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other scholars, who extend their hands to it. It is then asked by me whether it will learn industriously and be obedient. If it promises me this I explain to it how it must behave, and if it can say the A, B, C's in order, one after the other, and also by way of proof can point out with the forefinger all the designated letters, it is put into the a-b, abs. When it gets this far its father must give it a penny and its mother must cook for it two eggs, because of its industry; and a similar reward is due it when it goes further into words, and so forth." After some further explanations, the duty of obedience was impressed upon the child, and it was again asked to solemnly promise to obey and work. Then the child was stood up before the school and some older pupil was asked to volunteer "to receive this new school-child and teach and instruct it." Dock quaintly Dock quaintly observes "accordingly as the child is strange

or known, or is agreeable in appearance or otherwise, there are generally many or few who are ready to offer to instruct it. If there are none willing, then I ask, who for a Script or a Bird will instruct the child for a certain time, and this rarely fails."

It is certainly interesting to note that the idea of having one pupil teach another not so far advanced was seized upon by two men, Lancaster and Bell, nearly fifty years later and made the foundation of a movement which shook to the very center the educational work of England, and exerted a great influence upon the whole of Europe. Later Lancaster came to America and for a time much attention was given to his method. In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the city named for him, the plan has been abandoned but a few years. If Christopher Dock had had less modesty and more ambition he might have been known to history as the originator of what we now call the Lancastrian movement. As near as we can infer from Dock's school and his writings, he never carried the idea of pupil-teacher to the extremes reached by Lancaster and Bell. Of course, they all found justification for their practice in the

erroneous adage of Quintillian, "He teaches best to another that which he himself has just learned."

The following picture of the opening of school shows much of the spirit of the man: As the pupils came in the morning they sat on a bench, the boys on one the girls on another. They were then directed to some chapter in the testament and without having studied it they read in turn. While this was occurring Dock sat at a table writing the copies for the day. Those who made no mistake in reading their verse came to the table and wrote, while those who made mistakes went to the foot of the bench. Those who came in later took their places in order at the foot of the bench also. As they were freed by perfect reading they took their places at the writing-table until all were together. The last one to leave the bench was a "lazy scholar." After they were all together at the writing-table they were carefully examined to see whether they were washed and combed. This last practice is still regarded everywhere, I believe, as good pedagogy. Cleanliness is next to intellectual development. After this examination was successfully terminated a morning hymn was sung and prayer offered. After the prayer they again went back to their reading. Those who read without mistake had a letter "O" marked with chalk upon their hands. Those who failed as many as three times, intervals between trials having been given for study, were pointed out to the school and all the scholars shouted at him, "Lazy!" and his name was written down.

Concerning this practice Dock says: "Now whether a child naturally fears the rod or does not fear it, this I know from experience that this shaming cry of the children gives them more pain and drives them more to study than if I should hold the rod before them all the time." He further tells us that if the child becomes industrious and makes up its deficiency, the school is again notified and now all the scholars shout, "Industrious." Its name is now rubbed off the

list of idle scholars, and the former misdoing is forgotten. When we remember that at this time the almost universal thought was that intellectual development was in direct proportion to the use of the rod, we see that

Dock was far in advance of his time. Although we may not heartily concur in the substitute, we must greatly respect the man for finding a substitute.

[To be Continued.]

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FACTS ABOUT JAPANESE EDUCATION.

By FRANK H. KASSON.

N examination of the "twenty-third annual report of the Minister of State for Education (Marquis Hachisuka Mochiaki) for the twentyeighth year of Meiji (1895), translated and published by the Department of Education, Tokyo, Japan, November 30th, year of Meiji (1897),” shows the remarkable progress in things educational now being made by the Japanese. They are rightly named "The Yankees of the East."

Of

On December 31, 1895, there were in the five great circuits of this island empire 7,935,719 dwelling-houses, with a total population of 43,045,906. The total number of children of school age was 7,670,837 (4,054,578 boys, and 3,616,259 girls). this number 587,689 were not under obligation to attend school, while 7,083,148 (3,755,028 boys and 3,328,120 girls), were. The school population of Japan is thus seen to be just about one-half that of the United States. Tokyo, the largest city, is credited with 403,404 dwelling-houses and a population of 1,867,913. Children of school age, 305,994 (160,260 boys and 145,734 girls).

Turning to the Kindergarten Department, we find a very commendable beginning. The number of private kindergartens is 57 and those public of the government 162, a total of 219; in which 17,428 infants were instructed by 479 "conductors." The total number of those who had completed the kindergarten course was 6,198.

The total number of pupils in elementary schools was 3,670,345 (2,435,223 boys and 1,235,122 girls). You will note that here the boys are very greatly in excess of the girls-nearly two to one. The number of pupils attending ordinary elementary schools at the end of the year was 3,066,069; and the number having completed the ordinary elementary course during the year was 1,272,000 (923,200 boys and 348,800 girls). Here is a grand total of 4,338,069,-2,878,096 being boys and 1,459,973 being girls. The ratio remains the same.

The per cent. of boys in school is 76.25, and of girls 43.87. The total number of pupils of both sexes receiving instruction is 61.24 per cent. of the number under obligation to attend school. This is certainly a most creditable showing for Japan.

And when we consider the inferior position of women in the far East it is cause for great rejoicing that nearly a million and a half girls were in her schools. What a marvelous transformation is here! At this pace Japan will soon stand beside the most educationally-enlightened nations of the earth.

The teaching force numbered 73,182,-66,368 men and 6,814 women. This number exceeds the teaching force of the preceding year by 10,147. The grand total of pupils in elementary schools, 3,670,345, was an increase of 169,274 over the preceding year; while the number who completed the prescribed course of study was 20,566 in excess of 1894. The number of public schools was 26,328 (an increase of 2,661), and of private schools 1,879 (a decrease of 71). This shows that the public school system is rapidly gaining ground.

In the forty-seven normal schools (whose object is the training of teachers) there were 678 instructors and 6,118 pupils; but only 720 were women, to 5,398 men. "The course of study extends over four years in the case of males and three years in the case of females." The number of graduates for the year was 1,473, of whom 305 were women. In the Higher Normal Schools were forty-five instructors and 292 pupils. In the Higher Normal School for females were twenty instructors and 100 pupils.

In the Tokyo Blind and Dumb School we find nine teachers and forty blind and sixty-two dumb pupils. While in the one at Kyoto were eleven teachers and 114 pupils.

At the Imperial University the number of instructors was 161; "students and pupils," 1,620; graduates, 351. Of the students, 286 were studying law, 124 medicine, eighty-five civil engineering and fifty-five philosophy.

The Toyko Library had 151,787 volumes; 31,133 being European and 120,654 Japanese and Chinese. The number of visitors during the year was 69,913.

Here are facts sufficient to show how keenly alive Japan has become to her educational interests.

BOSTON, MASS.

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SANITARY CONDITIONS IN OUR SCHOOL-HOUSES.

By J. N. HURTY.

OST of the school-houses in Indiana are very unsanitary. There are many very excellent buildings which satisfactorily meet sanitary requirements, but the majority of our schoolhouses have been constructed, and are conducted without the slightest, or, at the best, with very little regard for the health of the children.

I will describe the school-house at Sunman, Ripley county, as a type of the majority of Indiana's school-houses. This building is a two-story brick with a vestibule. There are two rooms, one directly above the other The stairs are steep and winding and difficult to climb. Ventilation is solely by windows and doors; warming is affected by box-stoves placed in center of the rooms. The outhouses are dilapidated and noisome and far worse than none. The water supply is from a well of doubtful purity. The desks are antiquated, in bad condition and all of the same size. They are too small for many of the pupils and too large for some. The vestibule, stairs and both rooms are dingy, with dirty, curtainless windows, and the floors are covered at least one quarter inch deep with dirt. Remnants of lunch are abundantly distributed about the room, but especially around the box-stove. A watercooler placed on a stool near the door, supplies drinking water and the drip therefrom mingles with the dirt on the floor to form a veritable mud-puddle. The air, of necessity, is bad. In the winter time, it is always so in school-rooms which depend upon windows and doors for ventilation.

When I entered this school, the teacher had before him, a class of four bright girls. What the subject of the lesson was, I do not know, but I heard him ask the question-"Honor thy father and thy mother; to what emotions of the human mind, does this appeal?" Why try to educate in morals amidst such surroundings? Consider the full import of the situation-the state compels the children to attend this school, and places them amidst dirty, unwholesome, and forbidding surroundings. Their vitality, instead of being used upon their books and in mental effort, is largely expended in resisting the evils of imperfect ventilation, imperfect heating, imperfect lighting. This means that a certain percentum -not small-of the public school money is wasted. Then, in order to waste more money and further wrong the children, the school-house is allowed, in the name of economy, to become dirty and foul. This threatens the children with disease and death. Threatens homes with sorrow and

dismemberment. The home is the very foundation of Christian society, and to threaten it in even the remotest degree, is a crime.

At Freedom, Owen county, is a two-story, fourroom, frame school-house. At the time of my visit, it was in miserable condition. The rains had washed away the earth from before the front steps and formed a little gully, three feet deep and four feet wide. Upon inquiry of the trustee, it was found he had no thought of attending to this condition and giving the children a proper and decent approach to their school. They were expected to climb over and through this ditch all winter long, thus, in instances, getting wet feet, soiled clothes and running the risk of bodily injury. Every room was dingy. Strips of paper hung from the ceilings, blackboards were badly chipped, desks were old, dirty, of improper shape and size, and dilapidated. The windows were curtainless and grimy: the box-stoves were cracked and broken; the stovepipes were sagging and almost ready to fall down, thus inviting fire to threaten the children's lives. The cross lights from the curtainless windows twisted, pulled and strained the eyes of the children. They, in trying to get a right light upon their books, assumed all manner of positions, thus twisting spines and moulding themselves in deformity. Two most miserable, dilapidated, tumble-down, noisome, outhouses, were standing in the school-yard back of the school-house-monuments to indecency and immorality. Honor thy father and thy mother, was also probably taught at this school. But why, I ask, should we expect the precept to take hold amid such surroundings?

A country school-house I inspected last summer, was filled with sheep and hogs. I wondered these animals would go near this building, it was so desolate and mean. If these were isolated instances, there would be no warrant to detail them, but alas, they are types of conditions which may be seen in every county in Indiana. At Monon it was necessary to provide for the high school outside the school-house. From one of the trustees, an inside room in a business block was rented. This room was forty-eight feet long, twenty feet wide and thirteen feet high; lighted by two narrow windows at the west end, and a patch of skylight over one corner of the east end. There were fifty pupils in the room. The air was foul, and one half the room was so dark that two coal-oil lamps were used to emit their sickly yellow light behind the pupils, making shadows

upon their books, thus increasing the adverse conditions. What right has the State to treat children in this way? Where is our vaunted common sense, that we throw money away in this contemptible manner? The school-house at Monon, is an old two-story frame; dilapidated, low ceilings, no provisions for ventilation, other than by windows and doors, and most of the windows are immovable. The primary room was twentyeight feet long, twenty-one feet wide and ten feet high, and contained eighty children, allowing only seventy cubic feet of space to each child. The air was foul, the faces of the children were flushed, coughs and colds were so abundant, that the coughing disturbed the lessons.

No doubt,

a careful medical inspection would have discovered a dozen or more children who should have been at home receiving medical treatment. Let us by all means, introduce nature studies and take the children out of all unsanitary schoolhouses. Take them into the woods and fields where they will see how God does things. may now understand, at least in part, why it is when the schools open in the fall, that childrens' diseases almost always increase. That unsanitary school-houses are an important factor in this matter, is apparent.

We

These questions have been repeatedly asked: "Why not ventilate school-rooms by doors and windows? Why not warm them by box-stoves in the middle of the room? Why make such an ado over heating and lighting? Why insist that the sexes should have separate decent outhouses? Why insist that school-houses should be clean, light, airy and pleasant? Why should the blackboards be free from gloss? Why do you so everlastingly splutter over the drinking-water? Why do you wish to abolish the slates and sterilize the pencils? Why! when I was a boy we went to school in an old log school-house that had a dirt floor, puncheons to sit upon and the rafters so low the teacher knocked the hair from his head by repeated contact with them. I say these questions have actually been asked, and the argument of the old log school-house with its dirt floor, presented again and again. You may not think this possible, but it is true. John W Draper says in his Intellectual Development of Europe: "May be evidences exist that we are gradually taking on the philosophy of the Orient." The Chinaman says: "My ancestors had the old log school-house, dirty, unsanitary, inadequate, it's good enough for me." In his awful conceit, he further says: "I came through all these horrible conditions you describe, I guess others can." In his selfishness and ignorance he thinks if he is here, all is well. He argues, "If I didn't get sick and die, others,

of course, did not, and therefore, the agitator for better conditions is an ass."

As to ventilation of school-rooms by means of windows and doors: The problem obviously is widely different from the ventilation of dwellinghouses. The school-room is filled to its capacity and the children must remain for a stated period, preserving order. In homes, restraint is lifted, and the individual air space is greater. Window ventilation therefore, for school-rooms, will not do, for draughts must be avoided The correct way is to introduce heated air above the breathing line, and by an efficient ventilating shaft take out the bad air at the bottom of the room on the same side the warm air is introduced. Heated air will immediately rise to the ceiling from a floor register, and therefore, it accords with physics to conduct it there, then through the suction of the ventilating shaft, draw it to the floor. This effects equable warming and good ventilation. Ceiling ventilators violate physics, and do not ventilate, as they simply remove the warm air from near the ceiling, leaving the lower bad air undisturbed.

It is not unfrequently remarked when unsanitary conditions are pointed out, that the schools have been remarkably free from epidemics and the attendance excellent. This may be all true, but certainly it is no argument for the continua-. tion of unhealthy surroundings. The fact must be thoroughly understood, that the ill effects of most unsanitary conditions are not felt immediatedly. They very gradually break down health. Such particularly, is the effect of bad air upon the air passages. Bad ventilation of school-rooms in childhood is undoubtedly responsible for a not inconsiderable percentage of the consumption of early adult life. Eye strain, contracted or felt in school days, on account of bad lighting, frequently necessitates the putting on of glasses earlier in life than is usually required, and this is a great handicap. All too frequently the foundations for ill health in after-life are laid in early youth.

Permit an outline of the sanitary requirements of a one-room school-house. The principles involved, however, apply to all school-houses.

The site should be high and dry. Not too much shade, for sunshine in homes is highly necessary for good health. The building should be raised at least two feet above the ground, and may be frame or brick. If of the latter material, the foundation should be stone or so built as to cut off the ground moisture. The space under the house should be ventilated. The room should be large enough to give, at least, 250 cubic feet of space to each child. The windows should reach to the ceiling, but the best way is to have no win

dows in the one-room school-house. Place shams on the outside for appearance sake, but light the room by a ground-glass sky-light, provided with adjustable curtains. The building should have a vestibule, well ventilated and warmed. This may be used as a cloak-room and will serve to lessen noise and confusion in the school-room, also to secure more perfect warming; a point not to be ignored. The box-stove placed in the center of a school-room is a wasteful and unsanitary method of warming. In cold weather, the children in the immediate vicinity of the stove are made too warm. They become sweated and restless; find it difficult, because of discomfort, to keep their attention upon their lessons, and lastly, are made more susceptible to colds. The children near the windows and away from the stove, on account of cold, are rendered uncomfortable and find difficulty in studying, so the efficiency of all the pupils is impaired and that is bad economy; and their health is threatened and that is bad hygiene.

Equable warming of school-rooms is of great moment. This may best be accomplished in the one-room school-houses by ventilating heaters which receive fresh air from outside the building, and after warming, project it upward and then by means of a double jacket, suck out the bad air from near the floor. By this method, a constant circulation is induced, an equable temperature is maintained and perfect ventilation secured. Such heaters require more fuel than the old stuffy stoves, but value is received in increased efficiency and health of the pupils.

Another practicable method of equably warming a one-room school-house, is to make a tight foundation, place registers in the floor and beneath the floor have a connection with the same flue into which is piped the stove, which receives its

air for warming from without. This arrangement draws down the warm air from the ceiling and when it passes through the registers beneath the floor, the floor is kept warm and perfect ventilation secured. As all of our one-room houses are constructed with windows and not with sky-lights, as recommended above, we must do as well as we can with what we have. To regulate and temper the light, the best thing is double folding inside shutters. It is obvious how these may be used to produce the desired result. Lacking inside shutters, the next best thing is two spring-roller shades, hung in the middle of each window, so one will pull down, the other up. The teacher, by properly managing these, can prevent crosslights, shadows, and reflections, which so strain the eyes, and by causing the child to shift and bend the body to secure the proper light on his book, produces spinal irritation and sometimes spinal curvature.

A burning shame and deep disgrace is the absence at nearly all country school-houses, of proper and separate outhouses. Two outhouses, always kept in good condition, should be provided. They should be in the rear of the house and separated by a high, tight board fence. Good walks should lead to them. Not to separate the sexes carefully, affording privacy and convenience, is awful barbarism. Yet, as above stated, we find this condition in every county in the state.

It is not the intention, at this time, to treat fully upon school hygiene, enough will be accomplished if attention is at present directed to its importance. In closing, let it be known that legislation is not needed, in this matter, it is education we must give. The Board of Health has all the necessary authority, but it is not supplied with means, but certain it is, the means will be given when the people understand the situation.

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THE NEXT STEP-WHAT SHALL IT BE?*

By CARRIE B. ADAMS.

E have reached a point in regard to the idea of music as a necessary subject in the school curriculum where no vociferous agitation or defense is called for; in fact, in most quarters we are rapidly taking upon ourselves the relieved, resting air of one who has fought a good fight and won the victory. It has been a hard-fought battle in many instances, but the victory is ours. Public

* Read before the recent meeting at Washington.

sentiment says it; patrons say it; pupils say it; teachers say it; school boards say it; educators in every stage of enlightenment say that music is necessary to the symmetrical development of the child, for whose sole good the schools exist. There is no chance to argue the question here, since we are all on the same side, and not a single reason why we should attempt to justify this state of affairs. We have passed that stage, happily, and

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