Primary education

“ Elementary education is there of a more practical character than with us; it is our primary instruction, with the omission of the ideal, and the addition of some instruction in commercial and economical affairs ”

“ Primary Education. Its object is to ultimately embrace all the boys and girls of the lower classes throughout the country—the farm labourers, the small artisans, the village servants. It cannot, alas, attain so great an object within this generation of living men. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What is the character of the education given in the home or the kindergarten preliminary to the work of the primary school? The answer to this question can be given negatively by saying it is not of a type which belongs to a public institution. When the pupil comes to primary school he must be reasonably prepared to live with people who are comparative strangers. ”

“ The education of all classes of workpeople begins in the public elementary schools; and, in view of the future occupation of the children, it may be taken for granted that primary instruction should be practical, and should include drawing and elementary science, with some amount of manual training for boys, and with needlework, cookery, and domestic economy for girls. ”

“ Thanks to a teacher’s loving efforts, the children of the primary school may reach the highest levels of achievement; indeed, his benefactions may lift some child of small account to an exalted throne. Thus is it clearly demonstrated that by their essential nature, minds vary as to their capacity, while education also playeth a great role and exerteth a powerful effect on their development. ”

“ Yet, in general, the educational policy, matters touching the curriculum, and all the discipline of the student body, as almost a matter of divine right, whether or not by custom or by statute, belong to the men whose craft and experience is in lines of education. ”

“ In a public school, therefore, when all classes of the community are to be taught, the truths and exercises should be selected in such a manner, that they shall, if possible, be equally useful to all; leaving the navigator and the agriculturist, the surgeon and the lawyer, to supplement their general education, by the study of those special branches of learning which their several professions require. ”

“ If we sum up in one word the most pervading, constant, and obvious characteristic of our schools, and of the teaching and the learning in them to this day, that word must be, immethodical. Although admitting that the education of the young should distinctly embrace the four departments of a training, physical, intellectual, moral, and social, yet, for the sake of clearness in our discussion and its results, not less than through the necessities of a restricted space, we shall here confine our remarks wholly to education in its intellectual aspect. ”

“ If we grant the economic ability to support good schools, then the curriculum offered by any type of school, the scope of subject-matter given the pupils to master, is a measure of the educational ideals of those maintaining and using the schools. If the curriculum is broad, and representative of the various great fields of human culture; if it relates itself to the life and needs of its patrons; if it is adapted to the interests and activities of its pupils, it may be said that the people believe in education as a right of the individual and as a preparation for successful living. ”

“ What shall we say of this far-reaching modern movement to adapt education to the immediate needs of all people? What shall we say of teaching of trades to the children of elementary schools? What shall we say to the overshadowing of the remotely practical subjects of the secondary-school curriculum by immediately practical courses? ”

“ In short, it means that the school-system should be adapted to the boy and not the boy to the system, and, further, that education authorities should regard it as part of their function to guide into proper channels the special abilities which the teachers have reared. ”

“ It is for you, wherever you are placed, to seek to establish schools, and to make these schools as efficient as possible, and to help by your example and by your work to make the people believe that what is being done for the education of their children is for their good, that school training sharpens the intellect, strengthens the reason, and produces better manners. ”

“ Recognizing the significant amount of time our children spend in school, we have also created partnerships with States under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to assist school districts in developing curriculum materials, providing teacher training, and integrating character education into the curriculum. ”

“ In general terms we may say that our educational system will be made purposive where it is now haphazard, and that it will be brought into definite connection with the economic life of the country. Education will be regarded as a preparation for livelihood as well as for life,—as a training [50] for working citizens rather than for a leisured class. ”

“ Public education shall be organically developed. The foundation school, which shall be common to all, shall lead on to the secondary and higher school system. This organisation shall keep in view the variation of vocations ”

“ The problem of how to produce as effective and as thorough education for leadership with a one-class school system as with a two- class; the opening-up of opportunity for youth of brains in any social class to rise and be trained for service; the selection and proper training of those of superior intelligence; the elimination of barriers to the advancement of children of large intellectual endowment ”

“ Our educational system helps to increase the confusion. Starting out with the intention of making the schools of the country the foundation of a substantial education in the elementary branches, our educators have allowed themselves to be carried away—through sheer enthusiasm, no doubt—from that simple and substantial basis of operation ”

“ There is a group of courses which belongs in every school—elementary school as well as high school—namely, the courses which prepare children for life activity. Growth and training in the art of living enable children to fulfill the third function of their being—that of doing. Every man and every woman needs work in order to live, and it is a part of the duty of education to prepare them for that work. ”

“ In spite of these handicaps the movement toward the introduction of social studies into the general school is now sufficiently under way to be described as one of the most hopeful innovations in the curriculum. ”

“ Such training prepares for a special vocation; but our system tends to hand that over to the secondary school, reserving for the elementary school only that preparatory and liberal training that enables one to get some appreciation of the various lines of human culture before entering upon a course calculated to prepare for a trade, business or a profession. See Education, History of; Education, Modern; Normal Schools; Schools, Rural and Schools, Secondary. ”

“ Thus even if we imagine a perfect educational process, carried out by teachers who are all men and women of light and leading, the result of that process will be ultimately conditioned by the quality of the human beings who pass through it. Just as democracy pre-supposes education, so education pre-supposes children who are educable. ”

“ Your best plea for the education of their children must be that the elementary education we impart to them will not be confined to the three R's, but will gradually include a knowledge of the things they should know for the intelligent and progressive use of their art, the cultivation of the eye, the dexterity of the hand,—that in the school must be laid the basis of special knowledge, on which the efficiency of the individual worker can best be cultivated. ”

“ From this point on the further development of the graded elementary public school has come through the addition of new materials of instruction, and by changing the direction of the school to adapt it better to meeting the new needs of society brought about by the scientific, industrial, social, and political revolutions which we, in previous chapters, have described. ”

“ The next generation may see a change, as the Sinhalese of to-day are learning to appreciate the value of education. There are over a quarter of a million children attending the schools provided or supported by the Government, and a beginning has also been made with technical training. ”

“ Of course we must remember that the education of the school is powerfully reinforced by the education of the family, the community, the State, and the Church, and that the school is not the only educational influence, nor the most potent one. ”

“ To help such children succeed in school, meet the State academic standards that all children are expected to meet, and graduate from high school prepared for postsecondary education and the workforce without the need for remediation. ”

“ The struggle should be perpetual and in the right direction. First, elevate your common schools so that the education there may be a sufficient basis for a course of training here. If the Normal School and the public schools shall each and all do their duty, candidates for admission will be so well qualified in the branches required, that the art of teaching will be the only art taught here. ”

“ 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 this new and wondrous Age, the unshakeable foundation is the teaching of sciences and arts. According to explicit Holy Texts, every child must be taught crafts and arts, to the degree that is needful. Wherefore, in every city and village, schools must be established and every child in that city or village is to engage in study to the necessary degree. ”

“ The problem of educators, teachers, parents, the state, is to provide the environment that induces educative or developing activities, and where these are found the one thing needful in education is secured. ”

“ He asks that we should submit ourselves to the leadership of the child—his needs, his capacities, his ideal hungers—and in so doing we shall answer many of the most disturbing and difficult problems that perplex our twentieth-century civilization. Even in those states which make the best attempt at educating their children, from three-fourths to nine-tenths, according to the locality, leave the schools at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and the present quality of the education given from the age of twelve to sixteen is neither an enrichment in culture, nor a training for life and livelihood. ”

“ Education to fit the child to earn a better living, to command a higher wage,—- this myopic view of the function of the school could do but little to make the work of teaching anything but drudgery; and yet it is this narrow and materialistic view that has dominated our educational system to within a comparatively few years. ”

“ They see that for many children a “liberal education” is not necessarily one which follows the traditional academic curriculum, but rather one which suits itself to individual needs and which seeks to develop the pupil’s powers by setting him to do what he can do, instead of forcing him to try to do what he can never do with success. ”

“ These forces act on the people, making us such men as we are; they act indirectly on the child before he comes to consciousness; directly, afterwards, but most powerfully on the man. What is commonly and technically called education—the development and instruction of the faculties of children, is only preparatory; the scholastic education of the boy is but introductory to the practical education of the man. It is only this preparatory education of the children of the people that is the work of the school-masters. ”

“ In the educational excitement of to-day we scarcely realize how far the modern school is passing out of that era when the program for work and study was carefully constructed with a view to the child’s “preparation for life.” Educators saw the world as divided into two radically different classes, adults and school-children. The adults were functioning in a definite sphere, using a certain self-contained and common body of knowledge to do their work and make their way in the world. ”

“ We must so reform the curriculum, methods of teaching, and examinations, that we do not mistake the B.A. degree as signifying either a completed liberal education or adequate preparation for earning a living or living a happy life. It should signify only decent preparation for the continuing task of adult education. ”

“ The school, being democratic and dependent upon the general public for existence, takes its cue therefrom, and creating ideals in consonance with public needs perfects the method of reaching them. When father and mother believe in a vigorous, efficient education, rooted deeply in the child's fundamental attitude toward the world and its affairs, then will the public approve and urge the proper kind of organized training. ”