“The philosophy currently is that most of our children will be required to continue through additional schooling as we enter the next century. Within the next decade or two we must consider continuing education in order to maintain a respectable place in society. Grade eight education will someday no longer be acceptable.”
—Virgil Humm, 1899
A topic of conversation among friends recently centered on advanced education, college debt suffocating even the brightest and the best as individuals search for financial footing.
Many say that we have lost the focus on elementary knowledge that succeeding in life requires. It was with great interest that I read an email sent to me by a friend in Tennessee.
This eighth grade final exam in Salina, Kansas, in 1895 makes the saying “he only had an eighth grade education” suddenly stand in a whole new light. The original document is on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society in Salina.
Grammar, consisting of 10 problems for which students were given one hour to complete, asked such things as “Give nine rules for the use of capital letters” and “name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.”
Students also had to define punctuation and give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
For arithmetic, students were given one hour, 15 minutes. After first being tasked with naming and defining the fundamentals of arithmetic, they were then given a real-life problem to solve. “A wagon box is 2 feet deep, 10 feet long and 3 feet wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?”
Then, “If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 pounds, what is it worth at 50 cents a bushel, deducting 1,050 pounds for tare?”
“District 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school for 7 months at $50 per month and have $104 for incidentals?” (My answers for the above three questions: 40; $24.10 and .14%. I really don’t want anyone to tell me if I’m wrong!)
The questions go on from there. “What is the cost of 40 boards, 12 inches wide and 16 feet long at $20 per meter?” And, “What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?”
This part of the exam ends with instructions to write a bank check, a promissory note and a receipt.
What strikes me about each of these questions is that these are real and relevant problems that young people in Kansas would have faced in daily lives. Algebraic equations in my high school classroom brought whining that we would never need to use such complex practices. The same could not be said of this eighth grade exam.
U.S. history asked students to give the epochs into which our country is divided, show the territorial growth of the U.S., describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion and relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
Students were expected to name and locate principal trade centers in the U.S. and name all republics of Europe, giving Capital city of each. Students were to explain why the Atlantic Coast is colder than the Pacific within the same latitude and describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers. The final geography question, not exactly a simple one, was to describe the movements of the Earth, then give the inclination of it.
This final eighth grade exam took a total of five hours to complete. A student walking away with a high grade on this exam had every right to take pride in their education.
Prepared well to land a job, these young students were ready to embrace life with an education that held value. And not a penny of debt followed them out the door of the one-room schoolhouse!
