52 ■ ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



country. I therefore quote some of their conclusions, relating to 

 rural schools, and the methods which should be adopted for their 

 improvement. 



The report states that "About one-half of all of the teachers 

 in the United States, teach what are called Ungraded Schools. 

 They receive in one room, pujjils of all ages and all degrees of 

 advancement, from A B C's upward, sometimes even to algebra 

 and latin. In extreme cases, each pupil is a class by himself 

 in all branches except, perhaps, reading, writing and spelling." 

 * * * "It happens that ungraded rural schools with very small 

 attendance are to be found even in the most thickly populated States 

 and often in proximity to cities." "New York in 1894-5 reported 

 2,983 schools with fewer than ten pupils each, and 7,529 with 

 less than twenty." * « * "^ school with ten pupils, of ages from 

 five to fifteen years, of different degrees of advancement, some be- 

 ginning to learn their letters, others advanced from one to eight 

 or nine years in the course of study, cannot be graded or classified 

 to advantage, but must for the most part be taught individually. 

 The beginner who does not know a letter, should not be placed in 

 a class with another who began last year and can now read lessons 

 in the middle of the primer. It will not do to place in the same class, 

 a boy beginning numeration, and another one who has already 

 mastered the multiplication table. The beginner in grammar has 

 not yet learned the technique, and is confused and discouraged by 

 the instruction given to another pupil in his class who has already 

 learned the declensions and conjugations. Any attempt, in short, 

 to instruct two or more pupils in a class, when there is a difference 

 of a year's work in their advancement, results in humiliating and 

 discouraging the less advanced, and in making the maturer pupils 

 conceited." * * * ''The teacher, even after forming classes in 

 writing, reading, and spelling, has twelve to fifteen lessons to hear 

 in a forenoon, and nearly as many more for the afternoon. There 

 is an average of less than ten minutes for each recitation." ♦ » « 

 •''The teacher cannot probe the pupil's knowledge in five minutes 

 and correct his bad habits of study, nor in ten minutes. In the 

 necessarily brief recitations of the ungraded school, there is barely 

 time» to test the pupil's mastery of the external details of the 

 lesson, the mere facts and technical words. It is for this reason, 

 especially, that the rural school has been the parent of poor meth- 

 ods of instruction — of parrot memorizing, and of learning words, 

 instead of things." * * * 



THE IDEAL CLASSIFIED SCHOOL. 



"In the ideal classified school, the teacher has two classes of 

 pupils, each class containing within it, pupils substantially at 

 the same stage of advancement. The pupils of a given class 



