Country Vs. City

It is nsually taken for granted - at all events by oity edacators - that city schools are vastly superior in all respeots to country schools. Thafc they oaght to be is certain - for mnch more mouey is expended upon them, their building acoommodations are muoh better, teachers are paid higber salaries and are changed far less frepuently, the opportnnities afiforded by libraries and apparatns are greatly superior, while the range of studies is far widor. Tbe fact, too, that a largo aggregation of pupils in proxirnity enables close claseification, or grading, is likewise counted one of tbe chief if not the principal advantage of the oity over the oonutry school. And that this close classification of pnpils is of great advantage in the more advanoed grades oannot be questioaed. In the high school for instance, the prevalent system of grading gives' eaoh olass muie time in reoitation with great benefit to all its members. Bat, while it may well be conceded that the current gradeó system - and the oloser the grade practicable, the better - is wholly desirable for high schools and the upper grammar grades, it by no means follows that it is best, or even prcdnctive of deoently-good reaults, in the primarics. In faut, there is every reason to believe that it is the great and almost insuperable sturobling blook in the vvay of the satisfaotnry progress of pupils in the primarles. It is a notorious fact, how6ver mnch city edacators may be disposed to dispute it, that tbe yonnger pupils advance in their studies mach more rapidly in an average country sohool than does this same class of pupils in the cities. It is a well known faot, too, that in the villages and smaller cities - where tbe necessities of the case compel the teaching of three or four primary or lower grammar grades in one room, far better results follow than in tha larger cities where the "ideal" complicatión of ouly one grade in a roouj - or eveu oaly half a grade- is praoticable. Industrially and expeiimentaily, as judged by its merits, the graded system, as followed in city primaries geneially, stands condemned. Deduetively, the system stands equaily oondemned, as beicg agaiust reason and oommon sense. The ideal primary No. I grade sohool. what is it? Thirty-flve to 40 papils ülose aroaad sis years of age, all knowing about the same thíngs, are sbut in together with a teaoher, who must impart to them everything they are to learn. They are tooyoung, too immatare to stndy independently. Everytbing save their own little lessons are scrnpulously shut out from them, everything they learn must be drilled into them by the teaoher. There are no reidings or reoitations by more advanoed pupils going on to interest and instruct them. Ghildren, give them opportunity, absoib knowledge through hearing ajjd seeing, as a sponge absorbs water. All toaohersrecognize the great advantage it is to a pnpil in an edueational way, to have intelligent, cultnred home snrroandings. And yet, under this "ideal"graded system evsrything from which tbe youngsters might absorb knowledge is religiously shot out. Is it any wondei that, nnder such a system, progress of pnpils in city primaries is exasperatingly slow? The wonder is that, under such an organized system of how not to do it, the results are not even worse than they are. In the country school, on the other band, the abeoedarians drink in knowledge as the flowers the snnlight. Their own little lessons over, they have interesting object lessons by Éhe older pnpils going on all the time. They learn important lessons in leading, geography and many other things before they are tbemselves able to cali their letters, and the resnlt is that, once started, their piogress is rapid, despite the fact that these pupils in a oountry school do not have a tithe of the time and labor spent on them that is devoted to similar pupils in the city schools. One great drawbaok in tbe couutiy schools is rightly said to be the frequent obange of teachers. Bnt the drawbaok in this respeot is greatei in the city than in country snhools - so far as primary and grammar grades are ooncerned. The oity teacher may be, and is generally, retained in the same room year nfter year, bnt the pnpils are passed yearly from one teacher to another, as a piece of wood in a furnituie faotory is paBsed froru one inaohine to another till it flnds its place in a oompleted article. "The larger tbe city the worse the resuls in the primaries." This has come to be a generally acoepted statement by all who have giveii close and uuprejudioed attention to the matter. Wby? If not beoansa laige oities permit the adoption of the "ideal" class grade, while tbe villages and small oities do not, let the advooates of the onrrent