What it took to get an 8th grade education in 1895...(test yourself)

[John Schmidt]

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, 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 hour 15 minutes)
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 3,942 lbs, what is it worth at 50cts/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. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7percent per annum.
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'.
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, 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. 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?

[RoadKill]

When is recess? 

[X Ring]

My name is Marty and I am NOT smarter than an eighth grader!!

Marty

[Serk]

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/1895exam.htm


 

[Bobbo]

Ohhh, ohhh!  Teacher! Over here!

I have some answers:

Geography:

1)   Climate is Clemit’s brother.  He depends on Clemit for everything!
2)   When Climate goes to Kansas, he gets extremely sunburned on account he’s a redhead!
3)   The rivers are for drainin’ the outhouse into
4)   The mountains are where the moonshine is made.
5)   Climate’s cousins
6)   I traded with the principal and got a shotgun for a mule
7)   The capitol of republics is “R”
8 )   The Atlantic is colder cause our outhouse river drains into the Pacific
9)   The ocean don’t like the outhouse water, and wee-wees it back on us.
10)   The earth hasn’t had a movement in years, it’s constipated.  It ain’t inclined to do nothing about it.

Do I grad-gee-ate yet?

[Brad]

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/1895exam.htm


 

They do not depute the authenticity of the test.  There is no proof for which grade it was for.  The snopes article gives and example of the teachers test for Zanesville Ohio in the 18 hundreds which is even harder    

With a little study it could be passed.  I am not saying that I want to put in the effort   

[MP]

+1, by listing snopes, it is inferred that it is bogus.  It is NOT.  Even snopes acknowledges it is true. They dispute that it means anything.

They claim "false", while the test is true, they admit it.

Snopes uses its "judgement" to declare it false, meaning in their "opinion" it means nothing.

Snopes is not always accurate.  And, like this demonstrates, it bases a number of their decisions on "their opinion"

MP

[solo1]

I don't remember tests as being that hard in the eighth grade.  Of course that was 68 years ago for me so I don't remember.

What I do note is that spelling  and word meaning today is really bad.  Words like Break (gimme a break)  and brake (stop),  lightening ( lighter color), and lightning (thunder),  comming instead of coming.  If I had made mistakes back in grade school like that it would've been a slap on the hand with a ruler (also not permitted anymore today).

yep, we also had spelling bees back then.  I generally was either the last or second to last to sit down.
As late as 1991 I could spell sodiumiodophenolphthalein, for what that's worth

Penmanship was taught, we spent a lot of time drawing circles and straight lines between our ruled paper.  To this day, i can say that my writing is legible. 

I better shut up,  sounds like an old fart remembering the good ole days.

[OverdueBill]

Solo1.  I agree on the spelling of words being used incorrectly.  I also miss the difference inferred by the use of can or may.  Grammar was taught as being very important back in my youth.  My penmanship was poor and now that I mostly type (keyboard I believe it's called now); I can barely write my name.

[Valkflyer]

O brothr I dont beleve I cud pass da test.  Wats rong wit to days scools.

[NCGhostrider]

Interesting post!  I read a good deal, and noticed many years ago how well written many authors were from say...the civil war period.   They often referenced Greek and Latin works and even quoted in them from time to time.   

Look at a dictionary from the 1800's and compare the verbage then to today's.  If a person does much reading from the past, he has to rely upon either online sources or an older dictionary to represent the ideas/meanings of yesteryear. 

On the other hand, while most of us today are educated thru highschool or even graduation of 12th grade by law, in days past, those priviledged enough to go to school through 8th grade probably were better educated in many ways than we are today.   The flip side is that the majority could not go to school and if they did, reaching the 8th grade was nearly the equivalent of a Bachelors degree today.

I wonder that if in our near future, we will even be able to write (you know with a pen and paper).  I use a keyboard so much that at times I have trouble signing my name.   I remember learning cursive in school, recently I discovered that locally, they do not teach it anymore.   Is it needed?  Probably not, but I wonder!  I see younger people today, that can not express themselves in any form of written format, even after  taking college courses. 

There will always be exceptions ...but perhaps 100 hundred years from now, we may progress beyond belief in what can do with things, our knowledge of what we have done will probably be much less.... Just my opinion!! 

BTW, I can and do use "ain't" with the best of 'em!

Craig

[solo1]

When I worked at Magnavox in Environmental Engineering, I noticed something I thought was revealing.  Even though I had somewhat less than two years of college, I had no trouble writing proposals for testing.  Knowledge of testing and a logical sequence combined with my command of English, enabled me to write coherent and concise proposals which were readily accepted by the government .

On the other hand, Engineers with a technical education, far greater than I,  had trouble putting their knowledge concisely on paper.  In addition, they relied exclusively on spell checker to correct their mistakes while I didn't avail myself of that crutch.

Before you think that I'm blowing my own horn to excess, I would say that I'm absolutely stupid regarding advanced math but I'm comfortable with the English language.

Unfortunately, in a technical world, that's why I was an associate engineer amidst titled Engineers with four year degrees or better.

All that is behind me now.  Now I'm just a retiree with a ROG degree ( Reminiscing Old Geezer)

[John Schmidt]

Bobbo, good stuff.

As for me, my toughest year wasn't 8th grade, it was 6th. Prior to 8th grade, my dad was superintendent in smaller school districts in Iowa, the schools often had all grades through 12th in one building and two grades in each room. And, the first early year was called Primary, not Kindergarten. The teacher taught all subjects to both grades and had to do it separately for each grade. During the summer preceeding my 5th grade, my mother died of cancer. My dad had hired a lady to teach 5th & 6th grades, a lady I had known only slightly before because she was a distant relative by marriage and had seen her in years past. Now suddenly, she was my 5th grade teacher, known to me as Miss Noble, and had never been married. By about the 6th week of school, she came to our house and scared me to death....I figured I must have really screwed up for my teacher to come to the house after hours. Since mom's death I had been in a lot of fights at school so figured it caught up with me. Not so....she came to supper. As a ten yr. old kid, I had no idea what was going on. That school year was fairly easy for me, except for the fighting. I guess mom's death really messed with my mind. The following summer, they got married, then sent me off to camp for nearly a month while they took a "trip."  The following school year was a literal hell for me....I now had Mrs. Schmidt(my stepmother) as a teacher instead of Miss Noble. And, I could do nothing right. If I got in trouble at school and was disciplined by my "teacher" then I got it again twice as bad when dad got home. Like I said.....6th grade was "hell on earth."

Many years later she confided in me....said she learned that being raised with a bunch of brothers was a lot different than raising a single boy. We didn't really click until I was well into my 50's, something I regret to this day....but it's too late.