=--This question is certain to encounter
incredulity, just as it is certain to raise other questions. Both
results will be gratifying as showing an awakening of interest, which is
the most and the best that the present discussion can possibly hope to
accomplish. Very many, perhaps most, teachers in the traditional school
do their teaching with reference to the next examination. They remind
their pupils daily of the on-coming examination and remind them of the
dire consequences following their failure to attain the passing grade of
seventy. They ask what answer the pupil would give to a certain question
if it should appear in the examination. If they can somehow get their
pupils to surmount that barrier of seventy at promotion time, they seem
quite willing to turn their backs upon them and let the teacher in the
next grade make what she can of such unprofitable baggage.
=Each lesson a prophecy.=--And we still call this education. It isn't
education at all, but the merest hack work, and the tragedy of it is
that the child is the one to suffer. The teacher goes on her complacent
way happy in the consciousness that her pupils were promoted and,
therefore, she will retain her place on the pay roll. It were more
logical to have the same teacher continue with the pupil during his
entire school life of twelve years, for, in that case, her interest in
him would be continuous rather than temporary and spasmodic.
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