The Evening Tribune July, 1891

Grand Haven Schools
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Superintendent’s Report.
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Grand Haven, July 7, 1891

Gentlemen of the Board of Education.

   I have the honor of submitting to you, herewith, my fifth annual report of Grand Haven Public Schools and desire, in connection with the same, to call your attention to some of the more important facts pertaining to the working of the schools the past year, with some suggestions concerning their future management and development.

   The following tabulation will show the important statistic of each of the different departments of the schools. It should be remembered that the High School, the Grammar School, and the Primary School each involve a course of about four years of study, while the time spent in Kindergarten is somewhat indefinite at present, averaging about a year.

   These statistics show the schools to have been a trifle smaller than they were the previous year. Two facts need to be considered in accounting for this change. viz., the opening of the Holland school on Jackson street, which has been attended by about 50 pupils who would have otherwise required a place in the public schools; and the prevalence of sickness in a variety of forms among children during the year. While deaths have been very few, measles, scarlet fever and diphtheria, have all prevailed and have necessitated more absence than any other year of my experience. Epidemics have been so mild in their working as to produce but little alarm and children have been permitted to resume their places in school with but comparatively small loss of time.

   On the whole there seems to be a growing appreciation on the part of the parents and pupils of the value of the schools. Regularity of attendance has increased and a larger proportion of those who have entered have remained to the close of the year.  It cannot be overlooked, however, that there are far too many within the period of childhood who are receiving no benefit from the schools. The above report shows an enrollment of only 189 who are over 14 years of age, while under that age a good number have have attended but a few weeks and some none at all. In some case necessity, in others indifference to the child’s future welfare, is depriving many a child of what should be his unquestioned right and privilege in this state of free public schools—a thorough elementary education. I believe that a more vigorous intervention on the part of the school board enforcing attendance within the limits of the law would be to the advantage of individual children and the community.

   I desire to comment on the labors of teachers during the year. The success of a school system depends largely upon the competence of the teachers employed. Ours have devoted themselves to the management and instruction of their respective classes with unusual fidelity.

   While all have not met with the success that would be desired, failure has, in no case, been due to faithful application to the required tasks, but, where failure has been in any sense obvious, it has seemed to result rather from inherent disqualification for the distinctive duties of the teacher.

   Some of our most efficient instructors have been drawn from us by other attractions or demands. Their places have been filled, of necessity, by those of less experience, but almost without exception these have filled their places with commendably and give promise of rapidly becoming efficient members of our teaching force. The loss to the schools as a whole by these changes is great and can only be appreciated by those in immediate charge.

   It is a great problem in all city school systems how to prepare young people who have natural talents for the teacher’s work, and the necessary scholarship, to enter, without loss to the efficiency of the schools, into the places of the older teachers who are constantly withdrawing from the work.

   I am of the opinion that by searching each year a few of the graduates of our High School, who desire to teach, on the grounds of their qualification for such duties as manifested during their course of study, and assigning them to positions of work and study under the teachers for a period of time, we may be able to meet the difficulty with a fair degree of success in our schools.

   Such young people may well afford to give a year of study of the general work of teaching with the fair assurance that will open to them the a place of permanent and remunerative employment in the end.

   Patrons may well demand that so much preparations as this be required of young people before they are placed in the position of great responsibility which the teacher in full charge of a large class of pupils assumes.

   While the attendance has been slightly diminished for the year over that of last year, the average number of pupils belonging to each room in the primary and grammar schools has been 48. These have been quite equally divided among the different teachers. Though all will admit that the number is sufficiently large, the rooms have been of good size for efficient discipline and instruction.

   Each year teachers have expressed a desire to carry on some line of study for professional improvement and individual culture. During the past three years one hour each week has been given after the close of school to such lessons. This year the subject of Psychology and its bearing upon the teachers’ work has been the study pursued.

   I believe it has resulted, in most cases, in a more rational consideration of the methods of teaching and of higher appreciation of the true office of the teacher. The Board in making this study with successful experience the basis for granting of certificates for the next year, have given an inducement to a broader culture which cannot fail to produce beneficent influence upon the schools.

   The Kindergarten has now had the test of a full year’s operation in connection with our schools. I trust you have each given to its work such careful consideration as to form definite opinions of its value in our educational system.

   Innovations in school work readily meet with opposition by a large class who regard the methods of their school days as satisfactory for all time. They should be antagonized provided they cannot show an element of improvement commensurate, at least, with the expense they necessarily incur.

   The Kindergarten has done for the pupils connected with it during the year a service which it would be impossible to accomplish in the regular primary grades.

   It has made a happy introduction to school life. It has trained the eye in careful observing and the hand in definite forming. It has cultivated taste by the arrangement of color and form. It has laid firmly the basis the basis of form study which underlies all advancement. By the freedom of relation, it has inculcated good manners and respect for the rights of others. While it has taught few of the distinctive lessons usually given in the early days of school life. It has prepared its pupils to learn these lessons with double ease and alacrity.

   As I have observed the work of the year with great care it has seemed to me that no year of school experience has been so fruitful in valuable results to the child’s true development as this year of kindergarten work.

   The place of this system is growing in the public schools of the country. Muskegon gives to every child entering under six years of age a course in the kindergarten. I found the same to be true in Milwaukee in my recent visit to the schools of that city. Those are only near examples of a constantly increasing list of cities into whose school systems the work has been incorporated.

   I commend this department in your careful consideration and hope that it may be so enlarged as to accommodate all all children upon their first entrance to our schools.

   An extension has been given to the instruction of drawing during the year. The teacher in writing had previously instructed one room in this work as a matter of experiment and practice. This year it has been carried through the first three grades of school as a part of the same teacher’s work. While good results have been secured, the work has been very elementary, serving merely to initiate what we hope to make a more thorough and valuable study in our course in the coming year.

   Drawing is an invaluable art to almost any person every employment in life. The time given to it in the school will be a mere diversion from other studies and the expense necessary to for its pursuit will be inconsiderable as compared with the results accomplished.

   The improvement in writing which has been so marked in the two previous years has continued this year until we feel that our work in this line must be ranked with the best schools in the country.

   Our school exhibit during the third week of June gave you and the public a chance to examine readily the proficiency that has been made, not only in the writing, but in the drawing, kindergarten work, geography and language. This exhibit was the most complete display of school work we have ever made.

   It served a two-fold purpose in being an inducement to earnest effort on the part of the pupils, and in affording a means on educating the public as to the work of the schools are accomplishing. The large number of visitors and the deep interest manifested were a very gratifying return for the labor in its preparation.

   At the beginning of the year the Board employed a special teacher of music and that subject has again been systematically taught in our schools. The results have been very satisfactory, especially in the lower grades. The instruction has not been mere pastime, but, while a pleasant change of exercise, has been as valuable a means of mental discipline as any study in the schools. When begun in the lower grades and continued regularly, it is rare that a child is found who is not able to sing. But it is not high accomplishment that is sought in this art by the instruction in the public schools. It is rather a reasonable familiarity with an art which is entering constantly into the exercises and enjoyment of the race. As a physical exercise it develops the lungs and organs of speech; as a knowledge it valuable in every home and in all society; as a means of mental training, it has few superiors, considering the time it absorbs, in the curriculum of the schools; and as a moral influence, it is among the most refining and inspiring means that can be employed.

   I give to these subjects, special mention because they have been special features for the year; not because they have displaced in time or importance any of the standard subjects of instruction in the grades. They have had only their limited allotment of time while other branches have received the same careful treatment we have sought to give these.

   It has been my earnest effort to to raise the standard of reading in all our schools. We have made some gratifying progress in this line. The reading exercise has been the most variable in the ends sought of any exercises in the schools. It may simply training in the art of reading. The securing of information may be the end sought. In the higher grades it is general culture and acquaintance with the best in the world’s literature.

   To accomplish the desired results an abundance and variety of reading matter is essential. The ordinary school reader, one a year, becomes very stale to to children before it is completed, especially, if, as is generally the case, the child has heard older members of the same family read all the interesting parts again and again.

   In my opinion, the highest economy, and best results in instruction would be subserved by the district directing the Board of Education to supply all the reading matter required for the schools. One half the amount paid by the patrons each year for reading books, placed in the hands of the Board, would supply the schools with reading material far better than they are now supplied.

   Worthless reading books now cumber the attics of almost every home in the city. If purchased by the Board they would be used until worn out, the average wear of the book would be longer, the children always supplied, a greater variety and freshness could be secured, and a better adaptation made to the needs of the class. Under the present condition the Board must hold a large stock of readers for indigent children. I ask that you give the matter a thoughtful consideration.

Central School.

   Our High School has had a prosperous year of work. Its instructors fuel a deep sense of pride in the excellence of its graduating class of seven young ladies which has just completed its work. The school was examined by the University faculty during the spring term and the efficiency of instruction commended.

   It was advised that Chemistry and an advanced review of U. S. History be added to the English course. The courses have been revised in accordance with these suggestions and a copy sent to the Faculty who report the present outline ample as preparatory work for the various sources designated.

   A copy of the courses outlined for the ensuing year accompanied this report.

   The study of Chemistry will necessitate a little outlay for apparatus and materials and I would request that $450 be specially appropriated to this use.

   Should the heating apparatus in the Central Building be changed to steam, I would also request that you set up, at small expense, the southeast basement for a laboratory. To this all the physical and chemical apparatus could be removed and a commodious room secured for experimenting.

   At no time since my connection began has there seemed so deep an interest in the work of the High School as at present. Many are planning to take collegiate courses as soon as their courses here are completed. The graduates of the school now number 90, 21 of whom are boys and 69 girls. During the past five years 42 have graduated, of whom 14 were boys and 28 girls. The report of the school for the year shows 33 boys and 32 girls attending.

   I desire especially to call your attention to the report of the Librarian which accompanies this report. The growth of interest in the library as shown by the increase of withdrawals of books is an interesting feature. During the past three years the books withdrawn have numbered respectively 4551, 6571, and 8681, an increase of over 2000 each year and nearly doubled in two years.

   The educational value of the library, particularly with the young people of the city, is beyond our power to estimate. The time must soon come when it will need to be transferred to some more accessible location in the city, its doors kept open the entire day and a reading room provided in connection with it. Meantime I bespeak for its development the utmost liberality you can consistently bestow.

In closing this review of our work for the year, I desire to thank you, gentlemen, for your cordial and earnest support and co-operation.

                                               Respectfully submitted,

E. L. BRIGGS, Supt.

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