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The Batavia System 
 
 OF 
 
 r .. . 
 
 Individual Instruction 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN KENNEDY, A. M. 
 
 AUTHOu OF The philosophy of school discipline. The school 
 
 AND the family, WhaT WORDS SAY, MuST GREEK GO? ETC. 
 
 \ 
 
 SYRACUSE, N. Y. 
 C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 
 
 1914 
 
 Copyright, 1914, by John Kennedy 
 
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 "For some years I have been conscious of the fact that our 
 modem graded school system that strives to treat all the 
 pupils in exactly the same way is resulting in worry and the 
 consequent nervous strain so common in pupils and in teach- 
 ers. The absexice of everything of this kind from pupils and 
 teachers in the Batavia schools is to me the most noteworthy 
 result of organized individual instruction as it exists there. 
 A system that will save for effective use the energy that is 
 being wasted, and even worse than wasted, will increase 
 many fold the efficiency of our schools. Such a system seems 
 to have been evolved by Sup't Kennedy and to have passed 
 beyond the experimental stage into the realm of demon- 
 strated fact in the Batavia schools." — Chas. F. Wheelock, 
 Assistant commissioner of secondary education. University 
 of the State of New York. 
 
 "To-day while visiting the recitation of an old-time friend, 
 Dr. Boughton, now at the Erasmus Hall high school, I noticed 
 an incident which interested and pleased me, as doubtless 
 it will you. In the class discussion about Oliver Goldsmith's 
 school days. Dr. Boughton asked the question 'Are there 
 really any dull boys?' One little fellow, not more than 
 thirteen years old, said : 
 
 " 'There are not. This has been proved at Batavia, N. Y., 
 where a system of individual instruction has been adopted 
 which is attracting people from all parts of the world. This 
 system shows that all children can learn if they only have a 
 chance.' 
 
 "I was hardly prepared to hear a school boy speak of in- 
 dividual instruction, but this incident to me is significant. 
 Dr. Gunnison,* principal of the school, to whom I related 
 this incident, is deeply interested in your work, and will in a 
 few weeks send one or two of his teachers to study the sys- 
 tem. And so the good work goes on." Sup't Albert Leonard, 
 New Rochelle, N. Y., former president Michigan state normal 
 schools. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the forty years that I have been getting 
 acquainted with teachers I have found a large 
 proportion of those who are more than place- 
 holders divided into two classes: those who 
 adopt every new notion that finds advocates, 
 like no-recess, ambidexterity, vertical penman- 
 ship, and discard it as soon as other people 
 begin to discard it; and those whose minds 
 have been tickled by the epigram that what 
 is new is not true and what is true is not new, and 
 who refuse to admit that the unaccustomed 
 may be worth investigation. The Batavia 
 system has suffered from both of these classes. 
 The first have nominally adopted it, without 
 comprehension of its underlying and funda- 
 mental features; the others have passed it by 
 on the other side as an undue featuring of a 
 familiar principle. It will be well for both 
 
 (V) 
 
 333828 
 
vi THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 these classes to know what the Batavia system 
 is not. 
 
 (1) It is not individual instruction. There 
 was never a school that did not give individual 
 instruction. The Batavia system is a system 
 of individual instruction, substituting for oc- 
 casional, haphazard personal teaching, often 
 after hours when both teacher and pupil are 
 wearied, or during recess when the teacher is 
 hurried, or in course of recitation when \h.e 
 pupil is embarrassed and the class is kept wait- 
 ing, a system whereby such instruction has its 
 regular time and place with none of these im- 
 certainties and difficulties. 
 
 (2) It is not a way to boost pupils. Its 
 foundation principle is not to tell but to lead 
 the pupil to find out for himself. Instead of 
 robbing the pupil of the joy of achievement by 
 seeking to find for him a royal road to knowl- 
 edge it glorifies the achievement and the joy 
 of it, and inspires a love and a habit of it. 
 
 (3) It is not a device for helping backward 
 
INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 pupils. It helps them, but it helps bright 
 pupils too, and there is no recognition of back- 
 ward pupils. Every pupil in school is benefited. 
 
 (4) It is not a foe to the graded system. 
 On the contrary, nowhere are the advantages 
 and the necessity of the class more convincingly 
 demonstrated than in this book. It sustains 
 the graded system by supplementing it. 
 
 (5) It is not a way to get extra labor from 
 the teacher. On the contrary, it lightens her 
 work and relieves her of anxiety. 
 
 (6) It is not an excuse to add to expense. 
 On the contrary it lightens it, producing more 
 result at less cost. 
 
 If all this is true, and there is a great deal 
 of excellent testimony here to prove it from 
 men whose word commands respect, then the 
 Batavia system is worthy of investigation, 
 and this book with its full index makes that 
 investigation easy. 
 
 The standard held up for pupils at Batavia 
 is high. Far from the Montessori notion that 
 
viii THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 everything must yield to the impulses of the 
 child, the pupil is taught from the first the joy 
 of accomplishing what is given him to do. 
 There is a modern tendency to rob children 
 of this joy, to find a royal road to learning. "If 
 I held all knowledge in my closed fist," the 
 philosopher said, "I would open my hand and 
 let it fly away for the joy of gathering it once 
 more." It is not our knowledge we value in 
 later years, but the process through which 
 what we have of knowledge was procured. 
 
 Can you look back to the afternoon when 
 you knew it was your duty to write an essay, 
 but you wanted to play ball, to get a lesson, to 
 read a book, all laudable things to do except 
 that on this occasion it was your duty to do 
 something else? Do you remember how you 
 pondered over it before you could conquer 
 yourself sufficiently to set at work, how hard 
 it was to get started, but how when once the 
 spirit of work came upon you it took possession 
 of your whole being, till you wrote almost with 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 inspiration, and never rose from the table till 
 it had been completed and corrected and copied, 
 and you could say to yourself, "That is the best 
 of which I am capable"? How many joys in 
 life have you had equal to that? The joy was 
 not in the product — you forgot the essay long 
 ago. It was in the process, in the satisfaction 
 of self-mastery, the victory of effort, the de- 
 light of accomplishment. Getting this is about 
 all that is worth while in education. 
 
 It is to my mind the strongest feature of the 
 Batavia system that it preserves and en- ' 
 courages and stimulates this joy of accom- ^ 
 plishment. The child is never told by his 
 teacher. He is shown how to find out for him- ) 
 self, and to enjoy finding out for himself. The , 
 leisure for individual work gives the teacher 
 opportunity to discover where the boy's think- \ 
 ing machine is clogged, to remove the obstacle, | 
 and to set it going again. It is not the answer 
 to the arithmetic problem the teacher wants: 
 it is the ability and the perseverance of the boy 
 
X THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 to get the answer. In class she can do Uttle 
 more than assure herself the answers are cor- 
 rect. In individual work she can make sure 
 he can solve all such problems, and that he 
 will joy in being able to do it. Love and work 
 are the only things in life really worth while. 
 Love comes to most of us but some miss it. 
 Nobody need miss work, and if joy in honest 
 work is planted in his soul his life will not be 
 barren or unhappy. 
 
 That the Batavia children acquire this joy 
 is not a theory. The principal argument for 
 vocational work is that it takes hold of chil- 
 dren when they have begun to be restless and 
 want to give up school. The Batavia children 
 do not want to give up school. They stay m 
 the grades, they enter the high school, they 
 finish the course, boys and girls alike, and they 
 choose the cultural studies, the hard studies: 
 In an enrolment of 1750 there are 850 in the 
 upper seven of the twelve grades, and 375 in 
 the high school. The proportion of pupils 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 studying Greek is larger than in any other city 
 or village of the state. 
 
 One explanation is that under this system 
 school work becomes intensive. There is none 
 of the dawdling over an open book that not 
 only is not study but precludes the knowledge 
 of what study is. From time immemorial the 
 recitation has been looked upon as a battle of 
 wits between instructor and pupils to detect 
 lack of preparation. A library could be made 
 from familiar anecdotes, like that of the pro- 
 fessor who said severely, ''I have discovered 
 that because I always begin at the head of the 
 class and call upon you in turn, you have pre- 
 pared yourselves only upon the questions that 
 you reckon will fall to you. I shall put a short 
 stop to that. Hereafter I shall begin at the 
 other end of the class." 
 
 I am myself a graduate of a good college to 
 which I owe a great deal, but not forty of the 
 two thousand recitations I attended were in 
 themselves instructive. I had a liking for 
 
xii THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 geometry, and one day I demonstrated a prop- 
 osition in Euclid by a method different from 
 that in the book. The tutor asked me to go 
 over it again, and seemed puzzled. Finally he 
 remarked, ''That demonstration seems cor- 
 rect; I will assume that it is so. But hereafter 
 please give in class the demonstration that is 
 in the book. Then if you will hand in to me 
 aft^r class any original demonstrations I will 
 give you extra credit for them." That was 
 half a century ago, but I fear there would be 
 little more to learn in many college recitations 
 today. If a sort of ergograph could be devised 
 that would measure mechanically whether the 
 boys had got their lessons the time of the recita- 
 tion might be saved. 
 
 Under the Batavia system the pupil is not 
 tempted to pretend. It is no humiliation to 
 say, *1 do not know", which always means, 
 ''I want to know and am ready to be shown 
 how to find out". The time of the class is not 
 occupied in sparring with a bluffing pupil who 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 has made no preparation. The relation be- 
 tween pupil and teacher is of frankness, candor, 
 effort, helpfulness. The moral effect of this 
 is shown in manliness and womanliness. 
 
 The Batavia system requires not only work 
 but honest work, fair methods, generous com- 
 petition, the spirit of the hero and of the gentle- 
 man. With the individual teaching systemati- 
 cally provided for, these lessons can be incul- 
 cated, here a little, there a little. 
 
 What are all people most sensitive about? 
 Any little reflection upon what we call good- 
 breeding, the knowing what it is proper to do. 
 Look back in your own life and ask yourself 
 how many actual precepts of good breeding 
 were ever given to you in words? Usually 
 you will find there were very few, but they 
 came at the right time, and each one gave you 
 an insight into a score of principles with a 
 multitude of applications. The school cannot 
 overcome the influences of an uncultivated 
 home environment, but it can mightily modify 
 
xiv THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 them. By here a hint and there a suggestion 
 the teacher who has time to do it and interest 
 to do it can turn her boys and girls toward an 
 ideal and an observation and an apprehension 
 and a consideration for others that will put 
 upon the school as a whole the impress of good 
 breeding. Which would you rather have said 
 of your school, "It took the prize at the county 
 spelling match", or, "It certainly has a remark- 
 ably well-mannered lot of boys and girls"? 
 
 Nor -should Mr. Kennedy's claim be forgotten 
 that under this system the teachers have time 
 and opportunity not only to gain entrance into 
 social circles but to shine there. Why not? 
 It is every year an increasing wonder to me that 
 such fine young women become teachers. It 
 is no exaggeration to say that a majority of our 
 choicest girls enter the schoolroom, at least for 
 a time: it is still the natural employment for 
 the well educated young woman who does not 
 want to be idle. 
 
 But we" have been wearing out our teachers. 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 A woman teacher is at her zenith, so far as 
 eHgibiHty is concerned, at twenty-eight, which 
 means that, from twenty to thirty she is over- 
 worked, nervously exhausted. Her school drags 
 upon her, she loses her resilience, she is worn 
 out just when she should be becoming most 
 useful. Incidentally the school absorbs her, and 
 she has no time or taste for social functions. 
 
 Mr. Kennedy says that is not true under 
 the Batavia system. The teacher's work is 
 done at three, and she has no worries over the 
 day or the morrow. She can go home to dress^ 
 to call, to be hostess or guest, to enter into the 
 spirit of all that is restful and stimulating in a 
 cultivated community. If that is true, that 
 alone makes the Batavia system worth looking/ 
 into. 
 
 It will be noticed that a good deal is said 
 here of the happiness of the children as con- 
 trasted with the suffering, the tragedies of the 
 usual schoolroom. Are these phrases exag- 
 gerated? Here is a letter that I happened to 
 
xvi THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 come across today, which I quote only because 
 it will save my looking up a more recent one. 
 It was left behind by a boy 14 years old in 
 Morris, 111., who committed suicide in 1898. 
 
 "Friends: — I shot myself because the teacher 
 would not let me alone. I worked six examples 
 on the board, and I asked her if they were write, 
 and she said 'You may go to your seat and have 
 a failure for bothering me,' and after I had went 
 to my seat she had me name on the board a 
 big ott (0) after it, and then they laughed at 
 me. if I can't be marked for what I work I 
 can go to heaven and the Lord won't cheat me 
 eather. Dear mother, I love you and Clara 
 and Eliza, do not weep over me, but tell Pap 
 If he comes back that I said good-by to him. 
 this is all I have to say I hope the Lord will 
 watch over you All Good-by to all my Friends 
 In love your friend 
 
 Ray Bothalmey, City.'* 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 In the forty years that I have edited the 
 School Bulletin there has been hardly a month 
 when such instances have not come to my 
 notice: two of them in Brooklyn I chronicled in 
 the June number this year. We forget, now 
 that we are grown, how real were the sorrows 
 of our childhood. I was myself expelled from 
 a Vermont academy by a principal who could 
 have got along with me easily enough if his 
 thought had been less upon his dignity and 
 more upon the boy. I did not lay it up against 
 him : I had given him considerable provocation ; 
 but it was no fault of his that I did not go 
 straight to the devil. Teachers get overwrought, 
 nervous, touchy, irritable, till a naturally kind 
 heart shows recognizable malice. My children 
 have suffered in school to my knowledge. Your 
 children have suffered, whether you know it or 
 not. The word is not a bit too strong. 
 
 Now there is testimony in this book from a 
 score of witnesses competent to judge that the 
 Batavia system eliminates this suffering. If 
 
xviii THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 it does, it ought to be adopted. All these men 
 and women may be mistaken, but their array 
 of testimony makes it the duty of school men 
 to investigate. 
 
 A word should be said for some of these wit- 
 nesses. Superintendent Ladd is competent. 
 He did not originate the system and has none 
 of the parental pride of the parent. He has a 
 legal mind and training; before he became a 
 teacher he was a practising attorney. He is 
 known among the teachers of the state as a man 
 of careful judgment and moderate statement. 
 He is at the head of one of the committees ap- 
 pointed by the Regents of the University to 
 prepare examination questions for all the schools 
 of the state. So the chapter that he writes 
 is worth reading and pondering. We may be 
 sure that what he says weighs sixteen ounces to 
 the pound. Mind what it tells is not what was 
 done the first year the system was tried. He 
 has known it for all the sixteen years it has been 
 in operation. He is speaking of permanent 
 results. 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 Miss Hamilton, Miss Stein, Miss Ferry are 
 competent witnesses. They have taught under 
 the Batavia system from the beginning, and 
 they speak of what they know and of what they 
 have been called upon to prove in the Univer- 
 sities of Pennsylvania and of Virginia. 
 
 Superintendent W. H. Holmes is competent; 
 he has recently been called from Westerly, R. I., 
 to the charge of the schools of Mount Vernon 
 in this state. What he says in chapter XXX 
 is said at much greater length in his published 
 book, ''School organization and the .individual 
 child" (Worcester, 1912), a masterly treatment 
 of the subject. You will find like testimony in 
 Bagley's "School and class management". 
 
 Prof. Thiselton Mark, author of the "History 
 of educational theories" and editor of Charles 
 Hoole's "A new discovery of the old art of 
 teaching school", was sent here by the English 
 government to inspect certain phases of our 
 school work, and his endorsement is emphatic. 
 Dr. J. A. Houston, inspector of high schools, 
 
XX THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 was sent to Bat a via by the minister of educa- 
 tion for the province of Ontario, and declares 
 unequivocally for what the Batavia plan pro- 
 vides. 
 
 Stanley Holmes, Barney Whitney, Emmet 
 Belknap, E. D. Palmer, J. K. Beck are city 
 superintendents of Massachusetts, New York, 
 Michigan, Indiana, who came to see for them- 
 selves and who were convinced. In face of 
 such testimony it does not become the young 
 teacher to declare there is nothing new to be 
 learned here. 
 
 The variety of expression among these wit- 
 nesses i? a proof of their independent investiga- 
 tion. Even the * 'three don'ts" that lie at its 
 foundation are remembered by some of them 
 as two, the third, not to do any thing upon a 
 lesson that has not been recited, being over- 
 looked. In fact it will be found interesting to 
 compare their various reports through the very 
 full index, and see how they differ in expression 
 and in detail but agree upon the fundamental 
 principles. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 A word should be said for Mr. Kennedy's 
 own style. If the reader has time for only 
 one chapter let him read that upon the laggard, 
 page 225. If he does not believe it at the first 
 reading, let him reflect upon it and read it 
 again, and he will recognize a new and sound 
 view-point of untold possibilities. 
 
 C. W. Bardeen 
 
 Syracuse, N. Y., Aug. 12, 1914 
 
The Batavia System 
 
 OP 
 
 Individual Instruction 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 I Its origin .• 9 
 
 II Underlying principles 14 
 
 III Results in Batavia 19 
 
 IV Official report to Albany 36 
 
 V Relation to class teaching 39 
 
 VI Children retained in school 47 
 
 VII Expense reduced 53 
 
 VIII Independence developed 58 
 
 IX Organization humanized 66 
 
 X Necessity of graded schools 70 
 
 XI Benefits summarized 76 
 
 XII The first individual teacher 78 
 
 XIII Experience of another individ- 
 ual teacher 85 
 
 XIV Views of a New York superin- 
 tendent 87 
 
 XV A Philadelphia view 98 
 
 XVI Views of a Michigan superin- 
 tendent Ill 
 
 (5) 
 
6 THE BAT AVI A SYSTEM 
 
 XVII Testimony of a Batavia prin- 
 cipal 124 
 
 XVIII An Indiana view 126 
 
 XIX A Wisconsin adoption 129 
 
 XX A revelation and a revolution .... 13 1 
 
 XXI The present view in Batavia 139 
 
 XXI I Elimination of the ninth grade ... 1 5 1 
 
 XXIII Strengthening the graded sys- 
 tem 162 
 
 XXIV With children of foreign paren- 
 tage 180 
 
 XXV Advantages over after-school 
 
 assistance 185 
 
 XXVI Development of the spirit of 
 
 work 200 
 
 XXVII Personal aid under favorable 
 
 conditions 207 
 
 XXVIII As seen in Canada 213 
 
 XXIX What to do with the laggard 224 
 
 ' XXX Class individual instruction 241 
 
 XXXI Opinions of teachers 253 
 
 XXXII A Minnesota view 258 
 
 The blue and the white 262 
 
 INDEX 265 
 
The first day the teacher went to the child's de^lc..bu4 had to l^an over, so thereafter 
 the teacher had a chair in front and the chHd oam« ki herl iyTitt. rJtMs exception the plan 
 has been unchanged from the first. - , - / ^ : . - > - - j' ^ ' ■> ^ . > ' - 
 
 The individual teacher at work in a two-teacher room 
 
 The class teacher at work, with the individual teacher on the right. The empty 
 desks belong to pupils now reciting in front. 
 
- The B ATA VI a System 
 
 HISTORY AND EXPOSITION 
 Chapter I 
 
 Its Origin 
 
 In the fall of 1898 a grade room in Batavia 
 was overflowing. It contained 53 children. 
 The usual procedure in a case of that kind had 
 been to take out a portion of the children and 
 open up a new room. 
 
 The room referred to happened to be a large 
 one. There were seats not occupied, and there 
 was floor-space for other seats. So the con- 
 gestion was not a physical one. 
 
 The superintendent thought that he saw an 
 opportunity for a great rescue. He had seen 
 grades breaking down; and had seen children 
 and teachers collapsing under the strain of 
 wholesale teaching. He therefore advised the 
 board to leave all the children in that room and 
 
 (9) 
 
10 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 to send the new teacher in there to do indi- 
 vidual work exclusively. He said: "The stand- 
 ing reproach against the graded school system 
 ever since it was started has been that it does 
 not reach the needs of individuals; that in its 
 scheme of handling masses it often over-rides 
 the individual and rides him down. Let there 
 be one room in the world in which that reproach 
 will not hold. Let there be one room in which 
 the individual is attended to. I believe that 
 every child can be saved to health and success ; 
 and I believe that we take off all strain from a 
 teacher when we take from her those who are 
 dragging. I believe that the teacher now in 
 that room can handle all those children and 
 many more with perfect ease and success, if 
 she has some one to assume the burden of the 
 laggards.*' 
 
 The board felt that the superintendent was 
 right; and though they had no precedent for 
 their action, they proceeded to make their own 
 precedent, and appointed on the spot the first 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING U 
 
 individual teacher in the history of education. 
 
 The instructions given to that teacher were 
 to go into that room, find the most backward 
 children, and make them the most forward. 
 She did that, of course. And for the first time 
 in the history of education there was a large 
 room leveled up, a large room in which there 
 was no child dragging and no child retarded. 
 
 The individual teacher did her work at a 
 table, calling the child to her as she became 
 ready for him, and detaining him as long as 
 she deemed it expedient. She had the first 
 claim on a child and might call on or detain 
 him even if his class was reciting. 
 . To guard against any injudicious help she 
 was restricted by three restraining "don^ts"'. 
 1st, don't tell the child anything, but see that 
 he knows it. 2d, don't do anything for the child 
 but see that he does it. 3d, don't do any in- 
 dividual work on an unrecited lesson. 
 
 The class-teacher went on as usual conduct- 
 ing classes all day long, the room being divided 
 
12 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 into two sections, a preparation section and a 
 recitation section. No recitation was obstruct- 
 ed any longer. Lack of preparation meant 
 lack of participation. The ready ones parti- 
 cipated; and there was no longer any marking 
 of time. The children were all happy; and 
 they were all successful. There were no failures 
 to be accounted for. 
 
 It was thus demonstrated that teaching is a 
 dual process; and that failures are the result 
 of trying to carry on education by a single pro- 
 cess. 
 
 After establishing the dual process in rooms 
 that overflowed, then came the question of 
 establishing it in rooms that were not overflow- 
 ing. That ■ was accomplished by having the 
 single teacher give every other period to indi- 
 vidual work. If she had but a single grade the 
 individual period corresponded with their pre- 
 paration period. If she had two grades she 
 arranged for individual periods by having a 
 two-day program. 
 
 I 
 
. INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 13 
 
 In the high school each teacher assigned five 
 lessons a week, but used every other period for 
 individual attention. And in addition the high 
 school had an individual table at which a teach- 
 er labored all day long. 
 

 Chapter II 
 
 Underlying Principles 
 
 1. Schools become clogged, (a) by slow 
 minds, (b) by irregular attendance, (c) by dis- 
 couraged minds. 
 
 2. The attempt to force forward an ob- 
 structed school is detrimental to all concerned, 
 (a) It overstrains the teacher, (b) It depresses 
 the teaching, (c) It destroys the condition of 
 repose and equipoise essential to good teaching, 
 (d) It is wasteful of time, destructive of interest, 
 and promotive of discouragement, (e) It tends 
 to wholesale failure, indicated by the great 
 multitudes who drop out, and by the indifferent 
 scholarship of the few who persevere to the end. 
 
 3. Statistics show that in elementary and in 
 secondary schools, and throughout the first 
 stages of- higher education the falling out is the 
 rule and that a low grade of work and scholar- 
 
 (14) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 15 
 
 ship is the rule with those who remain. Hence 
 failure is the rule, and high success the excep- 
 tion. 
 
 4. The clogging of schools may be practi- | 
 cally, if not entirely relieved, by devoting half 
 the teaching force to individual instruction, i 
 (a) By directing attention definitely to the 
 point where the pinch or clog occurs, (b) By ' 
 operating upon the difficulty according to its / 
 exact nature and without resort to any kind 
 of force. • 
 
 5. Individual attention involves no strain 
 on the teacher and no violence to the pupil; 
 hence it tends to that condition of repose and 
 equipoise essential to good teaching and to suc- 
 cessful study. 
 
 6. Individual teaching tends to check all 
 lagging and flagging, whether resulting from 
 discouragement or lack of interest, and to pro- 
 mote a general forward movement in the student 
 ranks, (a) It sustains the interest of the bright- 
 er pupils by permitting them to move on, and 
 
16 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 by doing away with the irksome deadlocks, 
 repetitions and tragic struggles of the recita- 
 tion, (b) It brings forward the slower pupils 
 by recognizing their real trouble, by saving 
 them from public exposure and persecution, by 
 gently leading them back from chaos to where 
 the ground is solid under their feet, by giving 
 them direction, and by awakening within them 
 confidence in their own powers. 
 
 7. Individual instruction is quite as potent 
 and essential* in the moral as in the intellectual 
 training of youth, (a) The w411 to do what is 
 right and wholesome is an expression of moral 
 health, (b) Failure tends to unsettle character 
 and to pervert the will. Under failure there is 
 a giving way of either physical, or moral health, 
 sometimes of both. 
 
 8. Individual instruction is a definitely re- 
 stricted agency in the education of youth, (a) 
 Its function is strictly remedial; it addresses it- 
 self solely to disturbed conditions, (b) Its 
 end is attained in the restoration of desirable 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 17 
 
 conditions, (c) It brings about its own elimi- 
 nation and gives way when the conditions for 
 exclusive class instruction are ideal. 
 
 9. Class instruction is the normal and perma- 
 nent form of the best education of youth. It 
 supplies (a) the spur of emulation, (b) the stimu- 
 lus of numbers, (c) the attrition of mind upon 
 mind, (d) the side lights from many minds, (e) 
 a greater breadth of teaching than can be given 
 to an individual, and (f) an experience in think- 
 ing and doing in the presence of a public. 
 
 10. Only through the restorative effects of 
 individual instruction can a school reach any- 
 thing like ideal conditions for class work, and 
 only through the constant operation of indi- 
 vidual instruction can those conditions be main- 
 tained. Therefore, individual instruction is a 
 constantly necessary phase of school activity, 
 the constant and necessary supplement and 
 corrective of class teaching. 
 
 11. Individual instruction involves no in- 
 crease of labor or expense in the education of 
 youth, but rather the reduction of both. 
 
18 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 12. Finally, statistics show that schools pro- 
 vided with systematic individual instruction 
 carry their pupils to higher stages of advance- 
 ment and give them sounder scholarship than 
 do schools which lack this agency. 
 
Chapter III 
 
 Results in Batavia^ 
 
 We have in Batavia learned the very great 
 importance of individual instruction, and have 
 committed ourselves to it fully. It is scarcely 
 too much to say that our school system has un- 
 dergone a revolution. Otu* experiment has not 
 taught us to believe that individual instruction 
 will ever be the prime pillar of education or even 
 be the normal form of teaching. We are more 
 convinced than ever before that children will 
 continue to be assembled in classes, to be drilled 
 and trained and educated in the presence of 
 their fellows. In classes only can they get the 
 needed spur of emulation, the attrition of mind 
 upon mind, the helpful sidelights from many 
 minds, and the breadth of teaching which is 
 compelled by the presence of numbers. 
 
 * From an address delivered at Lake wood, N. Y. 
 
 (19) 
 
20 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 To start a great school-system forward on 
 purely class-instruction however is like starting 
 a great army forward without its medical ser- 
 vice. There will soon be culminative distress, 
 misery, suffering, despair, loss, depletion. 
 
 It is no mere figure of speech that charges 
 up distress and suffering to schools. The work 
 of the class is guaged to average capacity. Fully 
 half the children are below that average, and 
 are dragging despairingly in the rear. Their 
 dragging is a peril to themselves and an inflic- 
 tion to the rest. Their dragging is also a posi- 
 tive peril to the teacher. Distress tends to 
 awaken sympathy; but when the distress is 
 hanging about your neck and tending to drag 
 you under, your sympathy turns to a fierce 
 struggle for yourself. Half the class is com- 
 posed of children dragging down their teacher. 
 And how about the other half? They are child- 
 ren tethered either to an immovable obstruc- 
 tion or to one moving so slowly as to be insuffer- 
 ably irksome. These children are in just as 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 21 
 
 much danger as the others. Depletion will 
 begin on both sides of the line. Loss of interest 
 is about as fatal as loss of courage. 
 
 We saw at last the better way. And our re- 
 cent years have been years of thanksgiving. 
 In these years, we have opened no graves ; in 
 these years, we have broken no hearts; in these 
 years, we have wrecked no lives; in these years, 
 we have touched no child except for his or her 
 good ; in these years, we have had the hearts of 
 our children filled with song, and we have made 
 teaching a most salubrious business for our 
 teachers. In these years we have taken all the 
 obliquity out of our grades. In these years, we 
 have reduced depletion to a most wonderful 
 minimum. Out of what would have been the 
 wrecks of our former system, we have given to 
 our high school a great rate of increase. In 
 these years, we have almost absolutely banished 
 disorder, and have promoted a marked devel- 
 opment of character. In these years no drudg- 
 ery has been forced back upon the homes; and 
 
22 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 no sob in the household has had its origin in the 
 school. And so I might go on indefinitely, de- 
 picting the difference between a school that 
 was sick and a school that is well. 
 
 And the remedy for those evils is so simple 
 that it will always be a matter of wonder that 
 it was never thought of and appHed before. 
 Remedies are likely to be simple. 
 
 We did not have to wait weeks and months 
 to see the effect of individual instruction on that 
 room. The effect was instantaneous. There 
 was suddenly one room in which there was noth- 
 ing the matter. The teacher who had been 
 finding it all wrong, suddenly found .it all right. 
 And it staid all right. Though she had jDcen on 
 the verge of hysterics with forty-nine she was as 
 happy as a parent bird when the number had 
 swollen to seventy-nine. And every additional 
 new-comer, caused a smile to irradiate her 
 features. The same children that had. been 
 killing her cured her. She suddenly discovered 
 that there was nothing the matter with her. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 23 
 
 Where she had been nagging the forty-nine she 
 was clucking the seventy-nine. And not one 
 of them doubted that she was their dearest 
 friend, and not one of them failed to be regarded 
 as the rarest child on earth. 
 
 And her power expanded pari passu with her 
 affections. She laid out broader schemes of 
 work. A healthy mind and a warm heart went 
 foraging for the children. The course of studies 
 became a mere skeleton on which she built the 
 rich materials of her own providing. 
 
 And we observed in her what we have since 
 observed in all the rest of our teachers, that it 
 was a great benefit to her to be there under those 
 conditions. She was no longer a martyr to 
 education. She took on health continually, 
 and with it she took on that comeliness that is 
 given only by ripening intelligence and expand- 
 ing sympathies. It is safe to say that no one in 
 that room derived greater benefit from being 
 there, than she did herself. 
 
 She became part of the social life of the town. 
 
24 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 And her great stock of vigor made her quite 
 ready for social demands. And from her con- 
 tact with refined circles she brought back an 
 increasing refinement and breadth of view to 
 lavish upon the children. The hysterical teach- 
 er has no vitality left for social demands and 
 nobody wants her. Since the introduction of 
 individual instruction the teachers have become 
 the foremost ladies of the place. And they not 
 only bear themselves off well, but they are prov- 
 ing themselves a valuable leaven in the circles 
 where formerly they were not in demand. They 
 are showing a lively interest in art, history, 
 sociology, and all that relates to the improve- 
 ment of society. 
 
 Now as to the children. The change in their 
 case was just as striking and just as sudden as 
 in the case of the teacher. Almost instantly 
 it became manifest that no child in that room 
 was under the harrow ; no child there was fighting 
 down a bitter thought or stifling a sob ; no child 
 there was breaking its heart in pathetic silence; 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 25 
 
 no child there was wearily waiting for the great 
 machine to move on ; no child there was turning 
 in desperation to that well-known party who 
 ''always finds some mischief still for idle hands 
 to do". All were infused with the spirit of 
 zealous enterprise, and the upraised hands and 
 bright, cheerful faces eloquently reflected the 
 happiness that was singing at the heart. 
 
 We revelled in our new-found bliss for fully 
 a year and a half before we said a word about it. 
 we wanted to study it undisturbed; we wanted 
 to test it fully; we wanted to make sure of it. 
 We knew that a good thing needs no exploita- 
 tion, and that a bad thing should not be ex- 
 ploited. When we did speak it was in response 
 to an official inquiry from the State Superin- 
 tendent as to what new departures had been 
 undertaken. Since then the literature of the 
 matter has been unfolding. 
 
 But to return. We noticed that the slant 
 and echelon quickly began to vanish from the 
 room, and the whole grade began to move for- 
 
26 THE BATxWIA SYSTEM 
 
 ward at a rate that satisfied everybody and 
 distressed nobody. And at the end of the year 
 we promoted the entire room. And before the 
 end of the year we had no occasion to push for- 
 ward anybody. But we quickly noticed the 
 effect upon our register. We noticed that the 
 rate of attendance rapidly waxed, and the rate 
 of absence rapidly waned. We noticed a ten- 
 dency toward a maximum of attendance; and 
 it became no uncommon thing to strike that 
 maximum, to have actually a hundred per cent 
 present. We learned that happy children are 
 not prone to get sick, and that interested child- 
 ren are not detained out for trifling causes. 
 
 We learned that all children may be educated. 
 We have found our brightest scholars at the 
 lowest end of our slanting line, and we have 
 found our strongest characters there. Under 
 our old system^ those were foredoomed. Their 
 disappearance was known to be only a question 
 of time, and I fear that it was a consummation 
 only too devoutly wished. Despair on one side 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 27 
 
 and resentment on the other could have but one 
 termination. 
 
 It is true that some minds are woefully slow 
 at the outset, but that is no proof of incapa- 
 bility. The worst error of teachers is to assume 
 incapability and therefore to repudiate responsi- 
 bility. You have in this error the cause of 
 much of the depletion in schools. The fact is 
 that the heritage of the average child is a heri- 
 tage of capability; the amount of real incapa- 
 bility is so small that it may be dismissed as no 
 appreciable element in our problem. The pro- 
 per attitude of mind in a teacher is to assume 
 capability, and then struggle sympathetically 
 and intelligently to make that capability active. 
 Once aroused to confidence in its powers, the 
 slow mind retains its momentum, and is ever 
 after the best and most reliable in the school 
 and in the world. Class- teaching sweeps over 
 such a- mind, or would hurry it along with the 
 lash. Individual instruction knows no lash. 
 It bends in intelligent sympathy to the real 
 
28 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 difficulty, puts courage into the despairing soul, 
 arranges a sequence of efforts, and gradually 
 calls forth or builds up victorious independence. 
 Now to arrest decimation and depletion is to 
 have a most wonderful effect upon the size, 
 spirit, and results of a school. But there is 
 another side to the decimation and depletion 
 that is not always understood. And that is the 
 condition of the eliminated. They not only 
 disappear, but they disappear injured. The 
 mental and moral injuries may be for the present 
 somewhat vague and obscure; but the physical 
 injuries are all too real. The amount of physi- 
 cal injury alone that has its origin in schools is 
 very great. Schools as disease centres are 
 receiving the deepest attention of hygienists. 
 I am persuaded that where individual instruc- 
 tion is provided, no child will become sick in 
 consequence of going to school. And further- 
 more I am convinced that an ailing child may 
 be restored to health by being placed in such a 
 school. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 29 
 
 And so I might go on indefinitely, depicting 
 the transformation which individual instruc- 
 tion has effected in our children. There is 
 scarcely any end to the subject, and the bene- 
 fits are manifold. The old system was a long 
 catalogue of injurious tendencies; the new sys- 
 tem is by contrast an endless list of benefits. 
 
 But every effect has its cause. We have been 
 considering most wonderful effects upon both 
 children and teachers, as well as upon the com- 
 munity. Let us now turn to the cause. The 
 cause is in that quiet second teacher, who is not 
 heard at all, and is scarcely seen, the teacher 
 who went in there to give all her time to in- 
 dividual teaching. Our grades run with perfect 
 smoothness and perfect safety since we have 
 had some one around to look after and restore 
 conditions. I know no vehicle that becomes 
 more suddenly fouled and unworkable than a 
 large class of children, and we have recently 
 learned that no vehicle may be more promptly 
 or completely relieved. And unless relieved. 
 
30 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 the graded school system becomes organized 
 injury. 
 
 The mental and moral injuries are no less 
 real and deplorable than those of a physical 
 nature. School is a most profitable place for 
 those who are interested in their studies and 
 who are doing well in them; it is a most per- 
 nicious place for those who are doing poorly. 
 
 But many a parent springs to the rescue of 
 his boy before it is too late; he takes him out 
 of school to save him. And he either puts him 
 into a workshop to learn habits of industry, 
 and to acquire the art of self-support, or he 
 places him in a special school where he will re- 
 ceive the personal attention which his peculiar 
 weaknesses demand. And here we have another 
 cause of the depletion of public schools. 
 
 This great unrest is interpreted in various 
 ways ; but I think that its real explanation is a 
 growing public consciousness of the failure of 
 machinery and organization in and of them- 
 selves to accomplish the proper education and 
 development of childhood and youth. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 31 
 
 Our new departure amounted to a decided 
 innovation, and we were somewhat curious to 
 see how the people would regard it. It was 
 instantly universally popular. All classes ap- 
 plauded it. They said that it was the most 
 sensible thing ever thought of, to set apart a 
 teacher to get the children out of their trouble. 
 And the popularity shows no sign of waning. 
 
 The work of our second teacher may be under- 
 stood perhaps from her instructions, which were 
 to find the weak spots in the room and make 
 them the strong spots, to find the laggards and 
 bring them forward. The measure of her work 
 is the condition of the room. Her work may 
 be called, what it truly is, ministration. The 
 work of a ministering angel is never noisy nor 
 ostentatious, but it is the very breath of life 
 to those upon whom it is exercised. I have 
 perhaps already shown that the class-teacher 
 of the room had herself become filled with the 
 spirit of ministry. 
 
 We were wishing for other overflowing rooms, 
 
32 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 that we might extend this dual system. And 
 six times in the interim they have been reHeved 
 in the same way. And every time the results 
 have been exactly the same, confirming our 
 belief that we have found a most powerful work- 
 ing principle of education. 
 
 But how about the rooms that were not over- 
 flowing? We did not feel that it was necessary 
 to put two teachers to doing the work of one. 
 We resolved to vary the experiment and make 
 each single teacher an individual instructor 
 half the time. The effect was quite as surpris- 
 ing as in the case of the two teachers. The 
 single teacher brought forward her own laggards, 
 relieved her room, and brought it into a condi- 
 tion comparing very favorably with that pre- 
 vailing in the two-teacher rooms. So we have 
 individual instruction throughout our entire 
 system. 
 
 This is the Batavia system of combined in- 
 dividual and class instruction, a system which 
 we have been carefully observing and testing 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 33 
 
 for the past three years, and which I think need 
 not any longer be called the Batavia experiment. 
 
 It is the merit of our system that it involves 
 no backward step ; it is not in the slightest degree 
 destructive. It utilizes every bit of the graded 
 school plant and frame-work, and even the 
 graded school instruction. It is, as we see it, 
 a great step forward. It takes the graded school 
 with all its advantages and would put that 
 school into the best working condition. It is 
 the graded school transformed, we might almost 
 say transfigured. 
 
 It is the graded school shaking off all its 
 destructive tendencies and taking on the ten- 
 dency to unalloyed beneficence. It is, we be- 
 lieve, the evolution of the graded school. 
 
 Wherever multitudes are to be dealt with 
 in any way some kind of organization is a prime 
 necessity. In order to subject our great mul- 
 titudes of children to educational processes, 
 some kind of organization is fundamentally 
 necessary. It would be financially impossible 
 
34 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 to place a tutor with every child, or in every 
 household. And we h^ve already shown that 
 if it were possible, it is not desirable. The 
 children need to be assembled with their fellows, 
 and economy of service requires that they should 
 be brought together in groups. 
 
 The graded-school system admirably meets 
 this two-fold necessity. It is a superb organiza- 
 tion of the children who are to be subjected to 
 processes of education. It is one of the great 
 contributions of the nineteenth century, and a 
 decided gain to the world. We cannot over- 
 estimate its great value and usefulness. It 
 makes universal education in the great centres 
 of population possible. 
 
 But neither should we overlook its unfinished 
 condition. It stopped short of completion. 
 And in that incompleteness lies all its deadly 
 possibilities. It is the steam-boiler without the 
 governor, the steam engine without the fly- 
 wheel. It receives an ill-regulated force and 
 applies it spasmodically and without modera- 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 35 
 
 tion. It is a great invention lacking some 
 finishing pieces. 
 
 Such lack in material invention is the defect 
 in the logic of the inventor. But no inventor 
 expects his first machine to be worth anything. 
 He knows that he does not see his way tfirough ; 
 he knows that he does not foresee every contin- 
 gency. He knows that he must eventually 
 supplement his a priori ideas with those that 
 come to him a posteriori, before he will have a 
 thoroughly adjusted instrument. His principle 
 is his own inspiration, but he must get his crown- 
 ing adjustments from trial. 
 
 And so the great graded school system, spring- 
 ing from a mighty conception, is yet working 
 somewhat at random and with much destruc- 
 tive crankiness because of not having its finish- 
 ing adjustments. 
 
Chapter IV 
 
 Official Report to Albany"^ 
 The Batavia schools enjoy the distinction of 
 giving the world something entirely new in edu- 
 cational methods, something that was given a 
 thorough trial last year and proved so unquali- 
 fied a success that it is likely to revolutionize 
 the public school systems of the entire country. 
 It has already attracted the attention of famous 
 educators and is being thoroughly investigated 
 by them. The following report, made by 
 Superintendent Kennedy to the Hon. Charles 
 R. Skinner, Superintendent of the State Depart- 
 ment of Public Instruction, and forwarded to 
 Albany today, explains in detail the workings 
 of the new system and the results obtained from 
 it during the past year: 
 
 "In reporting the workings of our school the 
 past year we have to make mention of one very 
 
 *From the Batavia Daily News. 
 
 (36) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 37 
 
 marked departure. We have been dividing 
 our rooms as rapidly as they overflow, but we 
 had an overflowing room this past year that 
 we decided not to divide. As the room was very 
 large, thus giving no trouble on the score of air 
 space, or hygienic conditions, it occurred to us 
 to try the experiment of placing an extra teacher 
 in the room, who would do only individual work 
 and do it silently. 
 
 ''The effect has been at once a revelation and 
 a revolution. It revealed to us how to lift from 
 our graded school system the reproach of giving 
 insufficient individual instruction. We seemed 
 to stand between education en masse and chaos. 
 We shall hereafter have no temptation to return 
 to chaos. We have discovered how to get the 
 benefit of organization, and, at the same time, 
 reach the needs of individuals. We have al- 
 ready extended the new system to a second 
 room, with the same noticeable and gratifying 
 results as in the first instance. 
 
 ''Those results are (a) removal of discourage- 
 
38 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 ment. Children who have been falHng to the 
 rear and becoming drags, either by reason of 
 slowmindedness, or by reason of unavoidable 
 absence, have been delighted to have some one 
 show them a way out of their trouble. They 
 have taken courage and moved forward into 
 line, causing (b) an evenness in the grades that 
 was never known under the old graded school 
 system. And their coming forward caused (c) 
 a more rapid movement in the entire grade, so 
 that those who do not get the individual in- 
 struction directly, get it, and all the benefits 
 of it, indirectly. And (d) the joy of the parents 
 at the idea of the children getting individual 
 attention and getting on, is touching. And 
 
 (e) the enthusiasm of the taxpayers in general 
 is quite as great as that of the immediate pat- 
 rons. We are indebted for the new name of 
 our system to one of the large taxpayers who 
 does not now send children to the schools. And 
 
 (f) we save yearly a large sum on the cost of 
 heating, janitoring, and rent of rooms." 
 
 I 
 
Chapter V 
 
 Relatiofi to Class Teaching* 
 
 The Bat a via system has been in operation 
 nearly seven years, having been started in 
 November 1898. It originated in the observa- 
 tion that unrectified mass-teaching does not 
 work, or works only widespread disaster. The 
 Batavia system supplies the corrective in the 
 form of individual teaching. It does not abolish 
 class teaching ; but it frees the latter from clogs 
 and renders it operative; it not only enables 
 class-teaching to move forward freely and un- 
 obstructed, but it takes from it every tendency 
 to crush and grind. It is the corrector and the 
 coadjutor of class teaching, rather than its dis- 
 placer. That children who are falling to the 
 rear in their studies suffer keenly, pitifully, 
 often dangerously, I think none will deny. The 
 
 *The next six chapters are from an address delivered at 
 Westerly, R. I. 
 
 (39) 
 
40 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 sob may be stifled in the school, but it breaks 
 out in convulsions on the mother's breast at 
 home; or it is revealed on wakeful couches, or 
 in the mutterings of restless sleep. Well for 
 the mother if it is not revealed in the delirium 
 of consuming fever. 
 
 Parents suffer with their children; the grief 
 of the child is anguish to the parents ; the trouble 
 of the child is a double extra labor to the parent, 
 already exhausted with the daily burden of life; 
 the extra labor of teaching and explaining; the 
 worrying labor of teaching what parents them- 
 selves do not always understand; the discourag- 
 ing labor of teaching in a state of exhaustion 
 those who are not in a receptive condition; the 
 extra labor moreover of ministering in the lonely 
 watches of the night. Well for the children if 
 it is not the mother's brow that is attacked with 
 the consuming fever. 
 
 Teachers suffer with the children. With 
 backward dragging children hanging like a dead 
 load on her strength, the teacher soon becomes 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 41 
 
 conscious of worry and over-strain; and worry 
 and over-strain work with accelerated speed 
 toward collapse. Then arises the spectre of a 
 new worry to hasten the catastrophe ; the worry 
 about a future of helplessness totally unpro- 
 vided for. 
 
 But the public suffer with the children, the 
 parents, and the teachers. The ancient plagues 
 are vanishing before the militant campaigns of 
 modern sanitation. But a new plague is sweep- 
 ing over the world and claiming its victims by 
 the myriad. This is the plage of nervous de- 
 bility or neurasthenia. We say that our ner- 
 vousness comes from the fierce competitions 
 of the business world, oblivious as yet to the 
 fact that the cause is largely in the schools. 
 The public suffers further; it suffers in the loss 
 of those who should be its pride, its hope, its 
 assured protection; it suffers by the presence 
 of those who are its annoyance, its menace, its 
 danger. The Batavia system tends to arrest 
 all that. Incorrigibility and genuine interest 
 
42 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 and joy in school work are almost absolutely 
 incompatible, if they are not an actual contra- 
 diction in terms. 
 
 Six years ago it occurred to Batavia to assign 
 teachers to give personal attention to the back- 
 ward and distressed children ; to sit by their side ; 
 to wipe away their tears; to dispel their despair; 
 to quiet ^heir apprehensions ; to warm them up 
 with assured sympathy ; to give them that com- 
 posure of spirit that would render mental action 
 possible; to train their attention; to train their 
 apprehension; to train their reasoning; to train 
 them in the art of self -appropriation ; to awaken 
 their confidence; to fill them with joyful hope; 
 to arouse their ambition ; and to send them back 
 to their classes filled not only with the spirit of 
 confidence but with the very spirit of challenge. 
 
 The Batavia system conserves and makes use 
 of about all the old school plant ; yet its maxims 
 and philosophy diverge so far from the old that 
 it might almost be called a new education. It 
 requires either that half the teachers shall be 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 43 
 
 assigned to individual teaching, or that half 
 the time of single teachers shall be employed 
 on individuals. This is the quantitative feature. 
 This individual teaching, as employed in Bata- 
 via, is an entirely ;new factor in education, based 
 upon maxims that are entirely new, and leading 
 to results that are surprising to all who see them. 
 In the past six years the schools of Batavia 
 have sent back only sunshine, safety and happi- 
 ness to the homes. Happy schools make happy 
 homes; in happy homes the children sleep and 
 bloom; in happy homes the parents sleep and 
 retain the bloom so needful to their children. 
 In happy homes there is little need of the doctor, 
 less need of those who often succeed the doctor. 
 And the parents are prompt to recognize the 
 change. The Batavia parents said immediate- 
 ly: ''You have brought sunshine into our 
 homes." A visiting school officer after passing 
 through a few of our rooms ceased to be a school 
 officer and became only a father; he ejaculated: 
 **One thing is certain; this system must go to 
 
44 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 my town or my two little girls must come up 
 here. I have had one daughter wrecked by 
 that old harsh system and I don't propose to 
 take any chances on the other two." 
 
 "I look around in vain for the anaemic child; 
 I see only bloom, wonderful beauty, and spark- 
 ling happiness. It makes me long to see the 
 people that will be walking the streets twenty- 
 five years hence." So spoke a distinguished 
 educational leader and writer, an expert in al- 
 most every phase of educational work. 
 
 Happy schools and happy homes meet every 
 desire of childhood; in them and by them the 
 children are safe-guarded from moral danger. 
 In the past six years no child below the high 
 school has been required to take home a single 
 task. School hours are sacred to sweet labor; 
 but labor, be it ever so sweet, is not permitted 
 to trench upon other demands of life ; it is locked 
 in with the books and empty benches when the 
 key turns at three. Back work of any kind, 
 whether due to slowness of mind or temporary 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 45 
 
 absence, is treated as an arrear that belongs 
 solely to the school, and by no means to the 
 home nor to the parents. And those arrears 
 are reached during school hours in a regular 
 and legitimate way, and not by a special 
 imprisonment after school, in which unhappy 
 children are required to meet in the character 
 of delinquents teachers who are in a state of 
 uncharitable exhaustion. The Batavia system 
 makes provision for every possible contingency, 
 and what cannot, and should not, be evaded, 
 is reached under conditions that are entirely 
 normal and salutary. Nothing that should be 
 done is omitted and nothing that is done is done 
 in the spirit of fret and fury. 
 
 Worry is all gone; no one worries any more, 
 neither teacher nor children. And where worry 
 is gone there can scarcely be any over-work or 
 over-strain. The old proverb well says: "Not 
 work but worry that kills." Under nervous 
 depletion any work is over-work; any work then 
 is dangerous. With good nervous vigor one 
 
46 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 could almost work the twenty-four hours 
 through. With nervous depletion there is awful 
 danger even in a thoroughly sanitary school- 
 building ; with nervous vigor and spiritual seren- 
 ity, one might teach school safely under very 
 bad sanitary conditions. 
 
Chapter VI 
 
 Children Retained in School 
 
 It must be conceded that many causes out- 
 side of schools, and for which the schools are not 
 at all responsible, contribute to the emptying 
 of schools. But when all that may be justly 
 charged up to those outside causes are massed 
 into an aggregate, they will be found to consti- 
 tute a mere rill compared to the great stream 
 discharged by the school itself. The untaught 
 must go. 
 
 Every school child is at every moment at a 
 crisis in his career. He needs not only freedom 
 from actual violence, but he needs immediately 
 that active and sympathetic guidance and en- 
 couragement that are the determining factors 
 in his career. His case will not wait. There 
 is little hope of resuscitation. His only hope 
 is in formation, not in reformation. And a 
 
 (47) 
 
48 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 school that wotild save even a driblet must be 
 just to all. 
 
 "There is a tide in the affairs of (children) 
 Which, taken at its flood, leads on to fortune; 
 Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
 Is bound in shallows and in miseries." 
 
 Evil finds its readiest recruits in the victims 
 of injustice. When the school has lost all 
 charm then other charmers are without compe- 
 tition. The street appeals where the school 
 loses its appeal ; and the street can make a very 
 active hoodlum out of a ver}^ torpid school-boy. 
 To inflict the slightest injustice in the school 
 is to play into the hands of the street. But the 
 drags stay in school long enough to affect the 
 moral stamina even of the quick. The school 
 will lose its charm to those who are retarded as 
 well as to those who are downtrodden; the 
 stream of disappearance is not restricted to 
 those of slow or timid apprehension. 
 
 The Batavia system is no Darwinian machine 
 grinding down the nineties in the hope that the 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 49 
 
 fives or tens may be saved. The fives or tens 
 may survive, but they are not saved. The 
 golden opportunity of childhood, that opportu- 
 nity which can never be recalled, that tide 
 which presents its flood but once, is lost to two 
 classes of children, to those who are dragging, 
 and to those who are dragged ; and that is about 
 all of them; for about all the children in school 
 may be classed either as drags or dragged. 
 
 The Batavia system is not a place for getting 
 rid of children; it is a place for retaining them. 
 No child in the Batavia system is a persona non 
 grata ; no child in the Batavia system is crowded 
 to the wall, and through it into the street. As 
 a result the great vacuities in the upper stories 
 have been filling up ; the high school has doubled ; 
 and grades strong in numbers and strong in 
 confidence and in study power are sxirging 
 around its threshold. 
 
 Interest in their studies is proving to the 
 Batavia children a great moral safeguard; and 
 an atmosphere of spiritual repose, and teachers 
 
50 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 who are sane, sympathetic, and just, are pro- 
 moting a growth in goodness that is very re- 
 markable. 
 
 Of the increase in the high school nearly 
 seventy per cent, is boys. If you would get a 
 test of the efficiency of a school system, count 
 the boys in the upper stories. Boys succumb 
 more easily than girls to unjust or flabby work 
 in schools; boys have more inducements to leave 
 school than girls have; boys are more exposed 
 than girls to influences that work against the 
 school; boys are more likely to be withdrawn 
 from school than girls are. We say that they 
 are withdrawn to help keep the wolf from the 
 family door. This is sometimes true. It is 
 oftener true that they are withdrawn to keep 
 them from becoming an actual burden on the 
 family. The teeth of the suppositious wolf 
 grow very dull when the boys are keenly inter- 
 ested in their school work and are making every 
 moment tell for improvement. The string of 
 withdrawal is not on the dilligent boy; it is on 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 51 
 
 the boy who is beginning to grow hmp. And 
 parental wisdom never did itself more credit 
 than in the withdrawal of such boys. The wolf 
 bogie serves as the excuse, not as the cause. 
 Nothing is more fully established than the fact 
 that parents will make the last sacrifice to keep 
 in school the boys who are doing well there. 
 
 But there are other compensations than 
 mone3^ ''Blessed are the merciful for they 
 shall obtain mercy;" since our teachers have 
 been lifting from their children the load of 
 sorrow and discouragement, they have been 
 lifting every crushing load from themselves. 
 And now they are able to live their lives. They 
 are not now so nervewrecked and exhausted as 
 to have to shun society. They now want it, 
 and they now are wanted ; they get their growth 
 in the social graces, in the ease of manner, and 
 in the broadening of thought which contact 
 with society alone can give ; and they bring back 
 that increased grace and strength to bear upon 
 the cultivation of their pupils. To enrich the 
 
52 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 course of studies just enrich the teachers; they 
 will then treat the course of studies as a mere 
 frame-work on which to build the honey stores 
 of their own providing. And in addition to 
 this the teacher has the comfort of health and 
 assured longevity. 
 
Chapter VII 
 
 ^ Expense Reduced 
 
 But does not this two-teacher system in- 
 crease the expense? No, it reduces the expense. 
 There are actually fewer teachers in Batavia than 
 there would have been if the Batavia system 
 had never been thought of. With a team of 
 teachers you can assemble more than two sets 
 of children, if your room is large enough; and 
 the stimulus of a large assembly will be a benefit 
 to all, both children and teachers. With large 
 classes that are free from drags, the teacher 
 teaches better and with greater ease. The 
 orator needs large houses; it is death to speak 
 to empty benches. And how he does plead 
 with the sparse audience to gather up around 
 him. And so it is in class work; the teacher 
 finds a supporting bouyancy in interested mem- 
 bers; and they call out from her a breadth and 
 
 (53) 
 
54 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 depth of teaching that would be impossible with 
 a few. And the children in large classes that 
 have no drags, get more, and more varied stimu-^ 
 lus than in a small one. There is the very- 
 momentum of numbers; there is supplied the 
 spur of emulation ; there is the attrition of many 
 minds upon each single mind; there are the 
 sidelights and suggestions that come from many 
 points of view. But especially there is an 
 audience, a public in miniature, in which the 
 child can train himself, or be trained, to public 
 action and ultimate civic usefulness. The child 
 is on his way to community life, and the large 
 class supplies the means for a community train- 
 ing. The conditions of modern life, the econo- 
 mies of the situation, the nature of the child, 
 and the laws of teaching, all require that the 
 children shall be massed. But a mass and a 
 herd are very much alike; and therein lies all 
 the danger in wholesale education. Indeed a 
 herd is a mass, and there is where the destruc- 
 tive fallacy enters. The children need to be 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 55 
 
 massed, but education must see that they are 
 never herded. 
 
 On the other hand there is no greater fallacy 
 than to try to solve the school question by cut- 
 ting up the class into small groups. If this is 
 done for the purpose of reaching the individual, 
 it does not reach him. It quadruples the ex- 
 pense of education only to emasculate it. Hor- 
 ace Greeley said that the way to resume specie 
 payments is to resume. The way to reach the 
 individual is to reach him. But how if the 
 groups are made of those of equal aptness? In 
 other words how about forming quick sections 
 and slow sections? Yes, how about branding 
 the children? Was there not suffering enough 
 without attacking the child's pride? 
 
 In the Batavia system where the work of 
 two teachers is not needed the single teacher 
 carries the burden alone. And she does it well. 
 She does her individual work, and she does her 
 class work; and she does both equally well, in 
 equal intervals of time. She takes care of 
 
56 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 everybody and takes care of all; and she has no 
 need to blush for her results as compared with 
 those in the two-teacher rooms. The Batavia 
 rule is, fifty children or more, two teachers; 
 fewer than fifty, one teacher. 
 
 But how about an ungraded room for lag- 
 gards? Our doctrine is that any segregation 
 whatsoever is unnecessary, unwise, and unjust. 
 The ungraded room seems to us the most ob- 
 jectionable form of segregation. It is a quasi 
 penal institution, designed primarily for truants 
 and incorrigibles. And possibly it is the proper 
 means of treating juvenile delinquents. But 
 how about ''running in" children who have been 
 guilty of no offense whatever? children who 
 are only in trouble? and herding them in a penal 
 institution with criminals? How about sending 
 a child to "do time" simply because he has been 
 out a week or two with sickness? 
 
 I am not sure that even truancy and incorri- 
 gibility may not be reached best by the justice 
 and sympathy of the regular grade room. Even 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 57 
 
 violent incorrigibility is amenable to good 
 treatment; Botticelli's masterpiece represents 
 Lady Wisdom quieting the fierce centaur with 
 the hand of genuine friendship. The wild 
 creature is as amazed as a wild boy at finding 
 somebody entertaining kindly feeling for him. 
 
Chapter VIII 
 
 Independence Developed 
 
 But will not individual teaching train the 
 children to lean and depend upon others? No, 
 individual teaching will not do that; individual 
 spoiling will do it. The individual teachers of 
 Batavia train their subjects to self-confidence, 
 self-reliance, and initiative. The trainer in any- 
 physical exercise stays near his pupil; but he 
 throws the pupil to the utmost limit upon his 
 own exertions. The individual teacher is just 
 such a wise and efficient trainer. The real 
 education of the children consists in their train- 
 ing; and training is largely an individual matter. 
 It does not consist in assigning and hearing 
 lessons. That is the way of evading the labors 
 and duties of teaching; that is a way of calling 
 upon children to educate themselves. The in- 
 justice that is depopulating schools and break- 
 
 (58) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 59 
 
 ing down education, consists in asking multi- 
 tudes of unhappy children to educate them- 
 selves ; of asking them to perform the impossible. 
 There comes a time when the very discipline 
 that the child needs is to be required to address 
 himself to assigned work, and make his own 
 independent preparation. And every trained 
 child welcomes the requirement when it reaches 
 him in due course. When he can face assigned 
 work with confidence and zest, his education 
 and career are assured. Individual teaching 
 has its goal in self-activity; it is not a form of 
 education; it is only an essential factor, which 
 cannot be omitted without wholesale disaster. 
 If we would succeed we must recognize the 
 conditions and laws of success. The Batavia 
 system guards against any unwise or injudi- 
 cious help by two restricting *'don'ts": don't 
 tell the child anything but see that he knows 
 that thing; that is lead his mind; train his 
 attention and train his mind to perceive and 
 apprehend; second, don't do anything for the 
 
60 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 child, but see*hat his work is done by himself; 
 that is, train him to initiative, train him to find 
 the sequent steps in a process. This is to make 
 strong and stalwart, not weak. There is no 
 coddling in individual teaching; the severest 
 of training is that which is given at close range. 
 The individual teacher is fighting for a mind, 
 fighting for a career, and winning the battle 
 every time. It is great teaching; and it makes 
 great teachers; and great teachers can do great 
 teaching. It is great teaching because it is 
 real, because it is rooted and grounded in ob- 
 servation of real childish minds. There are 
 many people who dote upon the quick. Those 
 who bend their attention seriously to the prob- 
 lem of child study, as otir individual teachers 
 do, will find many reasons for the existence of 
 slow children. Among other things they are 
 sent to be our teachers; no normal school and 
 no teachers' college can illuminate the under- 
 standing and improve the skill of a teacher as 
 can a slow child. ''Out of the mouth of babes" 
 
 I 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 61 
 
 Cometh our instruction. It is the slow child 
 who opens the teacher's eyes, when she once 
 assumes that he is not a hopeless blockhead. 
 And a sympathetic teacher learns to thank the 
 momentary unresponsiveness of the child. 
 Where does she see her greatest triumphs? 
 Where does she find her highest gratifications? 
 Where does she recognize the causes of her 
 ripened wisdom and science? In the children 
 who once were slow; in the children who once 
 set her meditating; in the children who once 
 taxed her ingenuity; in the children who once 
 called out her last reserves. The greater the 
 struggle, the more obstinate the obstacle, the 
 greater the triumph. 
 
 But the slow child doe^ a higher service to 
 the teacher than opening her mind; he opens 
 her heart. The teacher cannot fail to love the 
 child whom she has won out of trouble. And 
 the teacher who has learned to love a child has 
 learned to love children. And the love of 
 children promotes that sympathy, tolerance. 
 
62 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 charity, which are the very crowns of human 
 character. Look over the world for the richest 
 and ripest character; it is the motjier who has 
 had the well-spring of her sympathies stirred, 
 who has poured out her life upon others; and 
 after all she is the richest of all. There is a 
 giving that impoverishes not, but mightily en- 
 riches the giver. This heart growth, this ripen- 
 ing of the sympathies, is the greatest reward 
 of all that comes to the teacher for being faith- 
 ful in the discharge of all her sacred duties. A 
 sweet benignity alone is the badge of noble and 
 successful living. And what a power this sweet 
 benignity has for evoking order, contentment, 
 good conduct. Order needs only a rallying 
 point. And wh^t a steady hand and clear eye 
 this sweet benignity has when it comes to weigh- 
 ing an offense; it never sees a mountain in a 
 molehill ; it never senses a hurricane in a zephyr. 
 And it always opens the door to reformation, 
 holding sentence in suspension. 
 
 The Batavia system has still another check 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 63 
 
 upon possibly injurious individual attention; 
 the teacher alone decides where her attention 
 will be given; she retains the initiative; the 
 children cannot "work" the teacher; they 
 have the comfort of knowing that their helper 
 will not forget them, but they cannot precipi- 
 tate the help. They struggle alone with pa- 
 tience until they are reached. And while noth- 
 ing is looked upon as invidious, yet they have 
 learned to look upon the struggling alone as a 
 compliment. While no one is exposed to dis- 
 couragement, on the other hand no one can feel 
 vain, for no one knows who will not be called. 
 The prodigy himself is subject to call, and he 
 often needs to be called. This individual work 
 is never employed on forthcoming lessons; the 
 Batavia system is not a coach for indolence, 
 laziness, or even timidity; it is employed solely 
 on children who revealed weakness in previous 
 lessons; it is employed solely on back work; it 
 is leading the children up to the lesson line, but 
 not taking them over it. And even the prodigy 
 
64 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 may at times be in arrears. It does under most 
 favorable circumstances what has been attempt- 
 ed before under most distressing circumstances. 
 It brings forward the laggard. Teachers have 
 attempted to bring him forward while a class 
 waited; such an attempt was ruin to the class 
 and actual torture to the laggard, even where 
 it did not end in deliberate persecution. 
 
 The elements of the system are not new; 
 individual teaching in some form, and class- 
 teaching, are as old as education. But there 
 are elements that cannot be taken singly with- 
 out great peril. Class-teaching alone is a side- 
 draught ; individual teaching alone is stagnation ; 
 together they are a system of thoroughly balanc- 
 ed forces that the Batavia system claims as 
 its principal merit. The high function of the 
 superintendent is to be eyes for his laboring 
 teachers and inspiration to their faithful hearts. 
 A school system sinking under neurasthenia 
 will furnish a world of employment to the 
 superintendent as a mediator in petty collisions. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 65 
 
 and leave him little time, strength, or scope for 
 functions truly educatioanl. One great result 
 of the Batavia system is the emancipation of 
 superintendents from details that should never 
 reach him, and his installment in the untram- 
 meled discharge of the real functions of high 
 office. The Batavia system tends to stop 
 multitudinous leaks, to arrest all waste of energy 
 and to promote every high and useful function. 
 
Chapter IX 
 
 Organization Humanized 
 
 The education that has broken down is the 
 education that has ignored the individual, or 
 reached him only through the mass, and reached 
 him then in the spirit of resentment, because 
 he obstructed the mass. That education is 
 now confronted with one that does not break 
 down; with one that secures the individual first 
 and reaches the mass later; with one that is 
 hospitable; with one that gathers the children 
 to its bosom instead of shaking them off; with 
 one that is fair, honest, and true. 
 
 The Batavia system humanizes organization; 
 it prevents organization from becoming a mere 
 machine. But machines are very helpful as 
 the servants of intelligence. The Batavia sys- 
 tem recognizes the great value of educational 
 machinery, but it sees to it that the education 
 
 (66) 
 
 I 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 67 
 
 of the children is not delegated to a machine, 
 but to intelligent and sympathetic human 
 beings. The individual teaching takes away 
 everything that is procrustean, and adapts its 
 energy to the infinite varieties of mind and 
 temperament. A cold machine treats all alike; 
 whereas what is thoroughly suitable for one 
 may be destructive violence to all the rest. 
 The forest leaves have their underlying type 
 forms, but no two leaves are exactly alike. No 
 two children are exactly alike. We fail in 
 teaching through our tendency to generalize; 
 we assume children that are not before us; there 
 are no average children, and yet generalized 
 education addresses itself to nothing else. If 
 we would educate a people we must address 
 ourselves to John, George, Mary, and Anna; not 
 to boys and girls. Boys and girls are but ghost- 
 ly abstractions; they are not beings of flesh and 
 blood. 
 
 A machine may aid in the manufacture of an 
 Indian shawl or rug, but when the machine 
 
68 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 makes the shawl or the rug, the value of the 
 product drops to the inverse ratio of a hundred 
 fold. You cannot grind out men and women 
 for the service of a state; nor can you grind out 
 men and women fitted to taste a real happiness. 
 Teaching is a fine art, and every man worth 
 looking at must bear the impress of some one's 
 loving attention. Teaching is a fine art be- 
 cause it is an adaptive art and a creative one; 
 it is a fine art because of its individualistic ap- 
 plication and because of its endeavor to realize 
 the noblest ideals. To treat children as a herd 
 is to render education a mechanism rather than 
 an art. 
 
 The Batavia system is the reverse of seeking 
 lines of least resistance. It attacks the points 
 of greatest resistance. It works from the bot- 
 tom up, instead of from the top, and never 
 getting down ; it works from the bottom up and 
 saves all, instead of working from the top and 
 shaking off all below the top line. But can all 
 work up? They can. There is such a thing 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 69 
 
 as a feeble minded or a defective child who will 
 not respond to ordinary teaching. But it is a 
 grievous error to class slow children with de- 
 fectives, to put the label of idiocy on people 
 who in a few years may be carrying on the 
 business of the world, and carrying it on with 
 most excellent judgment. 
 
 It is a grievous mistake to ascribe to natural 
 defectiveness a mere tardiness of response; it 
 may be the exact reverse; nature is very chary 
 of her Isaac Newtons, her Walter Scotts, her 
 U. S. Grants; she surrounds them with a thicker 
 bud, a richer chrysalis, that their emergence 
 may not be premature. 
 
Chapter X 
 
 Necessity of Graded Schools 
 
 To determine whether a school system is 
 working from the top or from the bottom, look 
 at the high schools. Would you insure the 
 perpetuity of free institutions, you must make 
 the high schools large and strong; you must 
 keep adolescence under training. The unity 
 and liberty of this great nation cannot be pre- 
 served by fourth grade children. Education 
 from the bottom is the only hope of the world; 
 education from the top has had its day. 
 
 But how about genius in a school system that 
 works from the bottom, and that would carry 
 all to a common goal? There is such a thing 
 as genius, just as there is such a thing as idiocy; 
 they are the extremes of mentality and spirit. 
 Genius cannot be predicated of all, but talent 
 can be. Genius is very well provided for when 
 
 (70) 
 
 I 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 71 
 
 it is associated with active talent. Active 
 talent massed is the greatest educational stimu- 
 lus for all, the genius as well as the rest. Genius 
 may be wrestling with his own tardy cerements, 
 and active talent massed helps him to tear them 
 off, and active talent then does him a service 
 by giving him something to keep up with. 
 
 The race-horse of education finds his needs 
 best supplied in a system that does not address 
 itself to race-horses. Education from the bot- 
 tom lifts the clogs successively and enables the 
 procession to move. The Batavia system 
 reaches the need of the race-horse by giving 
 him his rein and permitting him to move. It 
 ^ does not keep him champing on the bit and 
 fretting himself into an exhaustion infinitely 
 worse than any race. The Batavia system 
 does not ignore the race-horse; it even assigns 
 to him a very important function. He is per- 
 mitted to determine the rate of motion for the 
 mass; not that they are all put instantly on to 
 race-horse speed; but they form on him; he 
 
72 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 carries the guidon, as it were, and they all 
 conform to a pace which his energy is giving 
 them. Sometimes they even put him on his 
 mettle. The worst thing that could be done 
 for an educational race-horse would be to ask 
 him to go alone, or to go only with a company 
 of race-horses. 
 
 To destroy the graded school is to put back 
 the clock of time half a century. Segregation 
 of any kind is only the beginning of retrogres- 
 sion. The solution of the school question is in 
 a forward moving aggregation, and such a for- 
 ward moving aggregation is ensured by supple- 
 mentary individual teaching. But there are 
 instances where the same individual is at cnce 
 a leader and a laggard: that is, he is far ahead 
 in some subjects and backward in others. Such, 
 a case was a sore trial to the old graded school, 
 and it usually resulted in placing the pupil on 
 his lowest point of efficiency. Such cases do 
 not disturb the Batavia system at all ; the child 
 is placed at his highest point, very much to his 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 73 
 
 encouragement; he is worked up through his 
 backward matter by individual attention. Here- 
 in the needed flexibiUty is suppHed to the graded 
 school without destroying or marring its valuable 
 framework. When you are travelling it is well 
 to be able to look over a map of your journey. 
 The graded school is the map of childhood's 
 progress, fixing his exact location at any point 
 of time, and revealing the ultimate goal. This 
 supplies a great incentive to forward movement. 
 One distressing thing in the district school is the 
 lack of definite stages, and its lack of a definite 
 goal. The child's record is washed away like 
 footprints on the sands of the sea-shore, until 
 he becomes wearied of always slipping back, 
 and always beginning. Organization has worked 
 downward; to the four years of the college were 
 appended the four years of the preparatory or 
 high school; and the eight years of the graded 
 school finally put every child on the way to the 
 university. But under the operation of ex- 
 clusive class-teaching this noble framework 
 
74 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 became a procrustean bed, and we were rushing 
 from all over the world to effect its abolition. 
 The Batavia system saves the graded school; 
 it prevents retrogression. Forward, not back- 
 ward, must still be the motto of education, as 
 well as that of every other interest in the world. 
 Every teacher considers it an easy contract to 
 deliver any grade without a single gap in the 
 ranks. Prol6nged absence alone will now cause 
 a normal pupil to fail of covering his grade. 
 With individual teaching awaiting the absentee, 
 a moderate absence makes now not the slightest 
 disturbance. Under the old system such an 
 absence was disastrous; the sick child queried 
 whether it would make him lose his grade, and 
 the very query aggravated his illness. 
 
 And now let me close with a word of prescience 
 and prophecy from another. The Batavia 
 board of education hesitated not to make its 
 own precedent and to give to its children the 
 rescue which individual teaching alone can 
 supply. When asked to appoint the first in- 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 75 
 
 dividual teacher in the history of education; 
 after hearing the reasons therefor, they prompt- 
 ly appointed her unanimously. President D. 
 W. Tomlinson voiced the thought of all with an 
 alliterative utterance that will ring forever in 
 the literature of education: ''That is not only 
 a revelation but a revolution.'* 
 
Chapter XI 
 
 Benefits Summarized^ 
 
 Superintendent Kennedy was asked by a 
 reporter for The News to enumerate some of the 
 benefits derived from the individual instruction 
 system, which he originated, and the workings 
 of which in the Batavia schools have attracted 
 much attention throughout the country. 
 
 ''What are the benefits of individual instruc- 
 tion? They are legion. It would take columns 
 merely to state them. To discuss them would 
 require a literature. And I am sure that such 
 a literature is forthcoming. I am sure that the 
 introduction of individual instruction will rank 
 historically as one of the great reforms of this 
 age. People have long been aware of the evils 
 for which individual instruction is proving a 
 sovereign and effective remedy. But they have 
 
 *From the Batavia Daily News 
 
 (76) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 77 
 
 not seen the remedy. They have almost des- 
 paired of a remedy. 
 
 "Individual instniction eliminates about all 
 the pressure and over-strain in schoolwork that 
 have been destroying both children and teachers. 
 Where the corrective of individual instruction 
 has been introduced into graded schools the 
 teachers think that it is no longer possible for 
 either children or teachers to break down. It 
 has dispelled all the educational miasma, and 
 has irradiated the schools with the sunshine of 
 happiness. But it has carried sunshine into the 
 homes where chronic misery was wont to reign, 
 where threatened children carried home their 
 unready tasks to torture unready parents." 
 
Chapter XII 
 
 The First Individual Teacher 
 
 Lucie Hamilton, the firvSt teacher to use the 
 system, writes as follows. 
 
 Batavia as a name has long been recognized 
 to stand not only for a place but also as an 
 educational idea. The influence which the town 
 exerts finds its source and continued inspiration 
 in the originator of that idea. Through the 
 key note "Individual Instruction is the New 
 Ideal*' sounded by John Kennedy, we have 
 learned that the most successful teaching is 
 not done in classes but with individuals. 
 
 Our daily program moves on with increasing 
 momentum which carries the whole school 
 before it, with no excitement or hysteria, yet 
 with enough enthusiasm for self development. 
 
 As a teacher of some experience in the grades 
 of the Batavia schools under the old nerve- 
 
 (78) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 79 
 
 racking, energy-killing method and being the 
 first teacher to take up the work under the new 
 system, I speak in the interests of many over- 
 worked teachers and hundreds of children who 
 are not receiving adequate training. 
 
 The plan or system was devised by its origi- 
 nator from necessity and has as its foundation 
 facts. 
 
 Our success in the work proves that the 
 problem of removing the greatest difficulty in 
 the practical working of the graded school has 
 been removed. 
 
 In 1890 the writer was forced through ill 
 health, the result of over- work as a teacher 
 struggling with the difficulties inseparable from 
 the old-time system of class instruction, to 
 give up her work. In 1898 the Batavia System 
 was founded. At this time with health some- 
 what restored I was recommended by Mr. 
 John Kennedy to the position of first individual 
 instructor in the Batavia schools, which posi- 
 tion, however, was taken with some hesitancy 
 
80 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 on my part but with positive assurances of 
 success on Mr. Kennedy's part. 
 
 Assigned to an over-crowded room having 
 sixty-nine pupils, under the training of a single 
 teacher, whose health was rapidly failing, the 
 work began under the new plan in November, 
 1898. Possible dangers were foreseen by Prof. 
 Kennedy in connection with the work of the 
 individual teacher and there were possible mis- 
 apprehensions that might bring about criti- 
 cisms; so to us were given three Don'ts. 
 
 ' 'First, Don't tell a child anything but see 
 that he knows it." 
 
 "Second, Don't do anything for a child but 
 see that it is done." 
 
 "Third, Don't do anything upon a lesson 
 that has not been recited." 
 
 Through these "don'ts" the individual in- 
 structor guarded against the danger of doing 
 the work for the pupils instead of teaching them 
 how to do it. The individual teacher comes to 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 81 
 
 realize that the largest part of his work is to 
 huild and not repress. 
 
 From the first the originator of this system 
 declared that individual instruction would never 
 be the normal form of teaching but that child- 
 ren must be assembled in classes, drilled, trained 
 and educated in the presence of their classmates, 
 because they need the spur of competition. 
 But the results are not to be secured by class 
 instruction alone. The Batavia system dis- 
 closes the fact that children apparently defec- 
 tive are often those whose minds are brighter 
 than the average and for this reason require a 
 different and peculiar development which can 
 only be given by individual instruction. 
 
 Under the old system we mechanized the 
 work of instruction and training, made all 
 pupils do the same work at the same time, in 
 the same way. This was the tendency of 
 teachers who were young and inexperienced 
 and some times the tendency of teachers not 
 young and inexperienced. Then we scattered 
 
82 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 abundant seed but reaped but little or meager 
 harvest. We were careful of the type but 
 careless of the single life. 
 
 It is in individual work that a knowledge of 
 each pupil can be utilized. Teaching can thus 
 be adapted to special needs; patience with one, 
 firmness with another, trained attention here, 
 cultivation of memory there, stimulation of 
 confidence with some and a proper guidance 
 for all. Today under the new system we think 
 less of our schools and more about the hoy or 
 girl, knowing that the mass will take care of 
 itself if the individual is properly cared for. We 
 also get a proper recognition of the perso'nality 
 of the child through this work. The child has 
 a new value. The dull pupil, the laggard was 
 found and has been reached and in many cases 
 we see him the leader of his class. 
 
 Most satisfactory results have been secured 
 in the Batavia schools under the Batavia sys- 
 tem during these fifteen years. Each year, 
 during that time I have been anchored to a 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 83 
 
 given room in some one of our many schools; 
 sometimes to a two-teacher room with two 
 grades, then again to a room with two teachers 
 and one grade or perhaps one grade with one 
 teacher. Always the same satisfactory results, 
 seeing the system extended to the relief of many 
 rooms, receiving commendations and endorse- 
 ments from those who are foremost in educa- 
 tional work in the land. 
 
 But the system is not confined to the Batavia 
 schools. Several of our teachers have been 
 called to the colleges in other states to present 
 the work. Some few years ago a request came 
 from the University of Virginia at Charlottes- 
 ville, to Mr. Kennedy asking for two teachers 
 to be sent from the Batavia schools to present 
 the Batavia system to the teachers assembled 
 for summer school work at Charlotetsville. 
 
 Miss Martha Ferry, principal of one of the 
 Batavia schools and the writer of this article 
 were honored with the assignment to the work 
 for a period of six weeks. Great interest was 
 
84 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 manifested in the plan and its practical workings 
 with the seventy teachers who made up the 
 classes for class instruction and individual 
 work, and we left the University knowing that 
 the future fruits of our work would reflect 
 credit on the Batavia schools as a source of a 
 far reaching reform. From this experience of 
 15 years of individual instruction as a supple- 
 ment and corrective to class teaching I am 
 forced to regard it an imperative educational 
 reform. 
 
Chapter XIII 
 
 Experience of Another Individual Teacher 
 
 I have had eleven years experinece teaching 
 in the Batavia schools under the Batavia sys- 
 tem of Individual Instruction. Most of my 
 teaching has been done in the fifth and sixth 
 grades doing both class-teaching and individual 
 instruction myself. During this time the pupils 
 of these grades with the help of individual in- 
 struction, have not only been able to make one 
 grade in one year but some have gained two 
 grades in one year, the bright as well as the 
 slow child being helped. 
 
 I have also taught three summers in the 
 School of Observation in the University of 
 Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, Pa., demon- 
 strating the Batavia Individual Instruction 
 System. My work was visited and observed 
 by many superintendents, principals, teachers 
 
 (85) 
 
86 * THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 and students from the various parts of the 
 country who became so much interested that 
 many requests were made for literature per- 
 taining to the Batavia System and for daily 
 programs of the work of all the grades. These 
 were carefiilly studied and worked out in many 
 of the schools it was afterward reported that 
 the Batavia System had been adopted in their 
 
 schools. 
 
 Anna K Stein. 
 
 I 
 
Chapter XIV 
 
 Views of a New York Superintendent^^ 
 
 To the Honorable, the Board of Education: 
 Gentlemen: Your committee report: That 
 on the 13th and 14th inst they made an exhaus- 
 tive investigation into the general plan and 
 details of the methods of organization and in- 
 struction as now carried out in the schools of 
 Batavia, visiting every department in the central 
 school building, from the lowest grade primary 
 through the high school. 
 
 By request of the other members of your 
 committee your Superintendent remained two 
 full days, devoting three evenings to consulta- 
 tion involving every phase of the work, with 
 Superintendent Kennedy, visiting every school 
 room in the seven school buildings of the town, 
 observing minutely the plan of instruction in 
 
 * Report of Barney Whitney to the Ogdensburg board of 
 education 
 
 (87) 
 
88 . THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 every grade of the schools, and interviewing at 
 least thirty of the teachers. 
 
 Your committee without reserve express 
 their unqualified appreciation and approval of 
 the organization and methods pursued. 
 
 The entire absence of unrest, inattention, 
 listlessness, or any form of disorder on the part 
 of pupils; or of severity, reproof, or even refer- 
 ence to conduct or application on the part of 
 the teachers, was a most agreeable surprise. 
 No harshness, no reproaches or threats, no in- 
 vidious comparisons, no sarcasm or reproachful 
 remarks were observed nor would such treat- 
 ment be tolerated. So manifest were these 
 conditions that a representative of the Depart- 
 ment of Public Instruction, who had just closed 
 his visit to these schools, commending upon the 
 above, said to me on my arrival, "They have 
 no discipline in these schools." What he meant 
 was, it is the highest form of discipline. The 
 scholarship, intelligence, self-reliance, discipline, 
 cheerfulness, and devotion to wrok, surpassed 
 
 I 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 89 
 
 anything we ever heretofore observed. We 
 sought dihgently for the causes which lead to 
 such marked efficiency and are clear in our 
 judgment that they are attributable, mainly, 
 to the plan of organized individual instruction 
 as the supplement and corrective of exclusive 
 class instruction. 
 
 The great defect of our educational system 
 is in making complete provision for the masses 
 upon the false assumption of equality in the 
 nature, conditions and environment of children; 
 and its conspicuous failure to meet individual 
 needs by a disregard of the fact that the nature, 
 circumstances and environment of the children 
 are as various as the children themselves. 
 
 The remedy — the equity, the special means 
 of relief, in our educational system — ^is^to be 
 found in organized individual instruction as the 
 supplement and corrective of exclusive class 
 instruction. This is in the direction of the 
 present movement of education viz: ''Con- 
 structive Individualism." 
 
90 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 The Batavia experiment is based upon the 
 recognition of this principle. It assumes that 
 every normal child can be brought forward even 
 above the average, and be effectively educated. 
 It assumes that the worry, discouragement, 
 pressure and overstrain of teachers and pupils 
 may be practically eliminated from the school 
 room, and that nearly all can be promoted from 
 grade to grade, and that the incentives or neces- 
 sity for placing pupils beyond their grade rarely 
 occur. It claims that their system of instruc- 
 tion eradicates from the schools practically all 
 the dull pupils, the stupid, the laggards, and 
 that the bright pupils find it all they can do to 
 keep in touch — to keep up — with the hereto- 
 fore slow pupil. It was the purpose** of your 
 committee in their investigations to discover 
 the truth in relation to these claims. 
 
 The plan of instruction assumes two forms, 
 or rather is applied under two different condi- 
 tions. In over-crowded rooms an additional 
 teacher is employed to do silent work — indi- 
 
 I 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 91 
 
 vidual instruction — devoting her entire time to 
 this form of work; while the teacher in charge 
 devotes her entire time to class instruction. 
 We found not the slightest confusion or inter- 
 ruption of the two teachers in the same room. 
 This plan is ideal and unquestionably produces, 
 on the whole, a slightly higher degree of effi- 
 ciency. It saves the division of pupils and 
 providing an additional room; and a large num- 
 ber of pupils can be easily and satisfactorily 
 handled. There are six rooms thus supplied. 
 In rooms in which there are not more pupils 
 than one teacher can efficiently instruct, which 
 includes all rooms except the six mentioned, the 
 teacher gives both forms of instruction, devot- 
 ing one-half the time to each, the periods of 
 individual and class instruction in each subject 
 alternating. 
 
 This plan does in no way increase the teaching 
 force or expense. It works admirably and gives 
 excellent satisfaction. It secures vastly super- 
 ior results in every phase and condition of school 
 
92 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 work to the old plan of exclusive class instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 Not the slightest embarrassment or friction 
 attends this plan. Ample time is found for 
 accomplishing all the work. Pupils, by means 
 of individual instruction, rapidly acquire greater 
 ability in class instruction. The teacher, also 
 by the method pursued, acquires greater power 
 in class instruction and accomplishes more in, 
 the lessened ntimber of recitation periods than 
 could be obtained under the plan of exclusive 
 class instruction. 
 
 The special business of the individual teacher 
 is to find the weak spots in each individual pupil 
 and make them the strong spots. It is marvel- 
 ous what aptitude a slow, or so-called dull pupil, 
 manifests when discouragement is removed and 
 when once aroused to the consciousness of his 
 or her ability ; and such pupils almost invariably 
 assume a position among the strongest and most 
 reliable pupils in the class. We searched for 
 the slow and dull pupil, but failed to find one. 
 
 I 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 93 
 
 We inquired for pupils who were at first slow of 
 apprehension and apparently weak in the mas- 
 tery of a subject. We had such thoroughly 
 tested and were surprised at the clearness and 
 mastery of the subject in hand. 
 
 We had also pupils tested who were unusually 
 apt upon entering the schools, that we might 
 make a comparison in the work accomplished 
 and ability to clearly comprehend the work in 
 hand. We found little, if any, disparity in the 
 two classes of pupils. Indeed the stronger and 
 so-called bright pupils are more frequently found 
 among the aroused pupils who at first were slow 
 and possibly considered dull. It is the simplest 
 plan or method possible. It does not disturb 
 the organization of the school in the least; it 
 requires only a slight modification of the pro- 
 gramme. It is in harmony with the graded 
 system. It is only slightly modified in its ap- 
 plication. It is assumed that the best results 
 can be secured in and through the graded system 
 by a slight modification of it in its application. 
 
94 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 This plan of work is now and has been for 
 nearly three years in complete operation in all 
 the schools, primary, grammar and high school. 
 The testimony of every teacher is, without the 
 slightest hesitation or reservation, pronounced 
 in favor of the present plan of organization and 
 instruction. A proposition to abandon the 
 present mode of instruction and return to the 
 former plan would be met with the most em- 
 pahtic protest from the teachers, pupils and 
 patrons. 
 
 The doctrine of ministration, personal service, 
 has found its way into their schools. Too ex- 
 clusive administration, regulating, dictating, 
 has been the bane of our public schools. A new 
 dispensation of service is dawning upon our 
 educational system. 
 
 The walls of every room in the grades are 
 literally lined with written work embracing 
 every subject of instruction in the respective 
 grades. This work is of a higher order of ex- 
 cellence than is to be found in any class of schools 
 we have ever examined. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 95 
 
 We are fully prepared from an examination 
 of the written work, the class exercises and tests 
 given, together with the record in the high school 
 to accept the united testimony of superintendent 
 and teachers, that, with rare exceptions, all 
 pupils can be moved simultaneously from grade 
 to grade and that by their plan of instruction, 
 semi-annual promotions and doubling of classes 
 in a grade are unnecessary. 
 
 The increased standings obtained in Regents* 
 examinations in the high school the past year, 
 i. e., the number who passed, the number re- 
 ceiving honors and the number receiving 100 
 in many of the advanced subjects were 50 per 
 cent, higher than the year before. These 
 results I took from the records of the institution. 
 They are attributable directly to the influence 
 of individual instruction. 
 
 The plan is so simple that it can be introduced 
 into any school room, and any conscientious, 
 progressive, and intelligent teacher can secure 
 incomparably better results than by the plan 
 of exclusive class instruction. 
 
96 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 This plan of instruction, instead of producing 
 dependence, as is sometimes erroneously suppos- 
 ed, produces just the reverse. We have never 
 seen more independent thinking and self-reliant 
 pupils than in the Batavia schools. 
 
 This experiment is attracting wide-spread 
 attention. At the State Council of superin- 
 tendents in New York state, last October, and 
 at the recent National Superintendents' meeting 
 in Chicago, at both of which Superintendent 
 Kennedy was invited to present this matter, 
 intense interest has been aroused. Dr. G. Stan- 
 ley Hall, president of the Clark university said: 
 "Individual instruction sounds the key-note of 
 education for the next decade." 
 
 State Superintendent Skinner has officially 
 endorsed the plan. The Department of Public 
 Instruction and Department of the Regents 
 sent representatives to Batavia. They un- 
 qualifiedly endorsed the plan. 
 
 F. Thiselton Mark, Professor of Pedagogy, 
 Birmingham, England, was sent to this country 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 97 
 
 last year as a representative of the English 
 government, to inspect certain phases of school 
 work in our country. He examined with great 
 care the organization and methods at Bataiva 
 and gave them his emphatic endorsement and 
 said: "These methods will revolutionize the 
 schools of England." 
 
 This method is now being introduced into the 
 schools in the vicinity of Batavia, and other 
 localities are arranging to introduce the same 
 method. 
 
 Your committee, therefore, unaimously re- 
 commend the immediate introduction of indi- 
 vidual instruction as the supplement and cor- 
 rective of class instruction into such school rooms 
 as can be under immediate personal supervision 
 of the Superintendent with a view to its further 
 introduction in the near future into all the public 
 schools of the city. 
 
Chapter XV 
 
 A Philadelphia View"^ 
 
 This is the story of what came from a crowded 
 schoolroom in the pleasant town of Batavia, in 
 western New York. Back of it is the rare com- 
 mon sense of one thoughtful mind incorporate 
 in a man by the name of John Kennedy. In 
 front of it lies a well-nigh limitless sweep of 
 possibilities, which, by a simple change in the 
 present system of public education, may be 
 productive of benefits beyond value to mankind. 
 
 I call it the story of a crowded schoolroom 
 because it was such that gave John Kennedy 
 his opportunity to make a practical test of a 
 theory he had evolved after many years of ex- 
 perience as a teacher in public schools. 
 
 He saw that education was not educating. 
 
 * Leigh Hedges in the Philadelphia North American. The 
 article begins with a quotation from Prof. O'Shea of the Uni- 
 versity of Wisconsin. 
 
 (98) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 99 
 
 but he didn't sit by and sigh because of this. 
 He went to work with that one tool a man has 
 which will carve destiny — his brain. And after 
 he'd thought it all out, the chance came just as 
 it always does. 
 
 Opportunity is ever waiting around the corner 
 for the man who uses his gray matter. 
 
 In 1898 John Kennedy was superintendent 
 of schools in Batavia. He is yet, despite offers 
 of positions at increased salary. In November 
 of that year — mark the date, for the time may 
 come when the other events of that cycle, his- 
 toric as they were, will sink into comparative 
 insignificance beside this — a certain room in 
 the public schools was overflowing with boys 
 and girls. It was not actually crowded; indeed, 
 it would have held more than were in it, but 
 there were too many pupils for the one teacher. 
 
 As the room space was large enough to ac- 
 commodate more children, the superintendent 
 resolved to suggest to the Board of Education 
 a bold experiment in education. He advised 
 
100 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 the board not to remove the excess of children, 
 but to bring in a second teacher to bring for- 
 ward the laggards by means of individual in- 
 struction. 
 
 He argued that this would lift the strain en- 
 tirely from the class teacher and give her all 
 the relief she needed; that it would free the 
 class work from all clogging and enable it to 
 move freely, smoothly and steadily forward; 
 that it would bring many unhappy children out 
 of pitiful and dangerous distress; that it would 
 remove worry from both children and teacher, 
 conducing to the health, happiness, confidence 
 and ambition of all; that it would substitute 
 complete success for failure, and that it would 
 reduce the expense of carrying on schools. 
 
 He told me the other day the members of that 
 board at first looked at him as if doubtful for 
 the moment of his sanity. 
 
 Two teachers in one room! Who ever heard 
 of such a thing! And how in the world could 
 such a simple innovation be productive of re- 
 sults so radical and far-reaching! 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 101 
 
 But they believed in the man standing before 
 them, and they adopted his recommendation. 
 Somehow the importance of the step they were 
 authorizing seemed to be apparent to them, 
 and after they had formally launched the new 
 idea, and recovered from the effects of the shock 
 the president said, "Gentlemen, this is not only 
 a revelation, but a revolution/' 
 
 The names of the historic board who appoint- 
 ed the first individual teacher in the history of 
 education are D. W. Tomlinson, J. J. Wash- 
 burn, John Holley Bradish, John M. McKenzie, 
 Robert B. Pease and Hobart B. Cone. I think 
 that not only the history of education but also 
 the history of humanity, civil order and civil 
 liberty will yet make appropriate record and 
 grateful mention of the service of John Kennedy 
 and these men. 
 
 The woman they appointed was Miss Lucie 
 Hamilton. She had been completely worn out 
 by a life of teaching in public schools. When 
 Professor Kennedy approached her with the 
 
102 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 proposition, she looked at him in amazement. 
 
 ''What do you mean?" she gasped. "Why, 
 I'm a nervous and physical wreck from teach- 
 ing!'^ 
 
 "I mean that I want you to begin this work 
 next Monday as a personal favor to me," he 
 answered, "and to continue it after a month's 
 trial as a personal favor to yourself!" 
 
 So this Batavia system — it is now known as 
 that the world over — was to be of benefit to 
 teachers as well as children. 
 
 Miss Hamilton's instructions were, find the 
 most backward children and make them the 
 most forward. She has been doing this for 
 nearly eight years now; she doesn't know she 
 has such a thing as a nerve, and the system of 
 which she was the first expositor has transformed 
 the schools in Batavia and become the foremost 
 in the broad realm of education. 
 
 She has proved beyond all question that 
 whole grades can be lined up and moved for- 
 ward without perceptible dragging and without 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 103 
 
 any losses at all. She has proved that education 
 can educate. She has proved that physical, 
 intellectual and moral tragedy may be entirely 
 eliminated from education, and that no one need 
 look upon a schoolhouse with a shudder. 
 
 When she entered upon her work the room 
 contained fifty-four pupils. It has since -con- 
 tained as high as eighty-five, very much to the 
 gratification of all concerned. And so well has 
 she performed her assigned function that after 
 she has found the most backward children it 
 becomes impossible for other people to find 
 them. 
 
 Just what is this system which has so interest- 
 ed the world as to bring to Batavia every week 
 representatives of schools from various parts 
 of the country and other countries as remote 
 as the Argentine Republic and Japan? 
 
 Briefly it is as follows: In schoolrooms with 
 an enrolment of from fifty to eighty children 
 two teachers are employed. One of these is 
 the class teacher, who gives instruction to the 
 
104 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 classes, conducts the recitations, and is respon- 
 sible for the maintenance of discipline, the 
 keeping of records and the general machinery 
 of the school. 
 
 The other teacher in a way is co-ordinate 
 with the class teacher, but she uses all her time 
 in working at a desk with individual pupils who 
 are found by the class teacher to be backward 
 or who, for any reason, are failing to keep up 
 their standing in the class. 
 
 By this method the two teachers work as one ; 
 they recognize that the work of the school is a 
 dual process, in which both teachers play an 
 important part. The one supplements the 
 work of the other; the work of recitation does 
 not drag, while the child who is weak or needs 
 assistance knows where and how to get it under 
 the best and most helpful conditions. 
 
 In schoolrooms with the usual number of 
 pupils, from thirty to forty-five, the teacher 
 divides her time, taking half for class and half 
 for individual instruction. In this way the 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 105 
 
 plan works as well as with two teachers, and the 
 efficiency of the school is materially increased 
 instead of being lessened. 
 
 The Bat a via system assumes that a normal 
 child is able to do the work of the school, pro- 
 viding the school is carried on normally and 
 under equitable conditions. It is based on two 
 Don'ts: 1, don't tell the child anything, but see 
 that he discovers it for himself; 2, don't do any- 
 thing for him, but see that he does it for himself. 
 
 It does away with putting the "square boy 
 into the round hole and the round boy into the 
 square hole." It maintains the grades of the 
 school without inflexibility and gives all the 
 advantages of the graded system without its 
 grind and usual want of adjustability. 
 
 The anaemic and neurasthenic child has a 
 chance to go to school and get the education 
 to which he is entitled without the draft on his 
 body which prevents natural growth and with- 
 out the nervous dread of failure to make promo- 
 tion which bears so heavily on some children. 
 
106 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 The plan enables the school to do its best 
 work in school hours. The home is relieved 
 of the burden entailed by having to give the 
 child additional instruction there. Under the 
 Batavia plan the school prepares to meet the 
 failures of the child in a rational and intelligent 
 way: with the result that when the school day 
 is over the child goes home to spend his time 
 in recreation or other employment, confident 
 that he can meet the demands of his school 
 successfully on the morrow. 
 
 This plan brings the school in touch with 
 the child in a way not often realized through 
 the ordinary method. The teacher discovers 
 facts of temperament, environment and circum- 
 stances affecting progress rarely if ever ascer- 
 tained in the usual run of school life. The 
 method invites confidence. The child comes 
 to know the ground upon which he stands, and 
 will respond to the efforts of the teacher to help 
 him in a way usually wholly unexpected. 
 
 ''Since we introduced the Batavia system," 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 107 
 
 said Professor Kennedy to me, "we are seeing 
 our slow ones springing to the front and leading 
 the companies. We are almost inclined to 
 think that slowness of mind is an evidence 
 prima facie of latent superiority. At any rate, 
 we take the children just as they come to us 
 from the hands of their Maker, and we make 
 no invidious comparisons or distinctions. We 
 say to all the children: 'Come let us climb.* 
 And they climb ; every one of them. We never 
 break a grade. 
 
 "They have done such fine climbing since 
 we introduced the system that they have flooded 
 our high schools and all our upper grades. We 
 are growing where we should grow — at the top. 
 The increase in our first primary grade this year 
 is less than 2 per cent. The increase in all our 
 grades, including the first primary, exceeds 10 
 per cent. That is due to climbing and I can 
 scarcely take you into any class that is not 
 black with boys." 
 
 The schoolrooms in which there are two 
 
108 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 teachers are just like those we have all been 
 used to except that they have two teachers' 
 desks instead of one. The whole system is 
 founded on such a simple idea that one going 
 through the Batavia schools and seeing what 
 wonders have been wrought cannot keep back 
 the question, "Why didn't some one think of it 
 before?" 
 
 In one room I visited, while the regular class 
 teacher went on with her work, a boy of 1 1, with 
 a strong suspicion of trouble on his face, walked 
 to the desk of the individual teacher to be helped 
 out of a difficulty. Under the ordinary system 
 this lad would have been compelled to wait 
 for assistance until the pending recitation was 
 finished or possibly until the end of the day's 
 session, when a tired teacher would have done 
 her best to aid him. 
 
 Now, however, there awaited him a sweet- 
 faced woman who was there for the very purpose 
 of giving him the lift he needed. And how did 
 she do this? By speaking a few words of wis- 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 109 
 
 dom? No. She asked him a question which 
 brought a frown to his face. He couldn't 
 answer it, so she asked him another, but with 
 the same result. Then came a third and a 
 fourth, but no more. The fourth had touched 
 the magic spot and the boy's answer, accompan- 
 ied by a smile that told the whole story, showed 
 that it was all smooth sailing, at least for the 
 present. 
 
 The class had not been interrupted in the 
 least ; the boy was unfettered and ready to keep 
 step with his companions, and the second teach- 
 er was ready for the next seeker. 
 
 And it is not only in the schoolroom or/ in 
 school work that this system is showing re- 
 markable results. You see it on the streets 
 of Batavia. When I first visited the place, and 
 before I had ever heard of such a thing as its 
 system of education, I was impressed with the 
 general good behavior of the boys on the streets. 
 There was such a lack of rowdyishness that I 
 remarked upon the fact to a resident. 
 
no THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 ''That's due to the Batavia system," he said. 
 
 I had gone up there to report a heresy trial, 
 but I remained to look into this notable innova- 
 tion which has aptly been called by some one 
 "Educational Christianity' ' . 
 
 Titusville and Hazelton have adopted it 
 officially. In many places in Ohio, Wisconsin,, 
 Illinois and other Western and Northern states, 
 and in Canada it has proved as much of a suc- 
 cess as in the town of its birth, and at present 
 New York city is investigating it with a view to 
 its adoption. 
 
 And in the meantime John Kennedy is flooded 
 with invitations to go here, there and the other 
 place to introduce this plan of untold possi- 
 bilities which has for its parents his brain and 
 a crowded schoolroom, and may yet prove to 
 be the panacea for many of our modem ills. 
 
 I 
 
Chapter XVI 
 
 Views of a Michigan Superintendent* 
 
 To the honorable Board of Education: 
 Gentlemen — Something over a year ago, in 
 connection with the matter of some overcrowded 
 rooms, I brought to your notice the possibility 
 of taking care of the rooms according to the 
 so-called ''Batavia Plan" of individual instruc- 
 tion. At that time it was decided to be expe- 
 dient to relieve the difficulty in another way. 
 Since then several members of the board have 
 expressed themselves as much interested in the 
 plan. Therefore I took the opportunity, while 
 visiting Batavia as a member of your special 
 committee to examine a number of modern 
 school buildings, to look very carefully into the 
 workings of the Batavia plan. 
 
 Report of Supt. E. D. Palmer to the West Bay City Board 
 of Education 
 
 (111) 
 
112 THE BAT AVI A SYSTEM 
 
 The public school grew out of the principle 
 that the citizens of a republic must be educated 
 to be safe administrators of its affairs, while 
 the graded form the schools have taken came 
 from the necessity of furnishing progressive 
 stages of educational work for the children of 
 the schools, that many might be engaged on 
 the same work at the same time under the direc- 
 tions of the same teacher — a question chiefly 
 of economy, of effort and of money. 
 
 It was always known that children were riot 
 all alike in aptitude nor in capacity; but the 
 most of them were enough alike in many ways 
 to make gradation and a certain degree of uni- 
 form progress possible. But because its ad- 
 ministrators while they recognized and deplored 
 saw no way to obviate it, the difference in indi- 
 vidual children — the genius and the slow child 
 alike — was ignored in the system. While every 
 teacher — every teacher with a heart — for a 
 time struggles to save the child that is different, 
 that has any originality of character, at length 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 113 
 
 she succumbs to the current and is overborne, 
 and with a heart full of anguish sees the children 
 for whom she spends and is spent, drift out of 
 teach, out of school, and out to sea. 
 
 Nor have prominent educators been less con- 
 cerned, but they found the condition existing 
 when they began their work, they have sought 
 diligently for a remedy, and in despair the most 
 of them have settled down to the conviction 
 that there is no cure, and content themselves 
 with trying to render the suffering as tolerable 
 as possible; while a few go further and affirm 
 that some persons are foreordained to a mental 
 damnation, as it has been believed some were 
 to a moral. The consistent sequence of which 
 is that the earlier the teacher discovers those 
 predestined to mental death and precipitates 
 the end, the better for the elect and the school 
 at large. 
 
 Meantime some noble souls have clung to the 
 idea that there are no dull pupils, if teachers 
 were but wise enough to know how to reach 
 
114 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 them. Teachers have tried various expedients; 
 detaining pupils after school to help them 
 (which could hardly be separated in the child's 
 mind from a benevolent sort of punishment), 
 sparing a few minutes during the day to help 
 some struggling one, setting aside a period in 
 the programme for individual help, taking 
 occasionally a class period for assisting children 
 at their desks, assigning an advanced pupil to 
 show younger ones, and so on. 
 
 A few attempts at the solution of the problem 
 of the backward pupil are more noteworthy 
 than the rest. The German "blocking system" 
 of alternating class and study-periods is an old 
 one. The "pupil-teacher system" of England 
 has attracted much attention, a kind of cadet 
 system, in which pupils of the upper class regu- 
 larly assist in the school work, receiving a small 
 compensation. A plan tried at Hartford, Conn. , 
 was to select the most backward of each room 
 for a class and assign them to a separate teacher 
 who would try to bring up the awkward squad 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 115 
 
 so it coiild inarch with the rest of the company. 
 At Providence, Rhode Island, the plan went 
 farther and all backward pupils of a building 
 were assembled in one room in charge of a teach- 
 er who did what she could for them, thus al- 
 lowing the brighter pupils to go unhampered. 
 This might be called the **hospital-for-crippled 
 minds plan". There must be a good deal of 
 inspiration and soul-uplift for the children set 
 aside in a room under those conditions! 
 
 Then there is the Batavia plan. It is so 
 radically different from the others, and the 
 literature on the subject is so misleading, that 
 a rather careful examination of its history and 
 method is necessary, which is fully justified by 
 the results it can show. The Batavia system 
 is (like the graded school system as a whole) 
 also an evolution. A little over five years ago 
 a second and third grade room became over- 
 crowded. It had been overcrowded before and 
 had always been relieved in the usual ways, 
 by forcing a few children into the next grade, or 
 
116 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 organizing a new room. The superintendent 
 proposed to place a second teacher in the room, 
 one teacher to take the classes and the other to 
 help individuals. Thus the Batavia experiment 
 began. 
 
 The plan worked. When another room be- 
 came overcrowded the same arrangement was 
 made, until now the plan pervades the whole 
 system of schools — that is to say, in six of about 
 24 grade rooms two teachers carry. on the alter- 
 nation of class and individual instruction, while 
 in the other 18 rooms there is a single teacher 
 doing the same thing. Perhaps I should say, 
 to prevent a misconception, that two teachers 
 to a room is not an essential part of the Batavia 
 plan. It can be operated just as well with one 
 teacher, but with two teachers there is an econ- 
 omy of expenditure for equipment, heating, 
 etc., as it dispenses with an extra room. The 
 two-teacher arrangement is the most conspic- 
 uous thing to a superficial observer, and the 
 word has gone out that the Batavia plan con- 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 117 
 
 sists in putting two teachers in a room. I dare 
 say that this very thing has put back its general 
 adoption for five years. On the face of it two 
 teachers to a room in most cities on a general 
 scale is out of the question, and superintendents, 
 understanding this to be essential, will not give 
 the cause a hearing. As a matter of fact, when 
 I went to examine the system I thought the 
 general theory of individual instruction an 
 ideal one, but was skeptical as to its applica- 
 bility to a system like ours. I went to investi- 
 gate upon the simple faith that ''what man hath 
 done, man can do.*^ The first room I visited 
 had but one teacher; I asked to see her pro- 
 gramme; I watched her work; then the whole 
 matter was clear, I saw one teacher at work 
 with one grade, two teachers with one grade, 
 two teachers with two grades, and* one teacher 
 with two grades, and I am convinced that a 
 room that one teacher can handle with our 
 present system can be handled with the Batavia 
 system, with better results and with less demand 
 both on the children and on the teacher. 
 
118 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 The central idea is a stated period for indi- 
 vidual instruction to alternate with class work. 
 The class work is necessary as a tonic ; the child 
 needs it that he may measure himself by others ; 
 he needs it for the audience it gives when he 
 recites; and the teacher needs it as a means of 
 determining results. The individual instructor 
 is necessary for the child that can not yet ex- 
 press himself intelligibly in class; for the child 
 that has not learned how to study, or whose 
 power of concentration has not been trained; 
 for the child that is discouraged or diffident; 
 for the child that is slow to catch a point and 
 has not a ready answer in class. Some children 
 come to the individual instructor for a single 
 lesson; some come regularly for several days; 
 some seldom or never come. Her time is for 
 those who need it most. 
 
 The relation between the two teachers in a 
 room is interesting and vital. Neither is an as- 
 sistant. They are co-ordinate in their work; 
 but the responsibility of discipline and adminis- 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 119 
 
 tration is lodged with one of them — sometimes 
 with the class teacher, sometimes with the in- 
 dividual teacher. 
 
 When one teacher has one grade, her pro- 
 gramme is arranged with alternate periods of 
 classes and individual work. When two teach- 
 ers have one grade it is divided into two sections 
 doing the same work, and is operated in all 
 respects like two grades; one teacher does all the 
 class work and the other all the individual work. 
 The programme of the class teacher looks 
 exactly like our programmes, with two sections 
 in a room. The individual teacher simply, 
 does the work of the subject that recites next. 
 With one teacher and two grades the classes 
 recite alternate days. 
 
 As to results, let me summarize them: (1) 
 There are no pupils that fail to pass. (2) 
 Children of the grades do not have to take home 
 books to study. (3) The teachers are happy 
 and so are the children. (4) Absence from 
 school has been greatly reduced. (5) The 
 
120 THE B ATA VI A SYSTEM 
 
 grammar grades are as full as the lower grades 
 except for the difference in mortality. (6) 
 Discipline nearly takes care of itself. (7) There 
 is no scolding or sharp word for failure in class. 
 (8) The work on all subjects in all grades is 
 remarkably uniform, showing that there are no 
 longer any backward pupils. (9) The high 
 school has doubled in three years. 
 
 There are a number of questions that are in- 
 variably asked me by those with whom I have 
 talked of this matter. Some of these I have 
 answered above. Others are these: 
 
 The business man asks: **How about the 
 expense?" In Batavia they are saving $2,000 
 a year by the plan. With one teacher in a 
 room there would of course be no difference. 
 With two teachers and 75 or 80 pupils in a room 
 heating, janitor, etc. 
 
 The teacher asks: "Does it not mean more 
 work?" No, less. First, worry is gone, and 
 worry kills more than work. If a pupil does 
 not understand the work in hand, or is absent. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 121 
 
 the teacher does not worry, and the class time 
 is riot taken up with explanations that the others 
 are not interested in. Then, since there is no 
 time .wasted in needless explanations, in the 
 class, the teacher does not feel driven for time 
 and can get more done with less friction. The 
 same thing applies when the same teacher is 
 alternately class teacher and individual in- 
 structor, while at the same time the alternating 
 work rests her. 
 
 Another asks: ''Are specially constructed 
 buildings needed?" No, but if two teachers 
 are to be employed the rooms should be a little 
 larger. A new eight-room ward school nearly 
 ready for service at Batavia, and the only one 
 constructed with this system in view, has rooms 
 26x35 feet, the same length and only a foot 
 wider than in our Kolb school. These will be 
 opened with one teacher in a room. If condi- 
 tions require it, they are large enough for two 
 teachers. 
 
 "Is not the bright pupil overlooked in this 
 
122 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 plan?" No. He needs no individual help ex- 
 cept at rare intervals, but the removal from 
 his neck of the killing weight of the slow pupil 
 allows him to go his gait. The old system kills 
 the spirit of the ambitious, quick boy, who 
 must barely creep to allow his slower brother 
 to keep up, and so he dawdles along and becomes 
 ruined as a student, for he has no incentive. 
 
 ''Does not individual instruction make the 
 backward pupil dependent?" No. The in- 
 structor has it in her hands to control that. The 
 help she gives, or should give, is the help of 
 teaching how to study. 
 
 ''Can the plan be used in the high school?" 
 Yes. It has been in the Batavia high school 
 for two years. 
 
 "Can it be applied in West Bay City?" Yes. 
 as well as anywhere, but it should be introduced 
 gradually, as teachers catch its spirit and under- 
 stand its methods. Our semi-annual promo- 
 tions would need to be abandoned, which could 
 not be done suddenly. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING ' 123 
 
 ''Are other cities adopting the plan?" Yes. 
 Racine, Wisconsin, has just adopted it in full. 
 Titusville, and Hazelton, Pa., Ashtabula, Ohio, 
 Peterborough and Montreal, in Canada, Ogdens- 
 burg, N. Y., and other places are working under 
 this plan. New York City and Buffalo are 
 are taking the matter up, while educators 
 everywhere are talking about it or going 
 to investigate. I have here letters, reports, 
 newspaper and magazine articles, all to the 
 same effect, which I must not take the time to 
 read to you, but which are at your service. 
 
 In conclusion, gentlemen, I have the honor — 
 and I esteem it highly — to recommend that the 
 "Batavia plan" of individual instruction be 
 adopted for the West Bay City schools, to be 
 introduced gradually, as the way opens. Should 
 this board approve the system, West Bay City 
 will be the first city in Michigan to inaugurate 
 it, and its operation here is sure to be watched 
 with much interest. 
 
Chapter XVII. 
 
 Testimony of a Batavia Principal"^ 
 
 Many people have asked me to give testi- 
 mony regarding the benefits of individual in- 
 struction in public school teaching on the plans 
 promulgated by Mr. Kennedy and as introduced 
 by him into the Batavia schools. 
 
 I have invariably stated that it is the only 
 scientific and practical method of conducting 
 the schools and it is due to this system that the 
 Batavia schools take the rank to which by 
 practical educators they are assigned. From 
 my experience it is the only method which 
 reduces the friction in school rooms, lessens 
 the labor of the teachers, and promotes a higher 
 average of scholarship in the grades. 
 
 It has been my pleasure as well as my good 
 fortune to have served under Mr. Kennedy at 
 
 *From Martha Ferry, Principal of Washington Avenue 
 School, Batavia 
 
 (124) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 125 
 
 the very inception of this system and to have 
 seen its growth until it has now become estab- 
 lished and successful. I have taught in rooms 
 with one teacher and with two teachers and 
 have had good results under both conditions. 
 
 I was much pleased to be one of two teachers 
 who went to Charlottesville, Virginia, to demon- 
 strate the system in the summer school at the 
 University there; and fropi letters received after 
 my return I believe it was accepted with favor. 
 
 As principal of one of the largest grade schools 
 here I can bear testimony to the system's worth 
 and value both to the pupils and to the teachers. 
 
Chapter XVIII 
 
 An Indiana View* 
 
 Sup't J. K. Beck of the city schools, who is 
 always on the lookout for the best interests of 
 the Bloomington schools, has made his report 
 to the school trustees on the instruction system 
 used in the Batavia (New York) schools. The 
 school board after hearing the report has decided 
 to adopt the system here, which is best explained 
 in Mr. Beck's report which the World publishes 
 in full. * * * 
 
 ''Resolution of the Board: 'It is hereby re- 
 solved that this Board accepts the superinten- 
 dent's report; heartily and unanimously en- 
 dorses the Batavia plan; and orders its intro- 
 duction into the eight elementary grades of the 
 public schools as rapidly as possible.' 
 William A. Rawles 
 
 Secretary Board of Education 
 Bloomington, Indiana. 
 
 *From the Bloomington, Ind., Evening World 
 (126) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 127 
 
 The adoption of the Batavia system called 
 out from Walter Bradfute of the Bloomington 
 Telephone the following comments. 
 
 "It is not often a more interesting or impor- 
 tant article appears in the Telephone than that 
 of yesterday on the Batavia system to be intro- 
 duced into the Bloomington schools, signed by 
 Professor Rawles, secretary of our school board. 
 If half promised is accomplished, it will be a 
 lasting blessing — in these later days when going 
 to school seems often a method of punishment 
 more than to benefit the child. The absurd 
 'high standing' theory has driven about half 
 of our children out of the schools at the age 
 when they should be there doing the most good. 
 It should be made a crime, punished by the law, 
 for any child in the lower grades to be compelled 
 to study out of school hours. When only a 
 small per cent, of all the children even get into 
 the high school it's time somebody had the 
 practical sense to ask the question — why? 
 When less than 10 in 100 boys and girls go higher 
 
128 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 than the grades — is it the fault of the child or 
 the system? 
 
 **What per cent, of our own boys are high 
 school graduates? Then why? Little children 
 carrying home their books to study at night — 
 afraid of 'red marks' — it's too absurd to think 
 about. 
 
 **The new system that our school board pro- 
 poses to introduce has every mark of common 
 sense, and it looks like it was formulated by 
 somebody who thought more of the child and 
 its welfare than 'higher education' and the fads 
 that land 99 out of 100 outside the college walls. 
 
 **So we say that in introducing this new school 
 system of only common sense, Prof. Beck and 
 our school board will have the thanks and ap- 
 preciation of parents generally in this commu- 
 nity." 
 
Chapter XIX 
 
 A Wisconsin Adoption 
 
 The schools of Racine, Wis., have themselves 
 become a model to be studied by educators on 
 account of the adoption of the "Batavia Sys- 
 tem," as will be seen by the following excerpt 
 from a recent issue of the Racine News: 
 
 'Tor years the schools of Racine have been 
 a source of pride to the residents of the beautiful 
 Belle City of the lakes, but of later years this 
 pride has become more marked, and justly so. 
 Whenever anything new is brought up in educa- 
 tional circles it catches the eye of the local 
 public school officials and if they find it to be 
 possessed of merit it is adopted without delay. 
 One example of this is the individual system of 
 instruction adopted here some time ago, and it 
 has proven most gratifyingly successful. This 
 system was in vogue in Batavia, N. Y., and the 
 
 (129) 
 
130 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 school commissioners desiring to have a thorough 
 investigation made into its merits appointed a 
 committee of competent educators to make a 
 trip of inspection through the schools of the 
 eastern city. Their report was a favorable 
 one and the consequence was that the system 
 was introduced here. Since that time educators 
 from other cities have been here to inspect this 
 method of instruction and men prominently 
 identified with the school work in Racine have 
 made speeches on the subject in other cities." 
 
Chapter XX 
 
 A Revelation and a Revolution* 
 
 ".This is not only a revelation but a revolu- 
 tion." 
 
 These were the words of President Daniel 
 W. Tomlinson of the Batavia Board of Educa- 
 tion, spoken one November evening in 1898 
 when Professor John Kennedy closed the first ex- 
 position that he ever made of the principles of 
 Individual Instruction. Those present were, 
 besides President Tomlinson, J. J. Washburn, 
 Robert B. Pease, John Holley Bradish, John 
 M. McKenzie and Herbert B. Cone, together 
 with P. P. Bradish who was clerk of the Board. 
 
 It was a strange and unprecedented sugges- 
 tion that Professor Kennedy had made. In 
 the central school building there was an over- 
 crowded room, causing work too great for the 
 
 ^Chester E. Piatt, editor Batavia Evening Times 
 (131) 
 
132 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 teacher. The method* of the past had been in 
 such cases to divide the room and provide an- 
 other teacher. The conviction came to. Pro- 
 fessor Kennedy that another room was not 
 needed. 
 
 For many years he had been studying the 
 problems of education. He had known the 
 evils of class instruction. He had seen teachers 
 break down under the strain of trying to keep 
 the backward children spurred up so that they 
 might not impede the progress of the whole 
 class. He had seen the backward children made 
 sullen and discouraged by class instruction 
 methods not adapted to their needs. He out- 
 lined to the Board a remedy for these evils. 
 He suggested a second teacher for the room, a 
 teacher whose duty should be to bring the back- 
 ward children forward. His earnest words 
 carried conviction. The Board was profoundly 
 impressed, and saw a vision of the future which 
 caused President Tomlinson to say ''This is 
 not only a revelation but a revolution." 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 133 
 
 Although it was an experiment without 
 precedent the Board without hesitation unani- 
 mously passed a resolution providing that a 
 teacher should be engaged for Individual In- 
 struction, as recommended by Professor Ken- 
 nedy, and the Batavia System, now known 
 around the world, was inaugurated. 
 
 The Professor was asked to recommend a 
 teacher for the work. He recommended Miss 
 Lucie Hamilton. She was ill at the time, suf- 
 fering from a nervous breakdown, the result 
 of overwork as a teacher struggling with the 
 difficulties inseparable from the old-time system 
 of class instruction. A member if the Board 
 reminded Professor Kennedy of this, but he 
 declared that Miss Hamilton was just the teach- 
 er that he wished for the position, and that he 
 believed that she would, be available, and she 
 was. 
 
 But it was not without some hesitation on 
 her part, and positive assurances of success on 
 Professor Kennedy's part, that Miss Hamilton 
 
134 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 became the first individual teacher in the public 
 schools of this country, a position in which she 
 has won well deserved distinction. 
 
 Foreseeing possible dangers in connection 
 with the work of the individual teacher, and 
 foreseeing possible misapprehensions that might 
 call out criticisms, Professor Kennedy laid 
 down three paradoxical Dont's. 
 
 "First, Don't tell a child anything, but see 
 that he knows it. 
 
 "Second, Don't do anything for the child, 
 but see that it is done. 
 
 "Third, Don't do anything on a lesson that 
 has not been recited." 
 
 The object of these don'ts was to guard 
 against the danger of doing work for pupils, 
 instead of teaching them how to do if got them- 
 selves. It was not intended that the individual 
 teacher should be a mere coach to assist scholars 
 in preparing their lessons. The aim of indi- 
 vidual instruction is to help the child of slow 
 
 J 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 135 
 
 mental power to acquire the power of indepen- 
 dent study. 
 
 In the realm of business Frederick W. Taylor 
 has started a revolution by his exposition of the 
 principles of scientific management, applied 
 to manufacturing establishments. All can ap- 
 preciate the waste of material things which our 
 national policy of conservation aims to correct. 
 Not so many appreciate the still larger waste 
 of' human effort going on in connection with 
 all our manufacturing establishments, although 
 the daily loss is greater from this source than 
 from the waste of material things. 
 
 In the educational world John Kennedy of 
 Batavia started a revolution twelve years ago, 
 by calling attention to the great loss which we 
 suffer through the inefficiency of the teaching 
 in our public schools. To correct the necessary 
 evils of class instruction and to increase the 
 general efficiency of school work the Batavia 
 system of Individual Instruction was devised. 
 At the outset Professor Kennedy declared that 
 
136 THE B ATA VI A SYSTEM 
 
 Individual Instruction would never be the 
 prime method of education, nor even the normal 
 form of teaching. He said that children must 
 be assembled in classes, and drilled, trained and 
 educated in the presence of their fellows. 
 
 Thus only can they get the needed spur of 
 competition. But Professor Kennedy also 
 pointed out that the best results cannot be 
 accomplished by class instruction alone. Many 
 pupils do not grasp principles readily from a 
 presentation that may be best adapted for the 
 entire class. In every class there are those who 
 lag behind others, and classes are held back 
 from making proper progress on account of the 
 slow pupils.' But less than one per-cent of these 
 slow pupils are mental defectives, who cannot 
 master the subject which the class is studying. 
 A considerable proportion have some physical 
 defect which the teacher of the class would 
 perhaps never discover, but which the individual 
 teacher finds out at once and can often take 
 steps to remedy. Very often children are found 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 137 
 
 to be suffering from defective sight or hearing, 
 anaemia, malnutrition, or the presence of ade- 
 noids or other abnormal growths. 
 
 But the most important thing disclosed by 
 the Batavia system is, that children apparently 
 defective are often those whose minds are better 
 than the average, and who for this reason re- 
 quire a different and peculiar development, 
 which only individual instruction can give. 
 Some children have highly developed brains 
 which make extraordinary demand upon the 
 blood supply and upon the nervous system 
 which makes them seem incompetent, when in 
 reality they are superior. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton's own mother declared he 
 had no capacity to fix his mind upon sensible 
 things. In ordinary schools he would have 
 been at the foot of the class, a drag upon the 
 other children and a source of irritation to his 
 teacher. But in the Batavia schools, or in 
 other schools which have adopted the Batavia 
 system his genius would have been detected. 
 
138 THE BAT AVI A SYSTEM 
 
 Precocious ability is no sure sign of greatness, 
 and brains that seem to show up very badly 
 in extreme youth often turn out to be the best. 
 
Chapter XXI 
 
 The Present View in Batavia^ ' 
 
 Every one at all conversant with the public 
 graded schools of the last quarter century has 
 seen, if he has given half attention to his sur- 
 roundings, the individual effort of the old-time 
 school overwhelmed and submerged in the 
 ever-increasing complication of the modern 
 curriculum. Children have been poured, as 
 wheat into the hopper, into its capacious maw, 
 with the intention 6f bringing forth from its 
 millstones a level and satisfactory product. 
 Those who possessed the requisite qualities did 
 come forth, in the end, men and women of 
 worth. But what of waste ever attended the 
 process! The final product bore no relation 
 in numbers to the raw material furnished at the 
 
 *From Sup't E. A. Ladd, formerly principal of the Batavia 
 high school 
 
 (139) 
 
140 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 Start. Hundreds, yes thousands were tossed 
 out of its machinery upon the waste-heap, and 
 every succeeding year has seen its machinery 
 become more intricate, its waste more enor- 
 mous. 
 
 Individual Instruction strives to save those 
 who are thus rejected, aims to save the one 
 and all. It hastens to put arms of love and 
 sympathy about those who, by any means 
 may be less fortunate than their fellows. It 
 recognizes the fact, too often overlooked, that 
 the progress of the mass must be measured not 
 by its fore-runners but by those who mark the 
 rear. It maintains that each and every child 
 is endowed with an inherent and inalienable 
 right to receive a share in the kingdom of knowl- 
 edge. Upon these three great ideas individual 
 instruction bases its thesis. 
 
 The application of individual instruction is 
 simple. The day-after-day recitation is super- 
 seded by class-recitation alternating with in- 
 dividual recitation. This division of time forms 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 141 
 
 the sine qua non of its successful use, whether 
 the grade be large or small, or conducted by 
 one or two teachers. It is also essential that 
 the consecutive recitations of the daily pro- 
 gram should also alternate between the two 
 forms of recitation. In the purely class-recita- 
 tion form of instruction, where the pupils recite 
 turn and turn about, success in work for all can 
 be obtained only when all the pupils are equally 
 endowed with mental capability, live in similar 
 environments, and undergo like accidents in 
 life. Such a situation is manifestly impossible. 
 There must of necessity be found in any group 
 of children some whose mental gifts are fewer, 
 whose surroundings are less desirable, whose 
 ancestry is more tainted with weakness, whose 
 life influences are on a lower plane than those 
 of others. When mass methods as exemplified 
 in pure class instruction are applied to such 
 heterogeneity, waste must inevitably ensue. 
 Those well-equipped with favorable qualities 
 will forge ahead; those, lacking these qualities, 
 
142 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 some or all, will gravitate to the rear; while all 
 the way between the two extremes will be found 
 others whose capacities reach various degrees 
 of perfection. The teacher, endowed as are 
 most human beings with human frailties, is 
 apt, after more or less of effort, to abandon 
 many of those who are behind the line of 
 average to their fate and devote her attention 
 to such as she often styles the deserving, 
 though in reality she is following the line of 
 least resistance, a habit that has caused nine- 
 tenths of the trouble in teaching. The neglected 
 ones, after periods of school life of various 
 lengths, withdraw from fruitless endeavor to 
 ieam, and enter the army of those who toil 
 below the dead line of recompense. Their 
 departure is witnessed often by the teacher with 
 a sense of relief. It is so easy to blame their 
 failure upon natural dullness, family need of 
 the money they may earn, industrial demand 
 for their services: upon anything in short save 
 the real and true reason, the failure of the 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 143 
 
 teacher to teach. When the final reckoning is 
 cast in such classes there is gratulation and joy 
 on the teacher's part if even a tithe of the child- 
 ren can be reported as successful. 
 
 The teacher who uses the individual form of 
 instruction feels keenly for those who are not 
 present at this final roll-call. She is filled with 
 a mighty yearning to count every one intrusted 
 to her care among the jewels of her crown. 
 When comes the day for individual work, she 
 calls the child who is stumbling or who has been 
 retarded by illness or other circumstance to her 
 side. Seated there at the desk, in comparative 
 seclusion, she clears away the trouble that 
 unless removed may ruin the child's educational 
 career for good and all. However, she tells 
 nothing of this work, but by tactful and judi- 
 cious questioning leads the pupil to master his 
 work. A double gain results. The child is 
 advanced in his work, while the rest of the class 
 are busily engaged along the recitation forms in 
 the preparation for advanced work. When, 
 
144 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 next day, they are all called to class recitation, 
 matters move smoothly. That waste of time 
 that always occurs when the backward pupil, 
 at the board or in recitation, flounders helplessly 
 about, is avoided. The other members of the 
 class, instead of sitting by as amused specta- 
 tors, are all busy. They have no chance to sit 
 in idleness until the exasperated teacher says 
 curtly that the painful exhibition shall end 
 and the work be taken up by another. In a 
 class individually instructed there is no noise 
 louder than the low question and answer of the 
 two at the desk. All others may study, with 
 nothing to divert attention. It follows from 
 this way of conducting recitation, that the class 
 loses no time because of omitted class periods 
 but rather accomplishes more than can be 
 accomplished by the pure class-hearing method. 
 The teacher using Individual Instruction 
 will not find it necessary to call to her desk, 
 day after day, the same pupils. When she has 
 led her dull boy to the mastery of one problem. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 145 
 
 she has given him strength that will enable him- 
 to grapple successfully with the next. Thus 
 gaining mental power from time to time, the 
 backward child soon becomes the average child 
 and often the leading child. When this de- 
 sirable condition has been wrought, another 
 takes his place at the table. This constant 
 application of attention and interest to those 
 composing the rear division of the class results 
 finally in bringing the whole body into one 
 
 straight line, able triumphantly to advance to 
 
 « 
 
 the attempting of other tasks, because all are 
 conscious of the power to do. 
 
 Individual Instruction is a boon to the back- 
 ward child. It aids the bright and intelligent 
 as well. Errors in mental processes and mis- 
 takes in the writing of exercises are kept from 
 their sight. In the usual class form of recita- 
 tion, these errors and their correction consume 
 a large part of the time, time that in individual 
 instruction is available to all pupils not at the 
 desk for quiet and uninterrupted work. To 
 
146 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 see every pupil at work, and making use of every 
 minute, is an inspiration. These busy pupils 
 see little or no public exhibition of errors in 
 individual instruction. Those, if they occur, 
 are corrected quietly at the desk. Incorrect 
 sentences in language work, or faulty methods 
 in solution of problems surely work harm to 
 all pupils who observe them, even though those 
 pupils are fully able to think in the right way. 
 Thus it can be clearly seen that a class in indi- 
 vidual instruction is protected from the dam- 
 aging influence of incorrect work to a large 
 degree. It has also the advantage of the 
 esprit du corps that is to be brought about only 
 when every individual in a company knows 
 that all others are swinging forward, bent upon 
 the same goal, that satisfaction that arises 
 when a regiment of soldiers arrives upon the 
 field of battle with no stragglers lagging along 
 the line of march. Every place is filled. All 
 stand shoulder to shoulder, proud of their fel- 
 lows' achievements, and sure in their support. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 147 
 
 Individual instruction goes a long way to- 
 ward solving the problem of discipline. The 
 child who is not interested in school work, turns 
 his activities in the direction of mischief. This 
 lack of interest is unnatural, for the normal 
 child is eager to work in school if he can at all 
 times see the profitable results in that work. 
 In the crowded school-room, it is very easy for 
 him, either through inability to grasp principles 
 as readily as his fellows, or through the failure 
 of his teacher to recognize the instant of his 
 wavering, to fall behind the average. One link 
 in his development lost, his whole chain of pro- 
 gress is of no avail. He becomes hopelessly 
 involved in a tangle of facts. As soon as he 
 sees that he has lost his relative rank in his class, 
 he naturally becomes discouraged and dis- 
 orderly, thus giving rise to a vexing problem, 
 for he cannot be removed from school until he 
 reaches the age limit or passes the maximum 
 test provided by law. Had his difficulty been 
 overcome when first he encountered it, his 
 
148 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 educational development would have received 
 no check. He would have gone on from grade 
 to grade and perhaps even finished high school. 
 As long as he achieved success in his school 
 tasks, he would have continued his effort, and 
 maintained good deportment, for busy brains 
 find little time for pranks. Individual Instruc- 
 tion thus accomplishes two great results: the 
 children remain in school, thereby greatly les- 
 sening the percentage of withdrawal, while 
 discipline • is ^ reduced to the minimum and in 
 many cases its need is entirely eradicated. 
 
 No less 'important than any of the results 
 so far mentioned, is the beneficial influence that 
 Individual Instruction exerts upon the teacher 
 herself. By this is meant not only the physical 
 advantage fto- be derived from relief from con- 
 stant efforts in the conducting of classes, but 
 also the complete revolution that it works in 
 her conception of the duties of the office she 
 fills. It needs no demonstration to show that 
 the teacher must receive bodilv rest from the 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 149 
 
 individual period. She will also be able to 
 conduct the next class period with less strain, 
 for much of the vexatious delay and irritating 
 complications connected usually with it has 
 been avoided by having all of the pupils levelled 
 up through the individual training of the slow 
 and the dull. She will, again, be enabled better 
 to understand each child that she invites to her 
 desk, the directly personal and, as one might 
 say, frankly confidential relations thus estab- 
 lished. Individual Instruction thus reaches 
 out and embraces child study, giving the teach- 
 er a powerful lever with which to execute her 
 work. Yet all of this is of minor importance, 
 when the retroactive influences that the Indi- 
 vidual Instruction exerts upon the teacher are 
 considered. When the teacher comes to see 
 that every backward child can be redeemed 
 and set upon the high road of education, she 
 will be filled with the magnitude of her calling. 
 Instead of rejoicing when the dull child leaves 
 school, she will be satisfied only when that leak 
 
150 THE BAT AVI A SYSTEM 
 
 has been stopped by bringing every pupil to 
 the successful end of work. She will not re- 
 gard children as natural foes, to be endured 
 for a season and then dismissed with thankful- 
 ness. She will rather see in all of them oppor- 
 tunities for the exercise of love and sympathy. 
 Her vocation will become to her a joy, measured 
 not by the stipend she receives, but by the possi- 
 bilities, it offers for the uplift of individuals, and, 
 through them, the uplift of the human race. 
 Individual Instruction carried to its logical 
 conclusion means a new race of teachers, men 
 and women whose hearts will be filled with a 
 mighty love for children, who will not be con- 
 tent until every straying, lagging child is safely 
 brought into the fold of education. The whole 
 system as conceived by its able and far-seeing 
 originator, is based upon that sublime utterance 
 of the Greatest of all Teachers, "Suffer little 
 children to come unto me and forbid them not." 
 
Chapter XXII 
 
 Elimination of the Ninth Grade* 
 
 Last spring Superintendent Belknap of the 
 Lockport schools visited Batavia to investigate 
 individual instruction. Soon afterwards M. A. 
 Federspeil, a member of the Board of Education 
 of Lockport, also made an investigation here. 
 Both were so favorably impressed with the 
 Batavia system that Superintendent Belknap 
 returned and brought with him the principal 
 of the Lockport high school and several teachers 
 who spent the day visiting our schools. As a 
 result the Batavia system has been adopted by 
 Lockport and an article in regard to the matter 
 appeared in the Lockport Union-Sun which in 
 
 part was as follows: 
 
 ***** 
 
 The Board of Education last night adopted 
 
 *From the Batavia Sunday Times 
 (151) 
 
152 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 a report of the committee on teachers, text books 
 and schools, recommending the installation of 
 the Batavia plan of instruction in the local public 
 schools at the beginning of the school year in 
 September. This method provides for definite 
 and specific class and individual teaching, one- 
 half of the school session being devoted to each. 
 
 This system was highly recommended by 
 Trustee M. A. Federspeil, chairman of the 
 committee, who presented the report urging its 
 adoption, and also by Sup't of Schools Emmet 
 Belknap, both of whom visited the schools of 
 Batavia on several occasions and witnessed a 
 practical demonstration of the teaching in vogue 
 in that city. Sup't Belknap on one of his visits 
 was accompanied by a number of the local 
 teachers, who were much interested in the work 
 performed there. 
 
 Trustee Federspeil claimed that changing 
 from the method now in use here to that prac- 
 ticed at Batavia involved considerable altera- 
 tion in instruction. He believed that by it 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 153 
 
 however, students would accomplish more than 
 under the present plan, the Batavia plan seemed 
 to draw more out of each than is possible under 
 the system here. 
 
 He thought that the new plan would meet 
 with the disapproval of the older teachers here, 
 but the younger teachers, he imagined, would 
 adapt themselves to it more readily. Its sim- 
 pleness in reaching the dull and backward stu- 
 dent commended it most highly, as it enabled 
 the pupils to get through their school work much 
 earlier than is possible in this city. 
 
 President Earl, Trustees Griggs, Whitmore 
 and others believed the introduction of the new 
 system in the local schools would be a step in 
 the right direction. The committee's report 
 was then unanimously adopted. 
 
 Sup't Belknap next presented a report re- 
 garding the elimination of the ninth year in the 
 grade schools and also recommending the Bata- 
 via plan, which was adopted. His report was 
 as follows: 
 
154 THE BATxWIA SYSTEM 
 
 In making plans for the elimination of the 
 ninth year of elementary school course, as di- 
 rected by you, I have previously suggested and 
 you have authorized the semi-annual classifica- 
 tion and promotion of pupils. Since that time, 
 I have had occasion to reflect upon the fact 
 that such classification and advancement will 
 be more difficult here than in cities in which the 
 school buildings are larger so as to contain all 
 elementary grades and permit frequent re- 
 classification in the same school and building 
 than in our case, where we have no building 
 instructing all elementary grades, so that pupils 
 have to change schools twice or three times 
 before reaching the Union school building. 
 
 I have had all through this year — as in pre- 
 vious years — very frequent occasion to reflect 
 upon the difficulty of so grading pupils in classes 
 not too difficult for teachers, to observe the 
 necessity of much individual teaching, and to 
 provide for it by all sorts of temporary expe- 
 dients and by employing extra assistants where 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 155 
 
 classes were large or teachers not in health, in 
 order to prevent pupils falling behind their 
 respective grades and classes. Unless this is 
 done, pupils who have reached the age of legal 
 employment are much less inclined to remain 
 at school, and to leave as early as they can do so. 
 An increased number of such leave school each 
 year. I have issued 105 school records for 
 pupils leaving school under sixteen years of age 
 since the schools opened last September, and 
 others have withdrawn who did not take out 
 employment papers. 
 
 I have come to feel that of more importance 
 than semi-annual classification and advance- 
 ment, is that the necessity of definite and sys- 
 tematic individual teaching by the regular 
 teachers should be recognized and definitely 
 provided for. I have made a careful study by 
 observation and comparison of the results ob- 
 tained under such provision in the schools of 
 Batavia, where such plan and provision have 
 been consistently pursued during a period of 
 
156 THE BAT AVI A SYSTEM 
 
 14 years past, and have come to the conckision 
 that it is my duty to call attention to it, and to 
 recommend that a similar system be authorized 
 and provided in our schools. By the simple 
 provision there that all teachers devote one- 
 half of the time of instruction to classes and the 
 other half to individual teaching, giving the 
 individual teaching to all children, so that those 
 more capable may be advanced more rapidly 
 and those less capable move forward as rapidly 
 as their ability under personal attention will 
 permit, they are accomplishing all that we seek 
 to accomplish by the elimination of the ninth 
 year, are holding their pupils longer in school, 
 and their grammar and high school registration 
 is largely increased and increasing, while ours 
 is lessening. I find that it is done without 
 strain and worry of either pupils or teachers, 
 that their teachers are less frequently absent 
 because of illness due to overwork, that more 
 of the work is accomplished in the regular school 
 hours, and that less work and study has to be 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 157 
 
 done by either teachers or pupils at home. 
 
 Individual instruction is continually neces- 
 sary. It is unavoidable if pupils are to be en- 
 abled to learn and to progress in their classes 
 as they should do, and we have been doing it 
 in an unscientific, spasmodic and uneconomical 
 way by taking valuable time in class recitation 
 periods to try to have pupils recite and perform 
 what they do not know sufficiently and by fre- 
 quent and sometimes long detentions after 
 school. The worst of it is that in many cases 
 it is thus done ineffectually, and that in other 
 cases where it was most needed and due the 
 pupil, it has not been done at all. 
 
 By the Batavia plan pupils gain from 1-4 to 
 1-3 of time for study in school ; the teacher knows 
 much better the real mental condition of every 
 child under her instruction, more is accomplish- 
 ed in fewer recitations, detentions after school 
 to make up work are brief and less frequent, 
 less study has to be done out of school hours, 
 teachers do not have to spend so many hours 
 
158 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 looking over and marking test and lesson exer- 
 cises at home in the evening, and the spirit and 
 health of pupils and teachers are conserved. I 
 could not help noticing the cordial and spon- 
 taneous fine spirit of teachers and pupils in their 
 school work there. 
 
 In three separate visits in many school rooms 
 of all the grades I always found pupils busily 
 and happily at work, no inclination to be indo- 
 lent, mischievous or to waste time or to be in any 
 way disorderly. I do not recall seeing or hearing 
 any teacher have to chide or correct a child for 
 disorder or disobedience. The atmosphere and 
 the spirit of all rooms breathed freedom, happi- 
 ness, pride in their work, and the expectation 
 and consciousness of success was uniformly 
 manifest. This because all were doing what 
 they needed to do and were capable of doing, 
 because the teacher was intelligently conscious 
 of the condition of each child, and by personal 
 attention making his or her ultimate success 
 a reasonable certainty. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 159 
 
 Discipline is good and natural there, and I 
 understand that punishment by the rod or by 
 harsh measure has been avoided there for years. 
 
 The individual plan in connection with class 
 instruction does not increase the cost of instruc- 
 tion, and it is not accomplished by greater work 
 or strain on the part of teachers. In rooms of 
 ordinary size classes one teacher does all of the 
 work of instruction, except that done by special 
 teachers of drawing, music, etc. ; but if the class 
 is excessive in size, SO or more, two teachers are 
 placed in the room — one to do individual, the 
 other class work, though they are privileged to 
 interchange and combine their work as desired 
 under approval of the superintendent. 
 
 Their classification and promotion of classes 
 are yearly, but by their system individual pro- 
 motions or demotions, which are sometimes 
 advisable, are easily and freely made at any 
 time, pupils gaining grades by making the work, 
 not by skipping it. I would adopt the essential 
 features of the system and believe that on 
 
160 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 proper trial it would greatly commend itself to 
 all concerned, parents, pupils and teachers, 
 and that the scholarship of our schools would 
 not be lessened but much strengthened in 
 general. 
 
 In all my examination of pupils who have 
 been reported to me as deficient and not suc- 
 ceeding with their work and unable to accom- 
 plish the work of the grade in which they had 
 been placed, I found that, unless it was a case 
 of intellectual deficiency or physical disability, 
 individual teaching was the one and only rem- 
 edy, and that if it had been intelligently applied 
 and persevered in the condition would not have 
 arisen. It is due to every child, and I do not 
 think any school system has a right to disregard 
 it or to fail to provide definitely for it. Teachers 
 who have for a long time been accustomed to 
 the old way of teaching may, at the beginning, 
 be apprehensive that it means increased labor 
 and strain for them, but I am confident that 
 when they see how it improves the work of their 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 161 
 
 pupils and increases their aspiration for work 
 and progress, and that it removes much of the 
 strain and emancipates them from much that 
 has to be drugery under the former plan of 
 teaching, they will be grateful and thankful for 
 it and co-operate cheerfully and intelligently. 
 It means good, discriminating teaching that 
 accomplishes results, because rightly applied, 
 and does not have to be done over and over 
 again in order to accomplish a minimum of 
 result. 
 
Chapter XXIII 
 
 Strengthening the Graded System^ 
 
 In response to your request for a special report 
 on the present status of the Batavia plan in 
 Batavia and the observed results of its use, I 
 beg leave to submit the following: 
 
 The plan is in full operation here, and is well 
 started on its fourteenth year of use. It may 
 therefore be said to have stood the test of time. 
 
 Its popularity at the outstart was instantan- 
 eous. The people understood it at once, and 
 applauded it. At present I see no abatement 
 of its popularity. : 
 
 I think that I have observed many and 
 varied results springing from the use of this plan. 
 Some of those results have been surprising and 
 all have been gratifying. I cannot hope to go 
 into them all, but will mention some. 
 
 *A report made by request of the School of Pedagogy of 
 Chicago University 
 
 (162) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 163 
 
 When a crowd are assembled it is either up- 
 lift or crush for the individual. We think that 
 our plan has secured the inspiration and warded 
 off the danger. 
 
 Where there is inequality of condition the 
 crowd becomes a tangled mass. The attempt 
 to move a tangled mass is overstrain. Under 
 our plan we think there is no strain. Our 
 teachers we think are becoming more vigor- 
 ous from year to year. 
 
 Worry of any kind has its goal in break-down, 
 if not in death. And few people are aware how 
 contagious a thing nervous debility is. Nerves 
 are responsive to nerves. We think that worry 
 has been eliminated here, and that our children 
 are calm, composed, safe, and vigorous. 
 
 Sanitation should be the first care of school 
 management. Under our plan I think that 
 our schools have become not only sanitary but 
 salubrious. That is I think that schools prop- 
 erly individualled become conducive to the re- 
 covery of impaired or lost health. 
 
164 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 Interested occupation is preoccupation, and 
 all know that preoccupation in good things is 
 the best safe-guard against the approach of evil 
 things. I think that our plan tends toward 
 absorbed preoccupation in the good work of 
 getting an education. This is not only a nega- 
 tive safe-guard, but it is also a positive promo- 
 tive of character by supplying high aims. 
 
 I have implied already that our order and 
 discipline have greatly improved. They have 
 greatly improved; and it is the right kind of 
 order; it is the order that not only permits busi- 
 ness to proceed ; it is the order that is an atmos- 
 phere that nourishes the growth of character. 
 Where energy is expended in securing a sem- 
 blance of order, the same energy must be em- 
 ployed in maintaining it. There is tension that 
 is depleting and depressing all around. 
 
 Our individual teaching has enabled us to 
 move our grades. They do not now sink down 
 by their own weight. Our children all move 
 forward and arrive on time. The quick one no 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 165 
 
 longer marks time ; he sets the pace for the rest 
 of them ; and the rest line up on him. There is 
 no longer any retardation. There is no longer 
 any necessity for skipping grades in order to 
 get on. We always allow an individual to gain 
 a grade where it is to his advantage to do so. 
 The gainer of a grade needs individual attention ; 
 and under our plan he gets it. Let no one sup- 
 pose that the individualling is done only with 
 children of questionable capacity. There are 
 numerous circumstances that send our brightest 
 pupils at times to the individual table. 
 
 It is here that we get the benefit of schooling. 
 The child's first incentive is to line up with his 
 fellows. He works first for his line; then he 
 works because of enjoyment in his work, and at 
 last he works for grand remote aims. When 
 his acquisitive powers are trained, and when he 
 can see the goal of life, he may then work out 
 his own salvation in the solitude of home. 
 
 The school classes and grades should move 
 forward in lines dressed at right-angles to the 
 line of advancement. 
 
166 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 No child has been promoted here as a favor; 
 no child has been promoted here to get him out 
 of the way, Every child here has been pro- 
 moted because he has shown under severe test 
 that he was ready for promotion. Under 
 separate cover I send you transcripts of the 
 promotion examinations records. These records 
 are kept on file at the office of the Board of 
 Education for the inspection of all. Any in- 
 vestigator will find there the school record of 
 every child for a series of years. 
 
 You will observe that every child has passed 
 the minimum; that nearly all of them have a 
 comfortable margin beyond the minimum; and 
 that most of them are hovering around the 
 maximum. We could not get any such results 
 until we resorted to individualling. We would 
 not have thought such results credible. 
 
 It may perhaps strengthen confidence in the 
 integrity and searchingness of the examination 
 to say that the questions for all above the fourth 
 grade come from Albany, and that the examina- 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 167 
 
 tions are conducted under regulations fixed by 
 the state department. I have many reasons 
 for favoring a strong state department ; and not 
 the least is that they make statistics of some 
 value. 
 
 One conspicuous result of our individual 
 teaching is that it has enabled us to keep our 
 grades intact. There is not an ungraded school 
 nor an ungraded room in this town, nor is there 
 a grade section. Grade section seems to me 
 the first step towards grade dissection; in other 
 words the first step toward the ungraded school. 
 Perhaps the ungraded school is needed but I 
 do not think so. I do not think that we need 
 to go back sixty years. The people of sixty 
 years ago were not contented; they struggled 
 for progress, and to some purpose; they gave us 
 the graded school. And I think that they gave 
 a great contribution. 
 
 Since we have been attending to the indi- 
 vidual we have seen no necessity for disturbing 
 our annual intervals and annual promotions. 
 
168 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 I think that there is an advantage in having the 
 elementary grades conform to the practice that 
 is universal in the secondary schools, colleges, 
 and universities. The grading of the elementary 
 schools was but an extension downward of the 
 organization that proved so satisfactory in 
 higher education. We think that it obviates 
 much confusion, and that it is better in every 
 way, to have a third year child, for example, 
 mean one thing, and not two things. There is 
 something gained, I think, by symmetry and 
 clearness. Furthermore where the purpose is 
 integration rather than disintegration I think 
 that a semi-annual promotion is premature. 
 We need the full year, and the children need 
 the full year, in order to reach the best results. 
 A very noticeable result of our plan has been 
 the remarkable expansion of our upper grades 
 and high school. In a total enrollment of 1750 
 there are over 850 in the upper seven of the 
 twelve grades. In a total enrollment of 1750 
 there are 375 in the high school and 125 in the 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 169 
 
 8th grade. Those 8th grade pupils are practi- 
 cally high school students as they are all study- 
 ing algebra and other high school branches; so 
 you may say without much exaggeration that 
 in a total enrollment of 1750 we have 500 in the 
 high school. 
 
 And what those students are doing in the 
 high school I look upon as a result of our plan. 
 We require geometry and one or two other 
 things. But in the main our high school course 
 is elective. I think that what our students have 
 elected is quite significant of the workings of 
 our plan. We believe most heartily in indus- 
 trial education and have made ample provision 
 for it. I think, however, that industrialism 
 should be taught in the atmosphere of culture. 
 A proper education implies immediate aims and 
 remote aims. They should never in my opinion 
 be divorced. 
 
 I do not say that those who choose remote 
 aims always choose wisely; but I do say that 
 the mere fact that thev have chosen remote 
 
170 THE BAT AVI A SYSTEM 
 
 aims is a high compHment to them and to their 
 teacher. The election in our high school has 
 compelled us to provide extensively for cultural 
 as well as practical work. And this is as it 
 should be. The one makes the other virile and 
 available; the other humanizes, refines, and 
 ennobles the one. 
 
 It is only a corollary of the foregoing to say 
 that our students are going to college in larger 
 numbers and seeking the. benefits of higher 
 education. We have about fifty students in 
 the colleges at present. And I mean the colleges 
 of liberal culture as distinguished from the 
 technical and professional schools. We have 
 other numbers in those schools; and they make 
 quite a colony, or even a community on their 
 home-comings. 
 
 The school register is I think a good index 
 of the efficiency and success of the school. A 
 school must take hold in order to tend toward 
 a maximum of registration and a maximum of 
 average daily attendance. I think that our 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 171 
 
 registers have shown a gratifying response to 
 our plan. Whatever expands the aggregate 
 registration and average attendance tends to 
 reduce the per capita cost of education. We 
 have been reducing the per capita since the 
 introduction of the Batavia plan. But we have 
 also been reducing the aggregate and actual 
 cost by reducing the number of buildings, the 
 number of janitors, the number of separate 
 equipments, and other items. The reduction 
 of expense has never been a motive with us, 
 but' it will be of interest to those who would like 
 to compare the cost of different plans. 
 
 Our plan tends to the reduction of expense 
 in another way. It has taught us the desira- 
 bility of larger classes. A large class under 
 proper conditions is a powerful educational 
 factor. There is a point of course at which a 
 class will break down by its own weight. But 
 the ordinary school cannot reach that, point. 
 The trouble with an ordinary school is that it 
 has to have many classes that are too small. 
 
172 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 I think it a great mistake to make small classes 
 deliberately. 
 
 An efficient school has a tendency to approach 
 the condition of a balanced school as to the 
 sexes. Ineffective school work tends to make 
 boys cheap. I like to see something like a boy 
 famine. The cheap boy sags down in school 
 and he eventually sags out. It would be well 
 for him if no one worse that the green-grocer 
 got hold of him. When the hoodlum swarms 
 in the street and infests public places it shows 
 that boys are very cheap. The good school is 
 the Noah's ark for the immature boy. 
 
 The Batavia plan is not a labor-saving device ; 
 it is rather a labor-making device. Our teachers 
 and pupils are very busy; they have much to 
 do to meet on time all the demands made upon 
 them. But such is the law of the matter. 
 There is no royal road to a generous and sus- 
 taining education. Work and sustained dili- 
 gence are the price of education. Indeed work 
 and diligence are education in its best aspect. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 173 
 
 Let no one have any fears of work and diligence. 
 If force, and strain, and unkindness, and bitter- 
 ness, and cross-purposes are eliminated you 
 cannot impose too much work and diligence; 
 the well will get sick on worry; the sick will 
 get well on work and diligence. 
 
 You will naturally ask what our experience 
 has been with reference to atypical, defective 
 and subnormal children. I do not see any 
 reason why we should not have our share of all 
 kinds of unfortunates. I believe that we do 
 have our full share of them. I cite you again 
 to the promotion reports. If those were select- 
 ed children the data would be worth nothing. 
 Those are all our children. It must be ac- 
 knowledged that many children are handicapped 
 at the outstart in many ways by mental and 
 physical troubles. For such children there is 
 no chance at all in the school that teaches only 
 en masse; they are foredoomed. As to what 
 can be done with them in the school that singles 
 out the individual to deal with him according 
 
.174 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 to his need, I must cite you again to the reports. 
 I have to say that you will find among the 
 records that are by no means the lowest some 
 who were very seriously handicapped. 
 
 Any intelligent attempt at cure implies diag- 
 nosis. The mere calling of a lagging and back- 
 ward child leads at once to a diagnosis of his 
 case. It is often found that the mere calling 
 was all that he needed. He was too far away ; 
 he did not see well, or he did not hear well. By 
 the side of the teacher he both hears and sees 
 and he looms at once in his power. He is there- 
 after seated with reference to his infirmity, and 
 his case is solved. With some it is a wandering 
 and unmanageable attention that needs to be 
 controlled and trained. With others it is a dis- 
 tressing nervous timidity which has been their 
 undoing. Some have that woful passivity and 
 inertness so likely to mislead the inexperienced 
 teacher ; so likely to cause her to pronounce that 
 fatal phrase **born short", and to go on with the 
 go-on-ers. But we have seen the giant roused 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 175 
 
 too often to permit ourselves to yield to dis- 
 couragement. We have ''learned to labor and 
 to wait". And by the way, we never have to 
 wake a giant twice; when he once has realized 
 his brawniness he never thereafter forgets it; 
 he is never again a pygmy in his own estimation. 
 Some are late arrivals in the room and need 
 much adjustment. Others have been absent by 
 reason of illness an(ihave gotten out of touch 
 with the work. Some are trying to make an 
 extra grade. But whatever the cause may be 
 the teacher has become expert in detecting it, 
 and has adapted the cure to the case. Cure in 
 the grade is our plan. We think that segrega- 
 tion should never be thought of. 
 
 But would I not segregate the feeble-minded 
 and incorrigibles? Yes, I would consent to the 
 segregation of the feeble-minded. But they 
 segregate themselves; the number of hopeless 
 defectives that present themselves for registra- 
 tion in a public school does not amount to more 
 than a fraction of one per cent. That is not 
 
176 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 enough to constitute a problem in a town of 
 only twelve thousand inhabitants. When one 
 of those unfortunates presents himself we regis- 
 ter him and give him our best possible attention. 
 And it does him good to mingle with normal 
 children. He even learns something. No one 
 will question the wisdom of segregating the 
 totally blind and the totally deaf. But we have 
 advanced stages of defective sight and hearing 
 that are doing very well. 
 
 I am not quite ready to concede the segrega- 
 tion of the incorrigible. I am not quite sure 
 that a school system needs something like a 
 lock-up. I am quite sure that it would be very 
 wicked to "run in" to that institution children 
 who have never offended, children who have 
 only suffered. And I need some further evi- 
 dence to convince me that a strong grade is not 
 the best place for an incorrigible. 
 
 The immediate goal of the individual teacher 
 is to put the pupil into a condition to react 
 against the sweep of the class, and to enable him 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 177 
 
 to appropriate the benefits of class-membership 
 and class-instruction. Knowledge is not the 
 aim at the individual table; it is power, initia- 
 tive, vigor. It is not a taking of him off his 
 feet. It is a putting of him on his feet. 
 He cannot get his lessons at the individual 
 table; he can only get his power there; so 
 there is no coaching. This means of course 
 that the pupil cannot offer himself as a subject 
 for individual attention. Every pupil knows 
 that he must recite on his own preparation. If 
 he does not recite well his case receives such 
 attention as it merits. A plan that aims at 
 vigor puts no premium on laziness or cowardice. 
 
 Our individual teacher does nothing but ask 
 questions. It is no refuge for an evader to run 
 up against a questioner. No one is rendered 
 weak or dependent by being asked a question. 
 The question meets the needy one at a crisis in 
 his life, and proves his salvation. 
 
 Justice is defined as the giving unto each 
 human being his right. The rights of an indi- 
 
178 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 vidual are exactly co-extensive with his needs. 
 Needs, rights, and duties are correlative terms, 
 covering the same exact subject or object mat- 
 ter. Duty is what is due from us, and what we 
 ought to do is what we owe to do. If anyone 
 suffers any restriction of his right someone is 
 delinquent in the discharge of his duty. Some 
 one is either insolvent, or he is disregardful of 
 his obligations. Children have many debtors 
 because they have many needs; but there are 
 few on whom they have as great and as sacred 
 claims as on their teacher. 
 
 My own convictions after fourteen years of 
 experience with this plan are a result that may 
 possibly be of interest. I offer them for what 
 they are worth. I like our children as they are. 
 I believe that they are susceptible of a fine educa- 
 tion if we subject them to the dual process of 
 individual attention and class stimulus. I be- 
 lieve that either of these processes will break 
 down without the sustaining aid of the other. 
 But in due combination I think they are invin- 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 179 
 
 cible. But the combination like other whole- 
 some compounds must have its quantitative 
 formula. The combination of individual and 
 class instruction that gives a potency is the pro- 
 portion of one to one. It is a formula easily 
 remembered; it is H. O. without any subscribed 
 exponents or indices whatever. 
 
Chapter XXIV 
 
 With Children of Foreign Parentage* 
 
 At the opening of the September term in the 
 Cleveland school, Ishpeming, Mich., we had 
 112 first-grade children in one room, and there 
 was no other room of any kind to be secured. 
 
 The pupils are children of miners; all but 
 three are of foreign parentage, and. their upper- 
 most thought and ambition is to learn to talk, 
 read, and write the English language, and the 
 father and mother are anxious to adopt the 
 American language and customs. They are 
 mostly Finns. Their first aim is to send their 
 children to school. 
 
 These first-grade children really teach their 
 fathers, mothers, and adult uncles, cousins, 
 aunts, and boarders the English they learn in 
 school. 
 
 ♦From New England Journal of Education. By Winifred 
 Lacy, M.PD., Principal and Primary Teacher, Cleveland School, 
 Ishpeming, Mich. 
 
 (180) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 181 
 
 I was facing a proposition more easily imagin- 
 ed than described. Superintendent E. E. Scrib- 
 ner settled it offhand by saying: ''Use the Bata- 
 via system/' The readers of the Journal of 
 Education have long been familiar with the 
 general plan of Superintendent John Kennedy 
 of Batavia, N. Y., which he introduced to that 
 city in 1898. 
 
 I took charge of the room myself and took as 
 my assistant a high school graduate with no 
 experience. At first there was scarcely a child 
 who could understand, much less speak, Eng- 
 lish. For three weeks we worked on faith and 
 motions chiefly. Think of two of us starting 
 in with 112 such children. 
 
 We alternated recitation and individual work. 
 While my assistant heard a reading lesson, for 
 instance, I took the slower children in the other 
 part of the class and helped them on the difficult 
 words and phrases of the lesson they would soon 
 recite to her. 
 
 I assisted the laggards so that they were the 
 
182 THE BAT AVI A SYSTEM 
 
 bright ones when they came to their reading 
 lesson. They knew that they knew the words 
 and phrases and were eager to show how well 
 they could read. They had a relish for the 
 lesson. They were no longer timid. 
 
 The children not helped much were quick 
 enough *to read by themselves. Lesson after 
 lesson would pass without a child's halting or 
 stumbling over a word or phrase. They could 
 read two or three times as much in a given period 
 as is customary. Every child was in the game 
 confidently. 
 
 His help had come quietly, individually, and 
 in advance rather than publicly and humiliat- 
 ingly after failure. 
 
 The results were equally surprising in writing, 
 in spelling, in language, in music, and in draw- 
 ing. 
 
 At the end of four months these 112 children 
 were much in advance of a similar room with 
 forty-five children taught in the regular way 
 by an extra good teacher. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 183 
 
 The class will be promoted as a whole, not 
 more than three or four being retained of the 
 112 who entered last September. In a class 
 of forty-five by the ordinary teaching about 
 ten or twelve will be retarded, or a rate of 
 twenty-five to thirty out of 112. 
 
 But the gain is not wholly for the child. It 
 is a great blessing to the teachers. Who can 
 estimate the strain upon a teacher who from day 
 to day has from a fourth to a third of her class 
 hanging back on her nerves all the time? 
 
 Nothing could be more depressing than this. 
 It clouds the atmosphere of the school, it wears 
 upon the bright children, it deadens more and 
 more the slow ones, it saps the teacher's energy, 
 racks her nerves, and often wrecks her life. 
 
 On the other hand, there is nothing more in- 
 spiring than the conquest of ignorance by a 
 child. There is tonic like an ocean breeze in 
 seeing child after child gain individual power 
 in reading, writing, spelling, use of English, 
 music and drawing. 
 
184 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM n 
 
 Who can describe the joy of a teacher who has 
 seen her naturally slow pupils become bright, 
 eager, with a conquering-hero spirit? It is also 
 economical, because the work of a quarter of the 
 class does not have to be done over again. 
 
 All honor to John Kennedy of Batavia for 
 what he has done for the Cleveland school of 
 Ishpeming, and this school is but one of a 
 thousand in England and America. 
 
 The pity of it all is that tens of thousands of 
 schools waste the time of children, waste public 
 money, and ruin teachers* lives, and often be- 
 cause of traditional prejudice. 
 
Chapter XXV 
 
 Advantage over After-school Assistance* 
 
 Pursuant to the vote of your committee it 
 was my privilege to make during the month an 
 investigation of the working of the Batavia 
 plan, so-called, of individual instruction. I 
 submit for your consideration the following 
 report. 
 
 Everything seemed to favor the purpose of 
 our visit. 
 
 We had ample opportunity to see the working 
 of the plan in the rooms with two teachers, in 
 those with one teacher only and in the classes 
 of the high school. There is no difference in 
 the value or practicability under either of these 
 conditions. The whole problem in each case 
 is a matter of arranging the school programme 
 to allow time for both class and individual in- 
 
 Report of Sup't Stanley H. Holmes, Haverhill, Mass. 
 
 (185) 
 
186 V THE BAT A VI A SYSTEM 
 
 struction. The plan is so simple, so sensible 
 and so satisfactory in its operation that it seems 
 a marvel that it has not been worked out long 
 before its development in Batavia. As you 
 step into one of the large rooms in the Batavia 
 schools you observe that it is occupied by from 
 60 to 70 pupils, arranged so as to face the inner 
 side of the room. There are two teachers in the 
 room — one a class teacher the other an indi- 
 vidual teacher. Each is busy and undisturbed 
 by the work of the other. The class teacher is 
 at one side in the front of the room conducting 
 a class exercise with division one. It may be an 
 exercise devoted to the development of some 
 new or advanced topic of the subject as the 
 metric system. The entire division is alert and 
 attentive, and, so far as this work is concerned, 
 the exercise differs in no respect from a similar 
 exercise in our own schools. It may be, how- 
 ever, that the teacher is devoting the period of 
 the class exercise to a recitation by the pupils 
 upon some topic or phase of the subject which 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 187 
 
 has already been developed or taught in some 
 previous class period. If this be the case, we 
 find that the teacher is keeping in mind the 
 purpose of the exercise as a testing exercise to 
 find out what the pupils know of the topic and 
 discover those who do not know. She keeps 
 this purpose of testing clearly in mind and does 
 not confuse it with the purpose of the other type 
 of class exercise mentioned above, which is de- 
 voted to the development of a new topic, and 
 in this testing exercise the teacher does little 
 more than to ask questions, as the recitation 
 progresses. We note that she has close at hand 
 a pencil and paper. If a pupil rises at her call 
 to recite and is unable to give a satisfactory 
 recitation, or says he does not know, the teacher 
 makes note of his failure on the paper which 
 she has at hand and without waiting longer and 
 without making any attempt then and there 
 to develop the subject for the benefit of this 
 single pupil who ]ias failed, without keeping 
 the class waiting to listen to the ineffectual 
 
188 THE B ATA VI A SYSTEM 
 
 attempts of a child who knows little or nothing 
 of the topic in hand, the teacher tells the pupil 
 to sit and passes on with the work, calling up 
 another pupil. And so the work progresses 
 during the entire class period, without break 
 or interruption. At the clos'e these things have 
 been accomplished: Those pupils who under- 
 stand the topic have had an opportunity to 
 recite upon it and thus by oral statement to 
 fix it more firmly in mind, and at the same time 
 gain practice in oral expression. Those pupils 
 who have failed have been noted and the teacher 
 is prepared to report to her colleague the names 
 of those who are weak in the subject or topic 
 and who need special help upon it. During all 
 this time the pupils of division two are profitably 
 occupied with quiet study upon the subject 
 which the school programme calls for, while 
 the second or individual teacher sits in the front 
 of the room facing this division at a table at 
 which two chairs have been placed, one of which 
 she occupies and the other of which is occupied 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 189 
 
 by a pupil whom she has called out for indi- 
 vidual instruction. There is no noise in this' 
 end of the room. This individual instruction 
 is all given so quietly that except for the ocular 
 evidence one would not suspect that such a 
 thing is going on in the room. If we take pains 
 to get close enough to see and hear just what 
 this individual teacher is doing we find that in 
 a low, pleasant, sympathetic tone of voice she 
 is leading the pupil to help himself and to master 
 his dijfficulty for himself. These is no loudness 
 or harshness of tone, there is no impression left 
 upon the pupil but that which sympathetic 
 helpfulness from the teacher and his own mas- 
 tery of difficulty will leave, and he goes to his 
 seat after 5, 10, or 15 minutes of this sort of 
 help with a new courage and hope, a feeling of 
 increased mastery and power, and the conviction 
 that if he will help himself he will in time master 
 all the obstacles that hinder his progress and 
 will pass on with his classmates at the close of 
 the year's work. At the close of the period the 
 
190 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 two teachers exchange divisions, the class teach- 
 er to do class work with division two, and the 
 individual teacher to do individual work with 
 division one. The work of conducting the work 
 in the room with but a single teacher does not 
 differ materially from that in the two-teacher 
 room. The programme must be so arranged 
 as to make one half of the periods in a subject 
 as arithmetic, for example, class periods and 
 one half individual instruction periods. While 
 the individual work is going on the class is 
 occupied in profitable study. There are a few 
 of our schoolrooms in which it would be feasible 
 to so arrange the work that two teachers might 
 be employed in them without adding to our 
 present teaching force. In nearly all of our 
 rooms, however, one teacher only, as at present, 
 should be employed. 
 
 In the high school where the departmental 
 plan of work is in operation, as it is in our high 
 school, the periods for work in any subject with 
 a class alternate, one being devoted to class in- 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 191 
 
 struction or class recitation and the next day's 
 period to individual work in the same subject, 
 while the class as a whole is profitably employed 
 upon written drill work or study that has to do 
 with the subject at hand. The high school 
 programme is not arranged at all differently 
 on account of this individual instruction. The 
 question naturally arises, What do the Batavia 
 teachers think of this plan of doing school work? 
 In no case did inquiry elicit anything but a 
 favorable opinion of its value and practicability. 
 They believe in it and they will tell you in every 
 room that they plan and expect that at the end 
 of the year they will send forward their grades 
 in unbroken ranks, and that the only pupils 
 who will not secure promotion will be in those 
 possible cases where children may have entered 
 the schools so late in the summer term that not 
 enough individual instruction can be given to 
 bring them up to the grade. From what I was 
 able to discover from a careful examination of 
 the working and results, and from what I have 
 
192 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 learned of its working in places where it has 
 been tried, I would report that the impression 
 made upon my own mind was distinctly favor- 
 able. It is always the pupil who, because of 
 natural slowness, or absence, or some other 
 cause, has failed to comprehend and so has 
 fallen behind his class who is carried constantly 
 in the mind of the conscientious, thoughtful 
 teacher, and it is this pupil whom such a teacher 
 is always anxious and ready to work for and 
 work with to bring about improvement and ad- 
 vancement. The trouble has been not in a 
 lack of willingness to work or a lack of anxiety 
 for better things on the part of the teacher. It 
 has lain in the notion that the time and place 
 to reach the individual is the regular class reci- 
 tation period or in hours other than regular 
 school hours, i. e., by keeping after school. Be- 
 cause of this notion teachers have striven con- 
 stantly to bring the methods of the recitation 
 as near as possible to perfection, thinking that 
 excellent teaching and recitation methods ought 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 193 
 
 to reach a much greater proportion of the class, 
 if not all. They have also been ready to devote 
 much time out of school hours to such pupils 
 as could be induced to come for individual help 
 and instruction. To be sure, from improved 
 methods of presentation and recitation we can 
 always see tangible and encouraging results, 
 but with the best of teaching skill applied only 
 in recitation there is always left a section of the 
 class which is not reached, and which as a result 
 fails in promotion at the end of the year. Indi- 
 vidual instruction given out of school hours is 
 also fruitful of results, but is open to the serious 
 objection that the regular school hours are long 
 enough and taxing enough for both teacher and 
 pupil who is compelled to remain after school 
 for help is in no mood to receive from the in- 
 struction the fullest benefit. He feels that it 
 is an unjustice to him to compel him to stay for 
 longer than the regular hours, so the number 
 who are really much benefited from such after- 
 school help is necessarily limited, almost entirely. 
 
194 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 to those few who voluntarily ask for such help, 
 the fact being that such pupils as do ask for 
 this after-school assistance are pretty sure to 
 be the most satisfactory and interested pupils 
 in the class, who need help the least of any. 
 
 In other words teachers have over magnified 
 the value of the class recitation and instruction 
 exercise in reaching the individual pupil. The 
 purpose of this class exercise period may be to 
 instruct, i. e., to teach. It may be to test and 
 if to test it is also to train in oral expression. 
 It is erroneous and wasteful to devote any large 
 portion of the class period to an effort to reach 
 the pupil who fails or is behind his classmates. 
 To take such a time for individual teaching is 
 embarrassing to the slow pupil and decidedly 
 uninteresting and wasteful for the rest of the 
 class who must wait. 
 
 I have already shown why individual instruc- 
 tion after school hours is likely to be unpro- 
 fitable. 
 
 In the working of the Batavia plan there is no 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 195 
 
 loss of class time. The weak pupil is definitely 
 known and noted together with his particular 
 weakness. There is very little, if any, cause 
 for embarrassment for the weak pupil, as he is 
 not made to stand and flounder about while 
 the teacher attempts to give him individual 
 instruction in the presence of 'the idle, waiting 
 class. Then again, under this plan, no weak 
 pupil is neglected or is able to escape the help 
 of the teacher, for he is known, his weakness is 
 known, and he is given quiet, sympathetic, 
 individual help during the regular school hours, 
 not being expected or even encouraged to re- 
 main after the regular school hours. 
 
 Home study for pupils of elementary grades 
 is practically eliminated by this plan. When 
 the school room door closes at noon or night 
 the children of these grades leave their school 
 work behind them as they should. This is due 
 to the fact that the time for quiet, intensive 
 study in the school room is much increased. 
 This alone is a very desirable feature of the plan. 
 
196 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 Under prevailing methods of management in 
 most schools there is too much of bustle and 
 recitation work and too little quiet studious 
 application to tasks. This has arisen, of course, 
 from the anxiety on the teacher's part to reach 
 the individual (as well as the class) and the idea 
 that has possessed her mind that the only route 
 to any goal lay through the teaching and recita- 
 tion exercise. 
 
 I cannot close without saying a word with 
 respect to one of the most noticeable and satis- 
 factory results of the plan, its moral effect on 
 teacher and pupils. It would perhaps be better 
 to say little rather then much on this particular 
 thing and so leave those who make a trial of 
 the plan to find this out for themselves. Its 
 effect is sure to be beneficial in lessening the 
 teacher's feeling of strain and anxiety because 
 of the unsatisfactory ones in her class, for with 
 this plan she may have the hope of helping those 
 who so much need help and instruction. It 
 puts the teacher, too, into an attitude of sympa- 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 197 
 
 thy and appreciation for the weak or slow pupil. 
 She better understands him and his need after 
 he has sat beside her for a few minutes from 
 day to day, while she has tried to develop in 
 him greater power and to help him to more rapid 
 progress. It also places the pupil who needs 
 help in an equally sympathetic and appreciative 
 attitude toward his teacher. He feels now that 
 his teacher is his friend and not his task-master. 
 As one teacher expressed herself to me: ''This 
 individual work makes me feel altogether dif- 
 ferent toward the slow boy when he gets up to 
 recite, for I understand him better and he under- 
 stands me better." 
 
 It relieves pupils, too, from their all too 
 common anxiety about the possibility of pro- 
 motion and non-promotion at the end of the 
 school year, for the strong pupil does more and 
 better work and the weak pupil has the hope of 
 having the obstacles to progress removed and 
 of emerging from his present condition of weak- 
 ness. It puts courage into both teacher and 
 pupil. 
 
198 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 I might mention also the better attitude 
 which it causes the parent to assume toward 
 the school when he realizes that the teacher is 
 actually making an effort to do for his child 
 who may be behind in any subject the very 
 thing which the parent would himself do for 
 his child in giving him individual help provided 
 the parent had the requisite knowledge of school 
 requirements, the necessary teaching skill and 
 the time to devote to the matter. 
 
 I have not mentioned its effect upon the dis- 
 cipline of the school. The good order, the quiet 
 atmosphere, the eagerness and cheerfulness in 
 attacking and performing new tasks were all 
 marked features of the Batavia schools, resultant 
 undoubtedly from this system of individual 
 instruction. But I leave the mention of those 
 things to my colleagues of the special committee. 
 
 I have but one recommendation to make — 
 that the plan be given a fair trial in our schools. 
 I have faith to believe that in the hands of a 
 force of teachers of such ability and teaching 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 199 
 
 skill as our own the plan will prove itself a 
 success and will win loyal and enthusiastic sup- 
 port. There is need of it in every grade from 
 the first through the high school, and with the 
 sanction of the school board and a fair trial in 
 the schools there is every reason to look for 
 excellent results. 
 
Chapter XXVI 
 
 Development of the Spirit of Work* 
 
 . The Batavia system of individual instruction 
 had its origin in a very common occurrence — 
 that of an over-crowded school. To relieve 
 the situation the superintendent secured the 
 service of an experienced teacher who had re- 
 tired from school on account of ill health. 
 
 It was arranged that all pupils who were slow, 
 backward or for any reason not up to the work 
 of the grade, should be sent to her for special 
 help. 
 
 As days and weeks went by she became par- 
 ticularly interested in each child, his progress, 
 work and steadily increasing power to do for 
 himself. 
 
 The standard of the whole class was raised 
 and as the plan became a success in that room,- 
 
 ♦Miss Reed's Report to the School Board of Haverhill, Mass. 
 (200) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 201 
 
 the superintendent authorized its use in others 
 where the numbers were sufficiently large to 
 require the services of two teachers. 
 
 The next step was to adapt the method to 
 classes with one teacher, and the following plan 
 was devised. 
 
 After a regular class recitation another lesson 
 is assigned in the usual manner for the next 
 day, possibly longer than under the old plan. 
 All who are equal to the work study by them- 
 selves during the period while the teacher is 
 left free to give instruction to any who need it. 
 
 She will have noted already in the previous 
 class exercise who these are. They come to 
 her desk or table, and, while I sat by giving my 
 close attention, I did not hear a pupil told a 
 single word or point until it was actually neces- 
 sary — instead, he was led by skilful questioning 
 through the difficulty to find his own errors, 
 thus gaining power and courage for the next 
 task. 
 
 In a few words I will name what, in my judg- 
 
202 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 ment, are some of the advantages of this system. 
 
 First. It is individual as the name indicates^ 
 The teacher knows precisely each pupil's dif- 
 ficulty. It may be a small one in her opinion 
 but to him it is a huge obstacle — there is no 
 progress until it is removed. In class work the 
 ordinary child is very liable to feel he is only 
 one of many, and the responsibility of following 
 the recitation is cast upon others — the few who 
 are always ready. He may not actually go 
 through this process of reasoning but as far as 
 his knowledge goes, it amounts to the same 
 thing. When he sits by his teacher and her 
 attention is given to him alone, this cannot 
 be — ^there can be no reason for shirking here. 
 
 Second. A definite and regular period is 
 arranged for this assistance. It is constant 
 and therefore steadily progressive. 
 
 Third. As the power of a child grows he 
 gains confidence, courage and a willingness to 
 work. I never saw more industrious classes 
 than in Batavia. Very little of the spirit of 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 203 
 
 indifference was noticeable, but in its place a 
 readiness to persevere until the work was ac- 
 complished. 
 
 I desire to consider two of the objections that 
 have been brought to my notice. 
 
 It is said these pupils will become dependent 
 and form the habit of relying upon others. 
 
 I do not think so. My own experience is that 
 the majority of children are interested in doing 
 whatever they can do well. 
 
 Their progress may be slow and laborious, 
 but guided by a strong, sympathetic teacher, 
 one who recognizes individual differences and 
 shows pupils how to study, how to find their 
 own errors and correct them, they will learn 
 gradually the still greater and more important 
 lesson of using and depending upon their own 
 abilities. 
 
 In one sense, children are not by nature alto- 
 gether dependent, and it is the wise parent or 
 teacher who does not allow circumstances or 
 environment to weaken the faculty of inde- 
 pendence. 
 
204 - . THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 It has also further been said that the so-called 
 bright pupils are neglected and suffer from this 
 system. I do not feel that this is necessary. 
 In a quiet hour of study, they are surely made 
 to depend more upon themselves, which is the 
 wisest thing that can be done for them. ' 
 
 Plenty of work is always provided, and an 
 opportunity is given to each one to move on 
 according to his individual ability. If, for any 
 reason, they need special attention, the fact 
 will soon become apparent. 
 
 In my own experience, I have found that 
 brilliant scholars are very few, and I, for one, 
 am not sorry, for I believe in work, work, and 
 the vigor and strength of character which it 
 alone brings. 
 
 I realize that true progress in most cases is 
 achieved by patient, plodding labor — not by 
 leaps and bounds. The slow pupils must be 
 encouraged. We need *them in school and in 
 the larger world. They usually become reliable 
 citizens and often are learers in successful, hon- 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 205 
 
 orable business enterprises. For these reasons 
 and others I beHeve absolutely in the underlying 
 principle of the Batavia system. 
 
 Just one word for the teachers of Haverhill. 
 Many of us have already been trying to work 
 along this line. We have considered the matter 
 again and again and have ever been the friend 
 of the slow, possibly the dull pupil. We have 
 done everything in our power to hold him in the 
 school, endeavoring not to allow petty troubles 
 and boyish pranks to mar our view of the future 
 man or woman who sits day after day before 
 us, for the thoughtful teacher ever keeps her 
 face toward the future. 
 
 It seems to fne two things at least may be 
 done. 
 
 We may have a systematic plan and a regular 
 time for individual instruction', without which 
 very little is accomplished in any line. 
 
 We already have the interest and co-opera- 
 tion of our superintendent. 
 
206 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 Now we desire the authority and support of 
 the school board. 
 Shall we have it? 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 Mary A. Reid, 
 Principal of Crowell School. 
 
Chapter XXVII 
 
 Personal Aid under Favorable Conditions'^ 
 
 The ''Batavia plan*' has b^en widely adver- 
 tised, and its praise sounded in such glowing 
 terms that it has, perhaps, suffered from the 
 friends it has made. We are always suspicious 
 of a "cure all' educationally or otherwise. 
 When, therefore, it became my duty to make a 
 personal examination, I was not free from a 
 feeling of distrust. I was willing to see, and 
 expecting to see good; but also on the lookout 
 for its weaknesses. Visiting 25 or more school 
 rooms, many of them more than once, I saw 
 fairly well the working of the system, and came 
 away a stronger believer in it than when I went. 
 
 As you already know, the plan of teaching 
 calls for an equal division of the teacher's time 
 between class work and individual teaching. 
 
 ♦Report of Principal Gray of the Winter street school, 
 Haverhill, Mass. 
 
 (207) 
 
208 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 There is probably no teacher in Haverhill who 
 has not given individual instruction, but in 
 Batavia a method has been developed by which 
 unusually happy results are attained. Perhaps 
 most teachers have sometimes given help to 
 pupils in much the same manner in which it is 
 done there, but it has been the unusual, infre- 
 quent thing. Often our teachers have done 
 this work after the regular session, a time when 
 neither pupil not teacher is in the best condi- 
 tion for work. Often the pupil who has not 
 recited satisfactorily is kept standing while the 
 teacher fires volleys of explanation, questions 
 and perhaps, criticism, excellent in themselves, 
 but with their effect greatly lessened by the un- 
 happy condition of the pupil, his failure empha- 
 sized before all the class until her well-meant 
 efforts to help him over his difficulties are largely 
 a failure. 
 
 The essence of the Batavia system is that 
 personal aid is given under the most favorable 
 conditions possible. No pupil who had failed 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 209 
 
 to recite satisfactorily would there be requil-ed 
 to stand in his place in a crowded room, while 
 from a distance his teacher explained, questioned 
 or criticised in tones that none could fail to hear. 
 Instead, she would wait until the period for 
 individual instruction, when, having provided 
 work for the class — study or written, work — she 
 would quietly call the pupil to her, and, speaking 
 in gentle undertones, help him with his difficulty. 
 She would do this in the best way, telling little, 
 but leading the pupil to see for himself. The 
 character of the aid given is a matter of confi- 
 dence between the pupil and the teacher. The 
 others have their work, and even if they listened, 
 they would be able to hear little of what was said. 
 Thus, while the pupil reveals his difficulty to 
 his teacher, his weakness is not exposed to the 
 possible ridicule of his fellow pupils. His 
 teacher gets at the trouble which he would, per- 
 haps, hesitate to confess in the hearing of his 
 class; for some children will even declare that 
 they understand rather than admit that they 
 
210 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 fail'to comprehend that which seems to present 
 no difficultues to others of their class. It is not 
 children alone who dislike to admit to a multi- 
 tude the failure to see the point, while glad to 
 be set right privately by a friend. 
 
 This, then, is one point essential to the success 
 of the system under consideration; there must 
 be a large degree of privacy. The teacher helps 
 the pupil without scorching him with public 
 criticism, open or implied, thus making him the 
 possible butt of his fellows. Another thing and 
 very important — she has not only realized the 
 value of a gentle voice, that most * 'excellent 
 thing in woman" — she has kept in mind that 
 physically the pupil must be comfortable and at 
 ease if he is to do his best, and so a table has 
 been provided and a chair. There is room for 
 the awkward boy to bestow his long legs, and 
 the table is broad enough to permit him to get 
 his arms comfortable upon it, if there is work 
 to be done with pencil and paper. These are 
 not trivial matters, unworthy of consideration. 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 211 
 
 Every teacher has seen pupils who suffered 
 torture through consciousness of their awkward 
 bodies, and it is folly to expect that under such 
 conditions they will do their best thinking. 
 
 By means of this plan of conducting school 
 work, it is very evident that much more cordial 
 relations are likely to exist between pupil and 
 teacher. We get nearer to a person by con- 
 versing with him than by hearing him lecture. 
 The children are helped over the hard places 
 and, understanding their work, enjoy it. With 
 children, as with grown people, the thing that 
 is understood is liked. No one goes far in any- 
 thing that he does not enjoy doing. It is easier 
 to depress and disgust human nature than to 
 inspire it. We want the rewards of self-respect, 
 the sense of victory achieved, the feeling of 
 getting ahead. The teacher who gives indi- 
 vidual instruction in the best way makes these 
 things possible. 
 
 I do not claim that this method lightens the 
 teacher's labors. It makes them more effective, 
 
212 THE BAT AVI A SYSTEM 
 
 and thus removes the most discouraging thing 
 that any teacher has to contend with — the 
 feeHng that she is not accompHshing what she 
 knows she ought. 
 
 I ought not to close without mentioning what 
 after all is the most attractive, and, I believe, 
 most important result of the method, though not 
 the one usually made most prominent by those 
 who advocate it. This is its moral effect, its 
 value in character shaping. If it had no other 
 value its use would be justified by this alone. 
 
Chapter XXVIII 
 
 As seen in Canada* 
 
 My attention was first drawn to the schools 
 of Batavia, New York, some ten or twelve years 
 ago, when two pupils from that city presented 
 themselves for enrolment in my school. I soon 
 discovered in them a power for work and an 
 independence of thought that was somewhat 
 unusual. On making inquiries I learned some- 
 thing of what is known as the Batavian System, 
 and ever since that time I have had a desire to 
 investigate the system, and see it in actual 
 operation. 
 
 An opportunity to gratify this desire was 
 afforded me in October, 1912. I received a 
 very cordial welcome from the City Superin- 
 tendent, Mr. John Kennedy, and the Principal 
 of the High School, Mr. E. A. Ladd, and his 
 
 ♦Report of Dr. J. A. Houston, Inspector of high schools 
 Province of Ontario to the Minister of Education. 
 
 (213) 
 
214 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 staff of teachers, and was given every oppor- 
 tunity of seeing how their work was carried on. 
 I visited the primary classes in the elementary 
 schools, the higher classes in the grammar grade 
 (corresponding to our junior and senior fourth), 
 and the classes in the High School, observed 
 the work of the teachers both with the class 
 and with the individual pupil, examined the 
 records of the pupils, and questioned many of 
 the teachers as to their methods of dealing with 
 the difficulties which must necessarily present 
 themselves in a High School of over four hun- 
 dred pupils. I wish to place on record here my 
 appreciation of the many courtesies received 
 from the Superintendent, teachers, and pupils 
 during my investigation. 
 
 The plan now adopted in the schools of Bata- 
 via had its genesis in an overcrowded room of 
 some sixty pupils, for whom there was no room 
 elsewhere. To relieve the congestion, a some- 
 what novel scheme was proposed, namely, to 
 put in the room another teacher whose time 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 215 
 
 should be given to those pupils who were found 
 to be lagging behind their fellows. Her especial 
 duty was to deal with the backward pupil, and 
 give him an opportunity to make something of 
 himself. The teacher selected to carry out this 
 experiment was one gifted with a rare personality 
 and superior teaching power, and to say that 
 the experiment proved a success would be to 
 put it very mildly. The dull pupil disappeared ; 
 the atmosphere of the room changed; the spirit 
 of work prevailed; there were no longer bright 
 pupils with nothing to do and slow pupils who 
 could do nothing. The plan was extended to 
 other overcrowded rooms with equal success. 
 Then came the question, was this change 
 for the better to be attributed to the presence 
 of two teachers in a room, or to the combination 
 of individual and class instruction? A further 
 experiment was tried in one-teacher rooms, 
 with normal sized classes. This was to devote 
 to class instruction one half the time appor- 
 tioned to any subject, and give the other half 
 
216 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 to individual work with pupils who required it. 
 This experiment proved such a decided success 
 that the plan has been carried on for some 
 twelve years or more, and no teacher in Batavia 
 today would desire for one moment to revert 
 to the old order of things. 
 
 I can best give the fundamental idea under- 
 lying the Batavia plan by quoting from a report 
 made by Superintendent Kennedy. He says: 
 ''All normal children are susceptible of educa- 
 tion if they are dealt with in accordance with 
 their natures. Our plan of supplementary indi- 
 vidual teaching enables us to reach the indi- 
 vidual needs of children, and to put them in the 
 way of maintaining themselves in a graded 
 system. The graded system is, in my opinion, 
 a powerful, even a necessary instrumentality 
 in the education of the vast majority of children. 
 It is the visible ladder by which the children 
 climb to success. The motives of children 
 must be immediate and concrete, and when this 
 concrete progress is inspired by interest and the 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 217 
 
 sense of achievement, success is assured. It is 
 because children are neither alike nor equal 
 that they have to be attended to' individually. 
 Their individuality is their most precious pos- 
 session, and that individuality, individual at- 
 tention tends to conserve. It is not their 
 inferiority but their individuality which makes 
 them nonresponsive and obstructive." 
 
 The scheme of class-individual instruction in 
 Batavia is carried out in two different ways. 
 
 (1) In certain overcrowded rooms two teach- 
 ers are employed, one in class instruction, the 
 other in individual work. This method is used 
 in only a few of the lower grades of the elemen- 
 tary schools. I saw this plan in operation, and 
 there was not the slightest sign of confusion. 
 Every one seemed happy and contented, and 
 I was assured by the teachers that the progress 
 of the pupils was all that could be desired. 
 
 (2) In all the classes of the elementary schools, 
 which are not overcrowded, and in all the classes 
 of the High School, the teacher devotes to class 
 
218 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 work one half the time assigned to any subject, 
 and the other half to individual work. As 
 Superintendent Kennedy points out: "This 
 phase of the plan permits its extension and use 
 under all conditions. It has furnished the 
 solution for the problem of individualizing the 
 High School." 
 
 In addition to this plan of dividing the class 
 time, the courses of study and the time-table, 
 in the High School, are so arranged that every 
 pupil has about one third of his time in school 
 to devote to quiet study and work by himself, 
 either in the general study room, or in the class- 
 room where individual work is going on. 
 
 The three elements which go to make up the 
 Batavia plan then are: 
 
 (1) Class instruction in the lesson as a whole, 
 combined with the recitation and tests necessary 
 to ascertain whether the pupil is doing his work, 
 is gaining the desired knowledge, and is mas- 
 tering the subjects assigned for study. 
 
 (2) Individual attention, given when requir- 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 219 
 
 ed, to gain the confidence and learn the disposi- 
 tion of the pupil; to discover his difficulties; to 
 give him judicious help by encouragement, 
 questions, or suggestions; to put him in the way 
 of helping himself. 
 
 (3) Regular periods for study, to give the 
 pupil a chance to find himself, to gain self- 
 reliance, independence, self -initiative, and to 
 experience the joy of achievement. 
 
 Any plan or system of education may be 
 judged in two ways: (1) by considering its theo- 
 retic merits and its inherent excellencies as 
 tested by its agreement with correct pedagogic 
 principles, and (2) by ascertaining the results 
 which have followed its use for a reasonable 
 length of time amongst those for whom it was 
 intended. 
 
 Examined from the first of these view-points, 
 the Batavia plan will stand the test. 
 
 (1) It combines the advantages of the graded 
 or organized school, with those of the unorgan- 
 ized school of former days. 
 
220 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 (2) It provides for the class instruction which 
 is necessary to economize time and conserve the 
 energy of the teacher in presenting his subject. 
 
 (3) It offers the stimulus and emulation of 
 numbers working together for a common pur- 
 pose, than which there is no more powerful in- 
 fluence in an average class. 
 
 (4) It recognizes the fact that there is no 
 uniformity in the nature of children, and that 
 individual needs can be satisfied only by indi- 
 vidual attention. 
 
 (5) It enables the teacher to study the per- 
 sonality of each pupil and to accomodate his 
 instruction to each one's peculiar requirements. 
 
 When considered from the second of the view- 
 points already mentioned, the results shown in 
 the Batavia schools, where the system has been 
 in force for some twelve or fourteen years, are 
 most satisfactory. 
 
 (1) It has the effect of retaining the pupils 
 in the schools. Out of a total school attendance 
 of 1,800, I found over 400 in the High School, 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 221 
 
 boys and girls being about equal in numbers. 
 In the graduating class of June, 1911, there were 
 19 boys out of a total 32. 
 
 (2) It has practically eliminated failures in 
 examinations. I examined the official reports 
 from the Board of Regents at Albany on the 
 results of their examinations in the Batavia 
 High School, and found that the failures were 
 less than one per cent. 
 
 (3) It has done away with the question of 
 discipline, by removing the usual cause of the 
 restlessness of a large proportion of the class, 
 who are frequently left unoccupied, while the 
 teacher explains to a few, perhaps to one pupil, 
 a matter already thoroughly understood by 
 the others. 
 
 (4) It has introduced a spirit of earnestness 
 and interest which was manifest in every form 
 in the school; every one seemed to feel that his 
 ultimate success was a reasonable certainly. 
 
 (5) It has produced a class of independent 
 and self-reliant pupils who appear to have 
 
222 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 confidence in themselves and their powers, who 
 have the spirit of work and the power to w^ork. 
 
 (6) It has done away with the flow, unre- 
 sponsive pupil who keeps the class back, by 
 giving the assistance necessary to enable him 
 to solve the personal equations whose unknowns 
 were his latent energy and his confidence in 
 himself. 
 
 In my report to the Minister on the condition 
 of the High Schools under my supervision, I 
 referred briefly to the wisdom of introducing 
 into our system of teaching more study periods 
 for the pupil and more attention to his indi- 
 vidual needs. The adoption of some scheme 
 along the line indicated in the preceding pages, 
 with such modifications as would make it suit 
 the different conditions in our schools, would, 
 I am convinced, be of very great advantage. 
 The serious defect of our present system is its 
 want of elasticity; it is too machine-like in its 
 operation; it makes provision for the classes, 
 it fails to make provision, except incidentally, 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 223 
 
 for individual needs. The remedy appears 
 to be what the Batavia plan provides, "organized 
 individual instruction as the supplement and 
 corrective of class instruction.*' 
 
Chapter XXIX 
 
 What to do with the Laggard* 
 
 What to do with the laggard in schools is a 
 question pressing for an answer throughout the 
 civilized world. Compulsory attendance and 
 the exceedingly close organization of schools 
 have made the laggard problem decidedly acute. 
 
 When attendance was voluntary and when 
 schools were loose aggregations instead of 
 organizations, the laggard could be ignored. 
 If he sagged, he did not drag anybody else down. 
 He just sagged down alone. When the school 
 became insufferably tedious to him he just 
 eliminated himself, and found congenial employ- 
 ment in the busy world, where his teeming energy 
 and luminous intelligence found "ample room 
 and verge enough." He went forth to be a 
 great provider, a model husband, and father, 
 
 ♦From an address to the New York State Holiday Confer- 
 ence of High School Principals. 
 
 (224) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 225 
 
 a sterling citizen and a pillar of the state accord- 
 ing to his lights. The only drawback in his 
 case was that his light was not sufficient to 
 enable him to see all the dangers of the state. 
 He was exposed to be the dupe of those who 
 were only too willing to do his seeing for him. 
 
 The laggard cannot eliminate himself now. 
 If he tries to do so he encounters a truant officer 
 who runs him back in again. The laggard now 
 encounters not only the tediousness of the 
 school, but also its pinch. And a lad that has 
 been pinched in school is not an assured triumph 
 in civil life. We read in Scripture of a person 
 whose last stage was worse than his first. 
 
 I have some tributes to pay to non-organiza- 
 tion. It started many a great man on the way 
 to fame and fortune. It opened an unobstruct- 
 ed course to those rare ones who could run alone, 
 and who could maintain themselves without 
 resting brakes, while ascending the hill of 
 knowledge. The unorganized school never 
 made any business for the doctor, nor for the 
 undertaker, nor for the constable. 
 
226 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 On the other hand the unorganized school 
 let its laggards escape; and it discouraged all 
 the rest of the children by giving them the task 
 of Sisyphus; rolling the same old stone up the 
 same old hill and ever finding it at the bottom 
 again. The unorganized school was weighed 
 in the balance and was found wanting. It has . 
 been retired. I am glad to say that it has 
 passed. It has been passing into history, not 
 without many claims to respect. But it will 
 never return. It should never return. 
 
 I have hinted that organization has dire 
 possibilities; and I am not through with them 
 yet; there is still to be considered the tragedy 
 of retardation. But the prevention of these 
 evils does not lie, in my opinion, in putting the 
 clock of time back fifty years. The great 
 nineteenth century recognized the evils of non- 
 organization ; it grappled boldly with chaos; 
 and it has left us a marvelous monument of 
 itself in a most magnificently organized school 
 system. It is for the twentieth century to 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 227 
 
 conserve and preserve that school system; to 
 rectify and perfect it; to take every pinch out 
 of it; to make everybody safe, happy, and suc- 
 cessful who has anything to do with it. 
 
 Under the new order the laggard is decidedly 
 in evidence. And he is most painfully aware 
 of it. If he sags all the rest of the pupils are 
 retarded; and they become great sufferers, — 
 educationally, intellectually, morally, and even 
 physically. The protests against retardation 
 are loud; and justly so. The devices for the 
 relief of retardation are at least interesting, 
 even if they are not always wise, just, and sound. 
 Some are saying that a crowd is preposterous, 
 and that the quick individual needs to be dis- 
 engaged. If he needs to be disengaged the slow 
 individual needs it more imperatively; and 
 therefore organization is a failure; we have 
 simply snared our children. This is indeed 
 plausible; for we have snared many children. 
 But I hope to show that we have no right and 
 no occasion to make a snare of organization. 
 
228 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 But let us keep to the laggard av/hile. When 
 the laggard sags now, he does not sag away 
 from the teacher; he sags right onto her. He 
 gets on to her nerve. He breaks down her 
 geniality; he breaks down her composure; he 
 breaks down her teaching. 
 
 There can be tragedy in schools if organiza- 
 tion is not controlled to beneficent ends. Then 
 why take the chances on organization? Be- 
 cause without organization education is spirit- 
 less and unproductive. Organization is Samson 
 in the full growth of his locks. Organization 
 is the Archimedean lever that can uplift the 
 world. 
 
 No, we will not go back. The pathway of 
 education is now surveyed and staked off. 
 Every child can see the stakes leading to a 
 definite goal. He fights for his stake before he 
 fights for the ideal. And the stakes make the 
 ideal attainable. The primary child sees the 
 stakes extending into and through the university. 
 
 The teacher now has a definite and sharply 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 229 
 
 defined task, instead of a vague one. The 
 principle of the division of labor has been made 
 the key to an aggregate momentum. Waste 
 has been reduced to a minimum, if it has not 
 been entirely eliminated. All the conditions 
 of success have been contrived; and success is 
 the mandate placed upon the management in 
 charge. 
 
 But here comes in the laggard. Organiza- 
 tion may propose; but the laggard disposes. 
 The laggard commands the situation. Till he 
 budges nothing can budge. The machine is 
 clogged. The sickle, to change the figure, will 
 not work; the reaper kills its horses in merely 
 mutilating and ruining every spear of grain that 
 it reaches. 
 
 The immediate cause is the laggard; he is the 
 clog. If the laggard blocks the game, then why 
 not get rid of the laggard? I think I see several 
 potent reasons why not. One very important 
 reason is that it can't be done. 
 
 You cannot put the laggard out of school; 
 
230 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 for the law will not let you do so. And here I 
 bow to the wisdom of the law, as well as to its 
 majesty. Nor can you always kill the laggard; 
 we have all seen laggards who have become 
 persecution proof.. 
 
 Then why not demote him? For two good 
 reasons: First, he will sag the lower class, besides 
 disgusting them with his huge presence; and in 
 the second place, you will find new laggards 
 doing his work in the grade from which he has 
 been removed. It is a case of cutting off the 
 head of the hydra only to breed two. The same 
 would be true if you relegated him to a dunce 
 class or ''ran him in" with incorrigibles for 
 merely being unfortunate. If you can bring 
 yourself to do that thing, and if he and his 
 parents would submit to it, you only provide 
 for his successor. 
 
 I have never known a child who did not find 
 his highest happiness in conquering a difficulty. 
 And I have never known a child who has con- 
 quered a difficulty who did not want other 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 231 
 
 difficulties to conquer. They are all Alexanders ; 
 the taste of conquest inspires in them the lust 
 of conquest. Education is a state of mind and 
 character; the child is educated who has learned 
 to do creditable things, and who is on the alert 
 for creditable things to do. 
 
 ''A still strong man in a blatant land," he 
 "stands four-square to every wind that blows." 
 The world needs such men, and the school that 
 gives such men is one of the greatest blessings 
 in the world. The good teacher will invite 
 his pupils forth to manly exercises that lead to 
 noble manhood. It is not in the halls of legis- 
 lation that we must fight the grafter and the 
 corruptionist. It is in the school room that 
 the rights, the liberties, the dignity of men are 
 to be conserved. ''Let me write the songs of 
 the people I care not who makes their laws." 
 Let me write noble sentiments on the heart of 
 an unspoiled child and in time he will route out 
 every nest of thieves in the land. And in time 
 he will disturb the nightly repose of the would- 
 be Caesar. 
 
232 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 I have said and perhaps I have shown, that 
 you cannot ehminate the laggard; he is Hke the 
 poor, he is always with you. You cannot 
 eliminate the laggard if you would. I now as- 
 sert that you should not eliminate him if you 
 could. The laggard is a perpetual guarantee 
 of strong teaching in the school. You cannot 
 budge the laggard except by strong teaching. 
 But strong teaching will do it; not by adapting 
 the course of studies to his inertia : but by adapt- 
 ing the teaching to him. He must be reached 
 individually. Wholesale processes have wreck- 
 ed themselves on him in vain. Not that whole- 
 sale processes must be discontinued, for whole- 
 sale processes are the very life of schools. If 
 the individual is safeguarded the general crowd 
 becomes a powerful educational stimulus, the 
 mighty uplift of education. 
 
 The laggard must be studied; and that is 
 child-study of a most vital kind. His case must 
 be diagnosed in order that it may be treated. 
 His case is largely his own; and he cannot with 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 233 
 
 safety be bunched into a class. The laggard 
 must be encouraged, not depressed; he must 
 be trained to acquisition; he must be caused to 
 find himself, to get acquainted with himself; 
 he must be led to feel that his mission is not to 
 throw up the sponge, but to challenge the whole 
 crowd. 
 
 The laggard is a perpetual guarantee of great 
 teaching in the schools; not merely because 
 great teaching is needful to reach him, and 
 through him to reach all; but because he can 
 make the teaching great. The laggard is an 
 educationist in the school, instructing and 
 training the teachers. His lectures always 
 ring true; they never fail to edify; and the teach- 
 er who has sat at his feet and been trained by 
 him becomes a pedagogical giant. 
 
 And as the laggard is omnipresent he guards 
 every point of our school system. Education 
 may start ofE on excursions, in quest of prim- 
 rose paths; but the laggard will continue to 
 call back the Arnolds of Rugby, the Mark Hop- 
 
234 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 kinses, the Martin B. Andersons, and the James 
 McCoshes, to put ingenuous youth on their 
 feet and point them to the utmost heights of 
 attainment. And they are all ingenuous youth. 
 Their blood is not only blue, but it is purple; 
 they are not merely of the nobility; they are 
 princelings of the imperial household. They 
 are heirs to a sovereignty greater than that of 
 the Romanoffs, greater than that of the Caesars. 
 
 The laggard in the organized school is a 
 perpetual guarantee that the liberty and equal- 
 ity fought for by the demigods of Marathon 
 and Bunker Hill, shall not pass from men; for 
 when he goes to the front they all go there ; and 
 they all come into their own. 
 
 Much has been said about the levelling pro- 
 cess ; there never came a better process into this 
 world, if the levelling is done in the right direc- 
 tion; if the levelling is upward. 
 
 But can this be done? It has been done for 
 six hundred years in the schools that have given 
 William of Wykeham and Arnold of Rugby 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 235 
 
 their fame. Where has there ever been a more 
 closely organized school system? And where 
 has there ever been a severer course of studies? 
 Young lads demonstrating Euclid, construing 
 Livy, and interpreting Aristotle almost before 
 reaching their teens. And it has been a case 
 of compulsory education; for, though it has not 
 had the compulsion of law, it has had the com- 
 pulsion of custom and parental authority. Who 
 will say that those schools never encountered a 
 laggard? Yet who can can say that those 
 schools ever had a left-over? The lad who 
 enters Winchester, or Eton, or Westminister, 
 or Rugby, or Harrow, might as well fail in 
 battle as to fail to get into and through Oxford 
 and Cambridge. 
 
 Those schools made the English democracy 
 and the American democracy. That is not what 
 they were started for; they did that incidentally, 
 perhaps accidentally: the remarkable case of an 
 aristocracy planting democracy in the world. 
 It was in those schools that Eliot and Hampden 
 
236 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 and Sydney dreamed their dreams of human 
 rights. It was in those schools that the battles 
 of Marston Moor and Naseby were won; it 
 was in those schools that the British Empire 
 was won. It was in schools descending from 
 them and formed on their model that the Ameri- 
 can Republic was created, and its constitution 
 written. It was those daughter schools that 
 gave to history the names of Shiloh, Gettsyburg, 
 and Appomattox. 
 
 I do not find that those schools ever under- 
 took to explain anything away. They just 
 stripped to their work and won out by sheer 
 good fighting. 
 
 And what a race of idealists they have given 
 to the world. Honor and fame everything; 
 dollars nothing. You must strive for West- 
 minister Abbey. You must attain if possible 
 that "grand old name of gentleman." And 
 you must carry the rules of chivalry into modern 
 conditions. A lie, a deception, a craven act, 
 would turn your picture to the wall. Shield 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 237 
 
 the female and the helpless; punish him that 
 molests you; but let your fight be ever fair; 
 never use a ruffian's strategy nor touch a ruf- 
 fian's weapon; never strike below the belt; and 
 remember that when your man is down he is in 
 a sanctuary as sacr.ed as a Greek temple or a 
 medieval cathedral. • 
 
 Perhaps such ideals are obsolete. There are 
 those however who would shudder to concede 
 it. But you cannot sweep such ideals away as 
 long as the world has laggards, and so long as 
 the law treats the laggard as a ''man and a 
 brother," by running him into your schools. 
 He is the leaven that will leaven the whole lump. 
 
 ''The stone which the builders rejected has 
 become the headstone of the corner." I be- 
 lieve in the laggard; and I like the teacher who 
 believes in the laggard. I like the teacher who 
 expects to get every one of her pupils through 
 their grade. And if she expects to do so, she 
 will do so, unless some unforeseen circumstance 
 shall arise. I like to see a town building school 
 
238 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 houses to accomodate its upper grades. I like 
 to see a tidal wave of youth sweeping into the 
 high schools and finding the traditional gulf 
 nothing but an imaginary line. I like to see 
 the laggard of the third grade carrying off the 
 honors in algebra and Latin in the high school. 
 I like to see him going to college and picking 
 there the choicest cherry from the topmost twig. 
 
 But will not these apparent miracles kill the 
 teacher? Did it kill Antaeus to touch his 
 mother earth? The loveliness of character which 
 the rescued laggard gives to his rescuer is equal- 
 ed only by the physical vigor which her great 
 service confers upon herself. I know nothing 
 more sanitary than good teaching; nothing more 
 conducive to longevity. 
 
 But how may the laggard be won? By just 
 asking him a question that cannot be answered 
 by yes or no; and by just keeping on asking 
 questions till the 'giant arouses from his sleep 
 and begins to shake his puissant locks;' — until 
 his face begins to beam with intelligence; — 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 239 
 
 until his lip begins to curl with amused scorn 
 at the mole hills that he had supposed were 
 mountains. 
 
 E plurihus unum is the motto of our republic. 
 E plurihus unum is the maxim of a good school: 
 one mass moving with effective momentum 
 because its several units are in superb condition. 
 
 I have treated the lagging as an involuntary 
 thing, and therefore a misfortune. That is 
 what it is almost exclusively in the grades. In 
 the High School however, where boys become 
 fellows, there is an occasional fellow who would 
 like to stretch his legs, stick his hands into his 
 pockets, patronize his teacher and all creation, 
 and treat school work as a bore. It would be a 
 great wrong to that fellow to treat him as a 
 sufferer; it would be a great wrong to that 
 fellow if he could not hear the sharp note of 
 discipline. When the teacher speaks with 
 deprecation the school is undone. I stand for 
 no coddling; I stand for no indulgence. A man 
 that can have no better high school than his 
 
240 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 fellows choose to let him have, has mistaken 
 his calling. 
 
 But how about the mental sag that comes 
 from dropping into vice? Prevention is better 
 than cure; busy children are vice proof; work is 
 the disinfectant of the high school. Get work 
 going; and it will soon be difficult to find a 
 vicious character. Bring the laggard on. That 
 is the solution of the whole matter. That ends 
 the clogging. 
 
 Who can meet all these great responsibilities 
 of the school? The strong teacher. And who 
 can fill the schools with strong teachers? The 
 laggard. Yes we need the laggard. He is the 
 sheet anchor of our hopes. 
 
Chapter XXX 
 
 Class- Individual Instruction* 
 
 Class-individual instruction, better known as 
 the Batavia System, had its origin in the town 
 of Batavia, N. Y. The history of this origin 
 is very interesting. There was an over-crowded 
 room of some sixty pupils in one of the Batavia 
 schools. By a fortunate suggestion on the part 
 of Superintendent John Kennedy it was decided 
 to relieve the congestion by putting an addi- 
 tional teacher into the room instead of taking 
 a class out. This teacher was Miss Lucie Hamil- 
 ton and to her rare personality and superior 
 teaching power is due largely the initial success 
 of class-individual instruction. 
 
 Miss Hamilton was not an assistant to the 
 room teacher. Her rank was coordinate but 
 her work was entirely different. It was to be 
 
 *From Classification in the Public Schools by W. H. Holmes. 
 (241) 
 
242 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 wholly with those pupils who for one reason or 
 another were behind their class. She was to 
 work with these pupils individually until they 
 were able to work with the other members of the 
 class. She was to work with the laggards until 
 they were able to work with the leaders. From 
 this individual teacher, class-individual instruc- 
 tion took its rise. For the first time in the 
 history of education a teacher had been assigned 
 to deal with backward pupils in a humane way. 
 Up to this time they had been neglected or else 
 classed by themselves in rooms for backward 
 pupils and with the spur that comes from an 
 aggregation of dullness they were supposed to 
 succeed. Now they were to be kept with their 
 fellows and given the opportunity to succeed. 
 And they did succeed. After a few months of 
 class-individual instruction, it was evident that 
 a marked change had taken place in the first 
 of two-teacher rooms. Pupils who had been 
 considered very dull began to improve, and 
 some of them were soon up among the leaders 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 243 
 
 There was only one way to explain the really 
 marvelous change. The reason lay in the work 
 of the teacher, who hour after hour, and day 
 after day, had called the retarded and backward 
 pupils to her side to find the difficulties, and to 
 encourage them to overcome these difficulties. 
 
 There was not only a change in the working 
 ability of the pupils, there was a change in their 
 attitude as well. The whole atmosphere of the 
 room was changed. All were happily at work. 
 There were no bright pupils with nothing to do, 
 and no dull pupils who cotild do nothing. The 
 standard of work was gauged by what the ablest 
 pupil could do, and all the pupils were soon well 
 up to the standard. 
 
 So the good work went on in that room, and 
 then the test came. Would the plan get similar 
 results in other over-crowded rooms? Addi- 
 tional teachers were placed in other overcrowded 
 rooms, and the results were as good as those of 
 the original two-teacher room. It was thus 
 shown that the success of the plan was not due 
 
244 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 to the personality or ability of a specially gifted 
 teacher. 
 
 The success of the plan was so great that the 
 superintendent and school officials began to 
 think that the two-teacher room, with the com- 
 bination of class and individual instruction, was 
 the only solution of the problem of the d\ill and 
 backward child. But after the two-teacher 
 plan had been in successful operation for a year, 
 it dawned upon Superintendent Kennedy that 
 success was due not to the two teachers but to 
 the two kinds of teaching. It was the happy 
 blending of individual with class instruction 
 that was obtaining the results. So after think- 
 ing the matter out very carefully, he announced 
 to the teachers of the regular grade rooms that 
 they also were to give individual instruction. 
 He tells us that they looked astonished and 
 asked how it was to be done. His answer was 
 that half the school time was to be taken for 
 individual instruction and half for class instruc- 
 tion. Some of the teachers doubted; some 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 245 
 
 protested, saying they could only get the pupils 
 along by giving all the time to class work and 
 to expect the work to be done by devoting one- 
 half the time to the dullards was simply pre- 
 posterous. 
 
 "Well," said the superintendent, ''the only 
 way to tell is to try it. We have the old school 
 plant intact. We have torn nothing down; and 
 if the new plan proves a failure it will be an easy 
 matter to go back to the old way. All I ask is 
 that you give the new plan a thorough trial." 
 
 And they did — and no teacher went back to 
 the old plan, and no teacher has ever wanted to 
 go back. In this way the Batavian System had 
 its birth. Its success in the single-teacher 
 rooms was as marked as that in the two-teacher 
 rooms. It met with like success in the rooms 
 where one teacher taught two grades, and it has 
 met with success in schools where the teacher 
 has many grades. 
 
 Briefly, then, class-individual instruction is 
 a systematic plan for helping slow and backward 
 
246 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 pupils to help themselves. We know that it 
 has wonderful power to open the minds and 
 hearts of children, both large and small, and 
 cause them to unfold and grow. Col. Parker 
 has said that the best result of the Quincy idea 
 was a more humane treatment of little children. 
 The best result of class-instruction is a more 
 humane treatment of all children, large as well 
 as small. We have been sacrificing millions 
 of our children to the machinery of the graded 
 school system. We have been trying to me- 
 chanize education. Class-instruction seeks to 
 humanize this mechanism. It is only sympathy 
 and common sense combined. For years we 
 have been writing and talking about the indi- 
 vidual child but we have been doing very little 
 for him. Class-individual instruction does 
 something for the individual child. 
 
 The idea of the system is really very beautiful. 
 Here is an intelligent, sympathetic teacher, 
 studying her flock to find the needy ones. She 
 calls these needy ones to her side, one after 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 247 
 
 another, and talks with them, and encourages 
 them, points out their difficulties, and leads 
 them to master these difficulties. She points 
 the way, — she leads, they work and gain the 
 power. The thing most needed in our schools 
 is systematic, sympathetic individual help as 
 an aid to class instruction. The plan we are 
 considering gives this systematic, sympathetic, 
 individual help. 
 
 What has the plan done for the children of 
 Batavia? 
 
 It has given them the spirit of work and the 
 power to work. The spirit of work is every- 
 were in all rooms. The pupils, all of them, at- 
 tack difficulties with confidence and self-reliance. 
 
 You know there is a saying that ''he who can 
 is king." The children of Batavia can, they 
 have power; they can do things; they are kings 
 of their work. They attack difficulties without 
 shrinking or cringing; and they master things 
 usually. In the case they are not able to master 
 a difficulty, there is someone ready to point 
 
248 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 the way to mastery. The individual teacher 
 is a leader rather than a helper. She has travel- 
 led the road and knows the way. She says to 
 the pupil, ''This way, follow me." The pupil 
 follows but does the climbing himself; there is 
 no boosting by the teacher. 
 
 The person who thinks that individual in- 
 struction means doing the work for the pupil 
 misses the point entirely. The teacher works 
 with the pupil, not for him. She gives him 
 sympathy in his difficulties, but she never be- 
 comes so sentimental as to do his work for him. 
 She encourages him by telling him that the 
 difficulties he is meeting are such as all who have 
 travelled the road of knowledge have met and 
 mastered and they are such as he may master 
 if he will put forth the effort. The successful 
 teacher under the class-individual instruction 
 plan is a sympathetic, patient, courageous lead- 
 er and as such she develops sympathy, patience 
 and courage in her pupils. 
 
 The late Professor Hinsdale, in his excellent 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 249 
 
 book, ''The Art of Study," tells us that nowhere 
 in this country is the art of study adequately 
 taught. He then tells us that children must 
 learn to study by studying under intelligent 
 direction. The intelligent direction is the teach- 
 er's work. It means directing in the right way, 
 time, and place. Teaching is causing the pupils 
 to learn through intelligent direction. The 
 pupil must do the work, do the studying him- 
 self. The pupils at Batavia know how to study 
 and they study. They work and are happy.. 
 They have time for study and they use that for 
 study. The great cry all along the line is, that 
 children do not know how to study. How can 
 they know if we do not give them the opportuni- 
 ty to learn? Direct them intelligently, give 
 them something definite to study, and then hold 
 them responsible for the work assigned and you 
 will find the children will develop the power 
 to study. 
 
 The fault with most teachers is that they 
 help either too little or too much. In one case 
 
250 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 the result is discouragement; in the other it is 
 loss of power. To let a pupil wrestle with 
 difficulties that he cannot master, is bad; to 
 help him over difficulties that he can master 
 with proper direction, is perhaps worse. In- 
 dividual instruction aims to teach the pupil 
 how to study by giving him something definite 
 to study, with proper direction in case of need. 
 The children at Batavia have the power of 
 independent work. There was no deception 
 on the part of the pupil, no trying to tell some- 
 thing that the pupil did not know was right, in 
 the hope that it might happen to be right. This 
 habit of bluffing is perhaps the worst trait 
 possessed by school children to-day. It is the 
 attempt to get credit for something that is not 
 the pupil's own possession. It is the direct 
 result of the present system of class teaching, 
 when the teacher is a tester and not a true 
 teacher; where it is a disgrace to confess ig- 
 norance and to say, 'T don't know." If a pupil 
 in Batavia does not know a thing, he says so 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 251 
 
 frankly, and is either told to look it up, or at 
 the next individual period he is taught what 
 he did not know. There is no premium placed 
 on superficial word repetition. There is no 
 attempt to deceive the teacher; such an at- 
 tempt would fail because the teacher knows her 
 pupil. Her work is teaching not testing. She 
 tests, of course ; but she tests that she may teach ; 
 she does not teach that she may test. There 
 is a great difference between the two kinds of 
 work. The pupils are working for knowledge 
 and power, not for a high per cent, of report 
 cards. If the plan did nothing more than 
 eliminate deception from class recitation it 
 would be a great blessing. 
 
 Some of the chief merits of class-individual 
 instruction are its provision daily for a definite 
 amount of individual instruction and its insis- 
 tence that this time be given to those pupils 
 who are most in need. 
 
 It also lays stress on the fact that instruction 
 is to be given at the point of greatest need rather 
 
252 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 than of the daily lesson. This is one of the 
 main principles of efficient individual teaching, 
 yet it is one that it is hardest to get -teachers to 
 apply. Real individual teaching goes back, 
 back until it reaches solid ground and there it 
 begins to build. 
 
 The plan also provides the supervised study- 
 period. The plan has been criticised because 
 it devotes too much time to the backward pupils. 
 It does devote a large share of the time to the 
 backward pupils because they are the most 
 needy but in case the bright pupil shows that he 
 needs individual instruction he receives his 
 share. 
 
Chapter XXXI 
 
 Opinions of Teachers 
 
 It is interesting to read what teachers who 
 have used individual instruction systematically 
 in the school room for a period of several years 
 say as to the relation between pupil and teacher 
 brought about by its use. Here are some bits 
 of testimony from teachers of Westerly, R. I., 
 where individual instruction is a regular part 
 of the daily work. A department teacher of the 
 seventh and eighth grade writes: 
 
 "The strongest argument that I know of in 
 favor of individual work is the opportunity it 
 gives the teacher to win the confidence and 
 understand the personality of the pupil. Es- 
 pecially is this true in departmental work, where, 
 as in my case, there are upwards of one hundred 
 thirty dispositions with which to deal." 
 
 Another seventh-grade teacher writes: 
 
 ''There is closer sympathy between teacher 
 
 (253) 
 
254 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 and pupils. The pupil is reached in a way that 
 no other method reaches him." 
 
 A fifth-grade teacher: 
 
 "The teacher and pupil understand each other 
 better, are drawn closer by questioning, and 
 oftentimes a study once looked upon as a bug- 
 bear becomes one of pleasure and much profit." 
 
 A departmental teacher in geography and 
 science : 
 
 *T have observed a much more perfect under- 
 standing of pupil by teacher and vice- versa. 
 Many cases of discipline have been most pleas- 
 antly adjusted through the use of this period. 
 Many unpleasant happenings have been avoided 
 by a timely talk, a suggestion given, or the case 
 at hand clearly put before the pupil. When 
 the way is clearly pointed out many follow care- 
 fully. In the case of new pupils, I have reached 
 many through individual periods, have had 
 them interested and reciting well in a short time, 
 whereas I would not have established an ac- 
 quaintance so soon had it not been for the 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 255 
 
 individual periods. This is especially noticeable 
 in the case of children who are timed, who come 
 from other schools, or from environments quite 
 different from that of an average pupil.'* 
 
 A fourth-grade teacher : 
 
 "There is no doubt about individual instruc- 
 tion bringing pupil and teacher into closer rela- 
 tions. It broadens the sympathies of the 
 teacher for the pupil. By it, the real difficulties 
 and problems of the child are discovered. I 
 have found children failing from poor sight or 
 hearing, some whose minds were distracted 
 from their work by regularly frequenting the 
 'cheap show,' and some who were purely lazy 
 and needed to feel the pressure of compulsory 
 work. I do feel that the opportunity that 
 individual instruction gives me to know my 
 children is very valuable. The personal con- 
 tact with the teacher should and does mean 
 much to the pupil." 
 
 Third and fourth grade: 
 
 "As a result of this work there is a pleasant 
 
256 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 atmosphere in the room. Pupils do not become 
 discouraged. They know they will be cheer- 
 fully helped. The teacher is able to know the 
 pupils better, and pointing out his weak points 
 to him while he is near her at the desk is more 
 graciously received than if done in the presence 
 of the whole class. I have never had a pupil 
 who did not accept the individual help in the 
 right spirit.*' 
 
 Mixed room: 
 
 'T think as a result of the individual system, 
 the teacher and pupils become better acquainted 
 with each other. . There is a closer sympathy 
 and a better understanding. The teacher sees 
 more clearly the obstacles the child has to 
 encounter,' and the child learns to think of his 
 teacher as a friend who will help him." 
 
 First grade: 
 
 *'I think that the pupil and teacher are 
 brought more closely in touch with each other 
 by this system than by any other. I would 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 257 
 
 not have missed the close relationship for a 
 great deal." 
 
 These bits of testimony are chosen at random 
 from a considerable number. They represent 
 fairly well the testimony of almost all the teach- 
 ers who have used individual instruction for 
 any length of time. 
 
 Leigh Mitchell Hedges quoted in the Philadel- 
 phia North American, from Prof. F. V. O'Shea 
 of the University of Wisconsin. 
 
 ''After visiting the Batavia schools I am per- 
 suaded that a work is going on there that will 
 go into history as an educational renaissance, 
 and that will equal the great renaissance of 
 Italy in its importance to the human race. A 
 system of teaching is growing up there that is 
 destined to bless the world," 
 
Chapter XXXII 
 
 A Minesota View* 
 
 It was my privilege to visit the Batavia 
 schools last October. I can truthfully say that 
 the claims for this plan are well grounded. I 
 visited every grade from the beginners through 
 the high school. In every room of more than 
 fifty pupils there was an individual teacher at 
 her table in a convenient part of the room, busy 
 at work. 
 
 In the lower grades, and even in the high 
 school, pupils were told by sign or word to go 
 to the individual teacher at once. I asked the 
 privilege of listening to the work done by these 
 teachers. It was found that ability to develop 
 power to do, rather than to get answers was the 
 
 *From School Education. By the Associate Editor. 
 
 (The reader is referred to an editorial headed "Fourteen 
 Years After," in our September issue for a summary of what 
 has been accomplished by the Batavia System in the city 
 where it was born, fourteen years ago. — Editor.) 
 
 (258) 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 259 
 
 aim. The pupils did not feel that it was a 
 punishment but a favor conferred upon them to 
 go to the individual teacher. 
 
 It was a pleasure to go from room to room 
 and see the bright, happy faces intent on the 
 work in hand, ready and anxious to do their 
 best, not for show, but because the heart was 
 full of joy and gladness. 
 
 If anyone failed he was directed to the in- 
 dividual teacher and the work of the class con- 
 tinued as if there had been no interruption. 
 No time was spent in the class to note errors, 
 reasons why, nor to see to it that the pupil 
 understood wherein he failed. The individual 
 teacher attended to that ; the work of the recita- 
 tion — the test and drill of the matter prepared 
 by the pupils was first, last, and all the time. 
 When a new topic was to be taken up sufficient 
 time was given in the class to prepare for the 
 study of the lesson by the class teacher. I was 
 impressed with this fact throughout the school: 
 that the recitation was the pupils and they were 
 
260 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 kept busy and active all the time. Principles 
 first, then application and drill. I did not 
 wonder at the ability and skill of the army of 
 children in the Batavia schools. Their ability 
 to see, know, and appreciate showed itself in 
 scholarship as well as in appearance and bearing. 
 
 One felt that character was being formed that 
 would develop into true manhood and woman- 
 hood, making worthy American citizens. 
 
 I attended a part of the opening exercises of 
 the high school. All were singing as we entered. 
 To see 400 fine boys and girls standing proud 
 and erect in their young manhood and woman- 
 hood, and to feel that the soul went out in the 
 glad strains which echoed through the spacious 
 auditorium was enough to inspire the coldest, 
 unappreciative heart. As our eyes looked out 
 over this beautiful scene and noted the large 
 proportion of boys — nearly half — we felt like 
 exclaiming aloud in congratulations over the 
 fine showing. We enjoyed the choruses of this 
 band — four hundred strong — but the climax 
 
INDIVIDUAL TEACHING 261 
 
 came when they sang their High School Song. 
 They sang it with a spirit that thrilled us and 
 filled onr hearts with admiration. At the close 
 of this song all stood and sang two stanzas of 
 The Star Spangled Banner, then saluted Old 
 Glory, — a large silk flag draped across the wall 
 in front. Tears filled our eyes at this touching 
 scene and we felt sure that our country would 
 be safe in hands trained to such loyal deeds. 
 
 It is to be hoped that more schools will adopt 
 the Batavia system and that more high schools 
 will be filled with boys and girls who have 
 turned their faces toward the goal that makes 
 for character and citizenship.- 
 
Below is the Batavia High School Song: 
 The Blue and the White 
 
 Written by W. L. Coryell 
 (Tune: 'The Orange and Black") 
 
 Our school has always favored 
 
 That rich and glossy bltie, 
 Which, with white in combination, 
 
 Is beautiful and true. 
 They are always floating gayly 
 
 And never out of sight, 
 While in unison we're singing — 
 
 Long live the Blue and White. 
 
 We will ever praise our High School, 
 
 Which in Batavia stands; 
 ''Individual Instruction," 
 
 Known now throughout all lands; 
 And its faithful corps of teachers 
 
 Their duty never slight. 
 For they know that they are working 
 
 For the Blue and the White. 
 
 We recall athletic victories 
 
 On many a day before; 
 How we captured prize and trophy, 
 
 And still we wish for more. 
 But we're sure that we'll not falter 
 
 As we renew the fight, 
 Just because we're marching onward 
 
 'Neath the Blue and the White. 
 
I NDEX 
 
THE BATAVIA SYSTEM, INDEX 
 
 Pages 
 
 absence * 38, 74, 119 
 
 achievement 219 
 
 acquaintance. 254 
 
 adjustability 105 
 
 administration 94, 1 18 
 
 adolescence 70 
 
 advancement 18 
 
 adults 180 
 
 affection 23,61 
 
 after failure. . .-. 182 
 
 school assistance 45, 114, 157, 185, 193 
 
 aggregation 72 
 
 aims 165 
 
 immediate 169 
 
 initiative 177 
 
 not knowledge 177 
 
 power 177 
 
 remote 169 
 
 Albany, report to 36, 166 
 
 alert 186 
 
 Alexander 231 
 
 algebra 238 
 
 alternating 114 
 
 alternation 118 
 
 ambition 42, 100, 122, 158 
 
 American democracy 235 
 
 republic 236 
 
 (265) 
 
266 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 anaemic children 44, 105, 137 
 
 ancestry 141 
 
 Anderson, Martin B 234 
 
 annual intervals 167 
 
 Antaeus 238 
 
 anxiety 196 
 
 appeal of the street 48 
 
 application 196 
 
 Appomattox 236 
 
 appreciation 197 
 
 apprehension 42, 59 
 
 slow 48 
 
 aptitude 112 
 
 Archimedean lever 228 
 
 Argentine republic 103 
 
 Aristotle 235 
 
 Arnold, Thomas 233, 234 
 
 art 24 
 
 of study 249 
 
 as seen in Canada 213 
 
 Ashtabula, O 123 
 
 aspiration 161 
 
 assembled children . 34 
 
 assembly stimulus. . . 53 
 
 assigned work 59 
 
 assigning lessons 58 
 
 atmosphere 158, 164, 215, 255 
 
 of culture 169 
 
 quiet 198 
 
 attendance 26, 1 70 
 
 attention 42, 59, 82, 145, 174, 186 
 
 attitude changed 243 
 
 of parent • ,. 198 
 
INDEX 267 
 
 attitude of teacher 27 
 
 attrition. 17, 19, 54 
 
 atypical 173 
 
 audience needed < 54 
 
 available results 170 
 
 average attendance 170 
 
 children 20 
 
 scholarship 124 
 
 awkward boy , 210 
 
 squad 114 
 
 back work 44 
 
 only 63 
 
 backward children 11, 42, 102, 104, 114, 115, 120, 144, 
 145, 149, 174, 200, 215, 242, 245, 252 
 
 balanced forces 64 
 
 school 172 
 
 Batavia Daily News q " 76 
 
 Evening Times q 131 
 
 Sunday Times q 151 
 
 system 32 
 
 benefits summarized 76 
 
 central idea 118, 216 
 
 description '. . 103, 140, 186, 217 
 
 essence of 208 
 
 experiment 3Z 
 
 flywheel 34 
 
 history 9, 24, 39, 98, 115, 131, 214, 241 
 
 outside school 109 
 
 principal merit 64 
 
 results in ..19,82,85,119, 124,219 
 
 Beck, J. K 126 
 
 behavior in the street 109 
 
 Belknap, Emmett 151, 152, 153, q 154 
 
268 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 Belle city of the lakes .129 
 
 below the belt 237 
 
 benefits summarized 76 
 
 benignity 62 
 
 Birmingham, England 96 
 
 bitter thoughts 24 
 
 bitterness 173 
 
 blind 176 
 
 blockheads 61 
 
 blocking system 114 
 
 bloom 43 
 
 Bloomington, Ind. Evening World q 126 
 
 Telephone q 127 
 
 Blue and the white 262 
 
 bluffing 250 
 
 bodily rest 148 
 
 born short 174 
 
 Botticelli 57 
 
 boy and girl 50, 82 
 
 famine 172 
 
 boys in high school. 50, 260 
 
 made cheap 172 
 
 vs. girls 50 
 
 Bradfute, Walter q 127 
 
 Bradish, John Holley 101, 131 
 
 P. P 131 
 
 brains highly developed 137 
 
 branding children . 55 
 
 brawniness 175 
 
 breadth 17,19 
 
 and depth 53 
 
 break down : 77, 132, 163 
 
 bright pupils 90, 121, 182, 213, 215, 252 
 
INDEX 269 
 
 bright brightest , 15, 26 
 
 from dull 93 
 
 British empire 236 
 
 Buffalo, N. Y 123 
 
 build, not repress 81 
 
 buildings 121, 171, 237 
 
 Bunker Hill 234 
 
 buoyancy 53 
 
 bustle 196 
 
 busy and active 260 
 
 brains, no pranks 148 
 
 children 158, 172 
 
 vice-proof 240 
 
 cadet system 114 
 
 Caesar 231 
 
 Caesars 234 
 
 Cambridge 235 
 
 Canada 110 
 
 view 213 
 
 capacity 112 
 
 centaur 57 
 
 central idea 118 
 
 Chicago university 162 
 
 chiding 158 
 
 child study 60, 149, 232 
 
 childhood 49 
 
 children as a herd 68 
 
 effect on 24 
 
 chivalry 236 
 
 Christianity, educational 110 
 
 chaos 37 
 
 character 16, 21, 260, 261 
 
 fighting for 60 
 
270 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 character promoted 164 
 
 richest and ripest 62 
 
 shaping 212 
 
 charity 62 
 
 charmers without competition 48 
 
 Charlottesville, Va 83, 125 
 
 cheap boys 172 
 
 shows 255 
 
 cheerful faces 25 
 
 cheerfulness 88, 198 
 
 circumstances 89 
 
 citizenship 112, 261 
 
 class hearing 144 
 
 instruction 17, 19, 81, 92, 132, 133, 136, 177, 215, 
 218,220,244 
 
 corrected 223 
 
 individual ». . . . 241 
 
 supplemented 223 
 
 membership 177 
 
 overhearing 209 
 
 recitation 140 
 
 overvalued 194 
 
 stimulus 178, 186 
 
 teacher 27, 39, 64 
 
 teaching ; 73, 250 
 
 uninterrupted 109, 121 
 
 waiting 64 
 
 work , . . 53 
 
 a tonic 118 
 
 classes, large preferable 171 
 
 classification 1, 54, 159 
 
 climbing ' 107, 248 
 
 clogging 15, 100, 229, 240 
 
INDEX 271 
 
 clogs 39 
 
 closely in touch 256 
 
 closer relations 255 
 
 clucking 23 
 
 coadjutor of class teaching 38 
 
 coddling 60, 239 
 
 collapse 9, 41 
 
 college 73, 168, 170, 238 
 
 community 29 
 
 life 54 
 
 competition '. 81, 136 
 
 composure of spirit 42, 228 
 
 compulsory attendance 224 
 
 education 235 
 
 law 230 
 
 work 255 
 
 conduct 88 
 
 concentration ^ 118 
 
 Cone, Hobart B 101, 131 
 
 confidence 42, 49, 100, 209, 219, 247, 253 
 
 conquering difficulty 230 
 
 conquest of ignorance 183 
 
 conservation 135 
 
 conserve the system 227 
 
 contentment 62 
 
 Council of superintendents, N. Y 96 
 
 courage 197, 248 
 
 conversing 211 
 
 cordial relations 211 
 
 corporal punishment 159 
 
 correction 158 
 
 of class work 17 
 
 corruptionists 231 
 
272 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 Coryell, W. L. q 262 
 
 course of study. 23 
 
 cowardice 177 
 
 craven act 236 
 
 creditable things 231 
 
 criminals 56 
 
 crisis in his career 47 
 
 criticism 210 
 
 cross-purposes 173 
 
 crowd a stimulus 232 
 
 crowds uplift or crush 163 
 
 crowded room 147 
 
 to the wall 49 
 
 crushing 163 
 
 cultivation 51 
 
 culture 169 
 
 curriculum 139 
 
 damaging influence 146 
 
 Darwinian machine 48 
 
 deadlocks 16 
 
 deaf 176 
 
 deception 236 
 
 decimation 28 
 
 defectives 69, 81, 136, 160, 173, 229 
 
 deficient hearing 255 
 
 definite stages 73 
 
 delay 149 
 
 delinquents 45 
 
 democracy, American 235 
 
 EngHsh 235 
 
 demotion 159, 230 
 
 departmental work 253 
 
 depletion 21, 27, 28, 30, 45, 47 
 
INDEX 273 
 
 deprecation 239 
 
 depression 14 
 
 description 103, 140, 186, 217 
 
 despair 26 
 
 dispelled 42 
 
 destined to bless the world 257 
 
 destructive fallacy 54 
 
 determining factors 47 
 
 detention after school 45, 114, 157, 185, 193 
 
 development of new topic 187 
 
 devotion to work 88 
 
 diagnosis 174 
 
 dictating 94 
 
 difficulties 219 
 
 attacked 247 
 
 direction 249 
 
 disappearance 48 
 
 discouraged 92, 118, 147 
 
 discouragement 14, 15, 37, 63, 90, 250, 256 
 
 discover for himself 105 
 
 discipline.. . .88, 104, 118, 120, 147, 164, 198, 221, 239, 254 
 
 disease centres 28 
 
 disintegration 168 
 
 disobedience /^. 158 
 
 disorder 21, 88, 158 
 
 disposition 219 
 
 distress 20, 42, 100 
 
 district school 73, 225 
 
 disturbance 93 
 
 division of time 140 
 
 do for himself 105 
 
 doing in public 17 
 
 time 56 
 
274 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 don'ts 11, 59, 80, 105, 134 
 
 downtrodden 48 
 
 dragging '. 20,40,48,49,53 
 
 a teacher 20 
 
 drawing 159, 182 
 
 drilling 136 
 
 dropping out 14 
 
 drudgery 21, 161 
 
 dual process 12 
 
 dull boy 144 
 
 child 149 
 
 pupil 82, 90, 92, 113, 215, 242 
 
 strong 26 
 
 dullness 142 
 
 dunce class 230 
 
 duty 178 
 
 e pluribus unum 239 
 
 eagerness 198 
 
 earnestness 221 
 
 echelon 25 
 
 educate themselves 58 
 
 education a mechanism 68 
 
 a state of mind 231 
 
 from the bottom 70 
 
 educational Christianity 110 
 
 renaissance : 257 
 
 effects 22 
 
 on teacher 148, 238 
 
 efficiency 91 
 
 eighth grade 169 
 
 elasticity 222 
 
 elective course 169 
 
 eliminated 28 
 
INDEX 275 
 
 elimination 224 
 
 of the laggard. 232 
 
 of the 9th grade 151 
 
 Eliot. . : 235 
 
 emasculation 55 
 
 emptying of schools 47 
 
 emulation 17, 19, 54 
 
 en masse 173 
 
 and chaos 37 
 
 encouragement 73, 92, 219, 233, 247, 248 
 
 energy conserved 220 
 
 English democracy 235 
 
 government 97 
 
 teaching of 180 
 
 ennobling , ^ 170 
 
 enriched course 52 
 
 environment 89, 106, 141 
 
 equal endowment 141 
 
 equality of conditions 89 
 
 environment 89 
 
 nature 89 
 
 equipoise .14 
 
 errors exhibited .' 146 
 
 in porcesses 145 
 
 esprit du corps 146 
 
 Eton 235 
 
 Euclid 235 
 
 evenness in grades 38 
 
 evil, recruits of 47 
 
 safeguard from . 164 
 
 evolution 115 
 
 examinations •. 95, 166 
 
 failures eliminated 221 
 
276 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 examinations Regents 221 
 
 expedients 114 
 
 expense 25, 38, 91, 120, 159, 171 
 
 reduced 53 
 
 explaining away 236 
 
 exploitation 25 
 
 eyesight 137, 174, 255 
 
 failure 221 
 
 of teacher to teach 143 
 
 the rule 15 
 
 fair fighting 237 
 
 falling out. 14 
 
 family need 142 
 
 Federspeil, M. A 151, 152 
 
 feeble-minded 69, 175 
 
 Ferry, Martha 83 
 
 q : 124 
 
 fewer teachers » 53 
 
 fifty children, two teachers 56 
 
 fighting for a character 60 
 
 finances 33 
 
 Finns 180 
 
 firmness 82 
 
 first grade 180 
 
 individual teacher 78 
 
 flabby work 50 
 
 flagging 15 
 
 flexibility 73 
 
 fly-wheel of system 34 
 
 force ; 173 
 
 foreign parentage 180 
 
 formation, not reformation 47 
 
 frankly confidential 149 
 
INDEX 277 
 
 freedom 158 
 
 from violence 47 
 
 fret and fury 45 
 
 friction 121, 124 
 
 from bottom up 68 
 
 fundamental idea 216 
 
 fury and fret 45 
 
 gaps in the ranks 74 
 
 generalization 67 
 
 generalized education 67 
 
 geniality 228 
 
 genius .112 
 
 detected 137 
 
 in pupils 70 
 
 gentle voice 210 
 
 gentleman 236 
 
 geography. 254 
 
 geometry 169 
 
 German system 1 14 
 
 getting rid of children 49 
 
 Gettysburg 236 
 
 ghostly abstractions 67 
 
 giants 175 
 
 girls vs. boys 50 
 
 goal , 176 
 
 golden opportunity 49 
 
 good conduct 62 
 
 fighting 236 
 
 governor needed 34 
 
 graces of society 51 
 
 grade dissection 167 
 
 graded system 25, 27, 29, 34, 37, 39, 56, 93, 105, 112, 
 115,216,219 
 
278 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 graded destructive tendencies 33 
 
 evolution of 33 
 
 harsh 44 
 
 maintained 105 
 
 necessity 70 
 
 standing reproach , . . . 9 
 
 transformed 33 
 
 unfinished 34 
 
 grades intact •. 167 
 
 moved. . . '. 164 
 
 graduates 128 
 
 grafters ." 231 
 
 grammar grades full 120 
 
 Grant, U. S. 69 
 
 grasp principles 147 
 
 Greek temple 237 
 
 Greeley, Horace, q 55 
 
 grinding out men 68 
 
 growth at top 107 
 
 guidance 47 
 
 guidon 72 
 
 H. O 179 
 
 Hall, G. Stanley 96 
 
 Hamilton, Lucie .78,101, 133,215,241 
 
 handicapped 173 
 
 Hampden 235 
 
 happiness 100 
 
 happy blending 244 
 
 children . 26, 158 
 
 faces 259 
 
 pupils 119 
 
 schools 43 
 
 teachers 119 
 
INDEX 279 
 
 harrow 24 
 
 Harrow 235 
 
 harsh system 44 
 
 harshness 88, 189 
 
 Hartford; Conn 114 
 
 Haverhill, Mass 185, 200 
 
 Hazelton, Pa 110 
 
 he who can is king 247 
 
 health 40, 100, 158 
 
 of teacher 23, 52 
 
 recovered 163 
 
 hearing 137, 174, 255 
 
 lessons 58 
 
 heart breaking 24 
 
 growth 62 
 
 Hedges, Leigh Mitchell, q 98, 257 
 
 help at the time 108 
 
 by questions 109 
 
 in advance 182 
 
 too little or two much 249 
 
 helplessness 41 
 
 heritage of capability 27 
 
 heterogeneity • . . . . 141 
 
 high aims 164 
 
 high school 13, S3, 94, 95, 122, 127, 148, 156, 168, 190, 
 199,214,217,238 
 
 doubled 49, 120 
 
 filled 21 
 
 individualized 218 
 
 lagging 239 
 
 song 261, 262 
 
 the test ■ 70 
 
 high standing 127 
 
280 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 higher education 128, 168, 170 
 
 Hinsdale, Prof, q 248 
 
 history of system 9, 24, 39, 98, 115, 131, 214, 241 
 
 Holmes. Stanley H. q 185 
 
 W. H. q 241 
 
 home study 40, 44, 106, 119, 127, 156, 198 
 
 eliminated 195 
 
 homes, effect on 43 
 
 hoodlums 48, 172 
 
 hope 42 
 
 Hopkins, Mark 233 
 
 hospital system 115 
 
 Houston, J. A. q 213 
 
 how to do it 80 
 
 to study 118 
 
 humane treatment 246 
 
 humanize 170 
 
 humiliating 182 
 
 hydra-headed 230 
 
 hygienists 28 
 
 hysteria 22, 78 
 
 inattention 88 
 
 ideals and stakes 228 
 
 idealists 231 
 
 ideals obsolete 237 
 
 idiocy 69, 70 
 
 ignorance confessed 250 
 
 Illinois 110 
 
 imprisonment 45 
 
 in every grade 199 
 
 incapability 27 
 
 incorrect sentences 146 
 
 incorrigibles 41, 56, 57, 175, 176, 230 
 
INDEX 281 
 
 independence 28,96, 122, 219, 221 
 
 developed , 58 
 
 independent study 135 
 
 work 250 
 
 Indiana view 126 
 
 individual attention 15 
 
 first, then mass 66 
 
 needs of 10 
 
 indolence 63 
 
 indulgence 239 
 
 industrial demand 142 
 
 education .' 169 
 
 inefficiency 135 
 
 inequality of constitution 163 
 
 inertia 232 
 
 inertness 174 
 
 inflexibility 105 
 
 ingenuous youth 234 
 
 initiative 58, 60, 177 
 
 of pupils 219 
 
 of the teacher 63 
 
 injurious tendencies 29 
 
 injustice 48 
 
 innovation 31 
 
 insolvent 178 
 
 inspiration 115, 163 
 
 intellectual deficiency 160 
 
 inteelligence 88 
 
 intensive study 195 
 
 interest 14,21,26,41,50,53,145,147,221 
 
 moral safeguard 49 
 
 inventions 35 
 
 invidious comparisons 88 
 
282 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 irregular attendance 14 
 
 Ishpeming, Mich 180 
 
 janitors 171 
 
 Japan 103 
 
 Jesus Christ q 150 
 
 joy in work 42 
 
 of achievement 219 
 
 just teachers 50 
 
 justice 56, 177 
 
 juvenile delinquents 56 
 
 Kennedy, John 76, 78, 87, 96, 98, 99, 101, 110, 124, 131, 
 
 135,181,184,213,216,241 
 
 portrait, jrontispiece 
 
 q 107 
 
 report to Albany 36 
 
 key-note for next decade 96 
 
 kindly feeling 57 
 
 kings of their work 247 
 
 knowledge 177 
 
 and power 251 
 
 - of pupil 82 
 
 abor and wait 175 
 
 lessened 124 
 
 making 172 
 
 more effective 211 
 
 saving 172 
 
 Lacy, Winifred q 180 
 
 Ladd, E. A 213 
 
 q 139 
 
 ladder to success 216 
 
 Lady Wisdom 57 
 
 laggard 15, 31, 64, 72, 82, 85, 90, 100, 136, 150, 174, 181, 
 
 239, 242 
 
INDEX 283 
 
 an educationist 233 
 
 commands the situation 229 
 
 getting rid of 229 
 
 makes teaching great 233, 240 
 
 what to do with him 224 
 
 lagging 215 
 
 Lakewood, N. Y. address 19 
 
 language 182 
 
 larger classes 171 
 
 Latin 238 
 
 laziness 63, 177, 255 
 
 lead the mind 59 
 
 leader, not helper 248 
 
 leaven the lump 237 
 
 less work 120 
 
 lesson line. 63 
 
 levelled up 149, 234 
 
 levelling process 234 
 
 upward 149, 234 
 
 liberal culture 170 
 
 lies 236 
 
 limp boys 51 
 
 lines of least resistance 68, 142 
 
 Livy 235 
 
 Lockport, N. Y 151 
 
 Union-Sun q. . 151 
 
 lock-up 176 
 
 long legs 210 
 
 longevity 52 
 
 loud voice 189 
 
 love and sympathy 150 
 
 for the child 61 
 
 loving attention 68 
 
284 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 low voice 189 
 
 McCosh, James / . . . 234 
 
 McKenzie, John M 101, 131 
 
 machines 25, 30, 66, 140, 222 
 
 malnutrition 137 
 
 manly exercises 231 
 
 map of progress 73 
 
 Marathon 234 
 
 Mark, Thiselton 96 
 
 marking exercises 158 
 
 Marston Moor 236 
 
 martyrs 23 
 
 mass 89 
 
 methods 141 
 
 not herd 54 
 
 tangled 163 
 
 teaching 39 
 
 massing of children 54 
 
 mastery 93 
 
 self -gained 189 
 
 maximum 166 
 
 mechanism •. 68 
 
 mechanized education 246 
 
 mechanizing 81 
 
 medical service 20 
 
 medieval cathedral 237 
 
 memory 82 
 
 mental condition 157 
 
 damnation .....113 
 
 injury 28, 30 
 
 pressure 145 
 
 sag 240 
 
 troubles 173 
 
INDEX 285 
 
 merciful , 51 
 
 miasma 77 
 
 Michigan 123 
 
 mind, fighting for 60 
 
 ministration 31, 94 
 
 Minnesota view 258 
 
 mixed room 256 
 
 momentum of numbers 54 
 
 Montreal, Canada 123 
 
 moral danger 44, 48 
 
 effect 16, 196, 212 
 
 health 16 
 
 injuries ; 28, 30 
 
 stamina 48 
 
 more time 121 
 
 mothers 62 
 
 overworked ^ 40 
 
 motives of children : 216 
 
 movement of grade 38 
 
 music 159, 182 
 
 mutual understanding 254 
 
 nagging . .23 
 
 Naseby 236 
 
 National superintendents 96 
 
 nature 89 
 
 needs, rights, duties 278 
 
 needy pupils 251 
 
 nerve wrecked 51 
 
 nerves 163 
 
 nervous breakdown 133 
 
 debility 41, 163 
 
 depletion 45 
 
 dread 105 
 
286 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 nervous system 137 
 
 timidity 1 74 
 
 wrench 102 
 
 nervousness 41 
 
 neurasthenia 41, 64, 105 
 
 never in lessons to come 63 
 
 new education 42 
 
 maxims 43 
 
 pupils 254 
 
 topics 187, 259 
 
 New England Journal of Ed'n q 180 
 
 New York city 110, 123 
 
 Newton, Isaac 69, 137 
 
 ninth grade 153 
 
 eliminated 151 
 
 no backward step 33 
 
 class time lost 259 
 
 extra cost 17 
 
 extra labor 17 
 
 telling • 11 
 
 uniformity 220 
 
 Noah's ark 172 
 
 noble manhood 231 
 
 sentiments 231 
 
 non-organization 225 
 
 normal children 90, 105, 176, 216 
 
 conditions 45 
 
 method 136 
 
 North American. Phila., q 98 
 
 not a coach 134 
 
 alike 217 
 
 before class 256 
 
 equal 217 
 
INDEX 287 
 
 not punishment 259 
 
 numbers, effect of 19 
 
 momentum of 54 
 
 O'Shea, M. V 257 
 
 q 98 
 
 obstacles 256 
 
 obstructed school 14 
 
 obstruction 66 
 
 occupation interested 164 
 
 Ogdensburg, N. Y 87, 123 
 
 Ohio 110 
 
 Old Glory 262 
 
 one link lost 147 
 
 Ontario, Canada 213 
 
 opening exercises 260 
 
 the heart 61 
 
 opinions of teachers 253 
 
 oral expression 188 
 
 order 62, 164, 198 
 
 organization 30, 37, 168, 224, 226, 235 
 
 a necessity i S3 
 
 a snare ; 227 
 
 downward 73 
 
 humanized 66 
 
 out of the mouths of babes 60 
 
 overcrowded rooms 9,31, 32, 80, 98, 111, 131, 200, 214, 241 
 
 overflow room 37 
 
 overstrain 14, 41, 45, 77, 90, 156 
 
 over-work 45, 79, 156 
 
 Oxford 235 
 
 Palmer, E. D Ill 
 
 parental wisdom 51 
 
 parents '. 30, 43, 45 
 
288 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 parents attitude 198 
 
 joy of 38 
 
 suffering 40 
 
 tortured 77 
 
 Parker, Col F. W 246 
 
 passivity 174 
 
 pathetic silence 24 
 
 patience 82, 248 
 
 patronizing the teacher : 239 
 
 Pease, Robert B 101, 131 
 
 pedagogic principles 219 
 
 pedagogical giant 233 
 
 per capita cost 171 
 
 perception 59 
 
 periods for study.^ 219 
 
 persecution 64 
 
 personal contact 255 
 
 equation 222 
 
 relations 149 
 
 service 94 
 
 personality 82, 215, 253 
 
 studied 220 
 
 Peterborough, Canada 123 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa , 85 
 
 view 98 
 
 physical 105 
 
 comfort 210 
 
 defects 136 
 
 disability 160 
 
 effect 148 
 
 exercise 58 
 
 health 16 
 
 injuries 28 
 
INDEX 289 
 
 physical troubles 173 
 
 vigor 238 
 
 wreck 102 
 
 physician 43 
 
 pinched 225 
 
 plagues 41 
 
 Piatt, Charles E. q 131 
 
 point of greatest need 251 
 
 poor sight 137, 174, 255 
 
 popular 31 
 
 popularity 162 
 
 pouring children 139 
 
 power 177 
 
 to do 258 
 
 to work 247 
 
 with affection 23 
 
 precociousness 138 
 
 prejudice 184 
 
 preoccupation 164 
 
 preparation section 12 
 
 preparatory school 73 
 
 present view 139 
 
 pressure 77, 90 
 
 pride 158 
 
 prime method 136 
 
 pillar 19 
 
 Principals conference, N. Y 224 
 
 privacy 216 
 
 Procrustean bed 67, 74 
 
 prodigy called 63 
 
 promotion 90, 95, 102, 119, 122, 142, 149, 164, 183, 193, 
 237 
 anxiety 197 
 
290 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 promotion not by favor 166 
 
 reports 173 
 
 semi-annual 154 
 
 yearly 159 
 
 Providence, R. 1 115 
 
 pupil who fails 187 
 
 pupil-teacher 114 
 
 put on his feet 177 
 
 pygmy 175 
 
 quantitative feature 43 
 
 formula 179 
 
 quasi penal 56 
 
 questioning 143, 254 
 
 questions 109, 177, 238 
 
 quick pupils 122, 164, 227 
 
 sections 55 
 
 quiet 189 
 
 study 218 
 
 Quincy idea 246 
 
 race-horses 71 
 
 Racine, Wis 123 
 
 News q 129 
 
 Rawles, Wm. A 126, 127 
 
 reaching the individual 55 
 
 recitations 186, 192 
 
 do not drag 104 
 
 fewer 157 
 
 section 12 
 
 tragic struggles 16 
 
 uninterrupted 144, 157, 188, 195, 259 
 
 recruits of evil 48 
 
 red marks. 128 
 
 Reed, Miss. q. 200 
 
INDEX 291 
 
 refinement 24 
 
 refining 170 
 
 reformation 47, 62 
 
 Regents of the University of N. Y. 96 
 
 examinations 95, 166, 221 
 
 registration 170 
 
 regulating , 94 
 
 rejected 140 
 
 relation of two teachers 118 
 
 relationship 257 
 
 remedial 16 
 
 remedies 22 
 
 remote aims. 165, 169 
 
 reduced expense ' 17 
 
 renaissance 257 
 
 repose 14, 49 
 
 reproaches 88 
 
 reproof 88 
 
 rescued laggard 238 
 
 resentment 27, 66 
 
 restoration 16 
 
 restorative effects 17 
 
 results in Batavia 19, 82, 85, 124, 219 
 
 outside school 109 
 
 summarized 119 
 
 resuscitation 47 
 
 retains pupils 47, 49, 220 
 
 retardation 48, 165, 183, 227, 243 
 
 retroactive influences' 149 
 
 retrogression 74 
 
 revealed weakness ; . . 63 
 
 revelation and revolution 37, 75, 101, 1 31 
 
 revolutionize 97 
 
292 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 richer chrysalis 69 
 
 ridicule 209 
 
 right-angle to line 165 
 
 Romanoffs 234 
 
 rooms larger 121 
 
 rowdyishness 109 
 
 royal roads 172 
 
 Rugby school 233, 234, 235 
 
 rugs 67 
 
 run in 56, 176 
 
 safe-guard against evil 164 
 
 safe-guarded 44 
 
 safety 43 
 
 sagging 172, 224, 227, 228, 230 
 
 salubrious teaching 21, 163 
 
 salutary conditions 45 
 
 sanctuary 237 
 
 sane teachers 50 
 
 sanitary conditions 46, 238 
 
 sanitation 163 
 
 saps energy 183 
 
 sarcasm • 88 
 
 Satan 25 
 
 satisfactory 186 
 
 save the rejected 140 
 
 scholarship 88, 260 
 
 School Education, q 258 
 
 school hours only 44 
 
 plant 42, 245 
 
 records 155, 166 
 
 register 1 70 
 
 work a bore 239 
 
 science - . . . . 254 
 
INDEX 293 
 
 scientific management 135 
 
 scolding 120 
 
 scorching 210 
 
 Scott, Walter 69 
 
 Scribner, E. E 181 
 
 seating 174 
 
 seclusion 143 
 
 second teacher 29, 32, 37, 90, 104, 107, 108, 116, 132, 159, 
 181, 185, 188, 241 
 
 work 31 
 
 see that it is done 80 
 
 that the child knows 59 
 
 segregation 56, 72, 175 
 
 self -activity the goal : 59 
 
 -appropriation 42 
 
 -confidence 58 
 
 -elimination 17 
 
 -help 189 
 
 -reliance 58, 88, 219, 221, 247 
 
 -respect 211 
 
 semi-annual promotion 154, 168 
 
 sensible 186 
 
 sentimentality 248 
 
 sequence of efforts 28 
 
 sequent steps 60 
 
 service 94 
 
 severity 88 
 
 sharp words 120 
 
 shawls 67 
 
 Shiloh 236 
 
 side-draught 64 
 
 -lights 17, 19; 54 
 
 simple 186 
 
294 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 singing -. . . . 260 
 
 single teacher 32, 55, 91, 104, 116, 119, 159, 185, 190, 
 209, 215, 244 
 
 Sisyphus, taste of 226 
 
 skipping grades 159, 165 
 
 slant and echelon 25 
 
 slanting line 26 
 
 sleep ^ 43 
 
 slow-minded children 14, 27, 38, 48, 69, 92, 112, 122, 134, 
 136, 192, 200, 215,227, 245 
 
 become bright 184 
 
 our teachers 60 
 
 sections 55 
 
 to the front 107 
 
 small groups 55 
 
 snaring children 225, 227 
 
 sobs 24 
 
 stifled 40 
 
 social life of teachers 23, 51 
 
 sociology . 24 
 
 soul uplift 115 
 
 sounder scholarship 18 
 
 sparkle -44 
 
 special schools 30 
 
 teachers 159 
 
 spelling 182 
 
 spirit of work 215, 247 
 
 spiritual repose 49 
 
 spontaneous spirit 158 
 
 spur of competition 136 
 
 spurred on 132 
 
 square boy in round hole 105 
 
 •stagnation 64 
 
INDEX 295 
 
 stakes and ideal 228 
 
 stalwart pupils 60 
 
 standard of work 243 
 
 raised 200 
 
 Star spangled banner 262 
 
 state department 96, 167 
 
 Stein, Anna K. q. 85 
 
 still strong men 231 
 
 stimulus of crowd 232 
 
 of numbers 17, 220 
 
 stone rejected 237 
 
 strain 15 
 
 on teacher 149, 173, 183, 196 
 
 straying 150 
 
 street appeals 48 
 
 strength to grapple 145 
 
 strengthening graded system 162 
 
 strong grade 176 
 
 pupils 60, 197 
 
 teaching 232 
 
 strongest characters 26 
 
 studious application 196 
 
 study periods 222, 252 
 
 stumbling 143 
 
 stupid 90 
 
 subnormal pupils 173 
 
 success 158 
 
 Suffer little children 150 
 
 suffering of parents 40 
 
 of public 41 
 
 of pupils 20, 39, 113, 227 
 
 of teachers , 40 
 
 sunshine 43, 77 
 
296 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 superintendent emancipated 65 
 
 supplement to class 17 
 
 survival of fittest 48 
 
 sustained diligence 172 
 
 sweep of the class 176 
 
 Sydney 236 
 
 symmetry 168 
 
 sympathetic guidance 47, 50, 195 
 
 sympathies 62 
 
 sympathy 42, 56, 61, 150, 189, 196, 248, 253 
 
 and common sense 246 
 
 systematic help 247 
 
 talent universal ^ 70 
 
 tangle of facts 147 
 
 tangled mass 163 
 
 tardiness of response 69 
 
 taxpayers 3S 
 
 Taylor, Frederick W 135 
 
 teachers, effect on 23, 160, 238 
 
 favor it 191, 253 
 
 suffer 40 
 
 teaching a fine art 68 
 
 not testing 251 
 
 tears wiped away^ 42 
 
 temperance 106 
 
 tension 164 
 
 tester, not teacher 250 
 
 testing exercise 187 
 
 tethered 20 
 
 theoretic merits 219 
 
 thicker bred 69 
 
 thinking in public 17 
 
 threats 88 
 
INDEX 297 
 
 three don'ts 80, 134 
 
 elements 218 
 
 time wasted . 14 
 
 timidity 63, 174 
 
 Titusville, Pa 110 
 
 tolerance 61 
 
 Tomlinson, Daniel W 75, 101, 131, 132 
 
 tonic 183 
 
 torture to laggard 64 
 
 tragedy 103, 228 
 
 train attention 59 
 
 trained 136 
 
 training 58 
 
 transformation 29 
 
 triumphs of the teacher 61 
 
 truant officer , . 225 
 
 truants 56 
 
 tutors 34 
 
 two teachers 186 
 
 work as one 104 
 
 unfortunates 173 
 
 ungraded room 56, 167 
 
 school 167,219 
 
 unhappy children 45 
 
 uniform work 120 
 
 universal education 34 
 
 universities • 83, 168 
 
 University of Pa ^5 
 
 of Virginia 83, 125 
 
 unkindness 173 
 
 unresponsiveness 61, 222 
 
 unrest 30,88 
 
 untaught must go 47 
 
298 THE BATAVIA SYSTEM 
 
 uplift rl50, 163 
 
 upper grades 156, 168, 238 
 
 upraised hands 25 
 
 vacuities filled 49 
 
 varied stimulus 54 
 
 vehicle relieved 29 
 
 vice, dropping into 240 
 
 vigor 45, 177 
 
 vigorous teachers 163 
 
 virile 170 
 
 vocation a joy 150 
 
 Washburn, J. J 101, 131 
 
 waste of energy ^ 65 
 
 reduced to minimum 229 
 
 weak pupils 60, 195 
 
 made strong 31 
 
 spots strengthened 92 
 
 West Bay City, Mich Ill, 122 
 
 Westerly, R. I. address 39 
 
 opinions 253 
 
 Westminister abbey , 236 
 
 school 235 
 
 when man is down 237 
 
 Whitney, Barney q * 87 
 
 wholesale education 54 
 
 failure 14 
 
 processes • 232 
 
 teaching 9 
 
 wild boy 57 
 
 will strengthened 16 
 
 to do right -. 16 
 
 William of Wykeham. . 234 
 
 Winchester 235 
 
INDEX 299 
 
 with, not for the pupil 248 
 
 withdrawn from school 50, 148, 154 
 
 Wisconsin 110, 129 
 
 wolf from the door 50 
 
 word repetition , 251 
 
 work 173 
 
 a disenf ectant 240 
 
 by himself 218 
 
 dangerous 45 
 
 workshop 30 
 
 worry 41, 45, 90, 100, 156, 163, 173 
 
 kills more than work 120 
 
 worrying parents 40 
 
 writing 182 
 
 written work 94 
 
 zealous enterprise 25 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY