What does "recited her lesson" mean in those old books???

[CookieMonster]

Ok, so I'm reading another book from the 1800s/early1900s period. And once again I've come across the idea of a child having to recite their lesson to their teacher or governess.

 

What in tarnation does that really mean?

 

Did they have to memorize something every day and then recite it?

 

Did they simply read something and have to answer questions about it in order to prove they learned it?

 

Is this just for one subject or did they do this for every subject?

 

Someone help me out here please. The teacher side of me is wild with curiosity.

[Trivium Academy]

They had to tell their teacher what they read, memorization was HUGE. Children were trained to be able read something once and recite/narrate about it. This is my understanding based on texts I've read about education in that time. :)

[angela in ohio]

We've done several of those "go to school in a one-room schoolhouse" programs, and I've done research on this. There are several things that we have learned about that would constitute reciting their lessons.

 

One was an oral quiz by the teacher. The pupils of a particular grade were called up together and asked to answer questions about what they were learning (spelling words, math facts, etc.) Another was memorization of poetry and such. It seems like it would have been pretty cumulative, not something new each day, but a specific body of knowledge that was progressed through. The thing I most often see referenced is learning facts about the presidents.

 

Another really interesting way was the five-finger lesson. For a given topic, the children would learn five topics on it, raising a finger as they recited each. So, for each state, they might learn the capital, the motto, the bird, the tree, and the date admitted to the union.

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

Yep, and there were certain things that had to be memorized to pass to the next grade level in a subject or to get certain jobs.

 

I just read a book that stated frontier teachers had to be able to "cipher to the rule of 3." I'm guessing that means adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing with the number 3. Can you imagine?!

 

Also frontier schools were often called blab schools, everyone read and practiced their lessons out loud, at the same time!

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

 

I just read a book that stated frontier teachers had to be able to "cipher to the rule of 3." I'm guessing that means adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing with the number 3. Can you imagine?!

 

 

Cipher to the rule of three

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

Hey, I never connected that with the five finger lesson about salvation that was invented by a school teacher!

 

The thing I've seen most often referenced is math facts. In fact when I was in elementary we still chanted the multiplication tables. Anyone else?

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

Thanks!

 

This is still simple division/multiplication when you think about it.

[CookieMonster]

Cipher to the rule of three

 

Well, wasn't that intersting! We would just call that doing fractions nowadays.

[CookieMonster]

Another was memorization of poetry and such. It seems like it would have been pretty cumulative, not something new each day, but a specific body of knowledge that was progressed through. The thing I most often see referenced is learning facts about the presidents.

 

Another really interesting way was the five-finger lesson. For a given topic, the children would learn five topics on it, raising a finger as they recited each. So, for each state, they might learn the capital, the motto, the bird, the tree, and the date admitted to the union.

 

Wow. So the next question I have is, what books did they use for this? Was it set up to be used this way?

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

The books I've seen mentioned most often are the McGuffy Readers and the Blue-backed Speller. You can find copies of them online.

[CookieMonster]

http://www.co.hunterdon.nj.us/depts/c&h/herald3.htm

There were very few books. If a student had books at home, he or she could take them to school. Every family had a Bible, and most children learned to read from the Bible. Other subjects that were taught were called ciphering, orthography, geography and reciting. Aren't they strange names? Ciphering is called arithmetic today; orthography is spelling and language usage; reciting is reciting long memorized poems or passages from the Bible or classical literature. Any copying that was done, was done on a slate using a slate pencil. After students did their lessons well and could write nicely, they were allowed to use a goose quill pen and write in a copy book. Paper was very expensive, and copy books were handled carefully. The writing in them was beautiful - they were a source of great pride to a family.

 

Students had to memorize everything and then recite it back to the teacher. When a lesson was mastered and recited perfectly, then a student was moved on to another higher level. There were no grades as you know them; students progressed when and however they could.

 

This, to me, leads to more questions. What does he mean by the students had to memorize everything? How do you memorize math (other than the tables)? How do you memorize language (other than the rules)? What in the world would one memorize in regards to geography? Reciting long poems I get.

 

And how does this translate to what I read in the books about children working hard to "learn their lesson" and then later "recite their lesson" to the teacher?

[Ellie]

Wow. So the next question I have is, what books did they use for this? Was it set up to be used this way?

 

Weren't the Harveys books used? Much of those is done orally.

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

http://digital.library.pitt.edu/n/nietz/

[Plaid Dad]

What in the world would one memorize in regards to geography?

 

Definitions ("What is an island? a peninsula?), lists (major mountain ranges, rivers), political geography facts (state capitals, counties)...

 

I have a book on memory work coming out later this year that includes this sort of stuff. :)

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

Yep. The elementary geography books on the site I've linked start with definitions, some have also have rhymes and short paragraphs to be memorized.

 

So cool about your book! You'll let us know when it's out, right?

[PrairieAir]

The Little House books give pretty good descriptions of the work students were expected to do and reciting lessons. I believe the best descriptions are in Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years since Laura was going to school regularly and was focused on the goal of becoming a teacher during that period. In one of the two, she describes the history recitation she must give for a school exhibition. It sounds as though they often had to memorize large chunks of the text as well as being able to answer questions about it. Once she earns her teaching certificate and goes to work, there are descriptions from the teacher's point of view so that looking at the two together you can get a pretty good picture of how things were done.