LA 306 UC-NRLF SB 7E CM CO o The Springfield Tests 1846--19O5-6 A STUDY IN THE Three R's J The Springfield Tests 1846-1905-6 A STUDY IN The Three R's .. .. BY .. .. JOHN LAWRENCE R1LEY Principal Central Street Grammar School Springfield, Massachusetts Printed for MILES C. HOLDEN, Secretary The Holden Patent Book Cover Company SPRINGFIELD. MASS. o To THE PUBLIC : REALIZING THE DEEP PUBLIC INTEREST IN THE RECENT CHANGES IN THE METHODS AND COURSES OF PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION, AND FEELING THE NEED OF INTELLIGENTLY FORMED OPINIONS REGARDING SUCH MATTERS, THE PUBLISHERS PRESENT THIS BOOK- LET, AT A PRICE WHICH ONLY PARTIALLY COVERS THE COST, AS A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CAUSE OF EDUCATION. MILES C. HOLDEN June, 1908. The H olden Patent Book Cover Company, Springfield, Mass. SECOND EDITION OCTOBER, 1910 Since the publication of the first edition Mr. Riley has been elected Super- intendent of Schools for Holyoke, Mass. Copyright 1908 by The Holden Patent Book Cover Company Contents PAGE Preface 4 Table, Results of Comparative Tests 6 Spelling and Arithmetic 7 Locational Geography 20 Penmanship . .29 Careers of Pupils of 1846 38 Conditions in the Old Schools . 43 408943 Preface ON November 12, 1905, the Springfield Republican printed an article on the " Schools of Sixty Years Ago," contributed by the writer. It gave a comparison of the results of exami- nations in spelling and arithmetic of 1846 and 1905 as well as the words and questions of the old tests. The article was copied by the New York School Journal of December second and later by most of the educational papers of the country. In three or four months the tests had been tried in hundreds of places and many of the dailies in our leading cities had commented editorially or otherwise ; while innumerable letters had been received from school committees, superintendents and principals. These indications of widespread interest have induced the writer to make use of the remaining tests, geography and penmanship, for comparison with present day work, to analyze more thoroughly the work of the pupils of 1846, and to put the whole into a more permanent form. In publishing this matter, the only desire is to place within reach of everybody interested, some definite and tangible evidence bearing upon that much discussed subject, the three R's. The changes made in the curricula of the public schools during the past half century have led many people to assume that the branches so strongly emphasized in earlier times, are being neglected today, and that the work in the so-called fundamental studies was better years ago than it is now. As Mr. George H. Martin, Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, writes in his report of 1905-6: "Many people imagine a golden age somewhere in the past when everybody habitually spelled correctly." He might have added, when everybody ciphered accurately and read fluently. This feeling, it can hardly be called an opinion, has, from time to time, become so strong in some communities and has been so difficult to dissipate because of lack of substantial evidence, that it has often caused the withholding from progressive school committees and superintendents of that support which is so essential to success in any public undertaking. For many years the argument of the THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 5 "Three R's" has been a weapon of great power in the hands of all kinds of men, used often but not always from honest motives and too frequently doing incalculable injury to the cause of education. The introduction of new subjects, some of which have been called "fads," into the courses of study, have made it reasonable to sup- pose that the results in the common branches could not be as good today as they were formerly. Few people, except educators, have considered the possibility of improving the work in any study by decreasing the time and increasing the concentration of the child and the skill of the teacher. Few people have endeavored seriously to find out to what extent such subjects as manual training and drawing, through correlation, "clinch" facts in arithmetic, or how far spelling is improved by broadening the child's knowledge through a greater variety of reading matter or through such a branch as nature study. Few take the trouble to actually ascertain the facts regarding the amount of hard drill given today in the three R's or to refresh their memories by re-examining their child- hood compositions and spelling papers. It is the privilege of the citizen to criticise; it is no less his duty to examine evidence and arrive at opinions rationally and judicially. An opinion based upon an isolated instance or upon a false assumption may check progress in any line if held by the masses of the people or by a man in authority. If the results of the tests and investigations contained in these pages aid in the forma- tion of intelligent opinions, the writer will feel that the hours spent in their preparation have been spent in service to that most demo- cratic institution in America, that institution, which, when kept abreast of the times, takes the leading place among the agencies which make for peace and civilization, the Public School. JOHN L. RILEY. Results of Tests 1846 1905-6 SPELLING twenty words : Number of pupils who took tests ... 85 245 Average percentage of words correct . . 40 . 6 51.2 ARITHMETIC eight examples : Number of pupils who took tests ... 79 245 Average percentage of answers correct . 29 .4 65 . 5 GEOGRAPHY twelve questions : Number pupils who took tests ... 81 219 Average percentage of answers correct . 40.3 53.4 Spelling and Arithmetic CAN school children of today spell as well as the children of half a century ago? Is arithmetic taught as effectively now as it was when our fathers and grandfathers were boys? Are we neglecting the three R's? These questions disturb teachers, agitate school boards and sometimes produce violent controversies. The general opinion seems to be that in the "common branches" the modern school is inferior to the school of fifty or sixty years ago. There is only one way of settling in the public mind these ever- recurring questions and that is by giving examinations to pupils of today which were given in the schools of half a century ago, and coolly comparing results. Such test questions, however, with the answers, have seldom been preserved, and, in the absence of such material, critics of the modern schools have made claims for the schools of their boyhood which, for want of satisfactory evidence, have been difficult to refute. A few such papers, however, do exist, and in the interest of education, they should be preserved and consulted frequently in order that we may retain the proper perspective of our school days. Fifteen or sixteen years ago in the attic of the high school building in Springfield, Massachusetts, several old sets of examina- tion papers were found that had been written in the fall of 1846. These papers consisted of printed questions in geography and arithmetic, with answers written on the printed sheets, and written tests in spelling and penmanship. Mr. Parish, the second principal of the Springfield high school gave these examinations to his pupils, and to him and to Dr. Thomas M. Balliet, who as superintendent of schools preserved them in his safe, is due 'the fact that today we may look upon the actual work of our worthy parents. Two of these tests, spelling and arithmetic, were given to about two hundred and fifty ninth grade pupils of our local schools in March, 1905, and the results were carefully compared with the results of the tests of 1846. The questions in arithmetic were reprinted exactly as they appeared in the original papers, and both tests were given under the direction of one principal. The children 8 T H E S P R t x N G"F IELD TESTS of five schools took part in the examination. The papers were sent to the directing principal and he examined and marked according to a uniform standard, the papers of the new and the old tests. Following are the results: 1846 SPELLING: Number pupils who took test . . . . 85 Average percent correct 40 . 6 ARITHMETIC : Number pupils who took test .... 79 Average percent correct 29.4 1905 245 51.2 245 65.5 Below are the words of the spelling test, a formidable list, with the results of the examination in 1846 given in two tables: TABLE I. 1 accidental 2 accessible . . . Girls, 32 Boys, 53 Total, 85 Times Correct Times Incorrect Percent Correct .5 o HO Times Incorrect Percent Correct Times Correct Times Incorrect ^ 6 o 8 V-4 l-f 0) O PnO 22 14 16 10 14 15 8 10 5 13 7 7 12 17 16 16 8 12 8 6 10 18 16 22 18 17 24 22 27 19 25 25 20 15 16 16 24 20 24 26 39 17 38 20 25 25 16 29 12 29 21 16 21 25 24 34 12 20 25 7 14 36 15 33 28 28 37 24 41 24 32 37 32 28 29 19 41 33 28 46 61 31 54 30 39 40 24 39 17 42 28 23 33 42 40 50 20 32 33 13 24 54 31 55 46 45 61 46 68 43 57 62 52 43 45 35 65 53 52 72 3 baptism 4 chirography. . . 5 characteristic . . 6 deceitfully 7 descendant .... 8 eccentric 9 evanescent. . . . 10 fierceness 1 1 f eignedly 12 ghastliness 13 gnawed 14 heiress 15 hysterics . . . . 16 imbecility 17 inconceivable. . 18 inconvenience. . 19 inefficient 20 irresistible Total 236 404 36.9 455 605 42.9 691 1009 40.6 21 10 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS TABLE II. Number of pupils who had Girls Boys Total word correct 2 1 3 1 word correct .... 3 6 9 2 words correct 5 1 6 3 words correct 6 6 4 words correct 1 1 5 words correct 2 3 5 6 words correct 3 2 5 7 words correct 4 2 6 8 words correct 1 4 5 9 words correct 1 2 3 10 words correct 4 4 11 words correct 1 7 8 12 words correct 1 2 3 13 words correct 3 1 4 14 words correct 1 1 15 words correct 1 1 2 16 words correct 1 1 17 words correct 1 5 6 18 words correct 1 1 19 words correct 1 3 4 20 words correct 1 1 2 Of the class of 1846, only 16 of the 85 pupils stood as high as 70 percent in this spelling test, the present " passing" mark in most schools. Three pupils had none spelled correctly; nine had only one right; while 24, or more than one-fourth of the entire class, misspelled 1 7 or more words. The mistakes were interesting. The 31 who misspelled " baptism" spelled it in 15 different ways, and "heiress" was written by 43 pupils in 22 different ways. The following words, taken from the papers in spelling and geography prove that originality in spelling was not unknown to the children of Mr. Parish's school. THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 11 heirress babtism Agsta hurriss babtisism Bristle heirruss batism Suffork heirees batisim Midlesex heirness baptsim Esexx hieress baptisim Berkshiere heress baptisimn Eirie hirress baptisem Ontareio hereis baptisom Mane airress baptisum Vamont airess baptisemn Rodiland airest baptisim Connetticut airresst baptysm Cornedicut airhess baptisiam Newjessy arress baptiasm Pencilvany arris Mishegan arriss Mysurie aries Misury ariest areress arerest eirress decietfully inconvience fiercness deceitefully inconvieneiance firerceness deceatfully inconvienence firceness deceatfuly incoeinance fierseness decetfully inconveinence fiecness deceitfuly inconveaneyance fisness decitefully inconveinance feiceness deceitfully inconvenianse feirceness deciotfully inconvienience fearsness decitfully inconveinience feaceness descitfully inconvenence fearceness disceatfully inconveince fearciness dicetfuly inconveniance ferceness dissceetfuly inconvienance fearness disceitfully inconveiniant fearcness inconveince THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS '/ ^x * *y, <~C^VT^,Os^i/ / '. Orjpa^&^e o. 6, -'< fff . //. /&. ^f^&jf^^cJ^ *> ^r 3 //. /-V., C/V^ a.t. THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 13 Below are the problems in arithmetic: 1. Add together the following numbers: Three thousand and nine, twenty-nine, one, three hundred and one, sixty-one, sixteen, seven hundred, two, nine thousand, nineteen and a half, one and a half. 2. Multiply 10,008 by 8,009. 3. In a town five miles wide and six miles long, how many acres ? 4. How many steps of two and a half feet each, will a person take in walking one mile? 5. What is one-third of 175 J? 6. A boy bought three dozen oranges for 37^ cts., and sold them for 1J cts. apiece; what would he have gained if he had sold them for 2-J cts. apiece? 7 . There is a certain number -J- of which exceeds } of it by 2 ; what is the number? 8. What is the simple interest of $1200 for 12 y. 11 m. 29 d.? In examining these papers, twelve and one-half percent was allowed for each problem when the answer was correct; nothing was credited for method or for partially correct work. The dollar sign was omitted in so many answers that it was decided to deduct nothing for its omission. The omission of a necessary decimal point made an answer incorrect and nothing was allowed even if the work was correct in every other particular. Of course this method of marking was as fair to the pupils of 1846 as to those of 1905 for all papers were marked on the same scale. The following tables present in a concise form the results of the examination in arithmetic in 1846: * "t Ar /-?- y ^3iii PAPERS OF TWO BOYS OF 1846 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 15 TABLE III. Girls >, 29 Boys 5, 50 Tota 1, 79 PROBLEM Times Omitted Times Correct Times Incorrect Percent Correct Times Omitted -t-3 in 8 % Is Times Incorrect Percent Correct Times Omitted -M w & 1 HO Times Incorrect Percent Correct First 10 19 25 25 35 44 Second 17 1? 1 33 16 1 50 28 Third 9 7 13 16 14 20 25 21 33 Fourth .... 11 18 IS 11 24 26 11 42 Fifth 8 21 6 20 24 6 28 45 Sixth 10 19 16 7 27 26 7 46 Seventh Eighth 17 15 9 3 3 11 32 19 12 10 6 21 49 34 21 13 9 32 Total 62 54 116 23.3 105 132 163 33 167 186 279 29.4 TABLE IV. < Number who had problem correct 1 problem correct 2 problems correct 3 problems correct 4 problems correct 5 problems correct 6 problems correct 7 problems correct 8 problems correct Number who had problem omitted 1 problem omitted 2 problems omitted 3 problems omitted 4 problems omitted 5 problems omitted 6 problems omitted 7 problems omitted 8 problems omitted TABLE V. Girls Boys 8 10 9 8 2 6 2 10 5 5 3 6 3 2 Girls Boys 10 12 3 11 3 9 4 7 4 5 4 2 1 3 1 Total 18 17 8 12 10 9 3 2 Total 22 14 12 11 9 6 4 1 16 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 90* fC 9 oo / tf T. Ju_ /7/J7 ^ ^ 3 *^ g- FAC-SIMILE OF AN ARITHMETIC PAPER OF 1846 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 17 The first two examples, requiring only abstract number work, are of the kind in which the " schools of our fathers" are supposed to have given that incessant drill in which the modern school is said to be lacking. Only 44 percent of the class had the first correct, and even in the second where the only chance for a mistake was in the actual multiplying, 37 percent or more than one-third of the class were wrong. Again in the fifth, another abstract ex- ample, for which the drill method should have prepared the pupils, six boys found it too difficult even to try and only 36 percent of the class had it correct. Of 29 girls, not one had the right answer to the fourth or sixth, and only three girls and ten boys worked the interest problem to a successful conclusion. A striking feature of the work in arithmetic was the variety in the answers as obtained by different pupils. The incorrect answers were often so far from the correct answers as to overwhelm one with the conviction that the children were entirely lacking in power to mentally approximate the results. Answers to the fifth example varied from 5J to 6312. Below are some of the incorrect answers to the problem in simple interest. Dollar signs, decimal points, and commas are the pupils', the first two conspicuous chiefly by their absence. 2.15.80 93.28 31966f 87.58.00 $93.58 93,580 1860,58 96.86 491040 110,88,05 114.00 892800 115.08 1908000 $179.80 4593600 449.500 5587200 475.00 170017400 638.00 11038980000 907.92 72 i 932.200 $937.80 9328. In comparing the results in these two tests, it should be remem- bered that the pupils who took the tests in 1846 were all high school pupils and that the course of study at that time covered only three 18 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS years. Further on in this little book is a chapter devoted to the discussion of the fairness of these tests but one or two questions at least may well be discussed here. Ought not present day ninth grade grammar school pupils be better qualified to solve these examples in arithmetic than these high school pupils? Had not these high school pupils forgotten much of their knowledge of arithmetic? These questions naturally suggest themselves to those who have in mind only the present day course of study ; but years ago the grammar school branches were continued in the high school. The first year work in the old high school included work in arith- metic, English grammar, geography, history of the United States and algebra. Twenty-five weeks were given to arithmetic and about half the members of the school took the work. In addition, a ten- weeks' course in mensuration was given during the second year, while a general review was taken in the last half of the senior year. But the objection may be made that the work in arithmetic in the old high school was probably advanced work, and as such was hardly fitted to prepare these pupils well for abstract work in whole numbers and fractions, simple interest and simple mensura- tion. Our present course of study for grades eight and nine in- cludes work in square root, bank discount, stocks and bonds, partial payments, mensuration and inventional geometry. It is to be questioned whether the old high school course was more advanced than this. These facts would seemingly justify the opinion that the high school pupils of 1846 brought to this arith- metic test nearly as recent knowledge of the simple operations involved as did the children who tried the same work in 1905. No such question can be raised regarding the fairness of the test in spelling. It will be conceded at once by every fair-minded person that these high school children were probably better spellers than they were when they were in the highest grammar grade. This would be true as a result of the English work in the high school even if spelling were not particularly emphasized. But spelling was not neglected even in the high school. The principal tells us in one of his early reports that regular spelling exercises, which were rigidly criticised, were required in the high school until the pupils made it obvious that they were no longer necessary. If, as THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 19 high school pupils, the children averaged only 40.6 percent in this spelling test, what would have been the extent of their failure had it been given to them as grammar grade pupils? The results of these two tests seem to indicate that today, children are not only better spellers, but that they reason better in arithmetic and are more accurate in ciphering than children of about the same age half a century ago. Locational Geography THERE is a strong feeling among the critics of modern educa- tion that place geography or the knowledge of the location of places is being neglected in our present courses of study in elementary schools. Some teachers share this opinion and eminent educators are frequently heard to refer to the schools of years ago as being much more effective in this line than the schools of today. Are these feelings and opinions well founded? Has the " enrichment" of the course in geography in lessening the amount of drill on location, lessened the children's knowledge of location? Opinions unsupported by evidence are hardly to be trusted in discussing such questions. What are the facts? For the purpose of forming an enlightened opinion on this matter the writer has spent some time in investigating former methods and in examining old text books and papers. Believing that the old geography test of 1846 is a fair example of the work of half a century ago, these questions have recently been given to several ninth grade classes of different buildings in Springfield and results compared. The papers were printed, as in the arithmetic test exactly like the original and all -the examining and marking was done by the writer. Most of the questions relate to the United States, and as North America is made the special subject of study in the sixth year of the present school course, pupils of that grade could without doubt show better results in this test than the higher grade pupils to whom it was given. The work of .the ninth year in particular has scarcely any connection with the geography of North America and these tests were given to the children near the end of their ninth year in school. The table below gives the result: 1846 1906 Number of pupils who took test .... 81 219 Average percent correct . . . . . . 40.3 53.4 Although neither average is high, the difference, when one considers the number of children involved and the narrow character THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 21 of the test, is sufficiently large to lead one to conclude that the work of today in this study is better than it was formerly. The questions, nearly all of which relate to the United States, follow : 1. What is Latitude? 2. What is Longitude? 3. In what direction does the river St. Lawrence flow? 4. Name the four large lakes between the United States and the British possessions. 5. Name the States bordering on those four lakes, and their capitals. 6. What large bay lies east of Massachusetts? 7. Name the New England States and their capitals. 8. What river is the boundary between South Carolina and Georgia? 9. Name the three large branches of the Mississippi on the west side. 10. What is the largest lake lying wholly in the United States? 11. Name the counties in Massachusetts. 12. Name the largest river in the eastern part of Massachusetts. In 1846, when this test was originally given, there were only four states bordering on the four great lakes referred to in the fifth question. These states were as follows : New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, and their capitals were Albany, Harrisburg, Columbus and Detroit respectively. At that time, also, two of the New England States, Rhode Island and Connecticut, had two capitals each. These facts were kept in mind in marking the old papers. Five percent was allowed for correct answers to each of the first, second, sixth and twelfth questions, ten per cent for correct answers to each of the others. The writer adopted this scale because the sixth and twelfth questions related to one state and called for single -word answers and the first and second were opposites and were generally either both correct or both wrong. Due credit was given for a partial answer, as for example, in the fourth, two and a half percent was allowed for each lake correctly named. 22 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS It needs but a glance at this old test to discover that the ques- tions are all tests of the memory; there is not a thought question among them. Names of lakes, names of bays, names of rivers, names of states, names of capitals, names of counties and for variety two definitions! How would the pupils of 1846 have ans- wered the following: Why does the St. Lawrence River never have floods? Give causes for the difference in climate between England and New England. Why has New York become the great- est commercial center in the United States ? Name five cities located at the head of navigation on rivers of the United States emptying into the Atlantic. This old test is indicative of the geography work of the times. There were three books in use in Springfield in 1846: Mitchell's Primary Geography, used with children as soon as they were able to ' 'spell and read with facility, ' ' Morse's Geography, used in intermediate grades, and Mitchell's Geography and Atlas for grammar grade work. The primary book contained 83 lessons and 14 maps. In this book, the child was introduced to this subject in 15 lessons of which the following is a sample : LESSON 3 Of the Surface of the Earth. Question. What is the earth? Answer. One of the planets. Q. Of what does the surface of the earth consist? A . Land and water. Q. How much of the earth's surface consists of land? A. A quarter, or one-fourth. Q. How much more water than land is there? A. Three times more water than land. Q. What is the chief part of the water on the surface of the earth called? A. The sea or ocean. For the purpose of being more easily understood, different parts of the water are called by different names, as you will learn in the next lesson. Q. Are the waters of the earth salt or fresh? THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 23 A. They are salt. Q. What part of the waters on the earth is fresh? A. Lakes and rivers have generally fresh water. Such lessons were probably learned and recited in many schools in question and answer style as this was a method of recitation quite popular in the early days. This catechism work was followed by 61 lessons of which 14 were map studies and 47 were devoted to the history and general description of the continents and countries. These descriptive lessons made little mention of the manners and customs of people, the side of geography especially emphasized in lower grade work now, but place geography or the location of places on the maps was given much attention. Children were directed to point out not only rivers, cities and countries of near-by importance, but such places as " Barbary, Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, Darfur, Soudan, Senegambia, Guinea, Ethiopia, Cape Colony, Caffraria, Mozambique, Zanguebar, Berbora," etc. In these 14 lessons the direction, "Point out" is given 146 times followed in each case by from five to 1 5 names. In those times the books formed principally the courses of study, and we may well conclude that before leaving the primary school, the Springfield child had " pointed out" and named more or less faithfully hundreds of places on the maps. This work was done with children corresponding in age to our second, third and fourth grade pupils. Morse's Geography used in the middle grades, was a pretentious volume of three or four hundred pages of which about one hundred were devoted to the study of the United States. The first seventeen pages consisted of definitions and explanations supposed to be necessary to an understanding of geography. History and de- scriptive matter were made prominent. The descriptions, although containing much that was interesting to children, still touched lightly upon those manners and customs which so attract the interest of children today. Mitchell's Geography and Atlas was one of the best illustrated school books of the time. It was an interesting book of more than three hundred pages which was kept up to date by the plan of its author providing for a revision every five years. The book began with 43 pages of definitions, printed in catechetical style, followed 24 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS by 25 pages of map questions. There were whole pages of questions commencing with " What,"- " What sea lies east of Cochin China," etc. If this dose of 68 pages of definitions and map questions was really administered to the youth of the by-gone generation, the school committee were probably not far from the truth regarding its effects on the pupils when they stated in an early report that such a grinding method, "after having worked its appropriate results on their heads, will be very likely to display its efficacy in their heels." This book treated the United States in nearly one hundred pages. These three books, used in Springfield in 1846 below the high school, give us a definite idea regarding the character of the work in this study. It is probable that much of the pupil's time was spent in learning definitions and "locating" places. The old test was such as would naturally follow work in which map- visualizing and word-memorizing were so strongly emphasized. Many people of today, even, would naturally suppose that pupils who were taught according to -these drill methods would excel in such a test. The results prove the contrary. As further proof of the failure of the pupils of the olden time to retain geographical facts, the fol- lowing analysis of the geography test of 1846 is submitted. RESULTS OF TEST OF 1846 Number of Pupils who took the test, 81. Number of pupils whose answers were Correct Omitted Incorrect or Incomplete First question 27 29 Second question .... 21 30 30 Third question ^22 52 Fourth question .... 19 11 51 Fifth question 1 38 42 Sixth question 65 6 10 Seventh question .... 18 56 Eighth question .... 29 33 19 Ninth question 18 39 24 Tenth question 16 23 42 Eleventh question .... 2 26 53 Twelfth question .... 24 23 34 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 25 What is Latitude ? 2 What is Longitude ' : In what direction does the river St Lawrence run ' 4 Name the four large lakes between the United States ind the British possess..!,,.. &/l&fL& &O/L <& 5. Name the States bordering on those four lakes, and their capitals. 0. What large Bay lies east of Massachusetts 1 7 Name the New England States and their capitals. (rfUJ o- $4s?l&/l4 * What river is the boundary between South Carolina^and Georgia J 9. Name the 3 largest branches of the Mississippi river on the west side. 10. What is the largest lake lying wholly in the United States ? 11. Name the counties in Massachusetts. 12. Name the largest river in the eastern part of Massachusetts A GEOGRAPHY PAPER OF 1846 26 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS Over one-fourth, or 27.6 percent, of the questions remained unanswered. Of the 81 pupils, only one wrote the correct answer to the fifth, and but two to the eleventh. None of the 3 1 girls had the fifth or the eleventh correct and only one had the right answer to the ninth. In answering the first and second questions, two-thirds of the pupils failed to distinguish between latitude and longitude. Both were designated as " lines," and longitude was defined on one paper as "the center of the earth." In the third, the St. Lawrence River was made to flow in every possible direction, the answers being as follows: North 12 South-east 4 N. and S 1 North-east 22 South-west 11 N. E. and S. W. . . 2 North-west 2 East 7 No answer 7 South 9 West 4 The chief difficulty in the fourth seemed to be in locating Lake Michigan, 47 pupils naming it as part of the boundary line between the United States and the British possessions. In the sixth, the answer was considered correct if Cape Cod Bay or Massachusetts Bay was named. Among the other bays given as answers appeared Narragansett, Delaware, Fundy, Baffin and Biscay. The seventh should have been easily mastered as these children must have spent hours of drill on this question. Less than one- fourth of the class, however, succeeded. Sixteen states were named as belonging to the New England group, among them North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. Montpelier was named as the capital of three of the New England states, while Rhode Island was given for its capitals, Providence, Newport, Newburyport, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Of the 81 pupils, 48 attempted to answer the eighth question. Among their answers appeared Savannah, Mississippi, Columbia, Susquehanna, Apalachicola, Nueces, Red, Delaware, Rocky, St. Lawrence and Alabama. The ninth and tenth were among the most difficult, 39 pupils, or nearly half the class making no effort to answer the former, while only 16 had the latter correct. THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 27 Ability to name the counties of Massachusetts was one of the rigid requirements in the old Bay State schools. Pupils were made to repeat the counties in order from Berkshire to Nantucket. In the above test, however, only two named the fourteen counties correctly, 26 wrote no answers whatever, while 19 others wrote the names of four counties or less. This question alone gave the class of 1846 a decided advantage in this comparative test for no effort is made today to have children remember names of so many counties. The Springfield High School was within a few rods of the Con- necticut river in western Massachusetts, yet in answering the last question, 22 pupils named that river as the largest in the eastern part of Massachusetts. The Blackstone, Housatonic, Merrimac, Hudson, St. Lawrence and Mississippi were given as answers while one boy guessed "Fall River." A study of this old test and of the geography text books in use at the time it was given should convince us of the futility of the methods then largely practised of drilling pupils in locating places about which they knew practically nothing. In spite of the num- berless hours of drill on the dry bones of geography, children failed to retain the facts of location. The modern school is well equipped with sand tables, globes and wall maps. Location constantly forces itself upon the attention of the child through maps in the history and geography texts. Individual teachers, here and there, may neglect the drill in location as they may neglect any other essential feature of school work, but the modern school aims to teach location not merely by map drill but by arousing an interest in location through books of travel, through a study of manners and customs and lives of peoples. No amount of dull drill on China, as so many lines and dots, will fix the map of China in a child's mind; but a study of the life of the Chinese people in their struggles against nature, their homes, dress, habits, occupations, recreations, cities and means of communication will not only en- large and liberalize the child's mind but quite incidentally will fix facts of location, the object so strenuously aimed at by the old school. It is the human element which was almost entirely omitted from the geography teaching of years ago which makes the study 28 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS of mountains and rivers and sea coast worth while. Cape Cod as a barren stretch of sand extending into the Atlantic is uninviting, but for a hundred years it has worried and destroyed our vessels and held the attention of our law makers. Its study is clothed with life when, in considering it as a barrier to commerce, we learn about shipwrecks, light-houses, light-ships, life-saving stations and canals. How much richer is the imagination and life of the child who spends part of his time for seven or eight years of his elementary school course in reading Jane Andrews' "Each and All" and "Seven Little Sisters," Carroll's "Around the World," Chaplin's "Little Folks of Other Lands," Kirby's "Aunt Martha's Corner Cupboard," Schwatka's "Children of the Cold" and Carpenter's travels in the various countries, than the child's whose precious youth is spent in memorizing barren and unemotional facts and in fixing in his mind relative positions of unimportant places. A student of the old time methods is not surprised when he finds evidence proving that intelligent adults of half a century ago criti- cised their own schools severely. In one of the many intelligently critical reports of the Springfield School Committee of years ago dissatisfaction is expressed because "the hard names of obscure and distant places, rivers, mountains, or other objects, perhaps in another hemisphere, are required to be committed, together with dry details of facts concerning governments, commerce, etc., etc., which for the most part are unintelligible to the child." Penmanship THE Springfield pupils of 1846 wrote a selection of poetry as a test in penmanship. These papers of about eighty children are preserved" in the old volume before mentioned. The selection follows : "Culture's hand Has scattered verdure o'er the land, And smiles and fragrance rule serene, Where barren wild usurped the scene. And such is man a soil which breeds The sweetest flowers, or vilest weeds; Flowers lovely as the morning's light, Weeds deadly as the aconite; Just as his heart is trained to bear The poisonous weed, or flow'ret fair." This selection was written in ink of questionable quality on ruled paper some of which is of a light blue tint. The papers, not only of this set but of the other three sets, are in a good state of pres- ervation, but the ink in some cases is somewhat faded. In this booklet will be found three pages of reduced reproductions of these " specimen penmanship" papers, the work of six pupils of the class of 1846. These are presented as evidences of poor work in this subject. Many of the old papers testify to the slow, laborious effort expended in their production. This crabbed writing, quite common in the old school, has been practically eliminated through the modern counting method and supervision. Some of the papers are excellent. The percentage of exceedingly poor ones, however, is very much larger than would be found in a set written by pupils of today. There are unquestionably fewer failures in writing under our supervised system than there were formerly: there is also, of course, greater uniformity, which is not a bad thing if the style is satisfactory. An individual style develops very easily and quickly under pressure of much writing, and such penmanship continues a "good hand" if facility in movement, and ability to produce fundamental lines have been acquired. 30 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS fytf't'i. d. S*n.Jhl Q,W Jc . .>%* d. Ju>.tsi]_ \Jjru><^ i i (n, ihrL^uttJ 'f- It U cu t^f &&& $J*fl AciJjt SPECIMEN PENMANSHIP OF TWO PUPILS OF 1846 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 31 \-AA^LAjuvUU> //Z^A- ~ Ao / / /^C^-^^-^A^ft XCxf^-v-e-yy'c^ /C/LSL. srt*^ey~v*^+-~^o ' /I4^o/fi> rrj_jt^Lo oljL^^JLL^/ 4^hjL- c^^n^^Ajt^ " ^ <*-() -/r*l^o < /Co / /Virt&j * SPECIMEN PENMANSHIP OF TWO PUPILS OF 1846 32 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 0(0 ^7 r/Aut WHA Ufflrj VAt J. ccj $J-SL$ A-7-t-o-4-^^c-^ ^L^-t-^. ' / , 'IL4HA<0-rurt^, PENMANSHIP OF 24 GIRLS OF 1906 err ^*^