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Show WHY KNOCK THE SCHOOLS7 It's passing strange how tho da.l newspapers of Salt. Lake City take especial delight In knocking tin clt and its institutions. A striking ex ample of this was seen la the Sal Lake Herald a few days ago In a ro port of an examination of pupils of t ic public schools in tho art of spell ng. "Not one perfect hi spoiling," cr oj tin Herald In big head lines and tak n that as tiie keynote tho writer of the article brings out promiucutl ' in only mistakes made by tin pupil la spelling, but manufacturcj mistak s, and carefully avoids giving credl. f .1 tilings that are creditable. Why tin Herald or any other paper shoul 1 ta e especial pains to so misrepresent the Salt Lake City schools an.l do Injustice Injus-tice to the pupils, wonn 1 their reelings reel-ings and the feelings of their frleiuU and that at tin expense or justice s one of those things that "no fellow can llnd out." "Not one perfect In tp.'ll-Ing," tp.'ll-Ing," screams tho Herald, In iti bl ; head lims. Is tlicro nnybn ly perfi'c in spelling? If there la lie i.r li3 h:u no connection with tin llcr.il 1 office judging by tho spcllln; as I. uppoira in that sheet. Tli it in -y bo ' m ro son why tho Her 11 U so nxioin t make it appear tint sp3.i lrj Is neglected neg-lected In tlic public schools of tli : city, which, however, ij i.ot tin fact The Salt Lake city school an abov ; the average, a Ions way abova tli 1 average of schools gener .lly In the country. Threo hun.lrad an 1 forty-nine St'i grade pupils of tin Salt Lake Cty schools were examine 1 in spelling. Their average marks wqrj 53' per cent. In Springfield, 111., 2)0 8t 1 grade pupils showad 51.2 per cent average av-erage marks; one nundro.1 in Gltln, Illinois, tho percentage was 52,2 1 1 spelling, and so it goes all over. Sal Lake Is "full high advanced" In tli j matter of Its schools. The croakers tells us that in tho days of old spelling was inii.h more perfect than It is now. Now in 181., at the Springfield, Mass., high schoo , In a spelling contest tho. Identic 1 words given in tho high school contest con-test a few days ago wero given. T h average percentage of excellence o.-perfection, o.-perfection, as you may choose to c l. it, scored by tho Springfield pupil i was 40.G, while tho Salt Lake boyj and girls a few days ago on th? samo words scored an average percentage per-centage of 82 1-9. Not much In tho nature na-ture of deterioration about that. Tho following aro tho words given In the high school tost: Accidental, accesslblo, baptism, chl rograph, deceitfully, descendant, eccentric, eccen-tric, evanescent, fierceness, felgnedly, ghastllness, gnawed, heiress, hysteric, imbecility, Inconceivable, inconven'-ent, inconven'-ent, Inefficient, Irresistible. About four years ago, If wo roniem-ber roniem-ber rightly, Superintendent Christen-sen Christen-sen Inaugurated a plan for mora thorough thor-ough Instructions In wliat Is known as tho threo r's, or tho fundamentals. Tho merits of this plan can hardly yet bo definitely passed upon as non of tho pupils havo yet completed the course, hence tho folly of criticizing results heforo they nro obtained. Utah stands third In tho wholo United States In tho matter of education. educa-tion. At tho World's fair at St. Louis, a world wide competitive exposition, Salt Lake City schools took the gold medal in tho educational department and the samo tiling happened at tin exposition at Portland last year. Most states would bo proud of such things and the nowspapeivi would gloat ovor them, but it's not so with tho newspapers news-papers here. They would rather knock than boost, because "it Is their nutttra to." n |