Are you smarter than a public schooler?

1918 News Service ^ | 1/17/2006 | Phil Buckley

[ladyjane]

You had to memorize all the state capitals?

Okay, what's the capital of South Dakota??

[AnAmericanMother]

I know that the test exists, but the identifier may be merely a card catalogue entry or a cover sheet added after the fact. And one doesn't know when the card catalogue entry was created.

We'd have to see the original document, to see if the identifier as an "8th grade test" or "junior high school test" was added (in a different ink and/or different hand and/or typed onto the head of the document). This happens all the time, especially in small public libraries with bossy librarians, and when I was doing research on original documents I saw all sorts of "helpful" glosses and explanations added after the fact by well meaning people.

For the reasons stated above, the content of this document looks like a normal school test to me.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Rush said that he verified that it is indeed an eighth grade final exam from 1895. Many of the debunkers are leftists so they don't want to give into the the idea that it could be real.

[AnAmericanMother]

The differences between 1895 and 1903 are negligible. WWI is the next great watershed.

Moreover, a book published in the first decade of the 20th century would draw on the author's memories of his or her own school days. In fact, Kate Douglas Wiggin was born in 1856, and started her teaching kindergarten in the 1880s. L.M. Montgomery was born in 1874, and she took her teacher's license in 1895.

[AnAmericanMother]

I could easily pass the test - have scored 85 percent on it before, cold. I was a history major with a good background in Latin and Greek, and my Gaelic teacher was actually a linguistics professor, so the "orthography" stuff isn't a problem. Don't know what the health questions are doing under Geography (which I do o.k. on because of my amateur radio license), and I don't remember those on the copy I used, but wouldn't have any problem with those either. Where I fall down is in the obsolete units of measurement - rods, tare (what we would call zero), etc. - and arithmetic is not my strong point in any event. Fortunately the legal stuff under arithmetic (don't know why it's there!) is easy if you have a law degree.

But I have a graduate degree and post-graduate studies . . . not an eighth grade education!

[AnAmericanMother]

I'm no leftist, just a old history major with an interest in 19th century Americana.

I'd have to see the original document to make sure of my instinct or educated guess. Don't know if Rush actually examined the document, or just telephoned the librarian.

Apropos of librarians, a certain library in Alabama has a passel of inaccurate genealogical information that was collected by a kind of kooky lady (one of the ones that Florence King talks about in Southern Ladies and Gentlemen that is always trying to prove her descent from Bonnie Prince Charlie, even though he had no known issue legitimate or otherwise). It dated from the 1920s, it was in the library and in the card catalog, but it was just wrong. They finally put warning labels on it.

[dsc]

"Okay, what's the capital of South Dakota??"

They don't have one. Not enough people there.

Jeez, that was the fourth grade. So long ago that God was still creating dirt.

[Osage Orange]

Dang...those look good!!

[SAJ]

What's the problem? Van Buren was indeed elected in 1836, defeating Harrison, White, Webster, and Mangum, each of whom (the only time in American history that 5 candidates received some number of e. votes) received some electoral votes. 1836 is also the only election wherein the Senate had to perform its Constitutional duty of selecting a vice-president because no candidate for veep received a majority of electoral votes.

[ladyjane]

Excellent answer. A+

[lightman]

Hope they like Spamalot.