Education

THE Thirty-Second Annual Report of the Board of Education of the city of New York contains the only instance we have so far met of a methodical discussion by such a body of the curriculum and management of the schools under its charge. This great metropolis makes so little talk over its schools, and some lesser cities so much over theirs, that almost anywhere else should we have expected to find such a discussion inaugurated, though until the school boards throughout our country make similar ones the basis of their reports, these will hardly be worth the paper they are printed on. In the volume before us, consisting chiefly of the reports of the president of the Board of Education, and those of the city superintendent and his five assistant superintendents, there is much of unusual ability and educational insight.

According to the census of 1870, the children attending school in New York city were in round numbers 155,000 (of which 35,000 at least are in “ parochial,”i. e., mostly Roman Catholic, schools). For these there is school accommodation for 112,000 only, so that even if all of them wished to go to school, 43,000 must perforce remain away, though in fact 60,000 do so. In spite of this, however, at the last census it was found that in New York there were only 1361 children between the ages of ten and fifteen who were not able to write, and still fewer who were unable to read ; which seems to us a very gratifying showing. The overcrowding of the schools, though not so bad as it is in Brooklyn, is still declared to be in some localities " alarming,” and this is true especially of the primary grades. An unusual proportion of New York children go no further than these grades; and to place and often maintain their numerical limit at seventyfive pupils to a class, is to commit a fearful injustice against both teachers and taught.

The ventilation of the New York schoolhouses, even of those of the latest construction, is unsatisfactory, and in many of the older ones is positively injurious. Faithless janitors add to the evil by neglecting to air the school-rooms after sweeping them, so that the children breathe a fine, impalpable dust, as well as their own exhalations. At a conference called “ The Woman’s Parliament,” held five years ago in New York, anonymous papers from women teachers in the city schools were read, in which the tyranny often exercised over them by these janitors was bitterly complained of, while at the same time it was stated that the janitors’ salaries often exceeded that of the highest-paid female principal in the city.

The colored children of New York live so far from the school buildings appropriated to them, that they are very irregular in their attendance, and the schools are not, therefore, as successful as they might be. Evening schools require better teachers than any others, and their management is stated to be a very difficult problem. The evening high school has 1400 pupils; whether for both sexes does not appear. There are no day high schools in New York city. The grammar schools have “ advanced classes ” for those who wish to go a little beyond the elements, and the College of the City of New York, of which the “ introductory class ” performs the work of the high school, gives to boys and young men superior collegiate advantages. New York girls, however, can obtain no such education, the only apology for it being proffered them at the Girls’ Normal (so-called) College, of whose curriculum Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi thus writes : “ From the informal accounts that have come to me, I infer that it is unsystematic and scrappy, being theoretically intended to furnish girls with exactly what is essential to teaching in public schools. Like all attempts to convey knowledge of methods by exclusive study of methods, and without digging down to first principles, even what is taught is very imperfectly grasped, and no opportunity is afforded for any development in after life. And only very little is taught, — a constant dread seeming to overhang the trustees lest they should be accused of giving too good an education for nothing, and so entering into unfair competition with private schools. The same fear cramped the development of the only approach to a high school (the girls’ school in Twelfth Street) which we New York girls ever had. . . . I think there is scarcely a city in the civilized world, of its importance, wherein mental culture has been so little understood, valued, or prepared for, as ours.”

And yet the report says that “ in the past twenty years the city of New York has contributed to the State school tax over $13,200,000, and has received as her quota of said money only $5,013,000, thus showing that she has given over $8,000,000 to aid in promoting free education in other parts of the commonwealth.” The policy of Boston has been just the reverse of this, and the difference in educational enthusiasm and progress throughout the States of New York and Massachusetts shows which is the better plan. Education, like charity, should “ begin at home,” and the radiation of intellectual light from a great centre is better than its bestowal of material gratuity.

In the revision of the studies prescribed for the New York public schools, the first step has naturally been toward simplification in the branches already taught, so as to give time for the introduction of others equally or more important. Thus we rejoice to quote from the report that “ English grammar has been reduced to its narrowest profitable limits ; ” and in the remark of the superintendent that “ rules and principles which ordinarily are almost unintelligible to the young pupil when presented in their application to the English language, are easily understood in the acquisition of German,” we trust we read its future expulsion from all but the advanced grades. Excepting the names of the parts of speech and the pointing out of the great relations of subject and predicate, English grammar should be strictly a high school or academic study, and the time now given to it by children under fourteen should be rather devoted to learning to read and construe some other language. In the New York schools, 19,396 pupils study German, to 1609 who study French, “ and in order to make the instruction in German effective, it is recommended that the study of French in the schools be wholly abandoned.” ¹ The teaching of arithmetic seems to be more in the fog than that of grammar; and unless a conference of leading mathematicians wall settle the methods and proper limits of instruction in this study for our public schools, we know not how these can ever be decided upon wisely. In geography and history, the superintendents discourage as much as possible mere rote recitations, but the fundamental reforms needed in these branches seem not to be perceived. In the advanced classes, elementary instruction is given in all the sciences, much of it in connection with the objects themselves, and the instances given of the co-working of the pupils with their teachers in making apparatus, collections, etc., are truly delightful. In the primary grades, oral lessons from objects seem to be made a great point of, and are said to be “ supplying the children with additional enjoyment and interest in their visits to the Central Park and its collections.” Music and drawing are taught in all the schools, but not as yet satisfactorily, though a better arrangement for the former was inaugurated for the present year. From a musical critic we learn that a committee which visited Boston to see the results of the system of note-reading in use there (namely, changing the do with the tonic) were not impressed with its value in results over the old way, — which, considering that all the great singers, choirs, and composers of the world have been trained in the latter, is not surprising. There is as yet no industrial training in the New York schools, though in the prescribed course “sewing may be taught” to the girls of the highest grammar grade. The influence of the woman physician movement is shown in the recommendation of the president of the normal college that “ the committee on normal schools should secure the services of a female physician who can teach by authority, and in the way to effect the greatest amount of good.” Finally, the direct “ moral culture ” of this great host of children is supposed to be provided for by “ the reading every morning, at nine o'clock, of some portion of the Holy Scriptures, the chanting or repeating of the Lord’s Prayer, or the singing of some appropriate hymn; ” gossamer reins, indeed, as it seems to us, for the passions stimulated by the corruptions of the great city.

The superintendent complains of “ a large class of vicious boys whom the public schools do not and cannot restrain, and yet who are permitted to pursue their lawless career . . . from school to school until they are pronounced ‘ incorrigible,’ and then the doors of all schools are closed against them, after which they roam the streets until they too often find themselves in prison.” Corporal punishment was abolished some years ago, and though all the leading school officials, and also a committee appointed to investigate the matter, have reported unanimously in favor of its restoration, the Board of Education has not yet decided to go back to it, and “ the question of persistently disobedient and disorderly pupils still remains an open one. The discipline in the boys' schools has seriously deteriorated, and in consequence of the absorption of an unprecedentedly large part of their time and energy in simply maintaining order, hundreds of our experienced teachers, whose skill as principals or as class-teachers has been again and again demonstrated, are no longer able to secure results equal in quality and quantity to those of past years. The vital element of every true educational system, the discipline of the will by means of reasonable and effective restraint, is in many instances disappearing, or is virtually resolving itself into an appeal of the teacher, who is in the right, to the forbearance of the pupil, who is in the wrong. This new and unwholesome strain upon the nervous systems of the teachers" is declared to be visibly “ impairing their health and strength,” and to be driving both them and the principals “ into the employment of injudicious modes of enforcing obedience.”

Two points as revealed by this report ought to be recorded in the co-education discussion. It will be remembered that the Brooklyn superintendent wishes to abolish mixed schools, partly on the plea that in them the average scholarship of the boys is lower than that of the girls ; but the following table from the New York report shows that the girls can hardly be to blame for that, as the boys are no better when they are by themselves.

TABLE OF COMPARATIVE PROFICIENCY IN 1873.

[E means Excellent; G, Good, F, Fair ; I, Indifferent.]

Another point taken against co-education is that it stimulates the girls to unhealthy competition. But of the Girls’ Normal College the president states, “ Such is the desire of the, young ladies to excel in studies, and to stand high before their instructors, that I have been forced to issue an order that no student in any junior class shall study more than two hours per day at home.”

Since this report was published, the Board of Education has made education compulsory upon New York children after January 1, 1875, which in that democratic city is a cheering step. But we blush to record what indeed can scarcely be believed—that this same board (if it is indeed the same) has lowered the salaries of its teachers, who yet, by its own published showing, are so overworked and imposed upon. This disgraceful action is attributed by Harper’s Weekly to the hostile influence of the Roman Catholics, who are said to be doing their utmost to disaffect both teachers and pupils with the public schools. According to the New York Tribune “the Roman Catholic parochial schools receive $15 for $1 given to all other church schools ; and as fast as the public moneys are being appropriated to build up such schools, the children are withdrawn from the public schools, leaving them unoccupied.” The editor of Freeman’s (R. C.) Journal believes in the most extreme measures to counteract the influence of the national school system, and says, “When Catholic parents understand that they cannot have absolution in the confessional while they let their children go to godless or to Protestant schools, they will soon find a remedy.” Doubtless. But since Roman Catholics as individuals pay but a comparatively small proportion of the taxes, perhaps the “ godless or Protestant” tax-payers will find a remedy too ; and if this should be the taxing of all church and endowed property, we should not deny that the proposition has its side of reason and of justice.