APT, Page 1, September 1911
The journey through an American Primary Teacher (APT) publication finally begins...
Quick note: We were rather unexpectedly hit with some home repairs this past week and a half, which kept me away from reading everyone’s articles and posting my own. I missed reading your work! Great stuff you always share, and I’ll have to set aside some time to peruse what I’ve missed these last couple of weeks.
So, beginning with the first page shown above, which is pretty much just an ad, a few things stood out to me. One, of course, being the book prices! Yes, I suppose we’ll see quite a bit of that going on. It just, wow, when I think about the prices and fees and everything from public school to even homeschooling, the prices really hit pretty hard as far as “education” goes. 😅
Text from image1:
This series provides separate books for the third, fourth, and fifth years, and is the first to provide a textbook to be placed in the hands of third-year pupils. The prices of the books are exceedingly low, and the books themselves are unusually small in size and so light in weight that they can easily be handled by young children. The series makes the study of oral English as systematic as the study of written English and makes it precede the study of written English, as it normally does in school. It not only teaches the pupil to speak correctly, but by training his voice extends the influence of the cultured and refined home. It lays the foundation of certain desirable habits of speech—fluency, flexibility of voice, pure tone, correctness of pronunciation, and distinctness of enunciation.
The work is very simple, interesting, and stimulating. The games in Book One give the children power through relaxation, through using linguistic forms as they use other play material. Progressive training in letter writing is provided in Book Two. The series teaches the delightful art of oral story telling by furnishing stories for re- production, with numerous suggestions and directions. The work in dramatization develops the child’s powers of imagination and expression. These books are of particular value to children of foreign parentage.
The second thing that stands out to me is the mention of “letter writing.” I’m not too sure kids are being taught the “art” of letter writing these days. I know my girls were introduced to it at school briefly, and we did some stuff here at home, but I’ve seen young adults in their early twenties who didn’t know how to format a simple business letter and had to clarify where the return address goes on an envelope. 🤔
Not to mention penmanship. I recall a few years ago when my oldest daughter was in high school, maybe tenth grade, and I took her to sign up for a gym membership. Part of the process, of course, was that she had to sign her name. The young man behind the counter was so surprised at her ability to write her name in cursive—I thought he must be joking. He elaborated with a couple of stories about people her age who come in for memberships and simply do not know how to actually write their names in cursive. I still like to think he was joking; however, I’ve now seen it happen.
And then the term “foreign parentage.” This one is a little close to my heart. Many moons ago (mid 2000s), I volunteered at my girls’ elementary school. At that time, the demographics were pretty easily nearing about 48% Spanish-speaking families, where the children were bilingual but their parents knew no English. So, these poor kiddos were having to learn their lessons in English but could get no help at home for their homework because their parents simply didn’t understand English yet. While we still lived there, I helped tutor them when I could, but I was only able to do so for that one year, as the husband took a job offer and we moved out of the area. The can of worms that opened up for the school over this mess was not a small one. It took some work from everyone—parents, teachers, staff, volunteers, everyone—to pull the school out of the mess they were in, but they did it, and they were doing well last time I checked.
I was going to share another page, but I hadn’t intended to put so much of my own two cents in on this one. 😅 It saddens me greatly that our own public institutions have fallen off the track of actual education. Sure, there are some pockets here and there, and there are still some super fantastic teachers and professors out there steering the ship and guiding these kids the best they can. They have my utmost respect and gratitude, because I know it is not easy—not easy at all.
Thank you to those teachers, staff, professors, volunteers, and parents!
Thank you all for popping in to read this rant. 😊
The text from the images will be as close to the original as possible, with various odd symbols and things taken out that had been picked up from the image.