Natural Family Blog Archive 🌹 The First 20 Years

“In the process, we ran across a little booklet called Stephenson’s Iowa State Eighth Grade Examination Question Book. The 59-page pamphlet, published in 1924, was to help eighth-graders take the test at the end of their elementary years that would qualify them to move on into high school.
The bottom line is that most high-school seniors in 2006 would find the eighth-grade guide of 1924 quite a challenge. The questions covered 10 different subject areas—and you might enjoy (or you might not) matching your wits against those of a typical Iowa eighth-grader 80 years ago.
Arithmetic. A wall 77 ft. long, 6 5 ft. high, and 14 inches thick is built of bricks costing $9.00 per M. What was the entire cost of the bricks if 22 bricks were sufficient to make a cubic foot of wall?
Geography. What waters would a ship pass through in going from Duluth to Buffalo? With what would the boat be apt to be loaded? What, probably, would it be loaded with on a return trip?
Grammar. Define five of the following terms: antecedent, tense, object, conjugation, auxiliary verb, expletive, reflexive pronoun.
Physiology. (a) Beginning with food in the mouth, trace the course of digestion, naming the juices with which the food is mixed and the results. (b) What is the reason that spitting on the street is dangerous to the health of a community?
Spelling and Orthography. Select the proper prefix and place before each word in the following list (up, under, out, fore, over): Spread, balance, hold, sight, ground, shine, current, brush, roar, burst.
Writing. Give five movements to develop accuracy in penmanship. Tell what you seek to do in using each movement.
History. (a) What colonies were founded in America because of religious reasons? By whom was each founded? (b) Give the cause, time, and result of each of the wars in which the United States has been involved.
Civil Government. Name three township, three county, and three state officers and state what office each person holds. Why do so many men dislike holding township offices?
Music. Draw a staff. Place on it the scale in half notes in the keys of G, D, and F. Write the scale that has a sharp on the fifth line and another sharp on the third space.
Reading. Who were Hamlet? Lochinvar? Naomi? Socrates? Gathergold? What are the three most important topics now being discussed in the newspapers? State two reasons for reading a newspaper. Give five uses of the dictionary. Do you use the dictionary while studying?”
Joel Belz
UPDATE Feb. 7th, 2006
LaShawn Barber had a great post today titled Empty Education
Jenny Hatch