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.

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS -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 - 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 is 2 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) 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 spelli! ng 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.
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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 Europeand give the capital of each.
8. Why is the AtlanticCoastcolder 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 has become... and, no I don't have a lot of the answers to this test.

Debunked: http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.htm

Snopes doesn't say its fake, it says it's not a fair judge of education then and now. They go on about how there is nothing on world history, and nothing on arts.
I would say it is a fairly dificult test, and I certainly couldn't complete it. 5 hours for any test is insane. And there are things in there that should be required now IE. bank notes, loan rates. ect...
If I remember right from education classes, there was no hard rule on education back then, spelling and, writing rules varied from county to county. The teachers had no real standard to base education on. Does anybody here think they can honestly pass this test this day and age? This would be without calculators, scratch paper ect.. just do most of it in your head. You can't use your primer either
You are welcome to use a chalkboard though.
Brad

quote Originally posted by summerjim: Debunked: http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.htm

Cool! Although you can say Debunked, it wasn't untrue. Snopes author had to go into a long explaination of education and test preperation, and that you can say has some merit.

But I've met people who graduated high school that couldn't point to the state of Kansas on a map or had difficulting reading simple instructions.

"Just about any test looks difficult to those who haven't recently been steeped in the material it covers."

Uh, OK, I guess he's right ... we wouldn't want today's school children to be indoctrinated in the proper use of English, for example, just so they could pass an exam like this. It is better to spend that wasted time reading modern books written by people who never learned the Rules of English. The Math looks quite inferior to today.

My old boss went to a 1-room school in the 40's. He said the older kids helped the younger ones learn their material as part of their own studies, so one did a lot of reviewing that way. And yes, he knew his proper usage better than anyone I ever met. (Gee, sounds like a good way to teach English, but then again, why would we want to do THAT.) Less subjects, far greater depth.

It looks to me like "Orthography" is about the rules of spelling, pronunciation, and word usage.

It looks to me like the "8th grade education" of the late 1800s concentrated on preparing children for life, by teaching them things that they actually needed to know in daily life.

Rather than indoctrinate them in "Earth Day" and "Black History Month" and "Global Warming" and "Multiculturalism" (Why do we even have a "Black History Month'? Is the history of blacks somehow different than the history which is taught the other months of the school year?) this curriculum concentrated on teaching the kids real-world skills--and at the time, these kids were on the verge of adulthood; at about 14 or 15, most of them would be done with school after 8th grade, and would go on to find jobs or help out on the family farm.

Since WW2 and the GI Bill, a university education has become the "sine qua non" of the middle class; it's hard to get a career-type job without having at least a baccalaurate in something. Our primary and secondary schools no longer need to teach much of anything useful since nearly everyone goes to some kind of college after secondary school is done.

Oh well.

Ed

quote Originally posted by edhering: It looks to me like the "8th grade education" of the late 1800s concentrated on preparing children for life, by teaching them things that they actually needed to know in daily life. Since WW2 and the GI Bill, a university education has become the "sine qua non" of the middle class; it's hard to get a career-type job without having at least a baccalaurate in something. Our primary and secondary schools no longer need to teach much of anything useful since nearly everyone goes to some kind of college after secondary school is done. Oh well. Ed

Unfortunatly all too true. Agriculture is going High Tech inorder to get any kind of profit, outside of government subsidies. Coupled with the decline of manufacturing jobs, there isn't too much a highschool grad can do. Minimum wage means you can't house, clothe or feed yourself. Raise a familly? Too many people are trying, and failing.

[This message has been edited by DtheC (edited 03-06-2006).]

quote Originally posted by summerjim: Debunked: http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.htm

Well just forget about the actual test needed to pass back then. Most children I know today would fail just getting to school back when my folks went. It was bring your lunch in a pail and walk a few miles to get there. Now if you had the gumption to get there you better act right or you get your butt tore up twice, once at school and once when you got home for acting up at school. What a different mind set today!