THE ELEMENTARY AND COMPLETE EXAMINER; OR CANDIDATE'S ASSISTANT: PREPARED TO AID TEACHERS IN SECURING CERTIFICATES FROM BOARDS OF EXAMINERS, AND PUPILS IN PREPARING THEMSELVES FOR PROMOTION, TEACH- BY ISAAC STONE, A. M., PRINCIPAL KENOSHA HIGH SCHOOL. A. S. BARNES & COMPANY, Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the PREFACE. CONSTANT labor of more than twenty-two years in the schoolroom has wrought some deep convictions in the mind of the Author. Many of these have been pleasant. But most of those pertaining to the Examination of Teachers have been painful,— painful from sympathy with the Candidates; while deeply anxious to discharge his whole duty toward those who are to be the pupils of the successful Candidates, in commissioning none to teach except those who prove themselves well qualified for the high and responsible trust they are to assume. The fact that nine-tenths of all the teachers he had examined failed in a greater or less degree, and that more than fifty per cent. failed sadly in some branches, led him, years ago, to conclude that he had misjudged their ability, or had placed the standard too high-exacting too much-as his Board of Education once hinted, where he was acting as City Superintendent. The late reports of County Superintendents, as found in the State Superintendent's report, confirm him, however, in his decisions, as they show that forty-nine fiftieths of all examined fail to secure first grade certificates in the common branches. A larger per cent. it is true, obtain the second grade. But the great majority accept third grade certificates. Their willingness thus to do ought to be a sufficient cause for rejecting them entirely; justice to the children demands that this low grade should be banished from the land as an evil genius. Should it appear to any that this work extends through too |