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philobiblius(Sorry about the long delay between these two entries!)
The following is from the Annual Report (#18) of the Board of Education, Saint Louis Missouri, in 1872 - including the Superintendent's discussion of their high school's system of promotion.
This is the second of two excerpts from the Annual Report. This is focused on how to avoid the evils of the standard promotion system! With no further delay, the words of Dr. W. T. Harris:
"In our St. Louis schools the classification is so arranged in the lower grades of the District Schools that classes follow each other at intervals of about six weeks. Should it be necessary to put back a pupil to a lower class, he finds it at just that stage of progress which will enable him to review and strengthen those portions of his course that need it. But this system allows of another advantage. As the highest class loses numbers by promotion, graduation or otherwise, its ranks are filled with the best pupils from the next lower class. The latter is again recruited by promotion of the best from the next one below it. This process is continued to the lowest class in school. After such a promotion bas been made the account stands thus: each class has sent forward perhaps one-third of its pupils (the best ones) to the next one above it, and has received the best third of the pupils from the class below. There has been no degradation of pupils.
What can be said is that two-thirds of each class (including all the fair and middling scholars) were left, and a few of the foremost in rank of those below them admitted with them. Within less than a half year's work the studious and brilliant pupils will work up to the top of the class. There will always be differences of native power as well as of previous acquirement. Before a half year has elapsed the two-thirds of a given class who pass for " fair and middling" scholars will be overtaken and, in some instances, surpassed by the brilliant pupils admitted from the lower class. A change of the kind I have mentioned, amounting to a readjustment of all the classes, is desirable as often as four times a year. If made, it will entirely prevent the collection, in any one class, of the dull and incapable scholars. These, for the most part, are pupils who have not become thoroughly aroused, or, more frequently, such as have become discouraged by degradation in rank. Their -defect is not primarily intellectual, but moral; they have feeble wills. It is very rare that a pupil has so dull an intellect that he cannot, if he possess a resolute will, accomplish any intellectual feat whatever by the aid of industry alone. Those who fail, do so through lack of courage or of perseverance. This furnishes the strongest ground of all against manipulating the system of classification in such a manner as to make those who are not promoted feel that they are degraded. By the method here described, I think the minimum of discouragement isreached. Two-thirds or more of the class—enough to preserve the identity of the class—remain after any re-classification, and, as this embraces many fair scholars, none feel that they have been slighted. The change made has elevated the fair in rank to the highest rank in class, and those who were poor to the rank of fair—at least for a time. Stimulated by this, they frequently increase in self-respect and develop powers that had hitherto lain dormant.
The following is from the Annual Report (#18) of the Board of Education, Saint Louis Missouri, in 1872 - including the Superintendent's discussion of their high school's system of promotion.
This is the second of two excerpts from the Annual Report. This is focused on how to avoid the evils of the standard promotion system! With no further delay, the words of Dr. W. T. Harris:
"In our St. Louis schools the classification is so arranged in the lower grades of the District Schools that classes follow each other at intervals of about six weeks. Should it be necessary to put back a pupil to a lower class, he finds it at just that stage of progress which will enable him to review and strengthen those portions of his course that need it. But this system allows of another advantage. As the highest class loses numbers by promotion, graduation or otherwise, its ranks are filled with the best pupils from the next lower class. The latter is again recruited by promotion of the best from the next one below it. This process is continued to the lowest class in school. After such a promotion bas been made the account stands thus: each class has sent forward perhaps one-third of its pupils (the best ones) to the next one above it, and has received the best third of the pupils from the class below. There has been no degradation of pupils.
What can be said is that two-thirds of each class (including all the fair and middling scholars) were left, and a few of the foremost in rank of those below them admitted with them. Within less than a half year's work the studious and brilliant pupils will work up to the top of the class. There will always be differences of native power as well as of previous acquirement. Before a half year has elapsed the two-thirds of a given class who pass for " fair and middling" scholars will be overtaken and, in some instances, surpassed by the brilliant pupils admitted from the lower class. A change of the kind I have mentioned, amounting to a readjustment of all the classes, is desirable as often as four times a year. If made, it will entirely prevent the collection, in any one class, of the dull and incapable scholars. These, for the most part, are pupils who have not become thoroughly aroused, or, more frequently, such as have become discouraged by degradation in rank. Their -defect is not primarily intellectual, but moral; they have feeble wills. It is very rare that a pupil has so dull an intellect that he cannot, if he possess a resolute will, accomplish any intellectual feat whatever by the aid of industry alone. Those who fail, do so through lack of courage or of perseverance. This furnishes the strongest ground of all against manipulating the system of classification in such a manner as to make those who are not promoted feel that they are degraded. By the method here described, I think the minimum of discouragement isreached. Two-thirds or more of the class—enough to preserve the identity of the class—remain after any re-classification, and, as this embraces many fair scholars, none feel that they have been slighted. The change made has elevated the fair in rank to the highest rank in class, and those who were poor to the rank of fair—at least for a time. Stimulated by this, they frequently increase in self-respect and develop powers that had hitherto lain dormant.
