Studies in the South and West, with Comments on CanadaWarner, Charles Dudley
History
Studies in the South and West, with Comments on Canada
Warner, Charles Dudley
Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
public sentiment for throwing out German from the public schools, and
generally for restricting studies in the higher branches.
The argument against this is that very few of the children, and the
majority of those girls, enter the high-schools; the boys are taken
out early for business, and get no education afterwards. In 1885 were
organized public elementary evening schools (which had, in 1886, 6709
pupils), and an evening high-school, in which book-keeping, stenography,
mechanical drawing, and advanced mathematics were taught. The Sehool
Committee also have in charge day schools for the education of deaf and
dumb children.
The total expenditure for 1880 was $2,000,803; this includes $1,023,394
paid to superintendents and teachers, and large sums for new buildings,
apparatus, and repairs. The total cash receipts for sehool purposes were
$2,091,951. Of this was from the school tax fund $1,758,053 (the total
city tax for all purposes was $5,308,409), and the rest from State
dividend and sehool fund bonds and miscellaneous sources. These figures
show that education is not neglected.
Of the quality and efficacy of this education there cannot be two
opinions, as seen in the schools whieh I visited. The high-school on the
west side is a model of its kind; but perhaps as interesting an example
of popular education as any is the Franklin grammar and primary school
on the north side, in a district of laboring people. Here were 1700
pupils, all children of working people, mostly Swedes and Germans, from
the age of six years upwards. Here were found some of the children of
the late anarchists, and nowhere else can one see a more interesting
attempt to manufacture intelligent American citizens. The instruction
rises through the several grades from object lessons, drawing, writing
and reading (and writing and reading well), to elementary physiology,
political and constitutional history, and physical geography. Here is
taught to young children what they cannot learn at home, and might never
clearly comprehend otherwise; not only something of the geography
and history of the country, but the distinctive principles of our
government, its constitutional ideas, the growth, creeds, and relations
of political parties, and the personality of the great men who have
represented them. That the pupils comprehend these subjects fairly well
I had evidence in recitations that were as pleasing as surprising. In
this way Chicago is teaching its alien population American ideas, and it
is fair to presume that the rising generation will have some notion of
the nature and value of our institutions that will save them from the
inclination to destroy them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account