Lyman Hall High school - Singer Chronicle Yearbook (Wallingford, CT)

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THE CHRONICLE 11 too far in (lie other direction. To he interesting to students some tilings must be told and explained with a story, but this story must be one which makes the facts real and vital, one which is in tune with the times. Textbooks should be written so that they have a “human appeal.” They should be written for the student, to develop his interests and to help him to find new ones. Illustrations may help a great deal in making subject matter clear. In that matter of being “in tune with the times” a good many textbooks used today are at fault. Instead of going to great length to describe wars, which are past, histories might better show what the social and economic life is, and how it is an improvement upon the past. As Cedric Fowler says, “The world he meets on graduation will not lie filled with the romance and glory of military combat. It will be a place where economic forces and industrial technique are dominant.” The writers of new histories are endeavoring to take this fact into consideration. One describes the World War in seventeen hundred words, with hardly a mention of a battle. Other types of textbooks are, also, at fault. Those on social subjects give very little notice to unemployment and depressions, which the student is liable to meet when he goes out into the world. Civics texts do not keep up with the constant changes in the government. Mathematics texts use as examples men who save from one-half to one-third of their incomes. It will be quite safe, I believe, to say that textbooks will be used in high schools for some time to come. However, I believe that the use of textbooks will become more informal as the years go on. For example, in an English class, after the entire class has studied one play together, a great many books of plays may be brought from the library. Then several days may be devoted to reading plays, each student reading whatever ones he desires, and brief reports may be made on those which have been enjoyed. In this way the students may come in contact with all kinds, new ones, old ones, comedies, and tragedies. The same thing may be done in the case of poetry. Instead of reading one or two poems each of few authors, access may be given to many types of poems. By reporting on and reading the poems aloud in class, this method may have still farther-reaching results. Such a procedure would seem to stimulate more interest and a greater desire to do the reading. Also, if library books are brought into the classroom, the student may come to have a deeper appreciation of the right kind of books, which he might not get if left to his own devices. Since the first secondary school in 1635 there have been many changes in textbooks. The first ones were very imaginative, but later they became more prosaic. Then another change was made when textbooks were brought into closer connection with life so that students might be better prepared to go out into the world. Today a greater variety of books is being used in the high schools, and this makes the work far more interesting. I think that these changes have been improvements but that more are yet to come. However this may be, we cannot deny that books are the foundation of our learning and will continue to be for many years to come. Yarley Bingham References: Directing Learning in the High School—Walter S. Monroe—Page 198 Life in America One Hundred Years Ago—Gaillard Hunt—Page 133 A tlantic Monthly—March. 1921—Old Schoolbooks The Journal of the National Education Association—December, 1925—Early Textbooks—A rithmet ics

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10 THE CHRONICLE the twenty-fourth threshold was and what the whole would come to?” Such was the mathematics that the student of the seventeen hundreds had to study. In 1788 there was published a mathematics textbook in which there was nearly everything known about the subject at that time. It was Nicholas Pike’s A New and Cornpleal Arithmetic Composed for Citizens of the United Stales. This textbook contained five hundred and twelve pages; four hundred and eight devoted to arithmetic, sixty to plane geometry, trigonometry, and mensuration, thirty-three to algebra, and ten to an introduction to conic sections. It was bound in leather, as were most textbooks of that time. This book was presumably of a more prosaic nature. In the early nineteenth century the books studied by the higher classes in a girls’ academy were Morse’s Geography, Murray’s English Grammar, Pope’s Essay on Man, Blair’s Rhetoric, and the Bible. Although we do not know exactly what was the nature of some of these books, their titles do not sound so imaginative as those of the previous century. As the nineteenth century advances, we notice among others the history textbooks. These contained a great deal about the Civil War. There were long, detailed accounts of battles, while comparatively little was presented about the social and economic life of the times. ' The textbooks of the present time have lost the imaginative qualities which characterized the early textbooks. Their content may be placed under five different headings: statements of fact; records of thinking, such as arguments or demonstrations of geometrical theorems and propositions; results of generalization; descriptions or expressions of feeling; and explicit learning exercises. A greater part of the contents of high-school textbooks can be classified under statements of fact and results of generalizing experience. Usually the material in books cannot be called any one type, for description and records of thinking will almost always contain statements of fact. Among the newest textbooks are books on motion pictures written for school use. Such texts are very interesting. They aim to show the student how to choose the most worth while moving pictures and also to increase his appreciation of the pictures which he sees. Recently many high schools have adopted periodicals to supplement their textbooks. The magazines used in school are those of the highest type, such as The Reader's Digest. This magazine is a good one because it contains in a condensed form worth while articles from many other magazines. There have been many things right and many things wrong about textbooks since their beginning. The early textbooks were very imaginative, as we have seen from the example quoted above. The books sounded just like fairy tales. Someone has said that he did not see how a lad could help doing such fascinating problems. But it seems to me that the idea of the problem is lost when such an elaborate story is built around it. These textbooks lacked the element of ”real-lifeness” which, it seems to me, is necessary to bring home an idea to a student. Present textbooks are a great improvement over the early ones. They have lost the imaginativeness and perhaps in some cases have gone almost

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12 THE CHRONICLE Literary Digest—December 18. 1926—School Histories with Bunk or De-Bunked? Literary Digest—February 23, 1929—War Banished from Schoolbooks New Outlook—November, 1933—Half-Truths for 30.000.000 Beview of Reviews—July, 1926—Can a Textbook Have a Human Appeal!? Review of Reviews—December, 1932—Next to the Teacher—Books. School, and Society March 22, 1924—The Censorship of Schoolbooks March 14, 1931 — The Textbook in American Education Octolx'r 13, 1934—For the Love of Books Scribner's Magazine—June, 1934—Politicians. Teachers, and Sch x)ll)ooks Wilson Bulletin—December, 1933—Teacher Use of Periodicals ♦ ♦ ♦ A SCHOOL FOR LIVING Competitive Essay Through many ages man has labored to establish a better foundation for future citizens. Beginning with the early Greeks we find that their idea was that education was a complete and harmonious development of all the powers of the body and soul. However, they restricted this idea to a very limited class. During the Renaissance popular education was established, and there was a steady progression in educational development. Pestalozzi, one of the greatest and most beloved educators, was the guiding hand in the eighteenth century for popular education as we know it today. Pestalozzi held that human nature itself should be the guide for natural, progressive, and symmetrical education. In America education may be traced through three distinct periods: the Colonial Period, the period from the Revolution to the Civil War, and the modern period. Gradually education has been evolved to our present day standards. What is the motive that has led man to labor so diligently for education? The most prominent motive is the desire to find through this channel better and more abundant life for all. Therefore, the schools set out with this aim in view. Each new generation that comes into the world must be adjusted to the environment in which it lives. I ndoubtedly, the school as well as the home must instill the mores and folkways of the past centuries into the minds of young people. Education will aid in dispelling the confusion and bewilderment of youth. One cannot live in the world today in a normal manner without coming into close contact with his fellowmen. Here, then, is another aim of the school: to show the child his proper place in society. While these are all views which the school still holds, it has drifted away from them in the sense that schools have become too formalized to give the close attention to these aims that is necessary. Our methods of teaching are at fault. The teachers themselves are not to blame, for they have been brought up by these methods. The imperative need is for teachers who will be guides, friends, and students of psychology. A second need of the present school is a system which w ill give the child the most important and vital principles for future life.