8th Grade Education in 1895

[starfire]

The following is an e-mail I received today....................
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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 . It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina , and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina , Kansas 1895

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.Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic
(Time, 1 hour 15 minutes)
1.Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2.A wagon box is 2 feet deep, 10 feet long, and 3 feet wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3.If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cents/bushel, deducting 1,050 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 6,720 lbs. of 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 which measure 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per meter?
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)
[Do we even know what this is?]
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, linguals.
4.Give four substitutes for caret ?u?. (HUH?)
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 United States . Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
7.Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
8.Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
9.Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.

Notice that this exam took FIVE HOURS to complete.

Gives the saying "He only had an 8th grade education" a whole new meaning, doesn't it? This also is a perfect demonstration pointing out how poor our education system has become.
And, NO - I don't have the answers. I don't even understand many of the questions!

[CAMary]

If you notice, the types of questions asked at that time in schools focused much more on memorization and the recitation of rules and giving definitions. Bloom's Taxonomy breaks down thinking into 6 levels - knowledge, comprehension, analysis, application, synthesis and evaluation (if I recall correctly!) which increase in complexity as one ascends. Rote memorization of facts falls into the knowledge, or lowest level. With proper notes/resources to study, this would not be a terribly difficult exam - though I can't say I know many of those answers myself!

The following example:
"Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus."

Would likely be replaced today by something like:
"How did Columbus' discovery of America impact Native Americans at that time? Contrast this to it's impact on Europeans
and give the benefits and drawbacks of his "discovery" for each group..."

The second question requires the student to use more of their higher order thinking skills...

It's just a different way of evaluating student learning...I always figured US history would have been much easier back then - you would be accountable for a much shorter time span than nowadays The arithmetic would be problematic nowadays, however - students are encouraged to use calculators for everything, and I am shocked that most young people cannot make change or calculate percent without technological assistance....

Not that anyone cares - just my perspective

Mary

[Rosie]

Some good points, Mary, about using higher order thinking.

I was struck by the very practical nature of the Arithmetic questions.

2.A wagon box is 2 feet deep, 10 feet long, and 3 feet wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?

In this day and age, all I had to do was google "cubic feet to bushels conversion", plug in 60 cubic feet, and get the answer of 48.2 bushels!

I'll bet Tex could answer that question without google!

Rosie

[tex]

Rosie,

Hahahahaha. You're right, of course, simply because the math on that quiz amounts to a piece of cake for anyone involved in production agriculture. Back in those days, of course, probably over 95% of the population worked on a farm or ranch.

Tex