Excerpt from The Springfield Tests, 1846-1905-6: A Study in the Three R"s
On November 12, 1905, the Springfield Republican printed an article on the "Schools of Sixty Years Ago," contributed by the writer. It gave a comparison of the results of examinations in spelling and arithmetic of 1846 and 1905 as well as the words and questions of the old tests. The article was copied by the New York School Journal of December second and later by most of the educational papers of the country. In three or four months the tests had been tried in hundreds of places and many of the dailies in our leading cities had commented editorially or otherwise; while innumerable letters had been received from school committees, superintendents and principals.
These indications of widespread interest have induced the writer to make use of the remaining tests, - geography and penmanship, - for comparison with present day work, to analyze more thoroughly the work of the pupils of 1846, and to put the whole into a more permanent form.
In publishing this matter, the only desire is to place within reach of everybody interested, some definite and tangible evidence bearing upon that much discussed subject, - the three R"s. The changes made in the curricula of the public schools during the past half century have led many people to assume that the branches so strongly emphasized in earlier times, are being neglected today, and that the work in the so-called fundamental studies was better years ago than it is now. As Mr. George H. Martin, Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, writes in his report of 1905-6: "Many people imagine a golden age somewhere in the past when everybody habitually spelled correctly." He might have added, - when everybody ciphered accurately and read fluently. This feeling, - it can hardly be called an opinion, - has, from time to time, become so strong in some communities and has been so difficult to dissipate because of lack of substantial evidence, that it has often caused the withholding from progressive school committees and superintendents of that support which is so essential to success in any public undertaking.
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