as much as the pupils will know at the end of the school work—and no more! ”

“ I take it that your boy is an average boy, as bright or brighter than his father was at his age. If he is an average boy, this will represent his chances. Fools and dudes are exceptions to all rules.
4. A good high school course will give a broader field of activity to your boy.—In every walk of life the demands are more and more for men and women with more than a common school education. ”

“ What, then, are the faculties which education is supposed to train? In my attempt to answer this question I will confine myself to the elementary school,—the only school which I can pretend to know well. A glance at the time-table of an ordinary elementary school might suggest to us that there were two chief groups of faculties to be trained—those which perceive and those which express, those which take in and those which give out. When such subjects as History, Geography, or Science are being taught, the child's perceptive faculties are being trained. ”

“ In the six years of primary study these children may learn good behavior, discipline, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, spelling, elementary grammar, elementary history, something about farming. The average pupil in the primary school will for ages to come be more adapted to working the land than for any other occupation. The exceptional scholar (and there will be about one in thirty) should be given an opportunity at the higher schools of becoming teachers, preachers, doctors, shoemakers, wheelwrights, etc. ”

“ Some boys and girls at six are found wholly incapable of doing what is required in grade one. One of the most promising prospects ahead educationally is that we shall be able to find out just the capacity of a child regardless of his age, and fit him into what he can do well, making provisions for his passing on as he shows capability for higher work. Not only has this matter of individual differences been found to apply generally in the various grades of our schools— [56] it has been found to have significant bearing upon achievements in particular subjects. ”

“ Do you not think you shall enjoy that more even than reading Mr. Murray's book, far more than studying levelling and surveying in the first class at the High School. Get a chance to carry chain for them, if you can. No matter if you lose at school two medals, three diplomas, and four double promotions by your absence. Come round to me some afternoon, and I will tell you in an hour all the school-boys learned while you were away in the mountains ”

“ Even if your boy has never seen the inside of a school-book, before the age of thirteen or fourteen, that need not prevent him from being prepared for college, just as well and at about the same time, as the average boy who has been attending school from the age of five, or six. ”

“ The secondary school course, on its academic side, is directed to one main end, and any pupil who enters such a school is regarded, irrespective of his natural aptitudes, as a prospective candidate for matriculation. Teachers may demur to the suggestion that their horizon is dominated by an examination: they may talk hopefully about a test which their pupils can take “in their stride.” But the fact remains that the work [24] of the upper part of the school is determined by requirements of an external body. ”

“ They remind their pupils daily of the 263on-coming examination and remind them of the dire consequences following their failure to attain the passing grade of seventy. They ask what answer the pupil would give to a certain question if it should appear in the examination. If they can somehow get their pupils to surmount that barrier of seventy at promotion time, they seem quite willing to turn their backs upon them and let the teacher in the next grade make what she can of such unprofitable baggage. ”

“ The establishment of a regular graded course of study, from the lowest primary grades to the college, and close adherence to such course are being felt more and more each year. More than half the graduates of this year began their education in the school, and all interested are proud of them. There is all along a marked difference between those who have come through our own primary schools and others equally capable who have had no systematic early training. ”

“ For the first class, I doubt if any more effective preparation for life has been devised than that of our best English schools; but the case of the second class is somewhat different. Many of these come to the end of their school time with their intellectual faculties and tastes and their sense of responsibility as men to a great extent undeveloped. ”

“ In my judgment manual training should not be limited to the seventh and eighth grades, but should begin in the kindergarten with the simple study of form from objects and the reproduction in paper of the objects presented, and should extend, in a series of carefully graded lessons, through all the grades, leaving, however, the heavier tools, such as the plane, for the seventh and eighth grades. By these means an interest is kept up in the various human industries, sympathy for all labor is created, and a certain degree of skill is developed ”

“ The greatest need of the primary school to-day is some positive content or subject matter of instruction. The popular conception of such a school is that its main function is to teach the young child to read, write, and cipher. ”

“ In the first two grades, the object is to give the child an impression of primitive life and an appreciation of public holidays. To the succeeding three grades is assigned the study of great leaders and heroes ”

“ The child is pushed through grade after grade, and, according to the statistics, a little more than ninety per cent, of the children drop out of school before they are old enough to decide educational questions for themselves. ”

“ The passing grade in the one would necessarily be lower than in the other. An examination is justified only when it is so devised that it reveals not only the students' stock of socially useful knowledge but also their growth in mental power. ”

“ With the teachers came some of their former pupils, and when they were examined it was amusing to note that in several cases the pupil entered a higher class than did his former teacher. It was also interesting to note how many big books some of them had studied, and how many high-sounding subjects some of them claimed to have mastered. The bigger the book and the longer the name of the subject, the prouder they felt of their accomplishment. ”

“ Practical use of the teacher's carefully worked-out theories will be made all along the line of the girl's, and to a certain degree the boy's, education. The indirect teaching of the primary grades will give place in the higher grades to more direct dealing with the science, or, better, sciences, upon which homemaking rests. ”