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UNGRADED SCHOOLS.

BY J. P. GARLICK, OF BUTTE COUNTY.

LIFO

Old men glorify the past-young men, the present. We are a nation of young men, and as such are liable to err in suspecting that our ancestors were rude and uncultivated, and that we, their sons, are infallible philosophers.

In our enthusiasm we condemn the systems of the past, and to make our condemnation more emphatic, rush to the opposite extreme, and by the experience of failure learn that we do not possess the monopoly of wisdom any more than our fathers did that of error. Truth lies between extremes; but men in searching for it too often either stop before they reach it, or go beyond. What we denominate the curses of mankind are, in fact, misused blessings. Tyranny is not more to be feared and guarded against than anarchy, and liberty is alike foreign to both.

The infidel is not less a Christian than the fanatic, yet we condemn the former and unwisely praise the latter. Inaction and superaction are equally promoters of disease, and starvation will not destroy life. more surely than gluttony. Theories often run men mad, and only a surfeit of folly, resulting in manifest injury, is able to bring about a healthful reaction. When the minds of men get to running in grooves, it is almost impossible to convince them of error, however unreasonable the positions they occupy. Men too often reason from false premises to logical conclusions, regarding the form more than the foundation of their argument, and because they do this, the old evil which they discard is often no worse than the new which they adopt. As educators we have committed an error, not in forsaking the somewhat crude and narrow system of the past, but in attempting to make scholars by the too diffusive method of the present. In escaping from the too little, we have attempted more than we are able to perform, and especially is this true in our ungraded schools.

In these days of lightning and steam, we have forgotten the ancient maxim, "There is no royal road to knowledge," and have concluded that by our new theories some system of mental railroad or telegraph can be established, which shall supersede the old pony express stage coach mode of acquiring learning; in short, that by simply working this modern educational battery, our American boys and girls may become skilled in art and science, masters and mistresses of literature, accountants, vocalists, calesthenists and gymnasts and all this is

expected of them, not only in our graded, but also in our ungraded schools, where, as some one has said, men and women will attempt to teach from the A B C in a line to the A B C of a triangle, and the result is just what we ought to expect, our children learn a little of everything but not much of anything.

The great majority of the human family, from childhood to old age, are only imitators. Although originality of thought and action may be claimed by many, the real title vests in a number small indeed, so very small that if to those only who are really deserving letters patent of their right should be issued the disappointed claimants would constitute a vast majority.

Of all the knowledge which most of us possess, by far the greater part was received from books and teachers; what we have acquired independently is hardly to be considered, when compared with the great bulk derived from without.

Upon this fact our system of education must be based. For beginners, teachers are more necessary than books, but in many of our schools, the latter seem to be vastly more important than the former, and have usurped their places. The question demanding our attention as educators is, what shall we teach, and how shall it be taught in order that we may give the greatest amount of thorough instruction to the greatest number; shall we present a promiscuous mass of learning at the same time, and present it so imperfectly that our pupils shall be mere smatterers, or shall we demand that the studies be fewer, and their education more solid and substantial? We do find a genius now and then, whose mind seems to grasp truths almost by intuition, but this is only the exception, which proves the common mind the rule. As the shepherd gives to the weakest of his flock his tenderest care, so the teacher should be so apt to instruct that the dullest of the class may comprehend. If he succeeds in this, his victory is complete. The dunce of the class, and not the brightest, should be the gauge by which to measure how well a subject is understood But a pupil's dullness, from whatever cause, should never be permitted seriously to interfere with the advancement of the class, and this leads me to notice one of the causes of failure in many of our ungraded schools-the want of a thorough system of classification. What is the cause of this evil? It is altogether the fault of the teachers, and may be attributed to one of these causes: ignorance, carelessness or cowardice. Surely, when we consider how essential a proper arrangement and classification are to success, there is no excuse to be found for ignorance. No man or woman should undertake the vocation of teacher without the ability to perform its duties, for by a failure, discredit is brought not only upon the individual, but also upon the profession, not to mention a greater evil-injury to the school.

County Superintendents should insist upon the most thorough classification possible in the ungraded schools of their several counties, and candidates should be especially questioned and charged upon this subject. The next cause of failure is carelessness, and deserves severe punishment. But while ignorance and carelessness are faults not to be excused, cowardice or lack of independence is the crowning infamy of the profession, and merits a more bitter condemnation by teachers as a body than all other sins which are committed against the much talked of dignity of our vocation, combined.

I believe one-half, I will say one-third, of the pupils in the ungraded schools of California, who are pretending to read in the fourth reader, cannot read intelligibly in the second; and that many, very many, who

are floundering in arithmetic, beyond decimals, do not understand reduction or fractions; and there are many teachers who will bear me out in this opinion. Then why are they there? Because teachers have not the courage to put them where they belong, either from a dread of the tears of the children or the dictation of ignorant, ambitious parents. But you say the Trustees may interfere, and, at the instance of parents who think themselves aggrieved, may insist upon pupils reading in a certain book or being in a certain class, the judgment of the teacher to the contrary notwithstanding; what then?

I answer that in such a case the teacher owes a duty not only to himself, but to the school and to his profession, and that by every considera. tion worthy his notice, he should determine then and there to be supreme or to resign.

I heard a man, in an address before a State Institute, say that teachers, like carpenters, must do their work to suit their employers-that if a patron of his school demanded that his child be taught to read with his book upside down, he would grant the privilege, for with him it was a question in which bread and butter turned the scale. And yet that man was in no way bodily incompetent to earn a living by manual labor. If he had been old and lame there might have been some excuse.

In the very same address he talked in glowing language of the dignity of the teachers' vocation-a vocation which he had expressed a willingness to degrade by the basest of servility.

Talk of the nobility of a profession in which men think they must stultify themselves, and debase their judgment to suit the caprice of individuals who know nothing of the machinery of education. There are teachers who permit themselves to be controlled by circumstances, and who are the very slaves of the children they are supposed to govern. Let no man, who is master of his vocation, tell me that he does not teach as he would but as he is compelled to. I abominate such cant, and the men who use it. They are the sycophants, the Ichabod Cranes of the profession, who, by their cringing subserviency and lack of independence, cover themselves and their calling with merited contempt.

But it may be well to inquire if the complaints of parents are groundless. Is it not true that in many of our district schools pupils are learning but little from year to year; that they begin and leave off, term after term, in the same places, without any advancement in knowledge? Why is that boy who is reading in the fourth unable to read in the second; or why is the girl who reads in the second not reading in the third or fourth?

Because our teachers have not time to drill their classes.
Why have they not time?

Because of the multiplication of text books, and its effect, the multiplication of classes.

Upon whom does the responsibility rest? Upon the parents? No; for they are not presumed to understand how many or what books their children should study. Is it the fault of authors and publishers, who literally flood the land with text books, causing us to suspect, that Solomon referred to our age when he wrote, " much study is a weariness to the flesh, and of making many books there is no end?" No; for they would not produce an article for which there is no market; and there would be no market if parents did not purchase; and parents would not purchase if teachers did not recommend. Hence, upon ourselves rests all the responsibility. We have encouraged this multiplication of text books, and now we find that outside of our graded schools many teachers,

in attempting to perform impossibilities, are wasting their energies, and, at the same time, the funds of the State.

Teachers of this class generally remain but a short time in the aistrict, and are often popular because they are not independent enough to be otherwise. They pander to the pride and ignorance of parents; flatter their pupils by advancing them to studies for which they have no qualification, until, over-burdened with ill-arranged classes, recitations become a farce and the whole school a miserable failure. Who can do justice to his pupils with forty recitations? forty recitations in three hundred and twenty minutes, an average of eight minutes each, not more than half enough for the first reader, not quarter enough for the higher classes in mathematics and grammar. I am not an advocate of the log school house of a quarter of a century ago, with their mud chimneys, dirt floors and puncheon benches, though I did obtain some of the rudiments of education in one of those thorough ventilated institutions; nor am I in favor of adopting reading, spelling, writing and cyphering as the curriculum of ungraded schools.

There is reason in all things. Three recitations daily may not be sufficient; yet that number increased by ten or twelve is surely beyond measure. Would anyone be surprised to learn that it is not an uncommon occurrence for pupils to attempt to recite from ten to fifteen lessons daily? It is a fact, wonder as much as we may.

Do not make a mistake and call this a system of stuffing, for it is not. It is rather a kind of grab game, in which there seems to be an opportunity to gather up a good deal; but the sequel proves that the quantity secured is small and of an uncertain and inferior quality. Many teachers going into new schools, not only have to build, but they are compelled to pull down.

Think of a series of readers consisting of a primer, first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and two intermediate-nine in all; then of an individual stupid enough to attempt to form a class in each, and you will have a monument of stupendous folly, exciting both wonder and disgust. What is the result of this attempt to teach elocution in so many classes?

Just what a reasonable person might expect: miserable, hesitating, stammering readers. In our ungraded schools you will not find one pupil in five who reads smoothly and intelligibly. They should be taught to do this in the primers; else a string of words, conveying no idea, would be almost as profitable as varied sentences. If the Legislature should enact that McGuffey's First, Second and Third Readers, and no others, be used in our ungraded schools, good elocutionists would be as common as to-day they are rare.

These are sufficient, if rightly taught, to fulfil in this department all that should be demanded of an ungraded school. But not in reading only does this evil prevail.

In mathematics, also, the efficiency of the pupil is sacrificed to the number of classes.

Even geometry and book-keeping are dragged in to monopolize precious time, which ought to be devoted to the ordinary and more essential branches of education. It frequently happens that two or three ambitious youths present themselves at the opening of school and attempt to study these higher branches, and the teacher, unwilling to be suspected of ignorance upon these subjects, will often attempt to teach them, when perhaps he is conscious that he has neither the time nor the ability, and in consequence of such attempt other studies are

slighted, and no advantage is derived from these, on account of the imperfect manner in which they are taught. If young men want to study book-keeping let them go to the Commercial College, where it is taught in a manner that is productive of tangible benefit to the learner. If they would fathom the mysteries of the higher mathematics, let them attend the State University, where they will find teachers with both the time and the ability to instruct. Visiting a school about a year ago, I found a class of two pupils reciting a lesson in common fractions from Eaton's Higher Arithmetic. The style of the recitation would have done discredit to a class going through fractions for the first time. These pupils had completed Eaton's Common School, yet they were shamefully ignorant of principles lying at the very foundation of mathematical science. The recitation occupied fifteen minutes, not more than half enough time for such a class; and I will venture to assert, that. when those pupils finished Eaton's Higher, they were not equal in mathematical knowledge to some of the pupils in mental arithmetic in some of your thoroughly graded schools. The truth is, Eaton's Higher has no business in our ungraded schools. Like book-keeping, geometry and philosophy, it should not be taught there; not because teachers have not the ability to teach these branches-this is not the ground of objection, but for the simple and potent reason, they have not the time. It is the teacher's duty to take care of the ninety-and-nine, and not go rambling off after the one-hundredth. There are men who, for a salary of seventy-five dollars per month, will labor before and after school hours, at noon and recess, to gratify the ambition of two or three pupils. This is wrong, for two reasons: First, it is written, "The laborer is worthy of his hire," and in such a case the hire is not sufficient compensation for the labor, and the individual who would do such extra work, for such small pay, in one of the established guilds, would be banished from the fraternity. It is wrong, in the second place, because whoever performs his duty in the school room, needs the recreation of noon and recess, that he may not be drained of mental vitality, and thereby lack energy and enthusiasm at the close of the day, when these qualities are most demanded to guard against the dragging of recitations

When a teacher has exercised his utmost care and judgment in the arrangement of his classes, both as to number and scholarship, he has the right to say, this is my programme and it shall not be changed If the authorities interfere, and he fails to convince them that he is right, and they persist, he has no honorable alternative; he must resign.

But few will be driven to this necessity. The teacher, with truth and justice on his side, will seldom fail to convince reasonable men that he is right. If time be given, results will prove it.

There is one more subject of especial importance, to which I inviteattention.

It is often said, and truthfully too, that the pupils of our public schools are unable to apply the knowledge which they acquire, in the transactions of every day life. Practical men visiting schools ask simple questions, and are surprised to receive either no answer at all or an answer that is not correct.

Teachers may remedy this evil by drilling less upon theory and more upon practice. Special rules, as much as possible, should be merged into the universal rule of common sense.

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