Education

THE superintendent of the St. Louis schools, Mr. W. G. Harris, stands at the head of American school superintendents for philosophical thought and investigation on the subject of education, and his annual reports merit the most serious attention of the intelligent educator. He thus opens the one for 1872—73 : " In previous reports I have discussed the questions of discipline, moral education, proper grading, and classification. In this report I desire to treat under its various aspects the question of a proper course of study for public schools, and more especially to investigate in this connection the relation of the system of higher education in this country, as carried on in colleges and universities, to that of our public-school system.” We summarize his position on the latter question as follovers.

Much thought, he says, has of late been expended on the question of adapting the course of study in the common schools to the actual demands upon the citizen in after life, and now the higher education is being challenged in the same interests also. It is an unfortunate fact that at present there are two systems firmly established in our land, with radically different theories as to a proper course of study. Some contend that public schools should give a semi-technical education, and avoid the purely enlightening and disciplinary studies, which should be reserved for the private academies and preparatory schools that exist for those who can afford to patronize them. According to this view, the higher education which completes itself in the colleges and universities of the country should have no organic relation whatever to the public - school system, but only to that of secondary schools supported or endowed by private wealth. Now, explains Mr. Harris, “The growth of the demands of the age on the intelligence of the individual requires the school in our time to give not only discipline but insight, information, and to some extent technical skill. The common schools have yielded to this demand, and harmoniously expanded their course of study throughout so as to adapt it to the age of the newspaper. The college has likewise yielded, but not to the same extent nor in the same way. It has introduced the ex-

pansion into the last half of its course, and by elevating its standard of admission solely in the disciplinary branches has completely broken its organic connection with the common-school system of the country. That its requirements are not in accordance with the spirit of the age nor with sound psychology is a startling proposition, but nevertheless true, if the thoughts of the profonudost psychologists and educational writers from Pestalozzi down to Froebel are to be accepted.” Mr. Harris thinks that the public-school system of the country (in its best examples) is substantially the right one, and that our higher education should adapt, itself to it, since to take up natural or other science only in the junior and senior years, and without previous school preparation, is far too superficial a way of entering those vast realms of modern thought and discovery. The true education, whether for culture or for business or for the professions, is that which, “ whatever section of it be cut off from the beginning, furnishes the best course up to that point.” The mind should grow from infancy in all its cells and “ with all its windows open.” Thus “ there are five departments in the course of study which should be always represented from the first year in the primary school to the last year in college: nature in its two aspects of organic and inorganic; man in his three aspects of theoretical, practical, and æsthetic. While the common school represents each department in its course of study, the classical school or academy, with its mathematics, Latin, and Greek, represents but the first and third chiefly, and the second, fourth, and fifth subordinately. My conclusion has, therefore,” says Mr. Harris, “ been this: let the colleges and universities demand from their candidates for admission the outlines of universal history, English literature, and natural science, together with as much mathematics and slightly less Latin and Greek than now, and then change their courses so as to continue each of these departments through the first two years as required studies, after that allowing pupils to elect, although still requiring the election of a representative study from each department to entitle them to a degree.”

Besides the discussion of the course of study, Mr. Harris gives an elaborate statement of his views on the co-education of the sexes. His influence has introduced coeducation throughout the St. Louis schools, and no opponent of the system should in fairness omit to read the very forcible presentation of most of the important points in its favor here given.

The normal-school course in St. Louis is for two years, the first being devoted to “culture study,” the last only to the review of the branches which the pupils will have to teach. Latin is required throughout. General history is studied in the first year, and American history in the second, as it should be in all schools, this being its natural sequence. There are in the St. Louis schools eight grades below the high school, each of which is arranged to occupy one year. German is taught in every grade, with the proviso merely that any child who desires to learn it must begin it when he enters school. Music and natural science are also taught in all the grades, and drawing in the first five. History, however, and to us most unaccountably in an educational scheme so otherwise judicious, is put off until the very last of the eight years of the course, and then is confined to a condensed (though highly admirable) summary of American history for three quarters, and a study of the Constitution of the United States for the fourth quarter.

The statistics presented by Mr. Harris give not only the number of pupils but their age, where they were born, and the employment of their parents. Thirty-seven per cent, of the latter are foreigners, though only six per cent, of the children were born out of the country. The normal school is exclusively for girls, and in the high school there are two fifths more girls than boys. The neglect of academic education by boys is certainly one of the grave short-comings of American education. In Chicago, after reaching the age of thirteen years, the boys who remain in school are to the girls as fourteen to nineteen, a proportion which we suspect would be found very common throughout the United States, owing to the early age at which many hoys are expected to begin to get their living, while their sisters are not expected to do likewise at any age. If the daughters of the trading and working classes from the age of eighteen could relieve the family purse by their earnings, to the extent of their board and clothing merely, it is probable their brothers could stay a longer time at their books, and thus the American voter be better prepared for his political and social responsibilities.

The St. Louis School Board has lately established a kindergarten, as, unlike many superintendents, Mr. Harris encourages the sending of children to school under seven years of age. In school, he says, the little child can secure the companionship he hungers after with less danger to himself than on the street. The training in good habits which he gets in a good primary school or kindergarten are of priceless value to the community, and these habits can be molded far better between the ages of three and six than between those of six and nine. Besides this, it is well known that the average attendance of the children of the poorest classes is less than three years when begun at six or seven years of age, whereas, if they were taken into school at four years of age, the period of attendance would be lengthened to five years. Mr. Harris advocates frequent re-classification in order to do justice to bright scholars and to avoid discouraging slow ones. This principle of “ sifting up instead of sifting down ” can hardly be too much commended for our graded schools, where the practice too generally is to keep a class as much as possible on one level, and to “ drop ” those who do not equal the fixed standard. Mr. Harris’s plan has farther the advantage of keeping the classes of the upper or highest paid teachers full with the promoted scholars, and of not overcrowding those of the under teachers with degraded ones.

The astonishing growth of the publicschool system in St. Louis, under Mr. Harris’s régime, appears from the fact that in 1862 there were seventy-six teachers, and in 1873 six hundred and thirteen. The place it fills in that city may be inferred from its large and growing public-school library, the reading-room of which is open all days in the week, and directly connected with which are the following organizations: the Art, the Medical, the Historical, and the Microscopical Societies of St. Louis, the St. Louis Academy of Science, an institute of architects, an engineers’ club, and a local steam engineer’s association.

The St. Louis teachers are required to meet on the second Saturday of each month during the scholastic year at ten o’clock A. M., for the purpose of promoting the interests of the schools by the discussion of matters pertaining to the profession of teaching generally. On the Wednesday preceding this meeting, the principals of the schools are required to meet the superintendent for similar objects. The principals examine as often as practicable the schools of the assistants under them, but they have also to hear not more than four nor less than two recitations daily themselves. This is not the case in Boston, nor, it may be remembered, in Brooklyn, and the superintendent of the latter city thinks that the boys especially suffer from the absence oi teaching by the head master.

The principals are allowed much freedom in the internal government of their schools, provided their methods are not inconsistent with the general regulations of the board. There has never been any reading of the Bible or other religious exercise in the St. Louis schools since their foundation, and to this the president of the board partly ascribes their popularity with all classes of citizens. Nor have “ partisan politics ever developed in the board to such a degree us to influence even slightly the direction of the schools.” Only white males, however, vote for officers of the School Board. “ The mildness of their discipline” the president gives as another cause of the popularity of the St. Louis schools, for though corporal punishment has not been abolished in them, the teachers who most advantageously do without it, other things being equal, are preferred for promotion. A final reason for the success of the schools is to be found, he says, “ in the branches intended directly to refine the taste and increase the general information, that have been added to the three R’s, as music, drawing, and natural science.”

— A singular text-book, which belongs in the category with books on etiquette, on the way to be successful, on ready making of appropriate speeches, on correspondence, etc., is Mr. Grow’s Good Morals and Gentle Manners.1 According to his plan there are three divisions of human duties, which belong to the moral law, the municipal law, and the social law, respectively, and this handbook shows: how all are to be observed. The faithful student will learn to avoid homicide, profanity, the duel, white lies and black, slander, intemperance, plagiarism or literary theft, amusements of doubtful propriety, chapped hands, tight lacing, with which even boys are charged, whispering in

“What is the napkin for?” “ Why not use the handkerchief! ’ “ What does whispering in church arise from ? ” “ Why is gambling wrong? ” “ Why should the mural

sentiment of the school despise and condemn the tattler?” “Is it lawful to buy my neighbor’s ox?” They would seem to cover almost every case possible to human experience. The defect of such a book as this is not that some possible human actions are omitted, but that it is taken for granted that education can be accomplished by textbooks. It is the great fault of our publicschool system that the pupil is taught, not to think, but to apply certain rules, to be found on such or such a page of his arithmetic, or his Good Morals and Gentle Manners, and that he cannot be blamed if the case in question does not come under the rules.

This little volume of course gives wise and excellent instruction, but as to its method we have nothing but blame.

— The notice of the Ladies’ Society for the Encouragement of Studies at Home, which we printed in the September number of The Atlantic, has attracted wide attention in the very quarters where it was most desirable that its information should be received, and we have had the pleasure of answering a large number of communications from women in many States asking for more direct means of obtaining information than bad been supplied by our first writing. The ladies who preside over this excellent enterprise have been scrupulous in the avoidance of giving publicity to their names, preferring to work quietly and effectively, and as far as might be out of the region of mere display; so that it seemed desirable, while opening wider opportunities for membership in the society, not to trench upon the privacy which the managers had reserved to themselves. In view, however, of the frequent demands of which we have spoken, we are authorized to say that all who wish to gain further and more particular information may address themselves directly to the Secretary of the Society for Study at Home, 9 Park Street, Boston, Mass.