Have you heard the government has been dumbing down our children? This test proves it.?

Question

What it took to get an 8th grade education in 1895


--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, USA. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS, 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, 1.25 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 50cts/bushel, 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 the 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 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)

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.' (HUH?)
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, 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.
7. 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?! Also shows you how poor our education system has become... and, NO... I don't have the answers, and I failed the 8th grade test!!

Matt you jerk pump. The point is this is the test given to pass to the 8th grade. There was no policy to dumb down our children then. Many boys quit school by the 8th grade to take care of the farm. The point is the ones who did go to the ninth grade had to pass the test. There was no policy of no child left behind. The smarter ones excelled. but by the time someone had reach the sixth grade they probably had the equivalent of a 12th grade education today.

Answer 1

Sorry, John. You just don't know what you are talking about.

First, this test is a fake. It never happened. It is an urban legend.

Second, in the 1800s only a tiny percentage of kids went to school. Even in the USA, which was far more educated than any other country, the kids who went to school beyond 3rd or 4th grade was only the equivalent of our top percent students - the kids who today would get 800s on SAT tests. So, it's not like every kid in Salinas, or any other town, was passing a test like this. Probably two or three kids out of 100 got to the highest level of education in the average town. The average kids were out working in the fields or in the factory.

Third, there was no social promotion in the 1800s - so a kid could be 20 years old and in the 8th grade. An 8th grader who took a tough test might have been ranked in the eighth grade, but in his 13th year of school! And, a school in a rural area in the 1800s probably had a full time teacher for every five or six full time students. Since there were very few jobs for women in those days, the women school-marms were some of the brightest and best brains of the day... so a rural school could be almost a one on one tutorial with a very smart teacher, lasting as many years as the student wanted.

We could go back to those days if we agreed to throw out of school about 95% of all the students and leave education only to those students who are smart, motivated and hardworking. Apparently you don't know much about that kind of thing or you could have passed this test like I easily did. And it certainly didnt take five hours.

Answer 2

Yes, I saw it happening when my daughter started school back in the 1960's. First there were the ungraded schools... because some of the people entering the school system following the Brown vs. Board ruling, could not keep up with the classwork other children in their grade and their age were doing. So, the schools came out with an ungraded system of grades... and that way they could just pass people through school even if they had almost no education at all. Anyway, when that crop of the 1960's went through and got their teaching certificates, they went out into the public schools and taught people who knew even less... THEN that group graduated, got their teaching certificates... and the NEXT generation dumb was formed... AND IT'S STILL GOING ON. In the process of cleaning out the family home, I came up with some grade school textbooks from my 7th and 8th grades. I can GUARANTEE YOU that almost NONE of the Seniors that graduate from High School this year could answer more than 1 or 2 of the questions I had to be able to answer when I was 11 years old. Sadly, if Americans were not so ignorant and arrogant and could admit they were not the legends in their own minds they think they are, they would also realize that it is MORE important to LEARN something than to be politically correct and FEEL GOOD about being stupid.

Answer 3

Well, i think that shows like teletubies and booh bah dumb our kids down. Me and my friend were watching it once cuz we were bored and they just do a lot of illogical nonsense. If u want to blame someone, blame kid shows!