An excep

a This number (3,680) is so large, when compared with the numbers before and after it, that it suggests an error in the report. If treated algebraically it would give a negative withdrawal. tional increase was therefore admitted.

CHAPTER XV.

CLASSIFICATION IN GRADED SCHOOLS.

[In the following extracts from the reports of the St. Louis public schools, I have brought together the different discussions made from year to year, while the experiment in shortening the intervals between classes was in process of trial. In the Annual Report of this Bureau for last year the statistics from several hundred cities, and opinions from a large number of superintendents, were printed showing the status of this important question in the management of city schools. Au extensive correspondence has been carried on with teachers and superintendents in all parts of the country, and there has been frequent occasion to refer to the more elaborate discussion of the problems involved in the shortening of the intervals between classes as found in the reports of the St. Louis schools. Those discussions are here reprinted for convenient reference.]

ADVANTAGES OF THE GRADED SYSTEM.'

By the graded system I understand that in which the course of study is carefully arranged in accordance with the natural order of succession in the several branches; lowest in the course, the most elementary studies, followed by those that rank next in complexity, and unfold directly from the preceding, each study so graded as to advance in due proportion to all the others. At a certain stage of the pupil's progress in reading he is allowed to take up arithmetic, soon after that, geogra phy, then grammar, then history. No branch of instruction is to come in before the requisite advance is made in those studies which are introductory to it. With this careful arrangement of the course of study there is also proper classification of pupils. The gradation of the course of study makes this possible. All pupils at a certain stage of advancement in a given branch are in the same class throughout all the others. When the course of study and classification is not thus fixed, there is more or less abnormal culture going on; some pupils taking up studies without learning the rudimentary presuppositions; some pupils studying Latin and algebra before they know English grammar and ordinary arithmetic. The regularity and consequent simplicity introduced into the school system by gradation and classification increases the power of the teacher incalculably. Instead of infinitesimal subdivisions

From the St. Louis School Report of 1868-'69. By W. T. Harris.

of his school, amounting almost to the making of a class for each individual in each branch, and the consequent reduction of the teacher to the office of private tutor to each pupil, in the graded-school system a few classes comprise all the pupils of the school. The consequence is that the corps of teachers divide their labor, each taking two classes nearly of the same grade, and are able to concentrate all their energies on one point. The class can have thirty to forty minutes' time for recitation, whereas, if unclassified, each individual could get two minutes, more or less. But the teacher trains all to the habit of close attention throughout the recitation, so that each individual not only gets his thirty minutes as certainly as though he were the sole member of the class, but he gets far more. The stimulating effect of the exhibition afforded by the struggles of his fellows is the most valuable part. He sees his fellow pupils all striving for the same goal as himself; the lessons of their failures and success give him insight into his own, and deepen indefinitely the impression made by his private study in preparing his lessons. The complete dissipation of all the energy and faculty of the teacher by the nonclassified scheme, renders him unable to produce any grand effect with his school, as a whole, and thus each pupil loses that important culture derived from mingling his individuality with that of the whole, subordinating his own caprices to the will of the community, and finding his pleasure in the effect produced by the organism of which he is a member.

These advantages of the graded-school system are obvious, and the result of their discovery and application is that all celebrated schools, both public and private, are graded in accordance with this scheme. No system of schools, supervised by one head, is possible without such grading the results of one teacher could never be compared with those of another.

DISADVANTAGES OF THE GRADED SYSTEM.

On the other hand, there is a defect in the graded system which, though not often named and defined by educators, is nevertheless felt by the community at large. What I refer to is not the usual objection made-"that under the system named the work of the schoolroom becomes monotonous and like a treadmill; that it serves as a kind of Procrustean bed to hold back the talented pupil, while it does not benefit his dull companion"-for this can be avoided very easily by a system of promotions; the pupil is stimulated and encouraged by this. The obverse side is the worst-the discouragement produced by placing pupils in lower classes is the disastrous phase of the subject. The pupil who tries his best and then fails is deeply injured, and is apt to endeavor to preserve his self-respect by some sort of subterfuge. He accuses his teacher of partiality, it may be, or attributes the good success of his companions to the assistance of others. The root of all bitterness is loss of self-respect; the man or child who goes about thinking

himself shut out from participation in the highest by his own natural incapacity is like one inclosed in a tomb while yet living. It is easy to see that this is the source of most of the difficulties which the gradedschool system has to meet and overcome.

In the first place, there is difference in capacity; the temperaments differ; the relative mental endowments differ; tastes differ. And yet, in the graded school all are to be compared with the same standard. It is not surprising that evil consequences arise. The pupil is "sent over his course" again and again, falling back from class to class. He becomes stolid and lifeless, and reminds one never so much of the burntout coal in the grate which we name a "clinker." The teacher loses all patience: "The majority of the class can not be kept back on your account alone."

The closer the grading the better the classification is, and the fewer the "clinkers" developed; i. e., if the classification is made right at the beginning. For where widely different attainments meet in the same class it must needs happen that some will find the lesson that is adapted to the average of the class too easy, others will find it too hard. On the other hand, the severity of the teacher may contribute largely to swell the unfortunate class of pupils referred to. While severity may at times arouse latent energy, it as frequently closes up entirely that unfolding of the faculties which requires a genial, sunshiny surrounding as much as does the bloom of a plant.

When municipal governments are expending large sums for infirmaries and asylums, realizing the Christian humanitarian principle in the State, it is certainly inconsistent to neglect a class of pupils and allow them to make shipwreck of their educational hopes. And yet it must be confessed that a large percentum of the pupils in our graded schools, after falling behind their classes, get discouraged and go, a few to private schools, most of them into spheres of manual labor or mercantile business, and forever renounce an education that would fit them to rise to the higher walks of life. Society recognizes its duty to care specially for all who are unable to direct their own activity in the regular channels of industry. It provides for the poor, nurses the indigent sick in its hospitals, and furnishes a retreat for its insane. In order that the inducement to educate the children may be as strong as possible for the parent, he is taxed by the laws for the support of schools, in proportion to his estate, and free schools are opened for all, rich and poor. But this is not enough. The school system must be made effective in the highest sense, and special provision must be made for weak or abnormal minds. The educational system should have in it the means of correcting any tendencies in the wrong direction.

THE REMEDY-A SPECIAL SCHOOL.

The evils here spoken of may be remedied only by great care on the part of the teacher as to the habits or methods of study which the pupil has. For the reason that the evil becomes serious only in those grades

as high as the grammar school, and is manifested chiefly in the class that passes from the district schools to the high school, it is clear that special classes should be made for such pupils. The regular class can not be kept back for them, nor will it do to degrade them to a lower. Accordingly, when the class is promoted as a whole on examination, one part can go to the high school, one part to the special school, where skillful teachers supervise and correct the habits of study, taking a slow course in the higher branches. Gradually the mental self-reliance increases, and the ability to overcome the full-length lesson is acquired. The pupil is then to be transferred to the high school. On this basis, and to test the truth of this theory, the board have, by a recent act (at the August meeting, 1869), established the "intermediate school." Its results will furnish data on which safe future action may be based.' Public schools have generally been noted for thoroughness. This has been claimed as their greatest merit. Certain it is that very high percentages are required of pupils before promoting them to the next higher grade in the course. It has not been sufficiently considered that there is a limit to the thoroughness desirable; that the time consumed in securing such high standards of thoroughness would have been bet ter used by the pupil in mastering higher methods. Instead of solving the problem of higher arithmetic by arithmetical methods, he could more wisely have "flanked" them through algebra and trigonometry, and these latter studies would have opened up to him new worlds in mathematics. Instead of pursuing topographical geography to exhaustive minuteness, his time would be better employed in mastering physical and commercial geography; and so, instead of exhausting a "compendious treatise on English grammar," after acquiring its general outlines, a few months' study of Latin would give him the culture requisite to make a grammar for himself.

This point is the most important one involved in the present discus. sion. To what extent should thoroughness be relied on and to what extent should the advance be made by means of higher methods! Have not public schools held too exclusively to the former appliance, and thereby engendered the defect to which attention is here called? Private schools sometimes rely too exclusively on the latter appliance,

'At the date this report goes to press the experiment has progressed far enough to justify its establishment. Of the 80 pupils admitted, the greater number were those from the district schools who failed to make the requisite per cent to enter the high school; some were from private schools, and had made more or less progress in the higher English branches or the languages. The result thus far has been such as to encourage the most sanguine hopes. Most were found to have bad habits of study, and these have been improved surprisingly; others were good scholars, but had not been quite long enough in the district schools to fit them for the high school. This class has saved a year's study in the grammar schools, thus seeming to prove that the standard of perfection in the lower branches was unnecessarily high. The name "intermediate school" is not appropriate, inasmuch as it does not convey a correct impression regarding the character of the institution.