Summer school

“ The universities allow credit towards a degree for work done during the summer session. Another important type of summer school is that for the professional training of teachers. There are also summer schools for the pursuit of some branch of natural sciences located at places suitable for their particular purposes. ”

“ Summer School is, indeed, a wonderful experience, for at the present time it is the only institution that affords the Bahá’ís of England an opportunity of all living together, for however short a time, as a community, and this and the spirit it engenders, has a very inspiring affect. ”

“ We expect to see the university year ultimately divided into four quarters, with perhaps two weeks' vacation between each. The work of the summer term will be as 'regular' as any other, but as there will be fewer students an opportunity will be afforded to provide a special summer school for teachers. There are over 300,000 teachers in the country. It would be well if all schools would pay them a certain salary and in addition provide for their attendance at a summer school. ”

“ An excellent result of the establishment of summer schools has been the interchange of the teaching forces of colleges and universities; and on a minor scale the employment of strong secondary school men in summer college courses. Much has been made of the international exchange of professors recently brought about; but unconsciously within our own country there has been established a custom which must prove very valuable not alone to institutions inviting outside instructors, but also to those instructors themselves, and to their own institutions. ”

“ The growth of summer schools at universities and the frequent transfer of normal-school graduates to college and graduate courses show with clearness the desire of teachers to enjoy the advantages of all kinds of higher education. ”

“ For example, the school at Ringsted, in addition to the winter course in farming for men and the 281summer school in household arts for women, offers, just as we do at Tuskegee, a short course to which the older people are invited. The courses are divided between the men and the women, the men’s course coming in the winter and the women’s course in the summer. During the period of instruction, which lasts eleven days, these older people live in the school, just as the younger students do and gain thus the benefit of an intimate association with each other and with their teachers. ”

“ The exact character of the work of a school is dependent entirely upon the educational aims and methods of the principal of the school, and the purpose for which teachers give up three or four weeks of their holiday to attend a Summer School may be different in different cases. The teachers of country schools, inadequately prepared for their work of teaching, often attend the Summer School in their county, in order to gain a State training certificate of a higher grade than that which they already possess ”

“ I sighed, as I went up the steps into the schoolhouse; "catch them young, and put them in a garden, with no older people of their own class for ever teaching them by example what is ugly, and unworthy, and gross."
Afternoon school was going on, and the assistant teacher was making the children read aloud in turns. In winter, when they would be glad of a warm, roomy place in which to spend their afternoons, school is only in the morning; and in summer, when the thirstiest after knowledge are apt to be less keen, it is both morning and afternoon. ”

“ The Guardian would, therefore, urge all the believers to persevere in their efforts for raising the standard, both intellectual and spiritual, of their Summer School and to heighten its prestige in the eyes of the friends, and of the general non-Bahá’í public outside. The institution of the Summer School constitutes a vital and inseparable part of any teaching campaign, and as such ought to be given the full importance it deserves in the teaching plans and activities of the believers. ”

“ As summer draws to a close our thoughts naturally turn to the coming school year. Few things could be more central to the life and health of our nation than the education of our children. Our schools hold the future of America in their hands. ”

“ The summer schools of the universities have not yet found their permanent basis, but there is no question as to the direction of their development and of the importance of the movement. A summer school once established is seldom abandoned and nearly always shows an increase in size and an improvement in quality from year to year. There are this summer over a thousand students at Harvard and at Columbia, and nearly twice as many at Tennessee. The students are largely teachers, but there are others of mature age, who wish to improve themselves. ”

“ They must try and introduce the Bahá’í atmosphere of life and thought into their Summer Schools, rather than making the Summer School an episode and a pleasant vacation period, during which they learn a little more about the Faith. ”

“ A plan is much more easily revised than constructed anew. No teacher can use a plan over and over without revision or adaptation to the individual class. But during vacation is the time to make collections of material, storehouses as it were, to interest your class for next year.
4. Do not neglect the rest and recreation and inspiration that comes from a week at the county institute or a few weeks at a good summer school.—The acquaintances made, the inspiration received, the thought-producing ideas gained, and the feeling of professional fellowship engendered is worth many times its cost. ”

“ Each summer, since the idea of a summer school was conceived, there has been a steady growth in the opportunities given to students. The coming season keeps up the record for improvement. The C. S. L. stands preëminent among Chautauqua institutions. In its departments of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, English, French, German and Spanish, the practical benefit to be derived in six weeks is altogether inconceivable to those persons who are unacquainted with the teachers directing the studies, and with the methods used. ”

“ But the reason for the rapid decline in this whole movement is probably not the bad quality of the lectures, but the great inconvenience which the lecturers feel in going so far from their accustomed haunts. It is not to be doubted that very much good has come after all from this form of instruction. The summer schools have a similar relation to the higher institutions, but a much more thorough-going character; and while the university extension movement is waning, the summer school instruction is on the increase. ”

“ Sit in the grounds of a public school any afternoon in the summer holidays, and you will get exactly the same sensation of being alone in the world as came to the dozen or so day-boys who bicycled through the gates that morning. ”

“ But a Summer School where members pass weeks together is far more valuable in enabling the leaders and officials to find out who there is who is good as a speaker or thinker, or who is a specialist on some subject of value to the movement. ”

“ Often the quality of a girl's work for an ensuing school year depends upon her freedom from study during the summer. Students should be very sure, if they undertake work in the summer, that it is not done simply from a nervous desire to go on regardless of the quality of the work done. But for those in perfect health this is an opportunity to try their powers in different ways in order to discover what it is they really wish to do. A summer so spent may keep many a girl from slipping into teaching just because it seems the only thing she can do. ”

“ She also teaches a large class of adults in the Summer School of Methods in Martha's Vineyard, and gives a model lesson weekly, for eight months in the year, to a class of about two-hundred primary Sunday-school teachers. ”

“ The farmer needed his boy for the harvest, so summer vacations became the established rule, but the city street needs neither the boy nor the girl at any time of the year. Idleness and mischief link hands with street children and dance away toward delinquency. Then why not have school in the summer time? Why not?
The answer takes the form of vacation schools. In most cases the work of the vacation school is designed primarily to interest the child. Games, stories, gardening, manual work of various sorts, excursions and similar devices are relied upon to maintain interest. ”

“ Most of the old students have been engaged in teaching during the summer vacation. It is estimated that of 85 in the collegiate department, 60 or 65 taught school during the summer. Wherever these teachers go, they secure a good name for industry, conscientiousness, ability and energy. We are constantly getting good words from white people, directors, superintendents and private citizens in regard to the faithfulness and acceptance with which our students discharge their duties. ”

“ Set free from the traditional curriculum the children learn more in the five weeks of ‘play school’ in the summer, than in twice that period of ‘work school’ in the winter. Swimming, open-air gymnastics, team games, chess, visits to parks, piers, museums and libraries, excursions in barges and into the country, sketching, whittling, cooking, sewing and the rest do not lose their educational value because the children like them. ”

“ The number of children who have only the crowded city streets to play in is enormous, and any one visiting the public schools in the early fall days may readily detect by the white faces those who have had no other opportunity to benefit by the summer's fresh air and sunshine. ”

“ During the summer about forty of our pupils taught in the public schools; some had eighty or ninety scholars. In this way our school really influences many whom we cannot reach. It is so good to see the interest our young teachers take in their work and how, when they find a bright boy or girl, they always try the first thing to induce that one to come to school. Then, too, we see a growing desire among the scholars to come into school early in the fall, and we rejoice in a family of fifty-seven six weeks earlier than we had the same last year. ”

“ As a means of bringing below-grade children up to the standard of affording an opportunity for the able children to advance more rapidly in school, and, in general, as a means of keeping city children usefully occupied during the summer months, the vacation school has won its place. ”

“ As to what befell our young friends in the summer vacation which followed their sophomore year, all that is told in the second volume of the "High School Boys Vacation Series." That interesting volume is published under the title, "The High School Boys' Summer Camp; Or, The Dick Prescott Six Training for the Gridley Eleven." It will be found to be a splendid story of real American boys who know how to get the most out of both work and play, and to make each year of life a preparation for a better year to come. ”

“ Sometimes, on a fine day in the summer, they would take a notion to run off and keep away from school. What boy or girl likes to attend school on a hot day? When I started to round them up they made for the beach, and when I drew near they would slip off their blanket or simple dress and make a bolt for the salt water. ”

“ There was a time when it was actually proposed to abolish the summer vacations of the French town schools "in order to enlarge their curriculum in proportion to the advance of modern science"; but, since we have ascertained that out-door exercise is more important than all the graphics and ologies of the Académie Française, it has been found that, with a well-arranged plan of instruction ten months a year, five days a week and six hours a day are quite enough for any school. ”

“ There are few better things in life than a public school summer term. The winter term is good, especially towards the end, and there are points, though not many, about the Easter term: but it is in the summer that one really appreciates public school life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I got along all right during the summer at Pineknot school, while only the smaller children attended, but, as you know, it is a rough section, and, in the winter, when the big boys put in an appearance, some of them older than myself, and about ten times stronger then I am, then a school-master's life is not one to be envied. ”

“ The usual country school was only a rude frame or log building, sometimes without glass windows, in which one untrained teacher, without apparatus or the simplest conveniences, attempted to give instruction in at least half a dozen subjects to a group of children of all ages during a period of ten to fifteen weeks a year. Often even this meager period was divided into a summer and winter term, on the plea that the older children could not be spared from the farms for the whole time or that bad roads and stormy weather prevented the youngest from attending during the winter. ”

“ Besides, in the summer every boy is of use to the peasant, and in summer proceeds the life instruction, which is more important than school learning. The masses say that there is no reason why they should pay the teacher during the summer. "Rather will we increase his pay for the winter months, and that will please him better. We prefer to hire a teacher at twenty-five roubles a month for seven months, than at twelve roubles a month for the whole year. For the summer the teacher will hire himself out elsewhere." ”