District of Columbia School Investigation
The District of Columbia is subject to the jurisdiction of Congress. Complaints were made of the inefficiency of the schools of the city of Washington. A committee was appointed from the United States Senate to investigate the matter. Senator Stewart is chairman of this committee. The correspondent of the New York Tribune, reporting on the subject, said:— Senator Stewart, of Nevada, is disgusted with the lack of scholarship displayed by pupils of the public high schools of the district. He is chairman of a Senate committee to investigate the schools here, great complaint of their inefficiency having been made; and it was wisely determined to order an examination of the youth of the city to test their mental qualifications. The result of a thorough and fair trial showed a deplorable want of training in the grades the young people were supposed to have mastered. In history and arithmetic the general average made was not much over fifty per cent. The penmanship was poor, and the spelling miserably bad. In speaking of the matter, the senator, who used to teach school himself, said: “The children seem to have had very indifferent instruction. They have not been carefully drilled in elementary branches of a common school education. The teachers of to-day are victims of a bad system; they attempt to teach too many things, and, as a consequence, nothing is learned thoroughly. I am satisfied that the old-fashioned schools did much better work, in spite of the fact that the path to learning has been made smoother, and that many things have been simplified. Then, again, the teachers in the city schools have to look after too many pupils. One poor woman is given the care of fifty lads and lasses, and she has no time to devote to the individual. The bright ones will acquire some knowledge, and the dull ones, from lack of personal help, will flounder along until they quit school with a mere smattering of learning.”