Better Thinking Expected

I am a little disappointed in this  Boing Boing. post by Cory Doctorow.

Cory posted the 1895 8th grade graduation test (the full thing is below), without comment.  From BoingBoing, I expect  thinking and commenting.  This thing was posted without any meaningful context.  (To give Cory credit, (this test has been zooming around the internet since 1999, according to Snopes); doing some searches, I haven't been able to find any one else posting the test who does provide context.)

There are some unexpressed ideas (presuppositions) in the context-free posting of this exam:

1. Attendance requirements in Kansas then is the same as it is today:  all children (about aged 13-14) would be in school
2. All children in school would have taken this test
3. A goodly percentage of the children taking this test would have passed
4. This test is more rigorous than children today take
5. Education back then was tougher than it is today

All of these presuppositions ought to be disputed, or at least addressed. 

I'd like to know:

Historical context:  how many children 13-14 years old were there in Salina County, Kansas?  How many sat for this test?  How many passed?  What were the consequences to those who did not sit the test?  Who sat and did not pass?

Educational context:
1.  What do you have to know, or have mastered, to answer these questions, and do these elements of knowledge have utility today?  (I am thinking principally about the grammar and orthography questions.  I am not a defender of whole languagae--indeed, I think it is a crime against low income kids--but the implied knowledge in the grammar and othography questions also presuppose a highly structured way of teaching reading.  I'm not arguing the rote kind of memorization is necessarily the best way to teach reading, writing, spelling, and exposition, but surely we can do better than we have been.)

2.  Take your average 13 or 14 year old (more or less, exit age from 8th grade today)--how long would it take a good teacher to prepare a group of educationally competent kids to do well on this test?  Note that a great many of the questions involve lot of it is rote memorization and recitation of facts.  Note that many of the arithmetic questions involve knowning the relationships between various measures--such as cubic volume of a bushel, or the meaning of value of "m" in the following example:  40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per m?

3.  What would a similar test look like today?  Could the average adult pass it without study? 

School Records from Saline Kansas from the 1890s

In 1883, the school year in Saline County began on October 1 and ended April 1. Of the 30 students who arrived off and on at Wheeler School, the oldest was 18 year old Charles Carlson; the youngest was Carl Wheeler, 6. All ages of students ranged between, and all levels were instructed by one teacher in reading, arithmetic, U.S. History, grammar, geography and spelling.

Typical of country schools that drew students from farm families, daily attendance appears to have been unpredictable. When everyone in the district came to school, the classroom was overflowing. But cold weather, illness and work schedules could cut class size by a third or more.

On a page at the back of the small school register, O.D. Hough, the teacher for the 1883-84 term, penned laconic impressions of a day here and there, and in doing so, gives us glimpse at one-room school experiences 100 years ago.

The log reads:
2nd Term Com. Dec. 31st, 1883. Very cold windy day, only 20 present. One frozen finger.
Jan. 1st - Very cold and blustering. Only five present. Cold week. No school on Friday. Sickness.
Jan. 8th - Fine weather. School house running over, 31 in 14 seats.
Jan. 9th - Warm cloudy toward evening. Mrs. Wheeler was part of the forenoon and afternoon.
Jan. 10th - Windy day.
Feb. 4th - Turned cold and that with 1 or 2 cases of sickness cut down the school from 33 or 4 to about 2/3 of that size.
Feb. 11th - Cold blustery day all day. 22 present and they appear to be improving in most of their studies but not as fast as I could wish or as fast as they would if they gave an undivided mind to them.
Feb. 13th - Cleared off but still cold. School elected to debate Friday afternoon. Question resolved: that city life is preferable to country life.
Feb. 17th - Mumps keeping some of them out so that there is room enough now.
Feb. 28th - Mumps keeping some out. Some have hired out and commenced to work.
March 4th - School work and mumps to many.
March 12th - Spelling school. Mr. Wheaton favored us with a reading well rendered. Mr. P. Sargeant gave us a declaration in good style.

*******************

RECORD OF ATTENDANCE of Class A, B, C, D, Grade 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th  Study, Reading; Text Books used, Independent
Month commencing Oct. 1st, 1883, O.D. Hough, teacher.
NAMES OF PUPILS AGE

Smoky Valley Genealogical Society

EXAMINATION GRADUATION QUESTIONS OF SALINE COUNTY, KANSAS April 13, 1895 J.W. Armstrong, County Superintendent.

Examinations at Salina, New Cambria, Gypsum City, Assaria, Falun, Bavaria, and District No. 74 (in Glendale Twp.)

Reading and Penmanship. - The Examination will be oral, and the Penmanship of Applicants will be graded from the manuscripts.

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, KS. USA. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS and reprinted by the
Salina Journal.

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 do, lie, lay 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 50 cts. per bu., 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 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 m?
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 arce, the distance around 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 theRebellion.
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)
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, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono,super.
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 andindicate 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 Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give 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 inclination of the earth.

I am guessing that very few of Mr. O.D. Hough's students even attempted the exam, let alone passed.