The association selected Mr. George A. Walton, an experienced educator, to make the examination of the schools of the county, and the number of pupils examined exceeded three thousand. In their preface to Mr. Walton’s report the gentlemen of the association say:
“Publicity, discussion, and discontent are wholesome things to apply to school management in Massachusetts. That this is a fair sample of the results now accomplished cannot be questioned. But though they may not be flattering to our pride, we yet believe that they are as good as can be obtained in any other county in Massachusetts, or, indeed, of any other State where similar tests are applied in a similar manner. If any school authorities elsewhere doubt the truth of this statement, let the experiment be tried in the schools of their county.
“The questions naturally arise, What is the cause of this lamentable ignorance? and what is the remedy? The answer to the former suggests the reply to the latter. Too much has been attempted in the schools. There has been a slavish adherence to text-books, and no room given for freedom and originality of thought. Rules have been memorized, and the children taught to recite from the text-book, while they have not had the slightest conception of the true meaning of the subject....
“The rules and exceptions in grammar are faithfully committed to memory, and most intricate sentences can be successfully analyzed, the phrases separated, and the modifiers named in true grammatical style, while the pupils who have undergone such severe training in this respect are unable to present their own thoughts concisely or clearly, or even correctly, upon paper. The memory is cultivated, and the reason allowed to slumber.
“In arithmetic the pupils show a readiness to solve a problem when they are able to fit it to some rule that they have learned; but when they are given a simple question out of the regular course, they are like a ship at sea without rudder or compass.”
This is the severest and most sweeping criticism ever passed upon our American common-school system, and it emanates from its friends and the friends of universal education.
Mr. Walton says of reading, as taught in the Norfolk County schools, “As for any systematic analysis by which the pupil learns to make a careful and independent study of his piece, it is but little practised in the schools even of the grammar grade;” and he declares that reading, without comprehending the ideas of which the words are mere signs, “is not merely useless, but dangerous, just in proportion to the facility with which the words are called.”
Of the results of his examinations in penmanship Mr. Walton says, “Most of the faults in the writing indicate imperfect teaching.” Of his examinations in spelling he says that “the commonest words are misspelled when used in sentences or composition, while words of difficult orthography are spelled with accuracy when dictated for spelling.” For example, he says, “The words ‘whose,’ ‘which,’ and ‘father,’ when spelled orally, were generally correct, but when written in sentences they were frequently, in many schools, in a majority of cases, erroneous.” No test could more clearly demonstrate the purely mechanical character of the methods of instruction than this of a comparison between the pupils’ oral and written spelling. The average of excellence in spelling the three simple words “which, whose, scholar,” of the primary grade for the whole county of Norfolk, as found by Mr. Walton, was the exceedingly low one of 55.9, the basis being 100.
The ingenuity in bad spelling of this grade of pupils, who had been at least four years in school, is well illustrated by the example of the word “carriage,” written as follows: “Carage, carrage, craidge, caradg, carege, carriag, carrige;” and of the word “sleigh,” written “saly, slay, slaig, slaigh, slagh, slaw, sleig, sleugh, sleight, sligh, sley, slew, slave, sleygh;” and of the word “Tuesday,” written “Tusgay, tuestay, toesday;” and of the word “Wednesday,” written “wanesday, wedenyday, Wedernsday, wednest, Wenday, Wendsday, wensday, wenesday, wensdaw, wenze, Wenzie, Wendsstay, wenstday, Wesday, Whensday, winday, Windday, Winsday,” etc.
The word “scholar” presented one hundred and sixty different erroneous spellings; that of “depot” fifty, among which were the following: “Deappow, deppowe, deaphow, deapohoe, teapot, doopo,” and “bepo.” An exercise in spelling by both grades of pupils, the “primary,” composed of pupils from eight and a half to ten and a half years old, and the “grammar,” composed of pupils from twelve and a half to fifteen and a half years old, showed errors of which the following are examples: Any, spelled ane and enny; along, aloud and alon; amongst, amunt; animals, anables; arithmetic, rithmes; asked, asted; beautiful, beuful; been, ben, bene, and bin; by-and-by, bimeby; coat, coot, coth, cote, goat, and coate; Boston, bostone; boy, poy, and bou; city, sitty; eggs, ages; custard-pie, custed puy; coming, comin, commun, gomming, and comming.