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geological history of the earth's crust; some changes now in progress; volcanoes and earthquakes (brief theory and distribution). Relief forms: (a) of the earth, mountains, table lands or plateaus, plains, steppes, and prairies; (b) of each grand division, North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia; (c) of the United States. Islands: (a) Continental, with theory of their origin, and principal chains; (b) oceanic, including volcanic islands and coral islands (with their classes); their distribution. (5) Water: The geological distribution of the ocean, with its great subdivisions; lakes; drainage (continental or steppe and oceanic), with examples. Ocean movements: Waves; tides, some theory of their cause or origin; currents, some theory of their origin, and their uses. (6) Atmosphere: The constituent parts, temperature, evaporation, winds, with some theory of their origin; of constant winds, trade winds, land and sea breezes. (7) Climate: Modifying causes; isothermal and snow lines; climate zones; vegetation (very brief), showing productions of different climates and how these productions affect human industries; animals (very brief), showing characteristics of different zones and continents; man (very brief), showing different races, their proportion, leading characteristics and distribution.

General history.—(1) History of nations of remote antiquity as reading lessons; attention to history of Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Persia. Greece: History of Greece as reading lessons; attention to Argonautic expedition, Trojan war, wars with minor nations; laws of Lycurgus, Draco, Solon; the Persian invasions, Peloponnesian wars, sacred war, Macedonian Empire established, career of Alexander the Great, Achæan League, surrender of Corinth. (2) Rome: History of Rome as reading lessons; attention to the founding of Rome, the kingdom of Rome, government by consuls, by tribunes, and by decemvirs, plebeian and patrician contests, wars with surrounding nations; the Punic wars, the three triumvirates, wars with neighboring states, the civil wars between Marius and Sulla, Cæsar and Pompey, Octavius and Antony, the republic and the empire established, separation into Eastern and Western Empire, fall of Western Empire (476), and conquest of Eastern Empire (1453). The cause and. the result of the conquest of the Eastern Roman Empire, with date. (3) The Dark Age, the feudal system, the crusades, and Central and Southern Europe during the Middle Ages, as reading lessons. (4) Germany: The Hanseatic League, the Reformation, the Thirty Years' War, the Seven Years' War, Napoleon's Wars, War with Austria (1866), and War with France (1870), with dates. Prussia: The reign of Frederick the Great, Napoleon's Wars, the partitions of Poland, and the Empire of Germany (1866), with dates. Austria: Rudolph I (Hapsburg), the partitions of Poland, a separate empire (1806), Napoleon's Wars, and Wars with Prussia and Italy, with dates. Russia: Peter the Great, Catherine II, the partitions of Poland, Napoleon's Wars, and the Crimean war, with dates. Other important events, history of contemporaneous nations, and history of America not connected with history of the United States, to be read.

Constitution of the United States.-(1) Attention to distribution of powers of government among the three departments; the nature of the duties of each department; the qualifications of members of each, the manner of their election or appointment, their terms of service, their privileges, duties, and powers, with text of the Constitution relating thereto. (2) The clauses relating to the powers of the General Government and those reserved to the States; the rights and privileges of citizens; the modes of admitting States, making foreign treaties, making appointments, of passing laws, and of amending the Constitution; the important amendments; to be carefully studied from the text of the Constitution.

MUSIC.

Under general direction of special music teacher.

(1) Music charts and manual; explanations of motive, phrase, and period; movement; accentuation; rhythmical reading of music.

(2) The diatonic minor scale, the natural minor scale, the formation of minor diatonic scales; their keynotes and their signatures.

(3) Further exercises in vocal training; registers or compass of the voices; reading music, naming degrees, and writing notes that indicate tones or degrees sounded; two-part and three-part exercises by note and by words, embracing subjects learned.

OBJECT LESSONS AND ORAL INSTRUCTION.

Anatomy, physiology, and hygiene.-Mainly by charts and lectures. (1) Bones: their form, composition, and uses; joints, how formed, and their uses; spinal column, its formation and peculiarities; teeth, their structure and preservation; broken bones, and how repaired. (2) Muscles and tendons: their formation and their uses; how attached; their contraction and expansion; voluntary and involuntary muscular motion; effects of exercise, of rest; general hygiene. (3) Digestive apparatus: the uses of the teeth; the salivary glands, their position and uses; mastication; the gullet; the stomach, its position, structure, and functions; gastric digestion; brief notice of duodenum, intestines, intestinal digestion, and lacteals; the importance of the liver; effects of chewing too little, of eating too often, too much, or irregularly; dyspepsia; general hygiene; common poisons and their antidotes. (4) Circulatory apparatus: the general relations of the heart, arteries, capillaries, and veins; passage of blood through the heart, arteries, lungs, veins; the pulse, and the rate of pulsation; close connection between the digestive and the circulatory apparatus; quantity of blood in the system; effect of exercise and fresh air on blood and on circulation, of tight garments, of scanty clothing, and of insufficient or improper food; wounds or cut arteries, and what to do; general hygiene. (5) Respiratory apparatus: the lungs, air cells, windpipe, nostrils; the ribs, the diaphragm, their muscles, and their functions; mechanical processes of respiration; the air we breathe, changes in the air from respiration, changes in the blood — arterial and venous blood; close relations between capillaries and air vessels; the capacity of the lungs; effects of tight lacing, of improper position, of impure air, of ventilation; drowning or suffocation, and what to do; the vocal organs, and their functions; general hygiene. (6) The skin: its structure and uses; perspiration and absorption; effect of perspiration; close sympathy of skin with digestive and respiratory organs; of bathing, of proper clothing; scalds and burns, and how to treat them; general hygiene. (7) The nervous system: general nature of the brain and nerves; special senses, touch, taste, smell, the eye (its structure and functions), the ear (its structure and functions); general hygiene.

Natural philosophy.-For pupils in senior department for boys. (1) Matter and its general and specific properties, with examples and illustrations. (2) Attraction: (a) cohesion: solids, liquids, gases; (b) gravitation: weight, pressure of water, pressure of atmosphere (balances, air pump, pump, barometer); (c) capillary: ascent of liquids into tubes (sponge, blotting paper, lamp wick, sap in vegetation). (3) Motion: inertia, force, resistance, action and reaction, centrifugal and centripetal force; with examples and illustrations. (4) Mechanical powers: weight, power, fulcrum; (a) the lever and its three kinds (crow bar, pump handle, balance, scissors, nut cracker, wheelbarrow, oars, door, tongs, ladder, muscles of the arm and leg; (b) the wheel and axle (windlass, capstan, watch fusee); (c) the pulley and movable pulleys; (d) the inclined plane, rolling barrels into a wagon, lowering boxes into a cellar; (e) the wedge; and (ƒ) the screw; general principles and laws; applications in machinery. (5) Heat: (a) sources (sun, combustion, friction); (b) expansion and contraction of matter (solids, liquids, gases, thermometer); (c) change of form (solids into liquids, liquids into gases); (d) conduction and radiation (conductors, non-conductors, rays of sun, stoves, clothing); applications (ventilation, wind, evaporation, fog, dew, frost, clouds, rain, hail, snow, ice). (6) Light: (a) sources (heavenly bodies, combustion, friction); (b) refraction (glass or prism, water, air, the eye); (c) reflection (lookingglass, water); (d) necessary to growth and health of plants and animals. (7) General principles of vibrations and their applications in sound (the organs of hearing), and of electricity.

10153-No. 1-5

The program copied above is for the eighth year of the course, pupils being admitted to the lowest grade at the age of six. The program for this eighth year, together with that of the preceding year, is called the senior department. Examination for admission to the high schools is not based on the requirements of the eighth year grade, but on the requirements of the twelfth grade; that is, the last half of the sixth year. The classes in the senior department are taught exclusively by the prin cipals.

The program for the first class in the grammar schools of Bostonthat is, the highest class-forty years ago, at the time when the first written examination was applied, was as follows:

GRAMMAR SCHOOL, HIGHEST CLASS.

Emerson's National Spelling Book; Goold Brown's First Lines of English Grammar; Olmstead's Rudiments of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, or Parker's Compendium of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, stereotyped edition; Woodbridge's Geography and Atlas; Pierpont's American First Class Book; Worcester's Elements of General History; exercises in composition and declamation; writing; penmaking; the North American Arithmetic, Part Third; Robinson's Book-Keeping.

The following studies and books may be introduced, at the discretion of the master: Smellie's Philosophy of Natural History (Ware's edition); Goold Brown's Institutes of English Grammar; Whately's Rhetoric; Parker's Exercises in English Composition. Pupils who shall have nearly completed the course of exercises in arithmetic may be instructed in algebra and geometry. Text books, Bailey's First Lessons in Algebra and Tillinghast's Plane Geometry.

The critics of the schools at that period found fault with the schools for not doing enough. It was charged that many teachers were inefficient and that the general results of the instruction imparted were unsatisfactory. Hence a written examination was instituted to ascertain the comparative standing of the first classes in the respective grammar schools in the different branches taught. Up to this time pen and pencil were very little used by the pupils in the processes of instruction employed. To ascertain the result in spelling and punctuation the errors in all the exercises were marked.

For the questions used in this examination, see Appendix C. These questions indicate the committee's idea of what it was reasonable to expect.

In respect to the order of the studies and topics and the grouping of them in the respective grades or classes, there are found diversities difficult to account for. For example, in the Philadelphia program copied above, the formation and analysis of script letters is a requirement of the highest class of the grammar grade, while in St. Louis, the pupils in the very first quarter of their schooling—that is, in the lowest primary grade—are required to do substantially the same thing, namely, to write the separate elements, or principles, of which letters are composed, and to form a considerable number of the letters of the alphabet by the synthesis of these elements. There seems to be no generally accepted rule as to the proper place of the spelling book in

the course. In some programs it finds a place in the early stages; in others it appears only in the uppermost classes. A very great proportion of programs would be improved, as it seems to me, by simplification, that is, by reducing the number of matters requiring attention through the same day, the same week, or the same month. Why should scholars be kept on arithmetic every day for six or eight years? And why not let up occasionally on other studies, such as geography, or reading, or writing, or spelling? What are called language exercises have more recently become almost an intolerable incubus on the program. Much valuable time is wasted on premature requirements in this department. It would be unjust not to acknowledge that much excellent work has been done in program making. A good program for one city would be, in its substance, if not in all details, a good program for every other city. Why, then, should the school authorities of each city think it necessary to construct their own programs? Why not openly adopt such as have been framed by the most capable and the most eminent experts? It is impossible for a young and inexperiencd superintendent to contrive a good program unaided, for to forge out a good program is, perhaps, the most difficult of pedagogical tasks.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING.

In the early history of our school system there were no such books as school readers, the New Testament, the Bible, and the Psalter being the only books for reading used in school. The publication of a good selection in prose and poetry from various authors, for the exercise of pupils in the art of reading, was an important step of progress. The pioneers in this improvement were Noah Webster, Lindley Murray, and Caleb Bingham, the last a Boston schoolmaster, who, taking advantage of the dearth of school books and of reading books in particular, at the revival of common schools which followed the war of Independence, divided the country among them.

Webster's Third Part and Bingham's American Preceptor held their ground as the principal readers for a quarter of a century. The Pierpont series, the next great step of progress in this direction, were the leading readers for another quarter of a century. And the highest book in this series, the American First Class Book, as originally published in 1823, was a production of surpassing merit. It instituted a standard both in respect to choice and arrangement of material which subsequent compilers have found it no easy task to excel.

But the good readers of all grades, from the child's primer to the first class reader and speaker, which have been compiled and published during the last fifty years for use in our schools, are very numerous. Recent compilers have a great advantage over their predecessors of the time of Pierpont, inasmuch as they have a vastly richer storehouse from which to draw. But it is more than doubtful whether this advantage has been fully utilized. In these latter days the tendency has been to

grade down the selections to too low a standard, especially in the lower grades of readers, and to give too much space to pieces which possess hardly any other merit than that of being easily comprehended. The true function of a reader is not merely to serve as an instrument for teaching the child to call words at sight or as a manual of exercises in pauses, inflection, and emphasis, but it should also be a golden treasury of wisdom, of information, of "thoughts that breathe and words that burn," of the noblest sentiments "married to immortal verse."

The school reader, according to its grade, should comprise the pieces best calculated to develop the sentiment of the true, the good, and the beautiful. It should be the child's classic. Every piece within its covers should be a gem of poetry or of artistic prose worth committing to memory. The child could not become too familiar with such a reader. Proper instruction in the ideal reader-drilling upon it till its substance of thought becomes worked into the very fibre of the child's mind and the physiognomy of every word becomes familiar to his eye-would far surpass in value that in any other branch of instruction included in the school curriculum.

Recently the plan of supplementing the readers by the introduction of other reading matter has come into vogue quite extensively. With a view to meet the demand for this supplementary reading, a good many books have been compiled and published. Besides books designed for this purpose, juvenile periodicals and newspapers, and sometimes a second series of readers, have been introduced; and, finally, biographies, histories, and works of fiction have been more or less used for supplementary reading.

Some of the advocates of this plan have put forth most extravagant claims in its favor. Compilers and publishers naturally did what they could to sound its praises, as it could not fail to put money into their pockets.

In a short time this supplementary reading business was in some quarters greatly overdone. Fortunately, a reaction has set in, and much of this supplementary rubbish is finding its way to the junkshop, while the regular readers are again coming to the front in the school room.

If the readers were what they should be in respect to quantity and quality of matter and if such readers were properly handled by the teachers, the need of supplementary reading would be reduced to such a minimum as to be scarcely perceptible.1 Almost the only thing needed in this line would be an occasional number of a good newspaper; and the use of the newspaper in the school should be restricted to the more judicious and capable teachers in the upper grades. I do not fear to lay it down as a rule that where instruction in reading is unsatisfactory

1 No additional reading matter has been introduced in the recitations, it being the theory in our schools that more real progress is made by thoroughly mastering a few lessons than by superficially reading many.- (St. Louis Report for 1880-'81, by Mr. Edw. H. Long, superintendent.)

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