March 7, 2006
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Just in case the 8th grade math quiz didn't depress you enough:
What it took to get an 8th grade education in 1895
--Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents
stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out.
Could any of us have passed the 8th grade in 1895??
This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas, USA.
It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley
Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS, and reprinted by the
Salina Journal.
Here is the actual 8th Grade Final Exam-Salina, KS, 1895. See you how your would score...Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb Give principal parts of "lie," "play," and "run."
5. Define case; Illustrate each case.
6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.?
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many
bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at
50cts/bushel, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary
levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104
for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20
per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of
which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic, orthography,
etymology, syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph,
subvocals,diphthong, cognate letters, inguals.??
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.'
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two
exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi,
dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup. 8. Mark diacritically
and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that
indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood,
fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane,
fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation
by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.Geography (Time, one hour)
1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas??
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba,
Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same
latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the
sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the
earth.
Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete. Gives the saying "he
only had an 8th grade education" a whole new meaning, doesn't it! Also
shows you how poor our education system today has really become...
HT to Steve Camp.[dubiously] Maybe people back then were in eighth grade when they were 23 years old?
Comments (7)
There's no doubt that that represents a good general education, but think of all the stuff that's NOT on that test that kids learn now. While I've absolutely no doubt that kids were better educated at the same level then than now, it should also be considered that the fact that we don't know that stuff has something to do with the fact that we were taught other stuff instead, not that we were taught nothing because we weren't taught those things in that detail, if you see what I mean.
For example, they didn't spend a lot of time on World War I, World War II, or the Great Depression in history class in 1896 -- nor did they have to learn the geography of Alaska or Hawaii -- and you might observe that there's zero natural science on that test. And what actual VALUE is there in knowing the difference between an ingual and a trigraph, so long as you've learned to read properly what they represent?
Again, that's not to say that kids who know the difference between Orinoco and Monrovia and who understand the geographical significance of rivers don't know something modern kids don't -- just that the fact that we don't know some of those things doesn't entirely mean that we're less educated -- but also that we're differently educated. We didn't get around to learning how to diacritically mark words (probably because that's a big fat waste of time for a non-linguist), but we were learning quite a bit about things that those kids were apparently required to know nothing about (some of which hadn't occurred yet historically or been well understood scientifically.)
(Hope that worked.)
I like your attitude Pentamom!! And I could never have passed that exam. Ever, and I have a teacher's certificate. I can read real good tho.
What slays me is the total lack of matching/multiple choice/true false questions. It's essentially all essay and word problems.
Can you imagine an eighth grader being instructed to "Describe the mountains of North America" or "Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each"?
I wonder if they did as well as we think. I mean, many, many kids went to school ONLY up to eighth grade, if that far, and even then sporadically because of weather, farm and home chores, and even parental attitudes. When they did those essays, the handwriting might have been nicer-- maybe-- but I'd be willing to bet that the grammar and spelling were highly creative. Alot also dpeneded then as now on where one went to school. If you could, you went to a private school such as Boston Latin and got a fantastic classical education. But if you were out here in Indiana, they likely did not spend a whole lot of time on Latin when they could not even get most kids reliably in school for much of the year. BTW, alot of our one-room schoolhouses are still standing here-- there is one near our house, and several others dotted nearby. But these would have been miles form what was once the center of town, and at least a couple of miles from more than two farmhouses.
Name all the "republics of Europe" in 1896? Before World War I?
Couldn't have been THAT hard -- what were there, Italy and France? Maybe two or three others?
The Austro-Hungarian Empire owned the whole middle; Tsarist Russia gobbled up much of the eastern portion, and of the rest, many were still full-blown monarchies.
I agree that a lot of kids today would be thrown by that many non-multiple choice questions -- I also know that for sheer amount of content, it's not more than a decent eighth grade homeschool curriculum would require. It's just different stuff from what it would contain now. This is, after all, a final exam they had five hours to complete -- something they must have spent quite a deal of time boning up for, and presumably reflected what they had been taught. Remember how Laura Ingalls was expected to spend most of her free time in her last year of school, preparing for her teaching exam (which sounds a lot like this in style, if not specific content)?
And, along the lines of what Eleanor said -- this was the eighth grade *graduation* exam. How many people "had an eighth grade education" because they couldn't pass this one and move on?
I'm still in first grade. I'm a homeschooler but boy my public education was lacking. I thought I was relatively wise about American History.
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