Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1888 — School Teaching in Georgia. [ARTICLE]

School Teaching in Georgia.

Charleston News anfi Courier. The applicant was a man of about 40,, with a cheap cast of features and a body half as broad as long. He said he didn't claim to know all—wasn’tagraduate,etc., but he did know enough to teach them heathens down at Shake Rag, ’cause he’d teached tliar four years, and they didn’t know nuthin’ yit. The official saijl he’d ask a few primary questions, and' began with: “What is a letter?” “A thing crooked sometimes and sometimes ’tain’t.” • “What is a syllable?” “Hit’s a word split in two.” “How many parts of. speech?” “Three—coarse, fine and superfine.”

“What’s a verb?” “Hit’s suthin’ that tackles onto suthin’, or shows that suthin’ tackles onto hit.” “What is reading?” “Hit’s talking from a book.” “How do you teach reading?” “Sometimes by coaxin’ and sometimes by a hoard.” “What is geography?” “Hain’t no classes in that.” “But yon might have. How would you teach it?” - “By askin’ ’em questions.” , “What are the fundamental rules of arithmetic?” “Funda what?” “Fundamental rules.” “Don’t know him.” “I had no reference to an individual. I meant the principal rules of arithmetic.” “You mean the way how?” “Yes.” “Can’t jis’ remember.”

This, of course, is an exceptional subject of ignorance, but the public school ■teachers in the Georgia backwoods are not proverbial for very much learning. I n OVA oi*A PAtnA OfAAn Ar\ ICI fl AitJL 1 it? 11? ill L otjHlc ' gyUtt SLui/viSj UU \\ C \ clj and this county has two or three of a higher grade.