punctuation will thus be recognized and the principles and rules underlying it may be wrought out in class as occasion demands, and confirmed by the marks in literary models. Is there a place for formal grammar in the elementary schools? The young mind is constructive, its work should be synthetic rather than analytic, but occasions might arise where some of the principles now recognized as belonging to the field of technical grammar, would supply a need of some child in his constructive work. Teachers should be ready to accept all material and reject nothing, no matter under what name it appears, if they find it a helpful resource in securing language results. But I am of the opinion that formal grammar as outlined at present will need a thoro recasting before it will serve much purpose in the elementary schools. C. R. Rounds in the June number of the Educational Review shows the absurdity of the varying nomenclatures in grammars, and the necessity for a thoro clearing-up of these metaphysical speculations on the names for wordrelations in a sentence. When in the examination of twenty-two grammars it is found that nine different names are given to the relation expressed by the word "good" in the sentence "John is good," and sixteen different ones are given for "red," in the sentence "We painted the barn red," it is no wonder that even teachers lose sight of the essentials of a sentence in their controversies over what to call certain words relating to these essentials. But the great era for language-work will come when the entire school curriculum has been modified by the omission of all that is obsolete and the addition of those things that pertain to group activities. Already have manual-training and domestic science when taught in a vital way proved their helpfulness in these problems. When the school becomes more closely allied with the home and social interests of the children, when massteaching has been superseded by that of groups and individuals, when teachers do not know less of literature, formal rhetoric, and grammar, but do know more of the order of development of the parts of speech and the evolution of the sentence, more of the problems of linguistic development, when they think how the child learns language rather than how he shall be taught language, and when language is no longer regarded as a thing in itself but as an instrument of thought, then may we look for a generation loving the great mother-tongue, taking pride in the use of her choicest and best forms, appreciating from infancy the need of proper language for utterance-a generation whose speech will tend to shape itself effectively and correctly because of the thought and power-impelling impulse from within. DISCUSSION CHARLES S. MEEK, superintendent of schools, Boise, Idaho.—An inventory of the prevailing errors in the speech of the children is a necessary preliminary to a rational attempt to improve language in the schools. Boise, Idaho, has thirty-five hundred pupils enrolled in the eight grades and seventy five grade teachers. This discussion presents a study of the characteristic languageerrors of our schools. No claim is made for the statistical merit of this report. The results presented are by no means statistically accurate. They only indicate in a general way the situation. No attempt has been made to tabulate the technical distinctions in language, but the plan has been to deal merely with the glaring evidences of crude speech. At the beginning of the second semester of the school year just closed, teachers in the eight grades were requested to note the language-errors of their pupils and to classify them as verb-errors, double negatives, mispronunciations that can be consistently called bad language-forms such as "git" and "jist," misuse of pronouns, adverbial errors, and colloquialisms. A preliminary report was made in February which was suggestive only in revealing the fact that teachers were careless or unobservant both as to the character and extent of the mistakes in the vernacular of their children, and almost helpless in devising means for accumulating relevant data as to the situation. Yet Boise teachers are earnest and efficient, practically all of them are normal or college graduates and have had successful experience prior to their employment with us. Teachers become immune to the crudeness in the language of their children, just as they become accustomed to poor ventilation. The facts brought out by our preliminary report are not, I believe, such as to make our school distinctive but are typical of what any superintendent will probably learn if he investigates. In grade meetings we discussed the weaknesses of the first report, adopted a classified outline as a basis for the study, and agreed upon a uniform plan of scoring the errors observed. The teachers were urged to encourage their children to talk freely and naturally. I venture the assertion that our teachers now, for the first time, know the languageerrors of their children with enough precision to begin work effectively for their elimination. In considering the data to be presented you should note that of the thirty-five hundred pupils whose speech furnishes the data all but eighty-six were born of English-speaking parents. The total numbers of mistakes observed, classified and expressed in percentages are as follows: The large percentage under mispronunciation results from the fact that some teachers scored words mispronounced because they were unfamiliar rather than because of a tendency to poor English. Double negatives do not represent as large a percentage of the total because they were not scored as frequently as they occurred. The important fact is, however, that the percentage under each class of errors is relatively constant for all grades. There is no evidence of a change in the distribution as the grades advance, and very little evidence of diminishing errors. CLASSIFICATION OF THE VERB-ERRORS An analysis of the verb-errors brings out the following facts: a) Confusing the past and perfect participles occasioned 48.8 per cent. of the total verb-errors. b) The misuse of "have," "ain't," and "got," 20.4 per cent. e) The use of "and" with infinitive for "to," 5.7 per cent. These errors are also constant and uniform thruout the grades. The confusing of the past and perfect participles scores 52.8 per cent. in the first grade, 47.2 per cent. in the eighth grade and 48.8 per cent. for all the grades. Misuse of "had,” “ain't,” and “got,” 22.2 per cent. in the first grade, 18.9 per cent. in the eighth grade, and 20.4 per cent. for all grades. Failure of verb and subject to agree in number, 7.4 per cent. in first grade, 8.4 per cent. in the eighth grade, and 8.2 per cent. in all grades. Sequence of tenses, 1.4 per cent. in the first grade, 4.2 in the eighth grade, and 2.6 per cent. in all grades. The use of "and" with infinitive for "to," 5.5 per cent. for the first grade, 8.1 per cent. in the eighth grade, and 5.7 per cent. in all grades. Colloquialisms, 7.4 per cent. in the first grade, 9.6 per cent. in the eighth grade, and 8.6 per cent. in all grades. Confusion in the use of past and perfect participles represents practically 50 per cent. of verb-errors. The verb-errors are 40 per cent. of errors of all kinds scored. Confusing the past and perfect participles therefore occasions 20 per cent., or one-fifth of all mistakes considered in this paper. Mistakes in past and perfect participles of "see," "come," "do," and "go" represent 50.8 per cent. of all like mistakes, or one-tenth of all mistakes scored. Nine other verbs, 33 per cent. of verbs or 6 per cent. of total errors. If the children might be taught to use correctly the past and perfect participles of thirteen verbs, 16 per cent. or one-sixth of all the errors in speech would be eliminated. The important facts disclosed by the data subsequently collected are: I. The field is limited. The poor English heard is due to frequent repetition of a few errors. 2. The percentage under each class of errors is relatively constant for all grades. There is evidence of slight change in the distribution as the grades advance. 3. This is evidence that no consistent or continuous effort at elimination of the errors has been made. Confused by the fancied complexity of the task, the teachers' efforts have been sporadic and futile. 4. The verb-errors form a very large percentage of the total errors in each grade. 5. Of the verb-errors, almost one-half are due to confusing the past and perfect participle forms. A dozen verbs include most of these errors. 6. The exact character and distribution of errors being known and a rational allotment of errors for correction in each grade being made, a great improvement in spoken English should result. STRENGTHENING THE WORK IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES JAMES M. GREENWOOD, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, KANSAS CITY, MO. (An Abstract) STATEMENT The contention is that the children, instead of being put to work in the elementary schools, fritter their time away in useless diversions, virtually playing at school and dealing with inane platitudes which lead to educational bankruptcy. An easy education is now the fashion and the practice. Every little bit of knowledge has to be thoroly chewed by the teacher and then spooned out in small pellets before the learner can assimilate it. There is great need of teachers who have backbone and sense, the competent, to save the children from the crowd of incompetents who do not draw a heavy line between work and play, between playing at school and working in school. The remedy is to put the child when he is old enough and big enough to start to school to doing some things, and keep him at the important things till these can be done fairly well. Not little things, but good-sized things. How shall children be taught so as to reduce waste and wreckage to a minimum? Constructive ability should now be invoked. It is in great demand. I will give some illustrations of what I mean in teaching geography, grammar, and arithmetic. It is held as a cardinal principle in teaching that a teacher who knows one subject thoroly and can pick out the essential truths in it, and can present them in such a manner that all the essential facts of the science will cluster about them, is in the proper mental attitude to teach other subjects efficiently. To pick out the basic facts in the elementary branches and to teach them well is a necessary prerequisite. Children get their information in shreds and patches with many skips between, and the object of chief concern is to consolidate and solidify the pupil's knowledge of each subject. GEOGRAPHY In geography the pupil should be taught to interpret the history of a country and the chief occupations of its people from studying a good map of that part of the earth's surface. He should, by using the foot ruler and the scale of miles given on the map, noting carefully the latitude and longitude of the country and making due allowance for the distance between the meridians, determine by measurement the approximate area, and then the density of population. By studying the watercourses, the elevation of the surface, the drainage of the country, proximity to the ocean, the prevailing winds, the killing frosts, the length of the cropping season, the pupil ought to determine what occupations the people could engage in. How to go from where the pupil lives to that country, the cost of transportation and meals, the nearest seaport, how to get to its capital, and what one would see the people doing when once there, are important steps. The teacher or some of the pupils could give a historical sketch of the country and its people. This is only the merest outline, but it will serve to indicate how to study the sixty-odd different nations of the earth. ENGLISH GRAMMAR In the use of the English language, children should begin the classification of sentences, according to the essential elements composing them, not later than the fourth year. There are only three kinds of sentences, according to structure, in English: (a) subject and verb; (b) subject, verb, and object; and (c) subject, verb, and complement, or attribute. The first is the simplest form of sentence in any language. Little children, if a type sentence is placed on the blackboard, will pick out of their reading-lessons sentences of this type till they become very familiar with this. kind of sentence. Next they can attack the second type, and later the third. Now they are prepared to use modifiers of these elements, and still later to begin essential elements that contain phrases and clauses, and likewise of the modifying elements, at first simple and on to the complex. This work should be gradually introduced. From the elements it is an easy matter to teach the parts of speech and their properties. In the last analysis all compound sentences must be reduced to simple sentences, and no sentence can have more than three essential elements in it. The clauses conform to the types of independent sentences, so that the subject may be a word, phrase, clause, or sentence; the verb may be one, two, three, or four words, but not more; the object may be a word, phrase, clause, or sentence, and the attribute element a word, phrase, or clause; the same is true of the modifying elements which are adjective or adverbial. After this the connecting elements may be introduced and will be disposed of easily enough. All good teaching should lead up to general principles, and each principle always includes a multitude of particulars under it. In learning the structure and use of our language, the pupil needs to get hold of and firmly grasp a few fundamental truths as a working basis. Only a few directions on sentence-making and sentence-testing are needed, or are helpful. They may be stated as follows: a) No needless word or words should be used. b) No necessary word should be omitted. c) Great care should be taken to select the best word. d) Each word, phrase, or clause should be placed in the sentence where it stands for the most in making the sentence correct, clear, and elegant. PRIMARY ARITHMETIC Experience has demonstrated that pupils should begin number work outside of mere counting by using concrete material, interspersed with enough abstract mechanical work to give vigor and energy to the work, and that there is real danger in concreting number work too long. Whenever a pupil or a class has learned any table by doing it and has had a few practical, illustrative exercises to fix this knowledge in making it reasonably stable, a new topic should be attacked without delay. This applies to all phases of lumber, water, dirt, animal, vegetable, measuring, weighing, doing arithmetic in the lower grades; also to getting the multiplication table by sheer will-power rather than by long over-scientific methods thinly drawn out. Briefly, during the first and second years in school, the pupil will have learned nearly all the essential and useful tables in arithmetic, if he is turned loose on them, and he will, if intelligently taught, get very clear notions of whole numbers and fractions by comparing them with one another. This is the way to lay a concrete-abstract foundation upon which to build a mathematical foundation, the object of which is to teach the learner to think in symbols rather than in things as he advances in this study. |