
Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895? Take a Look - Scott_MacGregor
http://people.moreheadstate.edu/fs/w.willis/eighthgrade.html
======
ugh
If I remember correctly I was tested on stuff that is just as hard or harder
at the end of 8th grade. Maybe with less rote memorization and more thinking,
more opportunity to demonstrate that I actually understood everything [0].

Consider also that they talked about all those things prior to the exam. Could
you pass it right now? Maybe not. Could you pass it after a few weeks learning
about the material? With flying colors.

It’s interesting to read the questions but certainly not at all indicative of
any developments in the educational system. You need statistics and creative
social scientists to find out something about that.

[0] I personally don’t like rote memorization. I recognize that rote
memorization can sometimes be useful – I don’t need a calculator for simple
multiplications – but I would much rather just understand something and
develop from that understanding a clear picture of which facts are important
enough to memorize.

~~~
yters
Right, but this is basic, practical stuff for everyday life (except for the
stuff about bushels and rods). Even though you can learn it and then pass, the
fact that you are past 8th grade and cannot means your education is deficient
(mine as well).

Rote memorization is underrated. Yes, memorization alone is useless, but
critical thinking without anything to think about is also useless.

~~~
btmorex
Disagree completely. I could only answer one or maybe two of the grammar
questions and yet I speak and write English just fine. Honestly, I don't even
know what the "Principle Parts" of a verb refer to and I certainly can't list
them. What bearing does that have on anything?

~~~
ja2ke
It's always nice to be able to take a machine apart, see how it works, and put
it back together successfully. Language is a tool used every day by everyone,
but fewer and fewer people know how it actually works. I wish schools still
taught grammar properly. I hardly learned anything about how English (or
language in general) worked until I took a foreign language course in high
school.

~~~
samfoo
Some aspects of grammar are important, but it's important to reflect on the
purpose of its study: The ability to construct a sentence that's cogent, clear
and understandable both in writing and while speaking.

Some things are simply not important to know as a native speaker but still
manage to get taught in English classes. A couple of examples:

1\. The different between "that" and "which" (e.g. The curtains that/which
cover the windows). Either way is perfectly clear and rigid adherence to a
correct "rule" is just language fascism.

2\. Terminology for many things that are specific to grammar are also pretty
useless. Words like 'participle', 'split-infinitive', and 'gerund' (I
literally had to look that up to remember it) are basically useless.
Specifically from the test are phrases which obviously have been taught within
the class, but don't have any real meaning outside of the concept it's
teaching: "Parts of Speech" and "Define Case".

Grammar is only important insomuch as you can write and speak intelligently
and coherently. Construction beyond that belongs in a linguistics class
specifically focused on the mechanics of language.

------
achew22
Here comes the flame war about how our educational system has declined in the
past hundred years. In an attempt to head that off at the pass (Hey, if you're
going to have a cliché argument I get to use a cliché) here is the problem
with that. This is a test designed to review the material deemed important by
one person in 1895 (If it is really from then). The class would have gone over
what "epochs into which U.S. History is divided". This is the same thing with
the stupid joke that I always heard when I was doing calculus and adults were
around "When I was growing up, you didn't have to spell out your math
homework". That is code for "I have no idea what's going on here" and let's be
honest, that is fine.

I would bet that most people who read this could have answered almost all of
these questions at some point in their life. We have to remember that the
purpose of education is to teach you how to learn and how to adjust to your
current situations. You learn what you need to get the job done and you
relearn what you can't remember to complete the job.

EDIT: It's good to see that Snopes already did this. Thank you Snopes and
thanks glhaynes for pointing us to it.

~~~
jamesaguilar
More importantly, many of the test questions are dependent on rote
memorization of facts that are nearly useless in the accomplishment of
successful life. How many bushels in a tare? What is a "principle part" of a
verb? These things can be found on Google. I have all the skills tested by
this test, but lack some of the knowledge. Since my brain is just a cache for
knowledge, I can always fault it in if the need arises.

~~~
wmf
I think of it more as a look at how different life was in 1895. You couldn't
Google anything. A farm owner probably _would_ benefit from being able to do
those math problems in his head.

BTW, tare isn't a unit: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tare_weight>

~~~
knassy
I think you are right about how it reflects a different time.

I doubt many average farmers kids made it through to 8th Grade though. Anyone
who was taking the 8th Grade exam was probably reasonably wealthy, looking to
continue studying, and take on a profession of some kind.

------
jerf
[http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_...](http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED119389&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED119389):
"By 1918, all states had passed school attendance legislation, although until
the 1930s, many were unsuccessful in enforcing their compulsory schooling
laws."

Comparing compulsory education standards to non-compulsory education standards
is unfair and unenlightening. The forces affecting the school are so different
they can not be said to be the same thing except inasmuch as they share the
word "schooling".

I say this as one who is carefully refraining from going any deeper because I
have as rich an opinion on the topic as anyone else around here, one not
friendly to current practices (to put my cards on the table), but this is a
non-data-point, at least without a _lot_ more context, so much as to dwarf
this little tidbit anyhow.

~~~
ericb
I'd like to hear your opinion.

~~~
jerf
Based on past experience, I am sure there will be some post in the near future
which I will be unable to restrain myself.

------
glhaynes
<http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp>

~~~
cwp
Hmm, snopes doesn't seem to be saying that this is not, in fact, an exam from
1895, just that current educational standards haven't declined since then. So?
Neither the HN headline nor the article make the claim that snopes refutes.
Strawman.

This is interesting, just because it illustrates how the world has changed
since 1895.

~~~
chc
This kind of "I never _said_ that" semantic quibble raises one essential
question: Have you stopped beating your elderly mother yet?

Things have implications beyond their explicit claims.

~~~
mcn
The two quibbles above seem nearly identical to me. It's interesting what role
the assumptions of the audience play in their reaction to a statement.

I assumed that a snopes link would credit or discredit the claim (that this
was a test from 1895.)

------
jluxenberg
_A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of
wheat will it hold?_

I like how the volume and weight of a bushel of wheat was common knowledge :)

~~~
numeromancer
Why weight? The problem only requires knowing how to convert a bushel to
English measurements.

~~~
jcl
The next question on the test is:

 _3\. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts. per
bu., deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?_

------
M1573RMU74710N
I don't think this can provide any insight into our current education system,
it wouldn't make much sense to compare them...

However it is a rather fascinating look at life in the late 1800's, and what
the common concerns were.

The section on linguistics; back then there was no large (non-print) media and
the US English dialects were more splintered. Additionally English hadn't
become quite the lingua franca it is today; (educated) people generally knew
several languages in order to communicate with people. If you read books
written around that time, it's rather common for the author to quote French or
Latin without translation, with the implicit understanding that the reader
knows them.

The math questions also provide some really neat insight into what were
considered "common practical tasks"...in my schooling most of the word
problems were phrased in terms of buying things at the supermarket or for more
advanced topics building skyscrapers and bridges etc... Here however it's all
about bushels of wheat etc.

Really neat.

------
jpenny
Could you have passed an 1869 MIT entrance exam?

<http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/algebra.html>

I suspect so, maybe in the 7th or 8th grade.

~~~
Mesmoria
Over the distance of time it is easier than the year 8 exam.

------
p_nathan
I've seen another variant on this test -

What it boils down to is that:

(1) rote memorization is not an indicator of intelligence or skill.

(2) specialty datapoints regarding farm life are no longer required

(3) English grammar teaching is in a sad state. (A known aspect of today's
public schools)

For a fair comparison, one should review the 8th grade requirements in a
variety of today's schools (I did so once in a cursory fashion). In my
opinion, today's students have to take in at least as much information, some
of it also specialized, and spit it out.

Arguably today's requirements are not as focused on exact knowledge as late
1800s requirements. I leave that to the philosopher of education to evaluate
for better/worse.

What should also be considered is not just the test itself, but how tests were
graded - was passing the top 90%? 60%? How lenient were teachers? An issue
today is some teachers giving "free As". Did that exist in 1890?

What can also be considered is the difference between Kanas 8th grade and
Boston 8th grade. Was there one? What about different schools?

There is not a simple analysis here. There must needs be a careful data-driven
reflection examining the subtleties of the educational system before someone
pushes out the generalization - "today's students are all worse and we are all
stupid". I see many examples of smart people. Admittedly, they anecdotally
seem to have "beat the system" most of the time, so, well - there's another
facet to the analysis.

Note - I hear occasionally about Dewey & early 1900s educators setting up US
education to optimize for factory workers and a compliant populace. Does
anyone have any factual data/bibliographic sources asserting/refuting that?

------
jrockway
_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._

#1: Not "Parts of Speech" in #2.

~~~
nitrogen
Have capitalization rules changed over time? IIRC, German capitalizes most
nouns, and German was very nearly chosen for America's national language.
Further, reading a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, one can see
that Rights, Happiness, and other important words were capitalized.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Us_declaration_independenc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Us_declaration_independence.jpg)

~~~
jrockway
We still do this in English; consider "Free software" versus "free software".
The first means "libre", the second means "zero cost".

It's not an issue of importance but of making a generic word into one with
specific meaning.

~~~
nitrogen
It seems to me that this still falls under the current rule of capitalizing
proper nouns, though in this instance the nouns are made proper for exactly
the reason you stated.

------
ginsweater
This always makes me think of Isaac Asimov's classic essay, "Forget It!" in
which he gets a hold of a hundred-year-old math textbook and writes about
what's in there that isn't taught anymore. (A lot of stuff about computation
using long-forgotten English units of measurement, for one.)

Anyone know if it's online? I have a print copy, but I can't find anything
with a quick Googling.

------
Semiapies
I'd be curious to see the answers for someone who got an average grade on this
test.

It's not much of a test by modern standards - it's more a few quizzes strung
together with somewhat generous time limits. Some things stick out:

1) Math section is farming-centric, as people have pointed out; it ends on
making examples of paperwork. The first question is obscure terminology for
something we cover in second grade or so. No algebra. Especially generous time
limit for these questions, though you have to remember your bushels.

2) "fane, fain, feign" Those days had a different fashion in popular
homophones. Also, interesting the focus on indicating pronunciation and
breaking words down into syllables - I remember doing that well before 8th
grade.

3) The geography section mentions the rest of the world, huzzah. ...Well, to
test memorization of a few names. Otherwise, a better section than the others.

4) No questions about the _Civil War_ except to describe some famous battles
and recognize the year it ended.

~~~
jholman
Regarding the arithmetic, the finance questions stick out to me: Arithmetic
questions 4, 6, 8, and 10. Especially #8.

Regarding orthography, I find the mention of etymology, and the morphological
question (#7), interesting, as these are pieces in a toolkit for understanding
previously-unseen words.

The geography section is as much about meteorology as it is about placenames,
which is awesome. This kind of scientific whole-world view is amusing
contrasted with the Kansas Evolution Hearings.

~~~
Semiapies
As to the geography section, meteorology was covered in world geography when I
was in eighth grade in Texas in the late 80s.

What isn't as impressive (and has been pointed out elsewhere) is that those
are the _only_ science questions.

------
nategraves
It's hard for me to feel inadequate when looking at this test—regardless of
whether it's real or not—because tests are typically dependent on your
retention of what you are taught. If you're an 8th grader whose teacher
doesn't explain what elementary sounds are, it would have no impact on whether
or not you could pass the 8th grade.

~~~
icegreentea
More specifically, this is a test heavily based on facts. Nothing wrong with
that. Knowing and retaining facts is important to life. Even if you have
Google.

But the relevance of facts is based on context, and will change through time.
Many of the facts tested for just aren't relevant in today's life. It's likely
several of these weren't even relevant back in 1895 and were just added
because 'they were always asked' or something.

------
Groxx
> _2\. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many
> bushels of wheat will it hold?_

My, how far we've fallen.

------
jasonlotito
Ignoring the quality of the original question ("Could you have passed?"), an
_equally good_ follow up would be:

Could someone from 1895 have passed an 8th grade test today?

------
McP
_6\. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent._

If this is a genuine question then I find it interesting that it was possible
to answer back then. Now you'd have to know _which_ months as the length of
each month affects the answer.

~~~
roel_v
I had a 'mistake' in a question like that on an exam just a few weeks ago. You
write 'I assume all months are 30 days' or 'I assume a full 30/31 day cycle'
or whatever it is you assume at the top and you get full credit.

Additionally, I remember that most tests came with verbal instructions even as
recently as when I was in primary school (well recent, 20 years ago). The
teacher would dictate the questions which you'd write down on the paper; then
afterward you had time to answer them. I think it's quite plausible that a
similar system was used back then, especially considering the brevity of the
questions. (I don't know how wide spread printing presses were back then, I
know that many primary schools in Belgium in the 1980's still either didn't
have them or only used them when it was 'necessary').

------
mutt
Ask them to type, send a text message, use a digital calculator, my microwave,
the internet (email, www, torrents), driving fast cars, etc etc..

People had far less to know.

~~~
sorbus
People had to know different things, but not necessarily a lesser quantity of
information.

------
giberson
Honestly speaking, could I pass this test if I sat down and took it right now?
No.

However I do believe that, given a study guide (i.e my notes, and a test book)
and a reasonable idea of what would be on the test, I could pass the test--
just as I passed many tests during my own educational era. Of course, a couple
of days later most answers would be gone from my memory.

I've always been that way when it comes to learning, I don't retain details, I
retain general idea's. For mathematics and sciences--problem solving, and for
literature and history--that rules exists and many important events have
occurred, all of which I can research and reference such material when the
need arises. I'll admit, I'd like to able to recall names, and dates, and
formulas at will--but frankly, as I obstinately claimed as a child, I've never
actually needed such detailed information in real life. Generalizations, or
time willing, a quick reference to related material are all you need.

------
baddox
If I had attended school for 8 or 9 years prior to 1895, almost certainly.
Many of these questions rely on knowing precise terminology no doubt used in
that class or its textbook.

The time difference is the only thing that would hinder me. Heck, try asking a
college student in 1895 a super easy question like how many states are in the
United States in 2010.

------
Legion
Had I _gone_ to 8th grade in 1895, I would be familiar with all of the
anachronisms.

Also, some of the questions are clearly lists that, were this "real", would be
taught by rote memorization. The sort of thing you would be able to chant back
without thinking if you were in the classroom where the lists were repeated
over and over for you to "learn".

------
kingkilr
I don't know. I do know that I could write essays several pages in length, do
math up through algebra/geometry, know both American and European history, and
have some knowledge of the sciences, which this totally ignores.

------
tomrod
Could they have passed 8th grade in 1995? Doubtful: * Advances in Science *
More (and more widely varied) history * Different economic and political
regimes * Speaking a foreign language * Algebra II * Books (easily 90% drivel)
which pass for great literature these days

Hard to compare when full information is not available. What is NIST standard
for a bushel of wheat? What about rate of compounding at a bank (was that 10%
apr or 10% per minute)?

This likely would be an easy test for most with today's level of education
after a day of remedial education that covers the basics of this test.

------
lian
In 1895 I would have been too busy being an immigrant farmer with the rest of
my family to go to school at all, so I'm pretty ambivalent about what my
standardized testing fate might have been.

------
SageRaven
As a homeschooling parent, I always find this kind of stuff interesting. For
reference, people should check out the following link (under "Practice Tests
for State Exams") for relatively current standards tests for various states,
grade levels, and subjects:

<http://quizhub.com/quiz/quizhub.cfm>

------
bluesmoon
This is similar to the kind of tests we had in India when I was in the 4th-8th
grade. We had world history instead of US history, and did not have
Orthography, but those are the only differences that I can see. I might have
aced it back then, but it would be hard to get about 50% if I did it today.

------
awt
What was with the focus on events that happened at specific dates? I
understand the importance of knowing when events happened relative to each
other, but memorizing dates seems a bit much. Perhaps the lack of easy access
to reference materials made that kind of knowledge more important.

------
KleinmanB
The real miracle is that this teacher built a computer for her students to
take an English test on in 1895!

------
madcaptenor
I could have passed the 8th grade in 1895 if I was born in 1882. But I wasn't.

------
yread
There is certainly more republics in Europe now than it used to be back then

------
zoowar
Kind of makes me feel real bad for those who can't pass High School today.

------
crenelle
What is a passing grade for this test? Doesn't seem to say.

------
DFectuoso
I know its fake but... Arithmetic 6 - Can't get the interest(at least any
interesting one) without the capitalization period.

~~~
prawn
Is it fake? Snopes says a lot about it not really demonstrating a decline in
education, but I didn't see them make a strong call on whether they were or
weren't actual questions from 1895?

------
hc
i dont know how to answer a single one of these questions.

------
HilbertSpace
Yes, there are many opinions on this thread, and this fact supports an
observation:

The 'theory' or 'principals' of what 'education' should be are a MESS!

One of the posts mentioned Dewey: Yes he wrote:

John Dewey, 'Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of
Education', The Free Press, New York, 1966.

although this is clearly not nearly the 'first printing'! Since my father was
in education and had some influence from Dewey, I read that book. Dewey
summarizes what 'education' actually is, and, really, is essentially forced to
be, all other theories or principles aside, as just:

What the older generations pass down to the younger generations, with a lot of
what was wrong and, hopefully, with some improvements.

So, here's an 'application': If have a broad 'public' education system where
use essentially just a broad sample of the older generation to teach
essentially everyone in the younger generation, then have to expect that what
gets 'passed down' will have nearly all that was bad about society in the
older generation and relatively little that is new and advantageous!

Here is a telling example: I was a college professor at Ohio State University.
At one point I was asked to represent the faculty at a lunch for parents. Yes,
many of the parents were quite skeptical of what was being taught or not
taught. So, one question went:

"Why are you teaching my child calculus? I've never needed to know it."

I was a bit slow to see all the emotional, social, educational, and rational
issues and, not wanting to say something wrong, said next to nothing. In a
sense, it can be safer not to argue with 'the customer' or with a poorly
informed and angry question. But here is what I might have said:

"We're trying to educate for the future, say, teach things that can be useful
at some points over the next 50 years or so.

"Calculus is a pillar of Western Civilization: Although not everyone uses it,
without it we would be in deep trouble in strength of materials, design of
structures, electric power generation, distribution, and use, electronics and
essentially everything involving electro-magnetic waves, engines of all kinds,
airplanes, essentially everything in mechanical engineering, nearly all more
advanced military technology, and in many subjects from more in math, all the
physical and social sciences, statistics, finance, and more.

"We're not necessarily trying to teach what is already in very common usage
but what is less well known and can give an advantage over the next 50 years.
So, from its track record, calculus looks promising. That is, we believe that
so few people know calculus well that more people could get an advantage from
knowing it.

"For a specific example, before my graduate studies, I was in a new, rapidly
growing company. At one point the Board of Directors wanted some projections
of the revenue of the company. Many people could describe hopes, intentions,
assumptions, dreams, etc., but there was a lack of anything with a more solid,
objective, rational basis.

"While I didn't want to get involved, I thought for a while: What do we know?
What do we want to know?

"Well we knew what our (daily) revenue was then. And, from our capacity
planning, we knew what our planned, eventual daily revenue would be. So, for
the projections the Board wanted, essentially we needed to 'interpolate'
between these two revenue figures, that is, say how fast we would grow.

"So what could we observe about what was causing our growth? Well, broadly the
growth was due to 'viral' effects, that is, happy customers talking to target
customers not yet customers. So, each day in the future, the amount of this
'talking' by happy customers was proportional to the number of happy customers
and, thus, to the revenue. And the number of potential customers hearing the
talking and becoming customers was proportional to the number of potential
customers.

"So, let t be time in days with the present day t = 0. Let y(t) be our revenue
at time t. As in calculus, let y'(t) be the first derivative of y(t), that is,
the rate of growth in y(t).

"Let b be the maximum daily revenue from our capacity planning.

"Then the rate of growth y'(t) is proportional to the current revenue y(t) and
the capacity yet served b - y(t). So for some constant k, we must have

y'(t) = k y(t) ( b - y(t) )

"So, this is a non-linear ordinary differential equation initial value
problem. With a little calculus, really just classic integration by parts, we
can get a simple algebraic expression for the solution. This solution will
have one constant c we so far do not know. But we have reduced the problem of
projecting out to the future to selecting just one constant c. And we can
estimate c from our growth over the past few months.

"So, on a Friday my SVP Planning and I selected a value for c and drew the
graph of the growth. My SVP left on a business trip, and the Board meeting
started the next morning.

"At noon I was in my office working and got a phone call to come to the Board
meeting.

"The Board meeting was in disarray and no longer 'meeting'. Our two Board
representatives from our main investor were unhappy and standing in a doorway
to the hall with their bags packed.

"At about 8 AM the graph had been presented to the Board, and the two investor
representatives asked how it had been calculated. For the next three hours or
so, all the top management struggled to reproduce the graph and could not. The
representatives then became angry, lost faith in and patience with the top
management, made plane reservations back to Texas, returned to their rented
rooms, packed their bags, and as a last chance returned to the offices for an
answer.

"I arrived, reproduced a few points on the graph, and the investor
representatives canceled their plane reservations, unpacked their bags, and
stayed, and the company was saved. It is now a major company you know well and
have used often; you value their work highly.

"This success was all because I knew calculus well and was about the only one
there who did.

"So, we believe that in the next 50 years, calculus can be an advantage."

Yes, there is some question at how well even this answer would have been
received!

Generally, then, in the real world of the broad population, it is difficult to
know what to teach, how to teach it, or to get it learned!

Here's my take on the US 'way out': As we can tell, in K-12 and maybe more,
the most important educational advantage is the family life of the student.
So, in some families, education is understood and emphasized. So, education is
really not just from the K-12 classrooms, not nearly!

Broadly, then, the secret to good education is to have parents who care do
what they can at HOME. In extreme cases this solution can be just 'home
schooling' and, at its best, can totally blow the doors off essentially
anything from 'organized' education.

So, as in many things in the US, really good results are the responsibility of
each individual, their family, their local community, etc. and much less well
served by the county, state, or DC.

Topics with big advantages are essentially necessarily understood by at most
only a tiny fraction of the population. Or, if a large fraction of the
population understood, then much of the advantage would be gone. So, education
with big advantages cannot be from the public school system! Sorry 'bout that!

