Organization of an Intermediate School by Floyd Bralliar

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Oct 4, 1906

Organization of an Intermediate School

By Floyd Bralliar

In any school, organization is very closely related to discipline. In an intermediate school the question is of paramount importance, for the youth of our intermediate schools are mostly at the age when it is difficult to control them by reason.

Such organization should begin in the mind of the man who plans the buildings of the school. Too often the architect knows nothing of the work of organizing a school, and does not acquaint himself with what will be best suited to the needs of the school. Very often no one who is experienced in school affairs has anything to do in the matter until one is asked to take charge of the school; and then he finds that the best organization is impossible because of architectural defects that might have been avoided without a cent of additional cost. To illustrate, where there is a single entrance to the dining-room, it will be impossible to prevent some irregularities while waiting for the doors to open, and in passing out after a meal. These things require the teacher’s attention; and this in turn causes the student to feel that he is being unduly restrained.

My plan of organization is to have a time for everything, and to have enough things to take all the time. This may be illustrated by a sample daily program. Rise at 5:45, and allow half an hour for making of toilets, etc. At 6:15 all meet in the assembly room for morning worship. As a preventive to carelessness we have it understood that any who are too ill to be present need a half-day’s fast as a health measure. At 6:30 we pass to the dining-room, which is just below the assembly room, for breakfast. From 7 to 7:30 is allowed for room work. At 7:30 rooms are ready for inspection, and a daily record is kept of the condition of every room. At 7:30 all who do not have domestic work meet in the assembly room for an hour’s study, with a teacher in charge. Class work and chapel exercises occupy the remainder of the forenoon. We serve dinner at 1:30. At 2:15 we begin our domestic work. We require two hours from every pupil in the home. At 6:15 the boys meet with the preceptor and the girls with the preceptress, for evening worship. At 6:40 all meet in the assembly room, in charge of a teacher, for two hours and twenty minutes of quiet study. The girls are dismissed to their cottage five minutes before the boys.

We have so arranged things that the boys get their drinking water at one well, and the girls at another, more convenient to their cottage. Each cottage has a cistern for toilet water.

Saturday nights are generally dreaded in all schools. We arrange to occupy the time in some lecture, entertainment, letter-writing bee, or something of the sort, always planning to have variety, and not to allow things to become uninteresting. Of course the teachers, or at least a teacher, has a part in each entertainment. This, together with proper classification, makes discipline very light.

A word might properly be said regarding the organization of labor. Wherever it is possible, the cottages should be so arranged that neither boys nor girls pass the other’s cottage in going to and from their work.

Every teacher should have charge of some part of the work, and then work with the students, encouraging and directing in the work so that it may be educational. If this is done, there will be no need of a farmer, and there will be no students who count it a disgrace and a hardship to work.

The faculty should meet for at least a few moments every day for prayer and counsel. We find the morning the best time for this, as it interferes least with other duties. Where this is done, the ordinary, tedious, weekly faculty meeting may be omitted with no loss, and sometimes with real profit.

Every teacher should be present at the chapel exercises unless sickness or something equally urgent prevents. And above all else, the organizing power of the Holy Spirit must be sought and obtained at all times.

Floyd Bralliar.