delicacy of feeling, nor Leigh Hunt's lightness of touch, yet he is a man of vigorous, penetrating, independent intellect; such a critic as Johnson might have been, if he had lived in a better age, and if he had enjoyed the company, while his own mind was forming, of such minds as Coleridge and Wordsworth. We may love or we may dislike Hazlitt, but we cannot ignore him or be indifferent; and there are many signs that he is now on the eve of a great revival. ST. BERNARD'S SEMINARY, M. J. RYAN, NOTES ON EDUCATION. Query 1. Should children who have not passed the required examinations be allowed to pass up with their companions into the next grade? Query 2. Is it advisable to have dull pupils remain two or three years in the same grade while the younger pupils pass ahead of them? Do the dull pupils really gain much by repeating the work under such circumstances? Query 3. What means would you suggest to interest in their studies pupils who have long been accustomed to habits of indolence and carelessness? Query 4. Is it the fault of our system of education or of our methods of teaching that so many boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age seem to become disgusted with school and long to go to work? What remedy would you suggest? Queries such as the above have reached me in large numbers from all parts of the country. In fact, there is scarcely a school in the land, whether parochial or public, in which earnest teachers are not asking similar questions. The dull and backward pupil is not a local product and the number of boys at the age of twelve or fifteen who would rather work than go to school is very large. Some of these, of course, seek employment because of the financial compensation attached or because of the greater freedom which they hope to enjoy, but after due allowance is made for all this, the number of boys who leave school at this age because their interest in school work has disappeared and because they are disgusted with the school is amazingly large. This state of affairs naturally raises the question of whether the school itself is not to blame. If it were merely the teacher who was at fault, the condition would not be so universal. It looks as though the system itself were out of adjustment with present conditions and with the life of our day. If the dull pupil is advanced with his class he will soon be carried beyond his ability and will pass through the exercises without comprehension. And on the other hand, if he is condemned to repeat the work of the grade with a set of younger children, the results will be even worse. The matter of the whole year's work has been spoiled for him, it has lost its freshness and its interest, and at every hour of the day he is reminded of his failure. Nothing but discouragement can come from this procedure. Our system, therefore, seems to be unable to take care of this boy. And he is not an exception in the school room he is ubiquitous in the city schools. An eminent authority has recently estimated that more than ten per cent. of the children in the New York public schools are mentally deficient. Dr. Groszmann claims that there are from six to seven mentally deficient children, some of whom are feeble minded, in almost every class room in the public schools of Newark. Now, it is not to be supposed that New York and New Jersey constitute a striking exception in the numbers of their dull and backward children. A system that makes no provision for these pupils is seriously defective and needs adjustment. But the indictment against the prevalent system is more serious than this. It not only fails to provide for this large percentage of our children, but it is accused, on apparently good grounds, of being itself the cause, in large measure, of their backward condition. Dr. Maxwell, Superintendent of public schools in New York City, has recently stated that of the 536,000 pupils in the public schools of that city no less than 200,000 were abnormally old for the class in which they were studying. But this state of affairs, he explains, is due to the fact that in these schools foreign-born children are graded according to their knowledge of the English language. In other words, the school has its mold and the child must be made to fit into it. It is the modern form of the Procrustean bed. Our system of grading is, in fact, essentially arbitrary and artificial. We proclaim loudly that education is for life and we grade the children according to age and content. It is admitted on all sides that no two children develop at the same rate, yet the grade system leaves no room for the laggard, nor does it make adequate provision for the precocious. All the children of a class must move along together under penalty of being dropped, disgraced in their own eyes and in the eyes of their companions, and under the added penalty of being compelled to spend a whole year repeating matters that have grown distasteful; a process which usually results in permanent discouragement. Moreover, in addition to the native tendency to vary in developmental rates, a great variety of circumstances tend to accentuate this unevenness: malnutrition, sickness, untoward family occurrences, etc. Clearly, therefore, the system should take account of these varying developmental tendencies in the children and by not doing so it is constantly producing the dull and backward pupil. Of course there are many causes contributing to dullness in children. We shall examine several of these in another connection. But if it appears on examination that our grade system, instead of alleviating this condition and reducing the number of dullards, is itself the most fertile cause of their production, it is high time that we looked into the matter with a view of either adjusting the system or replacing it by something better. Our present system of grading children is the natural outgrowth of the simultaneous method of teaching, introduced by St. Jean Baptiste de la Salle into the schools conducted by the Christian Brothers, towards the close of the seventeenth century. "The idea primarily was to awaken interest in elementary education. He perfected the work already done by Peter Fanrier, Charles Demia and others. The method of instruction, up to this time, had been largely individual. The pupils were called up to the teacher, one by one, or at most two by two, and, after the lesson had been heard, they were sent back to their seats to study. La Salle conceived the idea of grading together pupils of the same advancement, and teaching them simultaneously, a practice now employed in primary schools everywhere." 1 1 Seeley, History of Education, New York, 1904, p. 227. All who are interested in modifying our present grade system would do well to read the essay on "The Simultaneous Method in Teaching," which will be found in Essays Educational by Brother Azarias. The method was framed to suit other times and to meet conditions which have long since ceased to exist. Moreover, it is the embodiment of an educational ideal that has been superseded. Brother Azarias, speaking of the origin of this method, says: "There is no uncertainty about the language of Blessed de la Salle in regard to the method he would have his disciples follow. It is no longer a single master governing a whole school; it is two, three, or more, according to the number of pupils; each taking those of the same capacity and teaching them altogether. In order to give effect to this method he regulates the duty of the masters in their respective classes: the Brothers shall pay particular attention to three things in the school room: 1. During the lessons, to correct every word that the scholar who is reading pronounces badly; 2. To cause all who read in the same lesson to follow therein; 3. To have silence strictly observed in the school.' 1 "The pupils follow in the same lesson; they observe strict silence; the master, in correcting one, is correcting all; here is the essence of the Simultaneous Method. Glancing over the pages of the admirable manual of school management which Blessed de la Salle prepared, we find scattered through them this principle inspiring all the rules of wisdom and prudence in which the book abounds. In one place we read: All the scholars in the same lesson shall follow together, without distinction or discernment, according as they shall be notified by the master.' On the following page it is said: All the scholars. in each lesson shall have the same book and shall be given the same lesson.' A few pages further on we find the same thing repeated: All shall have but one lesson, and while one spells or reads, all the others shall follow, those who spell and read as well as those only reading.' Again he generalizes the principle for all the lessons: 'In all the lessons from alphabetcards, syllabaries, and other books, whether French or Latin, and even during arithmetic, while one reads, all the others of the same lesson should follow; that is, they shall read to them |