that pupils will acquire slow, thorough habits or rapid, thorough habits according
to the way they are taught. If they are brought up by the slow plan, naturally
when speeded up suddenly, the quality of their work declines. They can be rapid,
accurate, and thorough only if such strenuous work begins early and is continued
consistently. Slow habits are undesirable if better ones can just as well be
implanted.
To avoid possible misunderstanding, it ought to be stated that the plan
recommended does not mean less drill upon the mechanical side of reading. We
are recommending a somewhat more modernized kind of mechanics, and a much
more strenuous kind of drill. The plan looks both toward more reading and
improved habits of reading.
One final suggestion finds here its logical place. Before the reading work of
elementary or high schools can be modernized, the city must purchase the books
used in the work. Leaving the supplying of books to private purchase is the
largest single obstacle in the way of progress. Men in the business world will
have no difficulty in seeing the logic of this. When shoes, for example, were
made by hand, each workman could easily supply his own tools; but now that
elaborate machinery has been devised for their manufacture, it has become so
expensive that a machine factory must supply the tools. It is so in almost every
field of labor where efficiency has been introduced. Now the books to be read
are the tools in the teaching of reading. In a former day when a mastery of the
mechanics of reading was all that seemed to be needed, the privately purchased
textbook could suffice. In our day when other ends are set up beyond and above
those of former days, a far more elaborate and expensive equipment is required.
The city must now supply the educational tools. It is well to face this issue
candidly and to state the facts plainly. Relative failure can be the only possible
lot of reluctant communities. They can count on it with the same assurance as
that of a manufacturer of shoes who attempts to employ the methods of former
days in competition with modern methods.
In this city the expenditures for supplementary textbooks have amounted to
something more than $31,000 in the past 10 years. Approximately one-third of
this sum was spent in the first seven years of the decade and more than $20,
in the past three years. This indicates the rapid advance in this direction made
under the present school administration but the supply of books still falls far
short of the needs of the schools. A fair start has been made but nothing should
be permitted to obstruct rapid progress in this direction.