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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MOFTELY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



pointed by the judges, but every ward elects its 

 own " directors." Our own local educational 

 authorities — including school boards and the 

 managers of denominational schools — are under 

 the rigid superintendence of the Education De- 

 partment in London. In America the school 

 boards are left very much to themselves. The 

 State government determines the organization of 

 the local authority, but does practically nothing 

 to direct or control its action. The State may 

 offer suggestions, may diffuse information ; but 

 even where the State law appears to give the 

 State " superintendent " of education some power 

 to interfere with the local administration, the 

 power does not seem to be very real. 



The differences in the organization and grad- 

 ing of the schools are too numerous and minute 

 to be described in this paper. I found that 

 usually the lowest grade in a primary school was 

 about equal to the highest class — not the stand- 

 ard class — in an ordinary English infant school. 

 The children usually begin to go to school when 

 they are about five years old ; in some parts of 

 the country, where the Kindergarten system has 

 been introduced, the children are received earlier; 

 but the Kindergarten schools are as yet extremely 

 few. The second grade in a primary school cor- 

 responds pretty nearly to our Standard I. The 

 lowest grade in a grammar-school corresponds to 

 our Standard III., and the highest to what might 

 be a Standard VIII., if we were fortunate enough 

 to have it. 



Primary schools are generally " mixed " — 

 that is, boys and girls are taught together — and 

 in many school - districts grammar-schools are 

 also mixed ; but, in the older States, public opin- 

 ion is, on the whole, favorable to separate schools 

 for boys and girls over ten years of age. 



Philadelphia, which is economical in its gen- 

 eral expenditure, is fairly generous in its arrange- 

 ments for staffing the schools — although, con- 

 trary to our English practice, the regulations de- 

 termine the minimum instead of the maximum 

 number of pupils for each teacher. In the senior 

 class of a large grammar-school there must be at 

 least thirty in average attendance ; in the lower 

 divisions of the grammar-schools, and in the 

 secondary schools, there must be an average at- 

 tendance of forty to each teacher ; in the pri- 

 mary schools, except in the lowest division, forty ; 

 and, with an odd change of the principle which gov- 

 erns all the preceding regulations, it is required 

 that, in the lowest primary division, the number 

 of scholars to each teacher shall not exceed fifty. 



In Boston, under the most recent regulations, 

 the maximum number of pupils to each teacher in 

 the primary schools is fifty-six ; in the grammar- 

 schools (principal not counted), fifty-six; in high, 

 mixed (principal not counted), thirty; in high, 

 unmixed (principal not counted), thirty-five. 



New York, like Philadelphia, fixes the mini- 

 mum number of children that may have a 

 teacher. In grammar-schools there must be 

 thirty-five to each teacher ; in primary schools, 

 fifty ; the principals and the teachers of special 

 subjects are not counted. 1 The Committee on 

 Teachers may, however, in special cases, permit 

 the staff to be strengthened. In one of the worst 

 districts of the city I saw an illustration of the 

 manner in which this power is used with admira- 

 ble effect. There were a number of children who 

 had come to school for the first time at eleven, 

 twelve, or thirteen years of age ; many of them 

 were the children of German and Swedish im- 

 migrants, and they were unable to read a letter. 

 For reasons which will be obvious to every one 

 who has any practical acquaintance with school 

 organization, it was undesirable to put these 

 children into a primary school with children of 

 five or six years of age. Two class-rooms were 

 therefore appropriated to them ; there were about 

 thirty scholars in each room, with an energetic 

 mistress to each class. I was informed that there 

 was no difficulty in passing these children through 

 the ordinary three years' primary course in a year 

 and a half. 



Boston affords the simplest and, in some re- 

 spects, perhaps, the best example of what the 

 Americans mean by "grading" their schools. 

 The city is divided into school-districts. In each 

 district there are a grammar-school and an ade- 

 quate number of primary schools, the district 

 taking its name from the grammar-school. The 

 primary schools are in separate buildings, each 

 containing from one to twelve class-rooms, six 

 being the standard number. Pupils are admitted 

 at five years of age, and the course of instruction 

 covers three years. There are "intermediate" 

 schools, corresponding to the classes for back- 

 ward children that I saw in New York. The 

 master of the grammar-school is the " principal " 

 of the district. In January and June it is his 



1 Our own code requires a pupil-teacher to be pro- 

 vided, in addition to the principal, " for every forty, or 

 fraction of forty, scholars in average attendance after 

 the first sixty." A qualified adult teacher is equiva- 

 lent to two pupil-teachers. For 100 scholars, there- 

 fore, a school must have a head-teacher and a pupil- 

 teacher ; for 140, a head-teacher, and either an adult 

 assistant or two pupil-teachers. 



