Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1905 — Weak In Orthography. [ARTICLE]

Weak In Orthography.

Some time ago a Wabash paper published an article relative to the inferiority of the education of the pupils turned out of the high school at that place, and particularly of the spelling. The paper took the position that fads and fad isms took the place of real education in the public schools to an extent that is very detrimental to the pupils graduating from the same. Last week an examination was held in the Wabash nigh school of all the pupils attending the high school. The result made a very discreditable showing for the school Of the 300 pupils examined only two passed a grade of above 90 per cent, while the average of the pupils a very deplorable condition so far as spelling in the public schools is concerned. Apparently spelling has become a thing of the past in schools and is ignored altogether, For the good of the schools and education in general it is to be hoped that the practice of spelling will be re-established in the schools and the pnpils given a very thorough training in that importaat and much to be desired accomplishment. State Superintendent Cotton Bays spelling was never taught so -effectively in the public schools, as now, but certainly he is vastly mistaken so far as the town and city schools are concerned.

Right here in Rensselaer the senior class in our high school are such poor spellers that their present teachers declare them about the poorest for their grade in school they have yet encountered, and they are making a praiseworthy effort to improve them in that respect The fact is that so long as the present unspeakably illogical and complicated method of spelling prevails in the English language, there must be a vast amount of time devoted to learning in the public schools.