.. mm m* Wet Class Book GopyrigM - COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT JUNIOR-SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/juniorseniorhighOOjohn JUNIOE-SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION BY CHARLES HUGHES JOHNSTON, Ph.D. (harvard) PROFESSOR OF SECONDARY EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS JESSE H. NEWLON, A.M. (Columbia) SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, DENVER, COLORADO FRANK G. PICKELL, A.M. (Columbia) ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, CLEVELAND, OHIO CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON V* ft ^ Copyright, 1922, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Printed in the United States of America A MAR 22 1922 g)CU659271 FOREWORD In 191 5 Charles Hughes Johnston invited me to col- laborate with him in writing a little book in the form of a manual on the administration of the junior and senior high school. Doctor Johnston believed that there wa9 need for a book that would clearly set forth the best ad- ministrative practices in the best American high schools. As we worked on the problem, however, we gradually changed our plans until it became our purpose to write a medium-sized volume on the administration of the junior and senior high school, in which we would en- deavor to describe not merely some of the best admin- istrative practices, but to give, sometimes by implication and sometimes directly, the principles upon which these administrative practices should be based. Doctor Johnston was one of the foremost advocates of what has commonly been called the socialized school, using the term "socialized school" in a technical sense that will be generally understood by the profession. "The Modern High School," which Doctor Johnston prepared in co-operation with a number of men and women, principally men and women working in the sec- ondary field, was the first book to treat definitely the problems of socializing the administration and teaching methods of the high school and to attack the problems of the social life and the social programme of the high school. This book was a pioneer. It was devoted to the development of the idea of the socialized school vi FOREWORD rather than to definite administrative procedure and devices. At the time of Doctor Johnston's tragic and untimely death in September, 191 7, our project was still some- what less than half completed. We had practically reached a final conclusion as to the chapters to be in- cluded in the book, and most of these chapters were rather definitely outlined. Some had been written. But our work had already been interfered with by our professional duties and finally by the outbreak of the war in the spring of 191 7. After Doctor Johnston's death, Mrs. Johnston and the publishers decided that this book ought to be finished as nearly as possible along the lines on which it had been planned. During the war period this work was conducted under the greatest difficulties on the part of all of the friends of Doctor Johnston who have assisted in the volume as it stands. In the spring of 191 8 Mr. Frank G. Pickell, at that time principal of Lincoln High School, a long-time friend of Doctor Johnston and a pupil of his, very kindly consented to co-operate in the completion of the book and became one of the authors. Mr. Pickell made many valuable suggestions and criticisms and contributed about one- third of the chapters. Professor Guy M. Whipple contributed the chapter on Adolescence; other friends and pupils, among whom I would especially mention Doctor John A. Stevenson and Miss Clara Mabel Smith, have assisted with their criticism and suggestions; while Mrs. Charles Hughes Johnston has been very largely responsible for complet- ing the plans of the book as it now stands, for editing and writing much of the material, and for carrying the work to completion. FOREWORD vii Those of us who were the friends and pupils of Doc- tor Johnston believe that this book, with its many de- ficiencies, represents his point of view as regards the aims that must characterize our secondary schools and the methods of administration, as nearly as it would be possible for friends to represent, frequently by con- crete illustration, his views on such matters. The following chapters were either written entirely by Doctor Johnston or were projected and partially written by him and completed by Mrs. Johnston. Education for the New Democracy. Party Platforms in Education. ^^High School Terminology. The High School Issue. The Junior High School. Junior High School Administration. The High School Library. The High School and Modern Citizenship. Acknowledgment is made to the Educational Review for permission to reprint "High School Terminology"; to The Library Journal for " The High School Library "; and to Educational Administration and Supervision for "The High School Issue," "The Junior High School," "Junior High School Administration," and "High School and Modern Citizenship." The remaining chapters were written by those who have collaborated upon the book. All this work has been done by friends as a labor of love for one who contributed in a large way to the de- velopment of secondary education in America, who in- spired many young men and women to experimentation in the adaptation of the school to the needs of boys and viii FOREWORD girls, and who, in a brief span of less than forty years, made for himself a permanent place in the history of American education. Denver, Colorado. Jesse H. Newlon. CONTENTS PAGE Foreword v Education for the New Democracy .... i Party Platforms in Education 34 High School Terminology 65 The High School Issue 89 The Adolescent Period 116 The Junior High School 137 Junior High School Administration . . . . 152 Curriculum Organization 172 Socialized Recitation . 187 Supervised Study 201 Supervision of Teachers and Teaching . . . 218 Internal Organization and Government . . . 239 A Constructive Social Programme 254 Some Social Aspects of Physical Education and Games 272 The High School Library 284 ix x CONTENTS PAOB High School Publicity 299 experimentalism in secondary education . . 319 New Conception of the Principalship . . . .337 The High School and Modern Citizenship . . 356 Problems Emphasized by the War ..... 381 Bibliography 391 Index 397 EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY Our educational test is coming. It has not alto- gether come. Everything in our national life is to be tested. Our schools shall not escape. America's en- trance into the war made clearer the issues, has indeed helped make the issue itself. Our deeds from now on must still further clarify this same issue. The war is a war of ideas. We may make peace with the Germans. We cannot ever make peace with our understanding of their ideas of government, repressive externally imposed education, and subservience of individuality in matters of morality. Democracy, none too clear to us even in our former so-called peace era, is nevertheless our su- preme and overwhelming issue. If democracy is de- feated, it will have defeated itself. Defeat will mean a divided mind among democracies and within democra- cies. It will mean that we do not know what it means, cannot practise it under trying circumstances, and can- not spiritualize it sufficiently into an impelling national emotion. We have in our schools pretended devotion to democ- racy. We have associated with the notion certain more or less academic ideals of humanity. We have in our histories dated it and prated about it. We have never seen it as a world wrought-out possession, formed and modified by national champions other than ourselves. Ours has been, especially of late, a safe, smug, geographi- cally protected democracy. We have scarcely realized that in Europe, far out of our imagined zone of safe security, our modes of life, our institutions, our very 1 2 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION selves, our natures and strains of group or personal indi- vidualities are at stake, put at stake by ideas and rules of living together that violently oppose all that we hold permanently precious and sacred. Shall we give up our temper of independence, our self-respecting in- dividualism? Other nations apparently are in spirit as well as in cruel actuality fighting our democracy's crucial battles. No school children and few school-teachers can go to Europe to fight. But the school, no less than every other institution of our democracy, must go to war in some way. What shall be the nature of school work of a nation at war ? The subtle changes in our educational procedure will be the profound ones. Our present ag- gressive efforts at refinement of technic and our elab- orate statistical analyses and demonstrations of more or less obvious mechanical defects, our gross or mass faults, good enough in their way, must not be checked in their process of technic development. There must be no let-up, indeed, in any fault-checking device or automatic pedagogic help. As Agnes Repplier says, however, this is no time to make a national issue of spelling. The deeper changes will result from clarified objective, the spiritualizing of the motive, and the end of education itself. The seriousness of life, the sense of our common destiny with our allies, the exhilaration of vital co-op- eration for magnificent ends upon which hang tangible successes or disastrous failures, the now realizable fact that we can really add something to the greatest cause of all history by personal sacrifice and energy — these motives must in school life find more than merely aca- demic expression. The American school-teacher must think out a programme of action for education in war- time. Our geography, our history, our language work, EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 3 as well as our applied mathematics and science and manual training and domestic-science training, are per- emptorily challenged. So is our physiology and our physical education and all that contributes or might contribute to personal efficiency. A school or a teacher who is not agonizing over the translation of education of whatever grade into national preparedness exercise is failing his country at her critical moment. Can we rescue ourselves "from the only alternative supposed, of a world of clerks and teachers, of co-edu- cation and zoophily, of 'consumers' leagues' and 'asso- ciated charities,' of industrialism unlimited, and fem- inism unabashed? Fie upon such a cattleyard of a planet ! " Thus does the great William James voice the militarists' romantic view of plunging into war. No- where but in such states of high elation can we "weld men into cohesive states," make war an infinitely search- ing trial. How can we at home and in school feel this civic passion and "blow on the spark till the whole population gets incandescent"? How can every per- son in the nation and every institution wage war in the interests of peace and safety for democracy ? Ours must be more than a war of fear and of merely material self- protection. In 1 910 William James wrote: "It would be simply preposterous if the only force that could work ideals of honor and standards of efficiency into English or American natures should be fear of being killed by the Germans." Everything now is war for a while, farming, home- keeping, dieting, conserving health, keeping cool-headed as well as sewing for the Belgians, contributing to war funds and soldiering and sailoring. For the schools especially there is more in war-time than battleships and great armaments. Minds of all must be prepared 4 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION for intelligent sacrifice. There is no one who cannot contribute. Effective war is ceasing to be mystical, and is a " symptom, biological and sociological, con- trolled by psychological checks and motives." Educa- tion can help overcome the "two unwillingnesses of our imagination," which hitherto have made war an activity somewhat apart from the total national regime. We can, as educators, during the trying times just beginning, paint a true world order, gradually but not insipidly being decided by a fascinating kind of evolution, and a world in which effort just as supreme and humanly appealing can be expended where contestants can mu- tually benefit, not destroy. In short, in war we can be studying, thinking, and developing our world knowl- edge so as to anticipate and appreciate the elementary principles of our three goals, desirable internationalism, nationalism, and democracy. Many American educators are praising still the thoroughness of the Germans and their ability to do hard, unbored thinking. They are pointing us to this kind of method of educating. They are saying in effect that American and English methods of appealing to the individual, avoiding too much super- imposition of external authority in the classroom, for example, and encouraging, even to the point of more shoddy work in the initial stages, is all wrong. They are saying to us: "Shift to the German methods and beat the Germans at their own game." There is a fal- lacy here somewhere. Methods are but expressions of the philosophy underneath them. There is more method in American and English ways of education than the hasty generalizers suspect. The spirit of the thing is what externally counts. Democracy's method makes the spirit that will win in the end in war or in educa- tion. It is the spirit of the English and French soldiers EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 5 that interests us. It cannot be conquered. Neither war nor education which looks toward the goal of a mili- taristic society inspires them. Nor can it be for us. Our educational philosophy must be something like that of William James: "That in the more or less socialistic future towards which mankind seems drifting we must still subject ourselves collectively to those severities which answer to our real position upon this only partly hospitable globe." "Intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command, must still remain the rock upon which states are built — unless, indeed, we wish for dangerous reactions against commonwealths fit only for contempt, and liable to in- vite attack whenever a centre of crystallization for military-minded enterprise gets formed anywhere in their neighborhood." Making thus educational capital out of this unavoid- able immediate conflict into which our whole nation, schools and all, has been forced, why should we not as educators endeavor systematically to bring it about that "men should feel that it is worth a blood- tax to belong to a collectivity superior in any ideal respect"? Why should not school children now begin definitely to learn to take civic and international relations and obli- gations to democracy so seriously that they will "blush with indignant shame if the community that owns them is vile in any respect whatsoever" ? Thus we can right now in this stage, may it be the final stage, of necessary resort to pure force, build for our children "on the ruins of the old morals of military honor, a stable system of morals of civic honor." The modern democratic state is in danger, real dan- ger. Other states without our democratic organization have done some things in a far better way than our 6 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION democracy has done them. Many doubters of democ- racy among us have a deep impression of our amor- phousness, our ignorance, our disorder, and our lack of discipline. Our whole democratic government, demo- cratic social life, democratic tradition, and democratic education enrages the sense of organization and ideal of social order of many a citizen of our own country. Democracy in America has not been even clearly idealized, much less realized. As H. G. Wells has discerningly pointed out, it is the method of democracy that we need to discover. His purpose was to reason out the possible methods of gov- ernment that would give a stabler, saner control to the world. . . . He believed still in democracy, but he was realizing more and more that democracy has yet to discover its method. It had to take hold of the consciousness of men, it had to equip itself with still unformed organizations. Endless years of pa- tient thinking, of experimenting, of discussion lay before man- kind ere this great idea could become reality, and right, the proven right thing, could rule the earth. ... It is the newest form of human association, and we are still but half awake to its needs and necessary conditions. For it is idle to pretend that the little city democracies of ancient times were compara- ble to the great essays in practical republicanism that mankind is making to-day. This age of the democratic republics that dawn is a new age. It has not yet lasted for a century, not for a paltry hundred years. ... All new things are weak things; a rat can kill a man-child with ease. Let us pledge ourselves to service. Let us set ourselves with all our minds and all our hearts to the perfecting and working out of the methods of democracy and the ending forever of the kings and emperors and priestcrafts and the bands of adven- turers, the traders and owners and forestallers who have be- trayed mankind into this morass of hate and blood — in which our sons are lost — in which we flounder still. 1 1 Quoted from " Mr. Britling Sees It Through." (Macmillan Co., 1916.) EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 7 Can we as schoolmen discover this democratic method, free ourselves from any ll landed aristocracy" of learning , bring to earth an education of every-day living, organize school life effectively into those institutional, group, and individual exercises which afford genuine practice in man- kind's u practical republicanism" ? Can America, now a participator in the finish fight which is to decide the fate of democracy, catch in her educational vision the elemental principle of this democracy and of its method as it seems to be laid bare and naked to such Englishmen as H. G. Wells and Bertrand Russell ? l Some one has recently said that no nations are in any true sense so completely the products of their school systems as are Germany and America. He adds sig- nificantly that the most fundamental aspect of the Ger- man educational philosophy has till now received lit- tle emphasis. Do we understand any better what is the most fundamental aspect of American education? Wanted — a steering American philosophy of education, clear enough, embracing enough, gripping enough, to become the unifying principle which will ultimately bring together the various conflicting and rival forces in American life. Reiterations of the conviction that the philosophy of America must be a courageous philosophy of the future suggests that it would be well to have some articulation of our philosophy of education, if there is to be any dis- tinctive American philosophy of education rooted in our democratic civilization. We cannot borrow foreign educational systems, neither can we borrow the funda- mental principles which are to underlie our own system. 1 For powerful expression of the meaning of education in a demo- cratic state, see B. Russell's recent book, "Why Men Fight" (Cen- tury Co., 1917), and Mr. Wells's novel referred to above. 8 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION From the signs of the times we can be certain that we are going to fight over educational questions much more vigorously than ever in our history. Let us hope that we can anticipate, but entirely on the intellectual and moral plane, the contests now going on in Europe. There is to be no serene sky and smooth sea for Ameri- can educators in the next decades. We need not try to escape. The clashes in educational philosophy and in conviction as to administrative adjustments to the need of democracy must have search-lights fearlessly thrown upon them. Chesterton reminds us that he who most strenuously avoids a philosophy is most clearly expressing one. There are philosophies in education, although they may be chiefly the brands to which Chesterton refers. We are of late, however, pretty surely in revolt at such inarticulate philosophies of the schools. May not the schoolman find something to his purpose in relating his policy of school administration definitely to some mod- ern system of philosophical thought? "To know the chief rival attitudes toward life," to appreciate the rea- sons for them, and to force one's self to hark back to fundamental considerations when initiating school re- form or justifying school procedure ought to be an essential part of the professional equipment of the school administrator. Otherwise, curriculum construction, to select a typical administrative function, must degenerate into mere checkerboard manipulation of programmes and schedules, or at most into adjustments to the merely more obvious and pressing demands of an economic, political, or traditional sort. All educational organizations have in their member- ship two types of workers. One group, usually the smaller in numbers, tends eternally to force considera- EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 9 tions of policies and specific administrative measures back into the field of fundamental principles. They try to deduce their conclusions from some thought sys- tem of theirs which for them appears to have absolute finality. In drawing up reports, making recommenda- tions, and interpreting or evaluating educational mea- sures on hand, this group tends to think over much of the provisos which must be inserted, of the qualifica- tions to be made, even of the questionable outcome of the very procedure to be recommended. It never cheer- fully acquiesces in mere majority consensus of practical judgment. It exasperates the practical group, the dom- inant group generally. This latter group soon tires of the finer distinction, its members think in terms of pro- grammes of action. They go roughshod over techni- calities with the attitude "our position is in the main right. Here goes! The language doesn't matter. Let's get something done." Whereas the other group, the philosophically minded, feel so inspired with the portentousness and the symbolic suggestiveness of the project that they endanger cleanness of execution. These more narrowly empirically minded aim at clearness and preciseness of executive detail, but care more about the next step than about the far-off final completion of the enterprise being projected. More in touch with the field where the work is to be done, they take the means employed purely as an instrumental thing, as a matter-of-fact next step. And so the motion is carried, the school machinery affected set in motion (even if much of it is lost motion), and educational history, such as it is, is made. It is easy to divorce articulate philosophy from formulation of school policy. For the most part, technical or professional philoso- 10 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION phers have overlooked the actual educative procedure as naturally professional students of education have as a body drifted away from philosophy and sought affilia- tions rather with their colleagues in modern psychology, in social science, in economics, and in political science. This estrangement is unfortunate. Most philosophical questions have a humble but very vital counterpart in educational thought and educational practice. Educa- tion for all of us is a partially ideal performance. Our crude, inadequate, inarticulate, unintentional philoso- phies are none the less real. Educators and school boards must act, and they are lucky, as a rule, if there is any principle at all in sight to direct their action. Most professional philosophers think they cannot afford to be disturbed by importunate requests to relate to their fundamental systems of thought the amazing list of practical school problems any school administrator can without a moment's notice reel off to them. Like- wise most school administrators realize that they cannot wait indefinitely for the leisurely explorations of their fields by luxurious and fastidious ontologically or epis- temologically minded philosophers — wait till they in their unhasting comfortable leisure and in their aca- demic atmosphere, like an oracle, give them a final an- swer. Yet there must be, despite B ertrand Russell (' ' Sci- entific Method in Philosophy")? some simple results which philosophy has at present achieved which bear upon the very real outstanding problems of education. It is, indeed, astounding that philosophers have dared keep themselves so detached from and uninterested in educational practice. It is difficult to appreciate their complacency in the presence of the thought agonies of thousands of practical educators who can only think while they work. EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 11 We educators of all ranks know that our emphases are often upon isolated aspects of the whole educational ideal. Our thoughts become tangled as we direct our different and uncorrelated partial school processes. We do not have time to stop long enough to see how the partial thoughts accompanying our partial and isolated processes are or are not elements of some more under- standable and more comprehensive view of education as the motor co-ordinate of the real life of the sound phi- losopher's reality. We all know well enough that there is lack of organic coherence in our totality of the neces- sarily scrappy views which we apologetically expound as we seek to justify in some confusion our practice. Such hasty attempts of ours to expound our views in terms of theoretical conceptions of the totality of the process which is going on under our eyes and by our hands has, we know, missing links. America's failure to make articulate a philosophy of education, and her unrealized belief that somehow democracy in the abstract will be the talisman that ulti- mately, in spite of our muddling along, will mysteriously work out our individual and national problems for us has resulted in a generation of Americans characterized by "incertitude and mental fog," undeveloped capaci- ties, and "tepid characterlessness." Probably our country has seen no generation so miserably educated as we have been. . . . There has come for our town- bred generation a complete divorce of hand and mind. . . . That energy which might have gone into constructing things, learning from science how our modern world went round, get- ting acquainted with our community, where we got best "pre- pared for life as adults by experiencing in childhood what had meaning to us as children" — most of this energy went for most of us in idle play, overfed romanticism, obsessing sex-fantasy, or a quick dive into " blind-alley " occupations. 12 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Those of us without any startling capabilities or vices settled down to a routine, closed to all except local interests and the humdrum facts of daily life. The majority of young men were swallowed up in specialized office or factory work, which made no drafts whatever on their interest or initiative, or against which they could only chafe impotently. The young women went into a sort of specialized idleness, with obsessions of dress and restless search after diversion. Those of us with ambition and some kind of definite flair, destitute of training and cursed with absurdly inadequate notions of the complicated society in which we lived, could only flounder. The best enthusiasms got drained off into the shadowy ways of social idealism and "ser- vice" which too often ended in disillusionments and cynicism. Nowhere any tools we could grip; nowhere any knowledge for constructing them or skill for reworking what there was. Our education had neither given us the training with whose aid we could escape the rut, nor any sweet alleviations of tastes and culture to make endurable our ineffectiveness. One wonders if there was ever a generation more thoroughly dissatisfied with itself, and from whom society had more cunningly removed the opportunities for self-expression and the chance to get intellec- tually and manually at grips with things. American industry, politics, letters, already feel the blight of this incapacity. Origi- nality, picturesqueness, raciness of expression and attitude, dar- ingness of social invention and experimentation, fine flair of decorative art, and even robustness of dogma, seem all to have been washed out of this colorless and uninteresting generation. . . . Where youth finds its niche or gets its opportunity, it responds eagerly and capably. The tragedy has been that a repressive " education" which callously ignored the demands of life has done its best, inj;ways which we are beginning to see as almost malevolently ingenious, to separate youth from its opportunity. . . . For when education becomes the child's learning to do things instead of the teacher's teaching it sub- ject-matter, the labor is immensely relieved. The teacher as helper and observer has a wholly new outlook. The old peda- gogy becomes meaningless. Teaching becomes the life-blood of society. 1 1 Excerpts from Randolph S. Bourne's review of Dewey's "Schools of To-Morrow," in The New Republic, June 26, 191 5. EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 13 Such an "educational lament " as this must needs make one pause before determining which one of the " chief rival attitudes toward life" shall be embraced: on the one hand, a "repressive education which callously ignores the demands of life," but which beckons allur- ingly to the schoolman and promises a perfected sys- tem, complete in all details, smoothed out, refined, per- manent, applicable at all times, in all situations, to all individuals, a system which admirably lends itself to formula and device, and which allows as a reward for successful effort the final satisfaction of an irrevocable verdict of one more established eternal truth; on the other hand, an experimental education, with its infi- nitely interesting but discouragingly endless possibilities of revision and change, modification and adaptability, a programme which frankly acknowledges the unescapable fact that permanence is impotent, but that the ques- tioning spirit is the ultimately fruitful one. Is it not better, perhaps, to frankly assume the role of an experimentalist in education, seeking not to find the eternally one-right-way of solving our many perplexing problems, nor to catalogue, codify, tabulate, and per- manently label every principle, process, method, or de- vice found to have been effective in some particular situation at some particular time? To label anything truth is, indeed, to dispose of it in a highly satisfactory manner. The more truths discovered and catalogued the neater, the more compact, the more satisfactory is the result, and an educational system built on these foundations holds out tempting possibilities to those who temperamentally care for scientific exactness, nice- ness of detail, and finality. But experimental science must remember change. Even though one chooses to ignore the fact, change is the basic factor in social phe- 14 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION nomena, and must be considered in any effective pro- gramme. Surely educational science, more even than any of the other social sciences, must utilize this funda- mental social principle, and no degree of intellectual lassitude will excuse the educator for his unwillingness to face the fact of social change or to undertake the pos- sibly disagreeable task of attempting to control and direct it. In experimental education the serious work is just this: To observe the many changes going on in the social body; to direct and control these through the instrumentality of the school; to forecast and interpret new changes, and to anticipate possible results with possible methods of control; to invent new social ma- chinery devised to secure for society certain values considered fundamentally necessary in a democratic state. Experimental education, then, must be denned in terms of change. This means that there is no perma- nent solution for any school problem, but each one must be constantly redefined in the light of new evidence. It means that the educator must stand ready to open and reopen each question, follow where the argument leads, investigate, study, and experiment, and then from the obtained results evaluate, criticise, and formu- late conclusions, which may serve only as a tentative basis for more experimentation. For this reason the very excellencies of an experimental programme present to our ambitious worker the most irritating perplexities. Nothing is ever completed. No question may be closed up. His work is never done. Results obtained to-day are invalid to-morrow. Finality is an unused word. But, the question may arise, will not such a programme put too great a premium on mere innovation ? Will not a school system founded on this basis lack stability and EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 15 order ? The answer would seem to be that gruelling and tantalizing confusion is the price we always pay for sub- sequent clarity. Surely a conception of education as an institution which projects new ideas as well as testing them out and discarding or retaining them according to the results of the test is better than one which merely puts ready-made ideas into execution. And so the key- note to an experimental programme must be flexibility, adaptability, elasticity, and only as school practice can make these words alive with meaning will mistakes be- come positive elements in improving conditions, and in- telligent means of directing reconstruction. For this reason the reorganization movement is prob- ably the most complete exemplification. The problem of American education to-day is to transform a formalized institution into life. To get an adequate conception of the new democracy it is neces- sary to get a new conception of the psychology of the educative processes, and to realize that they are expres- sive processes, that knowledge is a real process, a real method of expressing, and hence that all school exercises, as reciting, studying, student activities, auditorium performances, shop training, laboratory technic, proj- ects, socialized class meetings, and other new and more intimate sorts of exercises, with the supposedly aca- demicized humanity subjects, must smack of realness. The new democratic state may only be realized through a rejuvenated public-school system, a rejuvenation of our entire educational reorganization and administra- tion. The reorganization movement, as such, is an attempt to think educational values in terms of democ- racy that has been redefined, and that must still be redefined many times before arriving at a satisfactory solution of our social problems. For this reason the 16 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION reorganization movement, and more particularly the junior high school movement, implying, as it does, the reorganization of the three critical intermediate grades, is the most complete exemplification of an experimental philosophy. The junior high school movement is essentially an American movement, and should be denned in terms of its profound meaning. It should suggest that our ideal of universal education has not been realized, and that a new organization is needed which will eliminate the undemocratic selective principle now operating which tends to break up our body politic into social classes. It should suggest an attempt to put into operation a conception of secondary education new in the history of the entire world, where the class distinction between elementary and secondary education may be entirely wiped out. It should suggest an attempt to take cog- nizance of the many changes going on in the social body, to direct and control these through the instrumen- talities of the schools, to forecast and to interpret new changes, and to anticipate possible results with possible methods of control. The junior high school movement should imply a rejection of outgrown methods and pre- arranged subject-matter, and accept as the very founda- tion-stone of educational method the principle of utiliz- ing to the full the naturally inherited possibilities of the learning processes rooted in the instinctive and the im- pulsive attitudes and activities of children and youth; and utilizing these as far as is practicable, reproduce as nearly as possible on the learner's plane the typical con- structive social life of the outside world. Finally, the junior high school is a concrete attempt to invent new social machinery devised to secure for society that most necessary value in a democratic state — the development EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 17 of personality. Intellectual growth, habit formation, physical, social, and moral development, aesthetic appre- ciation and vocational preparedness are all factors in personality, and are all dependent on the school for systematic development. Schoolmen must grasp the junior high school idea, not as a period definitely marked off for covering ground in clearly differentiated fields of natural science, social science, language, mechanic arts, and domestic economy, but rather as the three-year sec- tion of our public-school system, which, with its newly developed types of courses, methods of teaching, policy of school management, and intensive study of the indi- vidualities of pupils, seeks to direct them in rinding themselves by exploiting their various possible powers or aptitudes — leaving to the senior high school the func- tion of specially preparing them for a definite pursuit or for definite continuation of education in higher institu- tions. Is not the junior high school idea just our at present clumsy and lumbering but unmistakable attempt to shunt our public educational machinery during this particular three-year period into the field of diagnosing and exploiting, by means of more various kinds of train- ings, the individualities of pupils? To get the real significance of the junior high school movement as an exemplification of experimental educa- tional philosophy, we must recognize that what we have been wont to think of as inevitably educational machinery must not be machinery, but must rather be that better conceived school organism which is capable of such administratively flexible adjustments that it, too, just as classroom teaching, can express a fundamental phi- losophy of education. There seems to be a growing conviction that there must be a philosophy of school administration itself, as well as of so-called educational 18 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION values, which from year to year may show a steady de- velopment of administrative doctrine. There is an unfortunate distinction between admin- istration and teaching. It is based upon the view that administration is mechanical, a sort of routine use of devices, an employment of practical, temporary ad- justments, and a consumption of time in a clerical occu- pation and in more or less futile, or only temporarily necessary, pupil, teacher, and parent conferences, while real teaching is both more spiritual and more truly edu- cational. I think this is unfortunate. There is a real technic in organizing and managing student activities, in creating an esprit de corps in the school or class or classroom group, in athletics or otherwise, in plan- ning and carrying through the year a series of teachers' meetings, in conceiving and putting successfully into operation a system of supervised study, in making a system of educational guidance a real part of the school's every day work, or in making athletics democratic, moral, and educational. There are spiritual and techni- cal sides to administration as well as to teaching. Super- vised study, for example, means something much more fundamental than some arbitrary lengthening of the class period, and mechanical division of its activities into study and recitation. It means a new kind of edu- cative process and a new ideal of mental economy and of co-operative intellectual work through class or other group organization. Educational guidance means more than mere psychological diagnosis or vocational infor- mation and placement. It means the more fundamen- tal effort to establish in pupils proper internal rather than externally imposed and superficial motives for school work, and to administer the whole curriculum in this more effective way. EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 19 Library administration means not only books and facilities, but it means the organization of the whole school with definite reference to the library centre; it means the making of discriminating readers out of the whole school membership through daily exercises which are as natural a participation in the life of the school and the work in school subjects as the recitation itself. School management in this higher and more spiritual sense implies technic, implies minimal standards of ad- ministration, implies peculiar professional preparation and personal fitness of the administrators, implies a high degree of co-operation of all the forces of the school. One of the most important of these administrative problems of the junior high school, and probably the most difficult for educators, is that of curriculum differ- entiation. Plato has set us a model of curriculum think- ing still unsurpassed in many respects. The lack of dif- ferentiation for different groups who are to be educated marks the element of weakness in his ideal scheme, so far as our modern high school instructional and training offerings are concerned. Herbert Spencer, in his first essay on education, set another pace for curriculum- makers, and gave a better illustration of the definite steps necessary in actually making specific curriculums. His doctrine of the relative values of the different edu- cational ends to be attained by curriculums, and his further discussion of the hierarchy of subjects of instruc- tion to be employed in gaining the ends sought, offers still a model of method for the ambitious curriculum- builders of to-day. Spencer's greatest contribution here is that he named our problem for us. He did his work so thoroughly that we are able to disagree clearly with him. In the very statement of our dissent Spencer forces us to fundamental considerations. He builds for 20 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION us one curriculum, builds it so well, and knits each part to the other so plausibly, and with so much faith out- lines the ramifications of educational effects we are to expect, that he almost persuades us, not only that here is a good curriculum, but that it is the only necessary one — a curriculum of science ! Curriculum-makers, like other people, have always sought the philosopher's stone, the single panacea. Spencer was, as old Cato, what Thomas Dixon calls one of the world's "One-eyed Fools.' ' First, he thought that giving all subjects a scientific flavor would solve the problem of curriculum needs. He did not realize how complex and difficult of application his conception of science was to prove to be. Second, as Royce remarks, he thought naively that the world should ultimately be made up of "little Herberts," men, as William James says of Spencer, "of remorseless explicitness," "of pedantic rectitude," "with curious dryness and literalness of judgment," "a lukewarm equable temperament, narrowness of sympathy and pas- sion, fondness for mechanical forms of thought, and im- perfect receptivity." Spencer planned for all to be trained for special professional capacities in the appli- cation of scientific laws generally. He saw no difference between the great popular need and ability to under- stand and profit by knowledge of science and the strictly limited needs of the professional scientists themselves. We do not admit to-day that what is essential to the specialist must be fed in painful broken doses to the race, that our public education in sanitation is identical with that of the plumber's, or that our family knowledge of antiseptics must be acquired, if at all, in the same way that a surgeon prepares himself for the practice of his profession. Again, in modern curriculum-making we cannot rely EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 21 on the other basis proposed seriously by Spencer, namely, as Yocum has noted, that what has proved effective in the past survivals of the race is now still a sufficient basis. On the other hand, here again we must note that we have a heterogeneous pupil body of one and one-half million adolescent boys and girls, repre- senting many-sided social appeals, national, state, mu- nicipal, rural; appeals, also, of every social grade and of a bewildering variety of vocational requirements. These appeals must be analyzed for our different actual pupil groups, classified, evaluated as leading to " ener- gizing" or "non-energizing" vocations; and for Spen- cer's academic basis we must substitute the principle of designing courses and curriculums according to whether they have or do not have systematized information and definite trainings. We must know, in a given case, which of these knowledges and trainings are requisite for and common to the life demands of the majority in each of the groups into which we can, for this curriculum purpose, break up our particular bodies of high school pupils. Spencer did not anticipate and many modern writers do not see this era of curriculum differentiation that is upon us. Many do, however, and it is to these we must look for tentative solutions and methods of attack. There are those who oppose all variations from a type design in curriculum construction for all parts of the country and for all states alike, and oppose all modifica- tions of school subjects, as these modifications are to be determined by the curriculum settings in which they are placed. The radical wing of the other party rele- gate these to the outer darkness. They are in the dark ages of modern educational intellectualism and aca- demicism. 22 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Again, there are those who wish to see carefully de- vised lines of training for distinguishable pupil groups wherever the basis for this distinguishable sort of cur- riculum treatment is clearly derived from adequate psy- chological analysis of pupil's interests and aptitudes and supported JurtJter by vocational analysis of local and wider occupational possibilities. These are in the van of the modern movement for a more flexible programme of education for the beginning adolescents of all types. They are par excellence experimentalists. Curriculum differentiation implies the organization ol courses into distinctive curriculums definitely planned with reference, not to each individual's personal needs only, but with reference largely to the different educa- tional requirements of special groups of pupils, curricu- lums based upon social as well as upon psychological considerations. This system emphasizes chiefly the election of curriculums only, allowing some leeway within each curriculum, but allowing for the time little freedom for individual choice of studies belonging to other curriculums than the one to which the pupil has been assigned. Some who earnestly deplore the movement to differ- entiate curriculums for the seventh, eighth, and ninth year pupils have evidently vividly in mind a process of pigeonholing arbitrarily selected groups of helpless chil- dren and contriving for them a sort of curriculum in which every one of the time-honored and, of course, in many cases, experience-tested school subjects are un- recognizably altered. This is, indeed, a possible type of differentiation, but an extremely unlikely eventuation of the on-the-whole wholesome movement to vary in less radical ways schemes of training for particular groups, such as girls and boys, prevocational and aca- EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 23 demic-minded, slow-moving and fast-moving. One can have genuinely differentiated curriculums (two or more) and still have many of the same courses functioning in each of the curriculums administered by the school sys- tem. It is very true that many of the courses will tend to become modified because of their curriculum settings; but this again in turn in no way precludes nor lessens the probability of their preserving their distinctive edu- cational values as subjects. This kind of modification of courses is in principle not different from the method now of all good teachers in varying illustrations, exam- ples, theme assignments, history topics, and special sup- plementary elementary science problems, for the differ- ent mental constitutions of the members of classes. It is merely, from this point of view, pushing farther through administrative technic the school's adaptation to the problem of individual differences. If our psy- chological basis for differentiated treatments for groups of pupils is one guide, and if the, also unescapable, social and industrial needs of these same groups figure too in our school plans of administering instruction, we may reasonably hope in time so to harmonize these two pro- found and sometimes conflicting principles as to evolve from them both a reliable guide for immediate curricu- lum-making. Curriculum differentiation, starting after the rear- ranged and systematically reorganized and condensed six years of elementary education, does not mean the shifting of the educational centre of gravity from the interest of a high collectivism to the individual self and his immediate welfare, as some think. It means, rather, that a socialized conception of all education is to prevail during the twentieth century; and that, even though necessarily different curriculums may contain different 24 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION sets of ideas, different items of information, different kinds of exercises for perception and memory and judg- ment and reasoning, and different actual skills and physical habits, still the spirit and character of it all can well be social, thereby in its double contribution effect- ing freedom, elasticity, and variety among individuals and, for this very conditioning fact, a consequently richer democracy of real self-directing individuals who have had meted out to them by a public educational system the sort of education which the industrial and social state made necessary from the very fact of the humanity of man himself. If education, however, is to become a real method of democracy, it must contribute more than the purely in- tellectual and social aspects of personality. An educa- tional policy not permeated by the moral motive is likely to be vicious, and there is need for a more delicate administration by which the home and the school can better co-operate in this moralizing function. National, even human, society is itself still in the process of moral evolution, and this common pragmatic conviction of the evolution of the moral law must give the clew as to the moral measures the schools of any nation shall adopt. Thus only by building upon the child's endowment, racial, social, and individual, of instincts and symbolic cravings for objective ideals, and by idealizing the state as par excellence a moral institution, may the school find its fuller social justification. As Keatinge says: "If the ideas and ideals that are put forward by an educational system are purely tradi- tional and arbitrary, and very remote from the needs of every-day life, or if the attitude of mind and modes of thinking inculcated are at variance with the crude meth- ods by which men feel their way toward a comfortable EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 25 income and matrimony; if the moral code which is taught is too far in advance of that in actual use, even though on abstract grounds it may be desirable, in other words, if it stands in little relation with the current practice, it will be a drawback to the individual to have come under the influence of the educational system, and biological forces will inevitably produce immunity to this knowledge or this attitude of mind or of feeling." 1 Characteristic pragmatic philosophy ! Regarding the education of feelings as an important issue, the dangers in the incorrect education of the intel- lect are conceit, scepticism, cynicism, intolerance, and undue extension of the critical spirit, all to be found everywhere among the educated, and there is only one antidote for them. The dangers in the wrong educa- tion or in the neglect of the feelings are even more alarm- ing; languorous sensuousness and tumultuous explo- siveness, giants of the tribe; and here again there is an antidote, the proper education of them. "Unless moral training and the sense of social responsibility bulk as big as aesthetic training, unless, indeed, the two are merged into one, the training of the feelings on which so much stress has been laid may be disastrous." There exists in society a large amount of perverted feeling. Most of our communities have forgotten the dead knowledge acquired in school-days, and have no means of occupying them- selves creatively in the leisure hours. "It will be for the school of the future to lay at least as much stress on the arts of self-expression as on the acquisition of knowledge, and to insure that aesthetic feeling shall pervade the community." 1 The very good reason why we do not specifically pro- 1 M. W. Keatinge, "Studies in Education." (A. C. Black, Ltd., London.) 26 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION vide for the education of human feelings and emotions in our general scheme of education is that we have no suffi- cient understanding of how to accomplish this desirable training. Can we measure, reduce to scale, evaluate, and direct by rule the more intimate and more critically important factors in education, such as, for example, our emotions, our wills, our characters, our sentiments and ideals, our convictions and beliefs, our temperaments and personalities ? If not, can we afford to neglect these factors in our school procedure? If we can educate them, what will be the effect of such educational treat- ment? Theories differ as to the role of the educator in the realm of feelings and emotions. Some feel that we shall cheapen and deaden intimate personal feelings by giving them school attention. Others think the intellect can be educated, but that feelings are by nature not amenable to training. Others think it would be well to have feeling sensibilities and emotional discernment trained, but that the school as an institution cannot ever hope to do this. Others again think this is a programme of the future, but that at present not enough is known to make possible a pedagogy of feeling. It is clear that we can in ourselves and in our pupils' mental lives distinguish roughly what we may call two worlds. One is a world of facts with which we can drill our students and exercise their memories and logical powers in different directions. Here our pupils will be busy under our direction in more or less impersonally de- scribing, explaining, and reorganizing the stress of infor- mation. The other world is the world of values, where our feelings and emotions, our impulses and ideals are exercised. In one world facts rightly reign supreme. In the other, personalities are the centre of interest. EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 27 The teacher, if he be an artist, with delicate direction here and a sense of mastery, can make moments burn with meaning and become eternal. The cultivation of love of truth, love of right, and appreciation of the beau- tiful, is the choicest task of the educator. He must know more intimately and appreciate more critically his charges who are going through vital physical, mental, and spiritual changes which make or mar, tone up or discolor, sweeten or embitter their whole after-lives. The uncontrollable, inarticulate, but ceaselessly active undercurrent of passion and latent power is there — critical for the educator. Not only sanity, kindliness, and justice, but studied insight into the meaning and critical importance of these vital changes must be at command. One cannot any longer retain self-respect nor social, if he accepts his teaching work as merely the imparting of information. He is more and more in- sistently challenged to make men and women, and to study continually the intricate complexities of those processes he, by virtue of his position, must direct and define. It may be that in time the science of education may investigate this problem of educating the emotions. At present high school teachers, dealing with adolescents overwhelmed with the very richness and abundance of their own emotional experiences, cannot afford to neg- lect the responsibility of directing this phase of the life of their pupils. Obviously some subjects lend them- selves more clearly to this emotional demand than others. This should be clearly understood by all high school principals and teachers. If it were so understood we should no longer see English literature and geome- try, history and physics taught by practically the same methods, and no longer would all our examination ques- 28 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION tions apparently be bent on testing the same sort of restricted range of mental powers. Somehow modern scientific and industrial realism in education, though succeeding in keeping alive our human passion for experimental inquiry and investigation of all aspects of nature and in satisfying our instinctive de- mand for participation in constructive workmanship and for conscious industrial service and practice, even in organization and leadership, still lacks a vital humanis- tic factor. There is one screw loose in our modernly educated boys and girls. Surely nature and the occu- pations of man, through science and rightly conceived vocational education, must be two of our instruments of democratic culture. As surely, however, must language in the form of literature, art, and music be basal to any superstructure designed for our modern public-school system. What we may call the new era in education means just this — that we are becoming concerned with the great variety of mental capacities and with the greater varieties of combinations of these traits found in our students. In classroom work and also in extra classroom activities of the school we are rapidly working out a high school system of administration and teaching which is reaching and directing the individualities of boys and girls, their emotions as well as their intellects. The elective system, systems of high school advisers, voca- tional guidance, avocational guidance, moral guidance, educational guidance, all such new and significant terms in high school administration but indicate how near this vital problem we are coming. "If at the end of an elaborate course of education our youths and maidens, as is usually the case, are unable to resist the appeal that is made to their worst impulses EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 29 by certain state representations and literary produc- tions, the cause is to be sought in the absence of serious effort to cultivate in them an appreciation of what is best in musical and literary form." This English writer 1 attempts to show that "the cultivation of feel- ing is a desirable thing, and that its expression and modification through suitable channels are essential for well-ordered mental life," and that the " accepted chan- nels of aesthetic expression are of more than conventional value." William James used to say that all civilizations were more or less afraid of the cultivation of human feelings because of the certain dangers accompanying the exercise of them, even the Greeks being, in his view, too timid to give sufficient range to tap the real educa- tional resources inherent in the full play of our emo- tional activity. We do not know how to use and still safeguard our feeling life because we do not know how to socialize our feelings. Neither, according to Mr. Kea tinge, do we know how to insist upon strenuous effort in all aesthetic production or appreciation. If we could so make strong endeavor permeate the feeling complex we should avert the real danger of "softness and lack of control." "It is the lounger (in exercising his emotional life), not the worker, who is on the brink of the precipice." According to crudely made investiga- tions, aesthetic feeling has a negative correlation with most other desirable qualities and processes of the mind. How account for the present state of perverted feel- ing? Why do the strenuous high school boys and the most highly rated teachers and administrators refuse to take seriously the proposition that artistic expression and appreciation of art (including literature) are among *M. W. Keatinge, "Studies in Education." (A. & C. Black, Ltd., London, 1916.) (46) 30 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION the things in life that really matter? Is it true that only the " feeble boys who have fallen out of line and who shirk sports, feebly cultivate the arts in seclusion under the guidance of specialist art and music masters who are not important members of the school staff"? Are we in great measure open to the criticism that Mr. Keatinge directs at the secondary schools of England? Are not his comments true of us that adult life of Amer- ica has as a rule no means of artistic expression or ap- preciation, is driven to futile pursuits for relaxation, is atrophying the higher feelings, and is therefore fonder of food and drink and possessed of a "morbid craving for rapid motion"? "Once youth is past there is no time to acquire the technic of the arts; foolish plea- sures are indulged in because the power to enjoy others is wanting, and we have the spectacle of a community that has forgotten most of the dead knowledge which it acquired in its school-days and has no means of occu- pying itself creatively in its leisure hours." "... Artis- tic feeling must be cultivated for the sake of the com- munity or with still wider reference"; it must be a "form of social service." There is no such thing as socializing the individual high school boy or girl unless his "feelings undergo the same process." There is perhaps too much talk of the moral value of the course of study, in the superficial sense that this is an element to be added as an accretion to the primary purpose of the subject of study in question. If a sub- ject has religious or moral value, it has it intrinsically, and genuine teaching will bring it out. The real ques- tion for the school is the practical one of whether we can hasten wisely the process of moralizing the pupils by a more differentiated curriculum, adding specific moral instruction. Ideally, the course of study should EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 31 do everything for the child. In our actual situation, however, we have too few effective moral influences. Are we liable to bungle matters and deaden, rather than enliven, the moral sense by directly and officially recog- nizing and establishing a course in morals for our pub- lic schools? It is absurd to say this cannot be done. It has been done in thousands of good homes; there are conspicuous examples of its success in public schools. Non-theological moral instruction should be adapted, of course, to social needs. It is a question simply of the degree of seriousness, judiciousness, and liberality of the ranks of teachers and of educational leaders. As with art in our programme of studies, it may well be that we as a nation are not yet sufficiently eager for social moral insight to create a telling demand for teachers who can convey moral truths delicately and yet directly. Intellectualism, the easiest deduction from Herbartian philosophy, with us as with Germany, and Spencer's salvation through scientific fact alone, powerful with us as with France, have effectually, for too long, obscured some of the finer aspects of the edu- cative process. The so-called incidental culture of moral insight, as of art appreciation, is, in certain stages of development, a poor, spineless policy. We are now striving to consider our relation to this actual social world of ours, as honestly and with as much faith and spirit as we have learned to look upon inanimate nature. Before we, refining the spirit of Rousseau, learned to love nature as she is, to love her stupidity, her unresponsiveness, her massiveness, her mysterious air, her hidden and never more than half- revealed meaning — until this time we placed our educa- tional hopes in mysterious processes, in forced faiths. Naturalism was a great step toward actuality under 32 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION every-day guise. It meant that educators might use some of the resources of every-day environment. But morality in a democracy is a coat of many colors and nature is not all of environment; the human element must be added. The child must be inducted into social life by some sort of reproduced social activity. It is here that the school can best utilize its corporate life to pro- mote civic loyalty and virtue, individual independence and co-operation. This new emphasis should be upon the constructive policy of making educational use of all school exercises of classroom and of playground — every incident of school life — that they may present a work- ing contact with the average affairs of every-day life. All these naturalized school attitudes are full of moral possibilities. The school must contrive with pointed and organized effort to make these moral situations seem natural and innate, not arbitrary, literal, exter- nally imposed, and hence artificial. Self-discipline, and hence school discipline, consists in so contriving that all revelations of life situations where moral forces are at work shall be such that pupils gradually and nat- urally acquire the attitude of looking upon moral forces as just as real and as inexorable as all other of nature's forces are real and inexorable. From this point, then, the school is primarily an insti- tution for reproducing the forces and environment of typical communities and for gradually developing in accord with this controlled social school atmosphere the working structures of individualities found in the pupils. This is democracy. This is the public school's mission, morally and aesthetically. An understanding of modern complex social and industrial environment, with hy- gienic insight, idealized, will surely largely constitute our moral equipment. Higher sanctions than these, our EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 33 faith in the conservation and even evolution of life's deeper values, will in due course be revealed in this vast social process whose central moving force should be the people's schools. PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 1 We will suppose the events which I am to describe to have taken place during the summer and fall of 1920: More and more had European and Far-Eastern peo- ples lined themselves up and wasted themselves in the gigantic world struggle of profound and opposite princi- ples of philosophy, social justice, economic interests, political organization, and individual right. More and more serious and reflective and awed had American peo- ples become as the sharply opposing views of life bat- tled on with the hopeless automatic common soldiers of the trenches as their mechanical instruments of war. Americans — even the ranks of teachers — began to recognize the profoundly incompatible principles which, underneath the immediately human aspect of the war, 1 In the fall of 191 5 Mr. Johnston presented the following chapter as a lecture before his class in high school administration at the Uni- versity of Illinois. It came as the result of a previous class discus- sion on the necessity of a teacher having a philosophy of education, in which discussion Mr. Johnston took the attitude that, desirable and necessary as it was to have a philosophy, the vast majority of men and women in the teaching ranks lack the required training that would enable them to become independent thinkers. While they might desire a consistent philosophy of education and strive to attain one, for many this would result only in a sort of eclecticism. At best, as he said, it would be but a mixture of the principal tenets of the opposing camps washed over with a sort of practical common sense that would modify and neutralize both. Consequently, in his characteristic whimsical way he developed and enlarged his idea, and at a subsequent meeting of the class presented this chapter in a spirit of half-seriousness. Later the specific "Planks" of his "Educational Party Platforms" appeared from time to time as editorials in the Journal of Educational Administration and Super- vision. 34 PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 35 were bidding for our homage, our approval, our loyalty. We all, even teachers, began to see clearly in the present world situation a spectacle of the breakdown of national- ism as the welding philosophy of politics of races or of cultures. We began to see on this vast scale that we were not ourselves involved in this actual demonstra- tion of failure of educational ideals for any virtue of our own, but merely by our accidental geographical posi- tion. Seeing more clearly this real issue underneath the world's awful but indeterminate brute appeal to force, we, after six years of paralyzed indecision, had set about a radical reconstruction of our thoughts on life, politics, philosophy, and education. The changes in controlling ideals and actual practices in private individual and family life, or in the philosophy of our new thought leaders, I shall not recount. The momentous and revolutionary changes in the whole political world were too profound for us to note in pass- ing. To the educational changes wrought in this crisis which we here project and dare to anticipate we may devote this discussion. The army of seven hundred thousand teachers became in this period profoundly dissatisfied with their own mud- dling along, their own customary indifferentism in merely patching up their frail little machinery of classroom man- agement, literal discipline, and antiquated ideas and problems of literal pedagogy. Teachers, formerly satis- fied to be harmless, merely "nice," respectable, prim, obedient to convention and to benevolent or blustery au- tocratic administrators, had suddenly awakened to a full self-consciousness of their power. With this they had become painfully conscious of their lack of an impelling ideal. They began everywhere to demand such an ideal — to agonize in thought to make this ideal articulate — 36 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION to erect it into a flag standard around which in their deepest loyalty and devotion they could rally, for which they could put up their spiritual fight. It was their cry in the wilderness. More in detail the teachers became tired of the teach- ers' meetings of the old sort. They were surfeited with the amazing and intricate technic done for them in the elaborate made-to-order lesson plans of school man- agement books and teachers, they were distrustful of ready-made recipes for effective good school behavior, they began to suspect the mental nutriment in much of the peptonized subject-matter in their schematic and "full-of-directions" text-books. Likewise they had be- come disillusioned as to the immaculately detached clois- teral scholarship ideal erected for their worship by col- lege professors. They had begun to feel the restrictions involved in the "reading-circle" prescriptions. They had become decidedly restive regarding their civic os- tracism. They wished to be real citizens. They had evolved to the stage where they were dissatisfied with the former characteristic schoolroom function of "dis- ciplining children's minds." They had discarded this doctrine of repression. Another symptom of this pow- erful awakened teacher mind was a dignified but clearly settled determination gradually to replace all forms of autocratic internal school government, even when be- nevolent, by a form of conscious co-operative demo- cratic regulation of school affairs, wherein all con- cerned in some measure participated. More profound were two other symptoms. Teachers in this new seri- ous, spiritual frame of mind had become aware not only of the fact that the education they were giving had been too intellectualistic, literal, and externally superimposed, and that it lacked the social element, but also that they PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 37 at last saw the warped emotionalism which school exer- cises were failing to modify and to develop. Profes- sionally, also, they had, after their first enthusiasm had been spent, begun to recoil against the then current and wide-spread and popular as well as "scientific" notion of rating a teacher's work purely and only by quantita- tive rankings. They had in this 1920th year thoroughly awakened to the actual oversight of profoundly spiritual elements. They saw they had never followed a philoso- phy of education, but had merely accepted from time to time the temporary leadership of a writer, a speaker, a book, an article, a magazine, a friend, or even an im- pulse. It fortunately happened at this supremely critical period of American politics and education that both political leaders and educational leaders knew some- thing of Aristotle and his lofty conceptions of politics and education. It was decided in this month of June, 1920, to co- ordinate in our nation our political and our educational state activities. This meant the purification of both. Among other things, it meant that education, too, might in its new and important position in the state adopt one political device — the party platform. So we had on this momentous occasion the spectacle in education as well as in politics of divisions into parties with plat- forms advocating in all their planks fundamentally dif- ferent positions, different methods, and different aims in all current distinguishable problems confronting actual teachers. Our attention, however, had been of late frequently called to the stage of evolution of our political parties into divisions distinguishable and characterizable in terms of different basic principles of government — and 38 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION of the more subtle but also more determining differences in political temperament. Nothing else ever so effec- tively elevated politics and advanced us toward democ- racy. Likewise party platforms in education emerged from the chaotic ferment of plausible but somehow scarcely profound discussions in our current educational litera- ture. Teachers began to ask: Are there fundamental conceptions of education which now divide the modern moulders of educational opinion ? Are there inarticulate party platforms to which the one or the other of us may adhere? Are the ranks of teachers able to adhere to a platform of principles, an educational philosophy, and resist the impulse to follow this or that speaker, this or that article, this or that reading-circle book? Can they prefer and can they understand the more fun- damental questions of educational philosophy, disen- tangled from the particular personal setting in which some speaker or writer may present or distort them? There were at last unmistakable evidences that we had approached an idealistic interpretation of educa- tion. All educators and teachers began to ask: Shall we in types of teachers, schools, curriculums, methods, con- tinue to aim at producing types of men and women, making all alike, at advancing commerce and industry, and even in exalting the state and preserving tradition; or shall we shift the emphasis in all respects noted above and recognize that education must first of all find its goal in the perfection of the individual citizens, in the broad personality-culture, self-sufficiency, and indepen- dent-mindedness of all ? These questions were involved questions. We saw we should not solve them and should not decide them by following this or that personal lead- ership, nor this or that foreign nation. We saw that PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 39 until we can all think and logically follow a platform of principles we shall continue to be ineffective, merely playthings of the vast American school machinery. Can we, the slogan went, in co-operation strive effec- tively for the latter goal, and at the same time combine with this fundamental philosophy of the dominant aim of education also the elements of a high cosmopolitanism and an ineradicable sense of nationality — a sense of nationality which is not offensively assertive nor too self-conscious. It had at last, to our consternation, become clear that we were not one nation. Our differences in race, reli- gion, language, traditions of subtle scales of emotional values, attitudes toward democratic government even, and, even more vital, our senses of what should be our common responsibilities — all these differences aggra- vated by our unregulated and unorganized industries — had created a keen sense among many educational thinkers and teachers of the urgent need for some more effective process and agency to genuinely nationalize us. Some believe in the ultimate nationalization of our tra- ditional academic common school curriculum, with cer- tain elements and emphasis added which would imply service to the state. Others would nationalize a sort of vocationalized school curriculum with its humanizing aim of making labor universally respected and respect- able. There are still others who would like for a nation somehow to begin upon a national scale a new form of education — universal military education, in such a demo- cratic way that no one class of citizens can ever create an officer class. These were but illustrations of many similar made-to- order suggestions which had caught most of us off our guard because we had provided no steering platform 40 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION of educational principles upon which to organize our- selves. It is safe to say that neither of our opposing party platforms will be unassailable. They will, how- ever, indicate the broad lines of division as to educa- tional values, so that we may in the spirit of Dewey's "experimental" national philosophy cast in our lot with one or the other camp of workers and thinkers, and get the enormous benefit of a high-grade sort of professional co-operation and the spiritual inspiration without which we can only return to our routine, never make a new nation — without which, indeed, we can never again attain even self-respect. A national convention of teachers was called. It convened, twenty-five thousand strong, picked delegates of the seven hundred thousand in the ranks. Heated and persistent discussions and vigorous personal solu- tions of vexed and various educational problems con- sumed three days. It suddenly dawned upon the chair- man of the convention that there was a fairly clear line of cleavage among the delegates. He adjourned the convention so that, in the meantime, a strong steering commission might draw up, fairly and justly, the typi- cal attitudes of the two opposing camps in the teaching body, and present in clear, concise language these two educational platforms to the representative assembly for whatever sort of action they seemed to require. All sides were animated with unquestionable patriotic and humanitarian motives. The convention was to vote upon and thus spiritually to sanction, but not to coerce, a national trial for a period of four years of the one or the other platform. Never before had education enjoyed such wholesome, such critical, and such wide publicity. The conven- tion, the commission, the speakers, even the planks in PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 41 the different platforms, were discussed in the entire press of the country. Every local paper enriched educational literature by its unique explanations and local applica- tions of the doctrines. No national event had ever before so effectively educated a nation. Never since Plato's time had educational issues so gripped the national mind. The convention assembled on this last day's session to hear the two platforms of educational principles ex- plained fully. No delegate was absent. Almost all had heard from an interested and intelligent home constitu- ency. All were casting the most critical vote of their lives, and they knew it. All were awed by the import of their collective action; all were inspired. The two parties had agreed to style themselves Ab- solutists and Experimentalists. Their respective plat- forms read as follows: The Junior High School Movement Absolutists. We go on record as opposed to the so-called "re- organization," or rearrangement, of the grades of the public-school system. It should, indeed, rather be called the "mutilation" of the great American common school. The present system represents the pooled edu- cational experience of all our common-school develop- ment and is, in the absence of proof to the contrary, likely to be better than any new-fangled arrangement devised by theoretical "experts." We wish to let our slow but undeniable developments in public education proceed unjarred by such sudden and violent readjust- ments and to see internal improvements refined and teachers and teaching bettered rather than witness a wholesale but superficial tinkering with merely admin- 42 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION istrative externals under the guise of educational reform. If the junior high school is started and sanctioned by our great and conservative party it might spread widely. In such case many old superintendents who cannot do modern curriculum thinking will experience painful jolts, and some will even lose their jobs. It is certain, too, in our attitude of opposition we may count upon some school patrons, some school-teachers, and some school-board members to object. A further considera- tion which makes ours a "safe" position is that many proponents of the new scheme are overenthusiastic, and hence will make many easily assailable statements and claims. Experimentalists. We believe in "reorganization" just because, partly, it has been one of the wide-spread and vigorous develop- ments of which we are now merely becoming aware. It has come out of the very loins of our progressive school experimenters — those who do our constructive "curricu- lum thinking." It represents in its various types the very sort of wholesome administrative experimentalism in educational practice for which our party stands. We also believe in it because practically none who have adopted it have found reason to abandon it. This plank in our platform implies decisive attitudes regard- ing other sound reforms and new, practical steps looking toward more design in our school administration, espe- cially in the administration of the curriculum. Curriculum Differentiation Absolutists. The Absolutists oppose as a school policy curriculum differentiation as applicable below the ioth grade, and PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 43 think of it as a wilful segregation of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade boys and girls in order to subject them forcibly to different and alienating trainings, to keep them spatially apart during the operation of reciting, to make them un- like for the mere sake of unlikeness, and to allow privi- leges to some in the form of extra work, systematic opportunity for different rates of progress by groups, special coveted skills where feasible, and favorable condi- tions for the culture of personalities by whatever means these personalities may be affected (linguistic, clerical, domestic, manual, prevocational, or otherwise). These Absolutists are temperamentally suspicious of any en- croachments upon the historic preserves of the now ideal- ized elementary school. In the Introduction to the Fourteenth Yearbook of the National Society (concurred in presumably by all the well-known contributors) we read about the uniform process which must be made universal — nationalized — of providing in an elementary school the knowledges, ideals, and habits as well as skills in such a way that they can become the common property of all Ameri- cans. This accepted function of the elementary school is to secure an aggressive democratic society, with mem- bers who can use rightly and profitably not only work hours but leisure hours, who are not only self-supporting and self-directing, but who have also co-operative ca- pacity and the abilities of leadership. Connect with this ideal, say the Absolutists, the nat- ural assumption that the items of content (facts and concepts) of systematic text-book knowledge are, with the tools of education, the only means at hand for making it possible for democratic citizens to talk sym- pathetically together and contribute to the progressive evolution of our democratic society, and we have an in- 44 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION controvertible argument for the paramount importance of the extended-upward single curriculum. Clearly the business of democracy is to set at once about the urgent work of determining once for all these absolute essentials, fixing them rigidly and permanently in the core of our non-differentiated but extended elementary- school curriculum, and then to find by the vast national experiment thus inaugurated the way to make these little citizens take our scientific common pabulum in the most acquiescent manner consistent with intellec- tualistic digestion and with the utmost of precision as regards accuracy and regularity of swallowing. This daring dream of national uniformity enables us to pic- ture more easily the block universe, and to appreciate the literal and easiest interpretation of the melting-pot doctrine. It tends to remind us forcibly that the amaz- ing belief in content is still widely current. It has taken on the new function of making for aggressive democracy and producing ideals. Experimentalists. The Experimentalists agree with all the high and well- expressed purposes of American democracy noted above. What they refuse to adopt as the necessary means to accomplish this democratic goal is just this oversys- tematized and unadaptable common fund of mere items of information. It is, they think, the old American text-book uniformity philosophy of a curriculum — a fool-proof curriculum — the educational philosopher's stone. They suspect the thin veneer of such education for all alike, whether they are suited for it or not, espe- cially for the years thirteen to fifteen, when conscious development of trained individuality can and should be uppermost. PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 45 Vocational Education Absolutists. The makers of our constitution and the organizers of our original common-school system and curriculum and our historic Committee of Ten (1893) f° r high schools did not anticipate the present dangerous propaganda for vocational education in the people's schools. Their conception of education fortunately did not embrace this element. Indeed, from this fact and from our own reasoning in the field of educational theory we feel that, after all, the need for it is largely fictitious and the understanding of what is wanted wholly vague; in short, that the demand is hatched up by the " interests," and that the specific proposals to furnish it are psychologi- cally as well as socially unsound. In short, we depre- cate the movement, discredit the underlying philosophy, and reiterate our belief in the adequacy of the present ingredients of our hitherto-respected and still respecta- ble curriculum. Experimentalists. In the present stage of the whole developing but still perplexing question we adhere to and announce as our platform standards the following two clear principles of vocational education: First: That despite any ideal theory of an ultimate type of common education for a democracy we stand firmly committed to the fundamental principle of always adjusting our educational offerings to an undeniable and unescapable present and industrial situation, if this situa- tion is to exist throughout the lifetime of the individuals directly concerned. Second: We also announce the prin- ciple of trying to reach a social industrial and educa- 46 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION tional level where we can educate not to adjustment but to alter and even to transform our whole social and indus- trial situation. Standards for American High Schools Absolutists. We believe in the American high school as a selective institution. We believe in accepting the standards of scholarly thoroughness and of rigor in exclusively aca- demic exercises as maintained by the German gymna- sium. We accept such standards, conscious that this policy will exclude large numbers from the high school. Experimentalists. We believe that the American high school as a non- selective democratic institution cannot operate exclu- sively on a scholastic basis for entrance nor for progres- sive achievement of its heterogeneous groups of pupils; but that differing standards for both entrance and for persistence in school must be worked out in such a way that no pupil sufficiently mature will have to be vir- tually forced out because of the lack of suitable educa- tional opportunity being provided him. High School Entrance Requirements Absolutists. We believe in a strict adherence to the rule that the satisfactory completion of 8th grade academic work be the only method of admission to our high schools. Experimentalists. In our reorganized system of six-year elementary, three-year junior high school, three-year senior high school, we believe in placing no artificial barriers to PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 47 prevent escape from elementary schools, nor from en- trance to the needed sort of work in the differentiated curriculums of the junior high school. The pupil's need of some one of our different kinds of junior or senior schemes of high school training — not quality nor quan- tity of academic work where maturity is assured — shall always be the primary test. The proper administrative flexibility here and educational judgment can provide a more generous and a more just as well as an equally high standard of school work, differing in kind as the qualities, maturities, and social requirements of the pupils concerned differ. Prescribed Units in High School Work Absolutists. We believe in the common prescriptions of the stand- ard traditional units of three years English or four, two or three mathematics, three or four Latin, one year ancient history (ancient to insure sufficient historicity), and one year of science (logically organized into a re- spectable Science); and we approve a limitation upon the amount of vocational work which may be offered. (This vocational work must be formal and "curricu- larized.") Experimentalists. Believing in the partial or clean-cut differentiation of junior and senior high school curriculums we indorse the movement to shift the emphasis and the content of the units to be universally required from the traditional ones which now stand upon the shaky and hazy ground of formal discipline and foreign culture (instrumental only in function, also), and to place our great emphasis upon the content elements of natural science and social 48 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION science which respectively reveal the world we live in and the world where operate the laws and forms of our own lives. We should then have as prescribed units (with a different definition of units) three English, two social science, two natural science, and possibly two of reorganized mathematics. Internal Government of Schools Absolutists. We believe in the autocratic management of a school. We believe that order, precision, obedience, quiet, a pupil-body sense of a higher directing power should per- meate all well-governed schools. We therefore depre- cate all tendency to break up this time-honored custom of personal authority, by any so-called constitution and distribution of governmental functions to the various members and organizations within the school life itself. The school is not a miniature state or society, but an instrument devised for instrumental purposes of educating boys and girls. Designated administrative officers must rule all educational, political, and administrative mat- ters, and the teachers, always subject to this higher authority, may rule likewise in classrooms. The func- tion of pupils is to be ruled and taught. Their time will come later for using their authority over others, just as the repressed son's time comes when he can impose his will upon his formerly dictatorial father — or the freshman's time comes when he can assume the sophomoric role. Experimentalists. We believe in the principle of democratic internal school government, especially in the high school, which ideal looks constructively toward finding means for the participation of all and for the co-operative practice of PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 49 all in self-government. We do not believe in school board or superintendent or principal or teacher or stu- dent government; but we do believe that a persistent co-operative effort, long continued, may evolve a plan whereby all concerned may in the proper degree par- ticipate in and get practice and acquire ability in the vital matter of co-operative living, of making the whole school itself literally run well. We are educating for democracy. The school must furnish some safe prac- tice in democratic living. This must be the definite aim of social administration, and in some measure this ex- periment should be hazarded in all schools, even at the cost of some initial confusion and some temporary dis- order and dissatisfaction. The Doctrine of Interest and Effort Absolutists. Work, efficiency, effort is the salvation of our schools as of our nation. We believe that the laissez-faire indi- vidualism of our American schools has gone too far, that our students regularly shirk work, and that teach- ers have got in the habit of accepting this slipshod per- formance. We believe that only conscious, habitual submission to and conscious continuous practice in tasks themselves requiring unpleasant effort will produce de- sirable mental results. We frankly proclaim the "doc- trine of pain/' and almost, if not quite, believe that a thing is educational because it is unpleasant or painful, and that this is the prospect for which we should harden children while we have them in school. Experimentalists. We believe that there has been a false antagonism set up between what interests and what requires effort, and 50 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION a false description given of what the feeling of effort is. Our opponents have confused the immediately diverting and purely sensuously pleasant with the far different thing, the deeply and personally satisfying — an ideal as old as Aristotle. Consequently we believe in the adop- tion of the doctrine of self-activity, self-motivation — all with the teachers' co-operating understanding direc- tion. This is a programme and platform of effort- work (or action) surely, but not one of Buddhistic acquies- cence in mere work for work's sake. Our work-action doctrine is both more productive of efforts which con- tinue and accomplish, and of interests which develop, endure, and stimulate. We renounce the literal and cynical toil-and-taskmaster conception of the nature of the educative process, although recognizing that under the necessarily partly artificial conditions of much school work at present our goal for working conditions and for motives is far from being achieved. Educational Method Absolutists. We believe that even in the elementary school the principle of organization and presentation of material to children should be logical, and that it is a wholesome educational doctrine to subordinate wherever possible the immediate interests and natural spontaneity of chil- dren to the more ultimate and more purely intellectual goal of clarity, definiteness, and the gradually imper- sonal comprehension of facts and relations. We believe that in the skilful pedagogical presentation and applica- tion by teachers this necessarily external but carefully prearranged material of sense and ideas will (partly subconsciously) work for the best, educationally, in the PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 51 child's mental growth — even though it may seem to them "natural" at the time. In the main we have faith still in the Herbartian principles of association of ideas and in the school's past loyalty in practice to those prin- ciples. We regard it as deplorable to modify, reduce, or dilute this method of logical organization, except where temporarily it is necessary to make certain ac- commodations to the child's immaturity or stupidity. In general, the things to be taught largely determine our method. Experimentalists. We believe, wherever possible, in all grades teachers should reject the dictation of prearranged subject- matter and accept as the very foundation-stones of edu- cational method the principle of utilizing to the full the naturally inherited possibilities of the learning processes, rooted in the instinctive and impulsive attitudes and activities of children and of youth; and — utilizing these as far as is practical — reproduce as nearly as possible on the learner's plane the typical constructive social doings of the outside world. We believe this wave of educational reconstruction has been going on steadily for years, that it is gaining in scope and momentum, and that in both elementary and secondary schools it is the source of our present revival of interest in more vital new subjects and in more vital aspects of traditional subjects; and we furthermore be- lieve that elaborate existing schemes of teaching built largely on study of subject-matter are failing to produce desired results, and, indeed, always tend to result in mental sterility, in dislike of school, in paralysis of in- terests, and in incapacity for later active participation in the usual activities of wholesome constructive living. 52 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION School Discipline Absolutists. We believe that systematic submission to outside authority, kind and gentle, possibly, but, above all, firm and judicious, is a fundamental need of childhood and youth, and that pupils should always in school live under such a regime, sense the consequent order in all things, acquire willingness and skill in obedience, and that they should not be subjected to the dangers and the confusion of self -direction. They must lean upon the teacher's will. We believe that the school should not suffer the wastage otherwise due to this inevitable floundering of young pupils incident to all their attempts to acquire a code of self -discipline with self -direction. The school is primarily a disciplining institution — in morals as in intellect — and not a place for individuals to go through the farce of practising their individualities. Pupils need rather, above everything else, to practise unpleasant effort to cultivate the capacity to endure drudgery — to become reconciled to hard, uncoaxed, uncomplimented work. The colt must be "broken," the law of its life is work, labor; so must be the child, the law of its life is to work under authority. We be- lieve in Doctor Emerson E. White's Seven School Vir- tues, and that the school's procedure is to "overlay" with these the primitive and non-educable impulses and activities of children. Experimentalists. We believe that the characteristic, direct and more or less literal school emphasis upon repressive discipline, external direction of will, and submissive obedience to teacher's orders or to traditional conceptions of an PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 53 education superimposed upon children's natures should be largely but gradually replaced by a different sort of emphasis. This new emphasis should be upon the con- structive rather than upon the destructive policy of making educational use of all school exercises of class- room and of playground — every incident of school life — that they may present a working contact with the average affairs of e very-day life. All of these natu- ralized school attitudes are full of moral possibilities. The school must contrive with pointed and organized effort to make these moral situations seem natural and innate, not arbitrary, literal, externally imposed, and hence artificial. Self-discipline, and hence school disci- pline, consists in so contriving that all revelations of life situations where moral forces are at work shall be such that pupils gradually and naturally acquire the attitude of looking upon moral forces as just as real and as inexorable as all other of nature's forces are real and inexorable. From the point, then, of school discipline the school is primarily an institution for reproducing the forces and environment of typical communities, and for gradually developing in accord with this controlled social school atmosphere the working structures of individualities found in the pupils. As C. E. Rugh has pointed out, the incrusted school tradition of inculcating the Seven School Virtues is not only insufficient but is actually misleading. All these virtues can be used by a success- ful bank robber in a single robbery. The public-school pupil comes not primarily to learn but to practise vir- tue, not to be " overlaid" with a moral veneer, however solidly, but to evolve, through the modern school's re- production of life's very acts of choice and of self- control in various intercourse with his fellows, that fun- 54 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION damental consciousness of active workable Tightness which we call character. Social Recitation in High School Absolutists. We view with concern and look askance at the numer- ous efforts to organize the traditional class-meeting into what is known as the social recitation. The direct smooth tenor of the logical development of topics — even when the student does not know what it all is about — is a wholesome demonstration of education, and always should characterize school instruction. In the new and overrated social recitation this smoothness in technic of the logical teacher is endangered, students lose respect for the teacher's ability, and become too much interested in one point to go ahead according to the prearranged scheme. Often the possibility of "cov- ering the course" is lessened, and in addition it is more difficult to administer final written examinations, to give definite marks, and to keep order by maintaining school silence. We deplore the tendency, also, because we have already classified our lessons as drill lessons, appreciation ones, thought ones {sic), question-and- answer ones, developmental ones, etc., and this new type overlaps, and simply does not classify. Experimentalists. We heartily indorse the numerous and increasing instances of varying the traditional type of school reci- tation, particularly that of so organizing the class mem- bership that all feel a larger measure of corporate respon- sibility for the meeting. We believe that this tends to naturalize and to intensify the educative process, that more pupils participate, and that the character of their PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 55 participation is better; in short, that their zest for con- tributing from all sources is enhanced. We believe that here we have a better opportunity for teachers' ingenu- ity, and that we tap new sources of educational material — and, best of all, in the upper grades and in the high school, that we thus afford better school adaptations to the psychological and social natures and to the other interests of adolescents in particular. Directed or Supervised Study Absolutists. We deplore the soft pedagogy which bolsters up the present propaganda for so-called supervised study. This is but another dangerous symptom in our " body- educational." It merely means that we take another step in the pampering of wishy-washy, weak-willed, lazy students. It means a discouragement to work. It means that we tie them up by apron-strings, and never let them be thrown upon their haunches by genuine intellectual obstacles. It adds, as useless luxuries do, extra expense to our instructional budget, and develops in our teachers the attitude of a soft sentimentalism which is antagonistic to rigorous drill and honest, severe quizzing. It spares the intellectual rod merely to spoil the child's intellect. Experimentalists. . We sanction and propose to further the development of systems of directed or supervised study. We believe that much of traditional school work has spent itself on the so-called operation of reciting, and too little upon the real educational problem of the economic use of mental processes. Under this old regime we believe the mental wastage of pupils in matters of spontaneous 56 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION curiosity, problem-solving motives, and aesthetic and other interests has been appalling. We recognize in the new movement to modify the daily schedule, the class period, the character of mental exercise in the class- meeting, the co-operative relation and intimacy of teacher and pupil, one of the refreshing innovations in educational practice which is possible only for educa- tion in a democracy such as the United States, and in school systems not tied down by conservatism, by bureaucratic control, and a whole-hog-or-none" proce- dure such as in European systems. The automatics or mechanics of education are having quite enough empha- sis at present. We need the influence of a profounder philosophy upon our school problems. While, there- fore, we look with favor upon the many and ingenious devices for administration of supervised study, we hope that these devices may not become confused with the more fundamental significance of the movement, which means, pedagogically, a spiritual reform in the educa- tive process itself. Educational Guidance Absolutists. We look with suspicion on the tendency among the experimentally minded and rash school administrators to organize elaborate advisory systems, to lavish extra time upon pupils in serving them gratuitous advice and guidance in matters too intimate, too remote from aca- demic school work, and too vital to be shouldered off on school-teachers. We regard this peering into individual traits of youngsters, into family conditions, into per- sonal aspirations, as into vocational and other future in- tentions, as altogether irrelevant to our honored and PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 57 easily defined pedagogical tasks. We say: "Let this all be incidental. Don't create here other experts as coun- sellors, do not project elaborate local surveys, nor wake up the safely sleeping and measurably satisfied commu- nity to such possibilities of extracting more service from our poorly paid teachers." Experimentalists . We approve the extending concept of education which finds exemplification in the school systems of Boston, Cincinnati, Grand Rapids, Salt Lake City, DeKalb, and hosts of other progressive cities in their attempts to dis- cover, individualize, group, advise, provide pertinent educational facilities and information for, and follow into vocational and other careers the pupils of the pub- lic schools. We applaud the attitude of the teachers in thus liberally — even gratuitously — offering a more pro- foundly human service to their pupils, and we expect the already large proportions of the movement to expand at an increasing rate until the ideal system becomes regu- larly incorporated in the procedure of all well-regulated standardized school systems. Military Training in High Schools Absolutists. Military training is entirely consistent with our con- ception of secondary education. Drill classes in mili- tary tactics and in mass exercises will discipline the high school boys. It doesn't particularly matter that the sort of military education we can introduce (consid- ering our source of teachers and our school facilities) will not be either a preparation for the real work of the modern soldier or a modern employee in industry. Neither is our Latin nor our history (as at present organ- 58 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION ized and taught) a preparation for real life, in the sense that in the daily mental exercises of these classes these subjects smack of reality to the boys who are sub- jected to them. In all types of drill exercises — mili- tary drilling, conjugating, or dating political and mili- tary events — pupils are unconsciously affected, so that later they will fit into any national regime which our national leaders may carry through. Like our system- atic and carefully prearranged scientific laboratory ex- periments in high school, these military exercises will help greatly to "routinize" both the school and the in- dividual. It doesn't matter if setting-up drill, practice in manual of arms, drilling in marching on level sur- faces, and practising battalion movements on a smooth ground and for parade purposes are dull and boring and unreal for high school boys. It doesn't matter, precisely as it doesn't matter in the usual Latin and traditional mathematics courses if the development (bodily or men- tal, as the case may be) resulting is uneven, not sym- metrical and actually harmful physically. It is disci- pline; it is obedience, prompt and unquestioning; it is mass formation; it is uniformity; it is authoritative; and finally it is anti-individualistic, thoroughly in keeping with all else in our strictly non-differentiated high school curriculum. Experimentalists. The real work of a modern soldier or of a modern pro- fessional, commercial, or industrial man requires and de- pends upon co-ordinated manual skill, agility, strength, endurance, and form, all of which reflect and express a mental and moral attitude. For the soldier, for exam- ple, rapid and skilful use of modern machine-guns, the throwing arm (for the hand-grenades), short-distance PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 59 running with a fifty-pound burden, effective use of shovel and pick and other tools for excavating — all such results of concentrated technical training can be ac- quired best and most easily in a short time after ma- turity, as the Swiss, for example, have abundantly dem- onstrated. In our American high schools and colleges we have overtrained the few and neglected the many; we have, possibly, given the favored few the genuine and wholesome fighting spirit while failing utterly to provide means for any such expression for the great majority. Health and vigor for the individual at the critical high school period, not only as to his bodily dimensions and special skills in popular games, but as to the best development of his heart, lungs, and other vital organs, together with an educated consciousness regarding his physical efficiency and an understanding of the laws of hygiene in their concrete personal applications, consti- tute the goal and the safeguard of a nation's citizenry in the arts of peace and war alike. High school boys who are acquiring physical and mental control through a conscious educative process of personality development in its broadest and best sense will automatically make a nation unconquerable. Vital unpreparedness is physical and mental and moral in a much more profound sense than it is technical. As Doctor Dudley Sargent, of Harvard, says, we want educational preparedness rather than gladiatorial and spectacular preparedness. We shall have, if school boards hastily adopt measures look- ing toward incorporating military training into the high school curriculum, an ill-conceived and inadequate pseudo-military science, formalized and non-educational in character. Neither military science nor formal military exercises 60 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION can successfully be superimposed or plastered upon our developing system of secondary education. The peda- gogical disasters sure to follow can easily be surmised. Officers, specialists in this military science, a nation must have, of course. But our existing higher and spe- cial military institutions must provide them. If neces- sary, the nation can easily afford to establish additional sectional institutions of the West Point type. After all this has been said, however, it would be a calamity if our high schools fail to capitalize the present experiences as regards the emphases and lessons of the World War. Let us, however, not in haste and vague fear and excitement confuse universal militarism at the immature high school age with that of nationally safe- guarding democracy. No mere technical, literal, and formal preparedness will suffice to secure such a funda- mental thing as American democracy. Let us not do soon again what the first extreme enthusiastic advocates of vocational education did; that is, expect, with the first shock and confused realization of the inadequacy of ourselves as a competing nation in this military as in the former vocational sense, that we can, in the twinkling of an eye, reverse the aims, ideals, policies, and even the somewhat naturalized mental processes of our dem- ocratic life. Militarism has not yet, let us remember, been made to spell national efficiency, much less a still higher national destiny. Will, then, we ask, simple military drill give the boys proper carriage, instil a wholesome love of country, and provoke a feeling that they are doing something for their country ? With broomsticks for their rifles, school basements and small gymnasium floors for their drill- grounds, monotonous and mass marching for their ath- letic games, and under trainers wholly out of touch and PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 61 sympathy with the historically rooted and controlling ideals of public high school education we can picture readily the premature educational farce of it all. Let us, instead, set to work to reform our athletics and reconstruct our system of physical education and raise the standard and dignify the status and functions of our directors of physical education. Incidentally, we can and should incorporate all legitimate features of military exercises, just as the Boy Scout organizations have possibly fairly well done. This emphatically does not mean that our American high schools and high school men are to capitulate to an educational ideal totally foreign to the vital and essentially American concep- tions upon which the ultimate success of American sec- ondary education depends. Each educational platform contained briefer mention of many other important matters, such as the desirable core of the elementary curriculum, the method of reor- ganizing old subjects into new " topics for study," the principles governing admittance into the school pro- gramme of new subjects and methods, and the desirabil- ity and possibility of nationalizing elementary educa- tion by selecting elements of common knowledge. Fur- ther minor planks indicated the sharp differences be- tween the two parties. These were, for example, the different values, methods, and organization of content of history courses and of general science, the basis for the selection of readings in literature, and the values of manual training. In all these matters, as, indeed, even more sharply in the matter of school extension, the two parties profoundly and honestly differed. The divisions being pretty nearly equal and the cam- paigns already launched, itineraries for the masterful 62 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION leaders and powerful speakers, and also publicity schemes for the active educational and popular press were thoroughly mapped out and executed. The con- test was on. The Absolutists opposed a discernible movement of forces they obviously distrusted. They cared little for intercommunication or arbitration. They feared that the new modern army, with the newly invented modes of educational thought and with the new mechanical symbols of educational values, and with newly and strongly formulated scientific procedures, might, in its haste or in its religion of quantity, have forgotten some of the complex elements of humane and wholesome schooling which for them are embedded in the language of their generation. The Experimentalists (after John Dewey, their patron saint) incessantly proclaimed their philosophy of free- dom and fulness of human companionship as the aim, and their intelligent co-operative experimentation as the method, and hospitality to the incorporation of new ele- ments of education as the characteristic attitude of their party — that their philosophy of education did articulate and consolidate, penetrate and particulate the ideas to which our national social practice commits us — pro- foundly and directly promoting the efficacy of human intercourse, irrespective of class, racial, geographical, or national limits. The teacher vote, as to which platform of national educational principles they should sanction and support in their daily practice for the next four years, giving it thus a thorough test, was taken in early September just as the schools were, all through the nation, getting ready for what was to be a new era in American education, and what proved to be a new era for the whole world. PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 63 The " Teacher Mind" had grasped a fundamental truth well stated by George Santayana, 1 and, what is even better, had translated it into a vigorous construc- tive programme of action. The truth, which is at the same time the heart and soul of experimentalism, is that: "Systems of philosophy are the work of individuals. Even when a school is formed it prevails only in certain nations for a certain time, and unless the expression of dissent is suppressed by force, the dominant school even then is challenged by other schools no less plausible and sincere. Viewed from a sufficient distance, all systems of philosophy are seen to be personal, temperamental, accidental, and premature. They treat partial knowl- edge as if it were total knowledge; they take peripheral facts for central and typical facts; they confuse the grammar of human expression, in language, logic, or moral estimation, with the substantial structure of things. In a word, they are human heresies." ... "The background of philosophical systems, the ortho- doxy round which their heresies play, is no private or closed body of doctrine. It is merely the current imagi- nation and good sense of mankind — something tradi- tional, conventional, incoherent, and largely erroneous, like the assumptions of a man who has never reflected, yet something ingenuous, practically acceptable, funda- mentally sound, and capable of correcting its own inno- cent errors. There is a knowledge which common life brings even to savages, and which study, exploration, and the arts can clarify and make more precise; and this all men share in proportion to their competence and in- l See George Santayana: "Philosophical Heresy," Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. XII, no. 21, October 14, 191 5, pp. 561-568. 64 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION telligence, no matter what philosophies or religions may fill their heads at the same time. ... It lies (method of becoming a philosopher without becoming a heretic) in confessing that a system of philosophy is a personal work of art which gives a special unity to some chance vista in the cosmic labyrinth, . . . yet ... it should substitute the pursuit of sincerity for the pursuit of omniscience. . . . We should cease to hear of the ab- solute life of thought, in which everything was thor- oughly significant and thoroughly pathological. Knowl- edge might really advance and accumulate, because there would be a world for it to discover, and progress might be real just because in view of its fixed and nat- ural goal it would not be inevitable, constant, or endless. The naturalistic conception of what philosophy is and can be, of how it strays and is tested, would then be restored by general consent, as, indeed, it should be; for it is the plain deliverance of a long and general experience." 1 1 See George Santayana: "Philosophical Heresy," Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. XII, no. 21, October 14, 191 5, pp. 561-568. HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 1 With the rapidly growing literature of secondary edu- cation, scientific investigations of its problems are mul- tiplying, college courses and text-books for these courses are becoming more common, technical issues are arising, and some controversies, such as the one of vocational education within or independent of our single system of high schools, are becoming acute and wide-spread. The questions of pedagogy, of management, of administra- tion, and of supervision are complicated ones. Even the "fields" of secondary education are being differen- tiated. No longer may we disregard the prevailing con- fusion in usage of common terms. At a certain stage of development of every well-recog- nized division of knowledge vague terms, which suffice for general surmises and prognostications and exhorta- tions, have to be made more precise, less ambiguous. 1 The terms below, with precise meanings given in each case, were presented at the general session of the National Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education at Richmond, Va., Febru- ary 25, 1914. They have also since then been submitted for criti- cism to every state superintendent of education in the United States. Sixteen of these men, or high school experts officially desig- nated by them to represent the attitude of their office, were kind enough to send me detailed criticisms and suggestions of various sorts. Some of these I have incorporated, others I have not been able to use, although in every case I have profited by the good points raised. Most of the writers expressed the intention of adopting all or a great portion of the terms as suggested below. It is hoped and, indeed, definitely planned for these formulations to bring to a head certain genuine issues. The purpose is accomplished upon either the definite acceptance or the definite rejection of the particular terms. 65 66 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Psychology, for example, for its own purposes, had to make over our common-language terms, such as " sen- sation," "feeling," "image," and "perception" into terms with specialized and unambiguous yet simple con- notations. In no other way could scientific investiga- tion of such mental processes and formulation of the laws proceed. Such, of course, must be the case with the fundamental terms in the literature of secondary education. Thus far it has not been quite disastrous to use inter- changeably "vocational" education and "industrial" education, or "college preparatory" and "cultural" cur- riculums; but henceforth such distinctions are absolutely essential. Otherwise even our statutes will continue to have little meaning, or will continue to be open to sev- eral interpretations. As it is, in most recent legislation regarding vocational education we find "school," "de- partment," "curriculum," and "course of study" used interchangeably, or each in different senses, and the real issues in question most hopelessly confused. In the more general literature writers use the term "curriculum" in several and "course of study" in at least three distinct senses in printed announcements of "courses of study" and in other school reports. The collegiate terms "department," "major," "minor," and "unit" have been vaguely adopted in high school litera- ture; but in the future, as high school administration and pedagogy become more securely based on scientific studies of high school problems, such terms must mean in the language on intercommunication of high schools and colleges what they mean actually in high school practice. Colleges think of high school work in terms of their own practices with reference to problems of a department, curriculum, or major and minor. The HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 67 principles of entrance requirements will finally be writ- ten co-operatively by joint committees of high schools and colleges after this common language shall have been established. Again, "curriculum thinking' ' is just coming into the professional consciousness of high school principals and teachers. This is a sign of professional progress which will from now on develop rapidly. One reason for such vagueness and confusion in usage of the terms "curricu- lum," "course of study," and "programme of studies," as all who study this literature now find to be so com- mon, is that there are practically no genuine curricu- lums, differentiated with reference to distinctive educa- tional functioning of each such organization of studies. Hence, looking only at our present practice, we actually cannot distinguish in high school administration between programmes of study and curriculums (as defined below), on the one hand, or between genuine curriculums and certain arbitrarily grouped "allied" or sequentially related courses. It is evident and inevitable that the following system of terminology contemplates an ideal scheme for the reorganization of the entire public-school system. The following is a dogmatic sketch of its general architectural features. First, there would be the kindergarten of one year, with a plan of supervision of this co-ordinately with the first grade of the elementary school described below. This ideal kindergarten must by all means retain all its present good features, and under this proposed plan of supervision it must also effect a combination of those good native elements with those elements and methods of the Montessori system which can be made adaptable to our American children under American conditions. 68 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Following this we must have an elementary school of six years. The primary purpose of this proposed na- tional unit must be and will be more succinctly statable in terms of child life and child nature. This smaller unit, for curriculum purposes, will lend itself more readily to characterization in terms of educational values and distinguishable function. The two distinguishing characteristics will be something like the following: First, a normal deftly planned environment for the pre- adolescent child to grow — not memorize — in; second, a school whose secondary purpose will be to make the child in this prepubescent period a lover of reading; a master of the fundamentals of arithmetic, so that these naturally unfatiguing and naturally enjoyable opera- tions will become an automatic and dependable part of his thinking (easier when we know better how to do it and when we have no adolescent problem in the same environment to confuse the issue); and one who can write legibly — perhaps typewrite — and who, by a simpli- fied ( ! ) method, can spell accurately. Then would come our intermediate or junior high school of, in most cases, three years. Here our work must resemble that of the high school proper, but with one important difference: it must retain the best gram- mar-grades methods, personalized instruction, and in no case attempt more than partially vocationalized training in its partially differentiated curriculums. Following this would come our senior high school of three, four, or five more years, the curriculum extension depending upon the size and character of the community. This branch of the public-school system will be the great socializing and vocational as well as the chief cultural institution of our democracy. We are probably at the present time arriving at that stage of our educational HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 69 development, so far as state systems of education are concerned, when it may be wise to incorporate into the local systems, by state financial encouragement if nec- essary, the hundreds of struggling private colleges of the country which, hampered by lack of proper equipment, are doing at best but a high grade of the type of work contemplated for the senior high schools. Coupled with and in some vital way affiliated with this great differentiated public high school system will be our national system of school extension, including part-time schools of every variety, continuations for every class and for every age, evening schools equipped and administered as effectively as the public day-schools, and vacation schools, all-the-year schools, to naturalize us to national as well as individual education which has no end and should have no end, and, when properly adjusted and adapted and varied, no intermittence. With all this instructional and training function of the high school thus extended it will be but a natural step and an easy one for the high school to take over from the universities the "corrimunity-service" work of ele- mentary character — which consumes the time of expen- sive experts on university staffs now. It will be seen clearly that genuine reorganization of public education contemplates an educational condition in which it may be possible for real universities to exist independently of the secondary features by which they seek now, necessarily, to attract students. It is more in keeping for the high schools to render service "di- rectly conducive to the general good," as is the prevail- ing elementary university " extension service" of water analysis, popular advice in sanitary and other forms of engineering, of agriculture and public health; and "to give instruction in the arts and facts of civilized life"; 70 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION and leave the universities proper free from these tem- porizing but laudable contributions to the ordinary needs of the community, and by more general assent definitely committed to the cause of "the higher intel- lectual interests and strivings of mankind." Terminology, left alone, reflects practice. Refined, even somewhat arbitrarily, it may serve to suggest a better practice. With this in mind, and in order to pro- voke further discussion and criticism, the following com- monly used terms are defined: "Elementary education." The method of elementary education consists primarily in organizing the instincts and impulses of preadolescent children into working tools and interests. It is a process of providing fertile experiences and exercises by means of which the quali- ties of non-reflective childhood may be preserved while essential educational forms and instruments for later intellectual use are being systematically acquired. In subject-matter elementary education utilizes systems of simplification and organization of educational materials wholly without reference to the logical principles which determine the differentiation of the well-recognized fields of knowledge of the different college subjects of study. No quantitative unit system of evaluation with reference to high school entrance requirements for this elementary education is desirable or practicable. The outcome of elementary education should be a preadoles- cent child with wholesome interests, alert curiosity, free from self-consciousness and capable of communi- cating and of enjoying the expression of his own expe- riences by means of the school arts and disciplines of the elementary curriculum. "Secondary education" has for its particular sphere the general information and training in the facts and HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 71 arts of civilized life. It may be roughly distinguished from elementary education as being primarily con- cerned, on the side of subject-matter ■, with the differen- tiated character of the various subjects of instruction, and from higher education by the essentially elementary and general character of these differentiated fields of knowledge. On the other side of method secondary edu- cation may be distinguished from elementary in that it involves primarily an appeal to the pupil's appreciation, judgment, and sense of relative values, and places its greatest emphasis upon self-revelation and trained indi- viduality, rather than upon the "organization of in- stincts and impulses of children into working interests and tools," the formal aspects and instruments of edu- cation. In method secondary education is to be dis- tinguished from higher education in that the former wholly excludes and the latter only includes subjects involving relative maturity of mind and of treatment. Higher education requires a mental attitude of detach- ment from subject-matter, whereas in method in secon- dary education the teacher must personally evaluate the content of studies. One may reasonably expect as the characteristic outcome of secondary education for one group of students the sustained interest, the impel- ling motive, and the training adequate to pursue effec- tively work in one or more of the studies represented in the programmes of higher education, and for the other group the capacity for effective service in a well-recog- nized occupation and with an equally adequate capacity for profitable enjoyment of leisure. "High school" is that part of the public-school sys- tem in which are administered courses organized into one or more cultural or vocational curriculums (or either or both), entrance to which ordinarily presupposes the 72 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION completion of an elementary curriculum of six, seven, eight, or nine years, or which may have for entrance requirements, instead of such scholastic standards, the equivalents in age, maturity of development, and voca- tional needs of entering pupils. A high school may extend its courses and its curriculums over periods of four, five, six, seven, or eight years. The existence of a high school implies in any case pupils, teachers, and courses organized into one or more curriculums, and an institution whose internal government and administra- tion is distinct from and co-ordinate with that of the elementary school embracing the first six years. "Junior high school" is that portion of the public- school work above the 6th elementary grade, including the 7th and 8th, or the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades, which is organized under a distinctive internal management with a special principal and teacher, and which provides for departmental teaching, partially differentiated cur- riculums, prevocational instruction, and a system of educational advice and guidance. 1 "Senior high school" is that portion of the public- school work above the 9th grade which is organized under a distinctive internal management of special principal and teacher, and which includes in its curricu- lums instruction covering three, four, or five years be- yond the junior high school, and whose minimum re- 1 There is in every state a large number of school systems in which one or more years of high school instruction of an academic character is added to the grade work. These grade extensions should not be called high schools. We might possibly call them "partial high schools" or "grade extension schools" or "incomplete high schools." They should not be called junior high schools, as they have not the requisite administrative and pedagogical distinc- tiveness. In the event of finding no suitable generic term we may call them simply one-year, two-year, or three-year high schools, or perhaps nine-grade, ten-grade, or eleven-grade schools. HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 73 quirement for graduation is the completion of courses to the amount of fifteen credit units above the 8th grade. "Junior college" is that portion of the public-school work which embraces the years and courses of instruc- tion beyond the 12 th grade, and which may be con- sidered as equivalent to the corresponding work on the first two years of a standardized college curriculum. KINDS OF HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION Only rough and arbitrary distinctions may be made between general and special, or vocational education. These distinctions have for the present purpose only administrative, not pedagogical, value. Educationally at every point any particular " course" has both ele- ments which blend into each other. "Curriculums," however, must be constructed with some dominating emphasis upon a distinguishing purpose. "General education" (for this administrative purpose) is education in which the dominating emphasis is placed upon equipping the individual for effective participation in the aesthetic, intellectual, and other cultural activities of civilized life, and for the appreciation of the products of such activities, and which is deliberately planned with reference to the postponement of any specialized training or information bearing upon the particular duties and opportunities of a recognized vocation. "Vocational education" 1 (for this administrative pur- 1 This group of definitions represents an attempt to modify, sup- plement, and adapt some of the terms recently embodied in legisla- tive enactments concerning vocational education in Massachusetts, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and several other states. The chief differ- ence is that on the present basis vocational education is made broad enough to include, in addition to the types of training referred to in the above statutes, commercial curriculums, and teacher-training curriculums — equally as important, truly as vocational in character, and as clearly demanded of high schools. 74 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION pose) is any education the immediate and definite pur- pose of which is to fit for profitable employment by pro- viding special training or skill in and information con- cerning a given vocation. " Pre vocational education" includes all the instruc- tion and training of the years immediately following the first six years of elementary education, which may be distinguished from the general, or academic, education of these same years by the fact that in content and method it is designed to prepare the pupils for carrying on the operations and processes both of intelligence and of manual skills common to groups of fundamental vocations. It is distinguished from " vocational educa- tion" in the necessary limitations in definiteness and completeness of its special trainings and in the fact that it is only a partially differentiated scheme of training. " Industrial education" is, in any instance, that form of vocational education which is designed to fit for a particular trade, craft, or other wage-earning pursuit, including the occupation of girls and women carried on in stores, workshops, and other establishments, but ex- cluding household service. "Agricultural education" is that form of vocational education which is designed to fit for the vocations con- nected with the tillage of the soil, the care of domestic animals, forestry, and other wage-earning or productive work on the farm. "Domestic education" is that form of vocational edu- cation which is designed to fit for vocations connected with the household, such as sewing, millinery, dress- making, or nursing. "Commercial education" is that form of vocational education which is designed to fit for any kind of clerical duty connected with the operation of commercial estab- HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 75 lishments, such as bookkeeping, stenography and type- writing, and clerkships; and also any form of education of the same years which is designed to equip pupils for secretarial positions, or to become salesmen, business directors, or general transactors of business on their own account. " Teacher- training education'' in "high schools" is that form of vocational education which is designed to fit for the profession of teaching and classroom manage- ment in rural schools, and which, furthermore, is defi- nitely planned for that group of high school pupils who plan to teach immediately upon graduation. "Independent industrial, agricultural, domestic 3 or teacher- training high school" 1 is an organization of pupils, teachers, and correlated courses designed pri- marily to provide industrial, agricultural, domestic, commercial, or teacher-training education, and which is administered by a distinctive management, independent of the management of the high school. "Industrial, agricultural, domestic, commercial, or teacher- training curriculum" is in each instance courses of secondary grade and character organized and clearly designed for the vocational needs of a particular group of high school pupils, but administered and supervised by the same management that administers the "general" curriculum of the high school. "Evening class" is an independent industrial, agricul- tural, domestic, commercial, or teacher-training high school, or in any of these curriculums of a high school is a class receiving such training as can be taken by per- 1 This type of public high school (which does not exist in the United States) is here defined so as to bring out clearly a legislative issue now critical in some states. The paragraph should be con- trasted with the one immediately following, which describes more nearly the existing state types of high schools. 76 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION sons already employed during the working-day. This in- struction may be general, or it may deal with the subject- matter of the day employment and be so carried on as to relate to the day's employment, or it may be training de- signed to equip the individual for a different kind of occu- pation from the one in which he at the time is engaged. "Part-time class" is an independent industrial, agri- cultural, domestic, commercial, or teacher-training high school, or in any such curriculum in a high school is a vocational or general class for persons giving a part of their working time to profitable employment and re- ceiving instruction complementary to the practical work carried on in such employment. Such persons must give a part of each working day, week, or longer period to the part-time class work during the period in which it is in session. " Continuation school" (besides including the types of education of "evening class" and of "part-time") refers also to any courses of "general" as distinguished from "vocational" character which may be offered by pub- licly employed school officers and teachers to persons not enrolled as pupils in the day high school, nor in in- dependent vocational schools as denned above. TERMINOLOGY FOR INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS 1 "Programme of studies" refers to all the high school subjects offered in a given school without reference to 1 The terms "programme of studies," "curriculum," and "course of study" have been denned by the Committee on College Entrance Requirements (Report, p. 42). With the change of "course of study" to "course," thus avoiding the natural and frequent con- fusion of the term with "curriculum," and with modifications in phraseology and some further restrictions in connotations, the gen- eral distinction approved by this committee with reference to these two items has been here preserved. HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 77 any principle of organizing these subjects and courses into curriculums. "Schedule of classes" is the daily and weekly arrange- ment of classes showing the time of day, place, and fre- quency of meeting, and the instructor in charge of the course. " Curriculum' ' (course of study) is any systematic and schematic arrangement of courses which extends through a number of years and which is planned for any clearly differentiated group of pupils. Administra- tively a "curriculum" represents an arrangement of courses within which a student is restricted in his choice of work leading to graduation. "General curriculum" is a curriculum designed pri- marily to meet the general and later professional needs of a group of pupils who choose definitely to postpone their special preparation for a particular vocation. "Vocational curriculum" is a curriculum designed to meet the needs of a group of pupils who are to enter immediately a recognized vocation. "Allied group" 1 of "courses" refers to studies whose subject-matter is closely related, as, for example, two or more courses in physical science or biological science or agriculture or language. "Allied group" of "high school subjects" suggests such large combinations (often helpful in the administration of group requirements, majors and minors, and as a guide in the assignment of work to teachers) as the sciences, the humanities, the fine arts, and the practical arts. "Sequential group" of courses refers to courses in a 1 As there are few distinctive curriculum differentiations as yet in high schools of any kind, and many partial curriculums, "allied group" and "sequential group" of courses are useful descriptive terms for this transition period in the evolution of high school cur- riculums. and are here defined. 78 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION given high school subject or in closely related high school subjects which are planned for certain pupil groups that are to continue electing courses within this group through several different " school classes." These courses are so administered and taught that, because of the logical relationships, graded difficulty, and partial curriculum purpose, each course in the group implies the next, credits for any often being contingent upon completion of the group. "Department" in high school work is any admin- istrative unit in the assignment of subjects, of allied groups of subjects, or of courses to teachers. "School subject" refers to any one of the well-recog- nized divisions of knowledge, one or more courses or half-courses in which are offered in the programme of studies, such as history or German. "Course" is the quantity, kind, and organization of subject-matter of instruction in any high school subject, offered within a definite period of time for which a credit unit or a fraction of a credit unit toward graduation is granted, as second-year Latin or first-year algebra. "General course" is a course which equips an individ- ual for his future duties and opportunities without defi- nite reference to those connected with his special voca- tion. "Vocational course" is a course which equips an indi- vidual with the specific skills and insights peculiar and essential to his chosen vocation. "Credit unit" represents a year's study in any high school subject constituting approximately a quarter of a full year's work of a high school pupil. With a four- year high school curriculum as a basis a school year's work of from thirty-six to forty weeks is assumed, and it is further assumed that a school year's work in any HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 79 subject will approximate 120 sixty-minute periods, and that any course will be pursued for four or five periods per week. " Extra credit" represents the satisfactory completion of those additional requirements for graduation for which " credit units" are not granted, as, for example, is often the case with vocal music, gymnasium work, or handwriting. " Outside credits" refers to the official school recogni- tion of work done by pupils outside the school-building and out of school hours. "Unit of instruction" applies to those relatively lim- ited number of larger and more important topic divi- sions (fundamental as distinguished from accessory top- ics) into which the subject-matter of a given course may be broken up. These "units of instruction" usually represent divisions of the course whose treatment ex- tends over a half-dozen or a dozen or even more class periods, depending partly upon the character of the sub- ject-matter itself and partly upon the individual teach- er's preference. 1 "Graduation" means ordinarily the completion of courses to the amount of fifteen credit units beyond the 8th grade and the fulfilment of all other requirements relating to standards of scholarship, observance of school discipline and standards of morality generally. "School year" is the normal time required for the completion of the courses amounting to four credit units or their equivalent. "Class period" means the time, varying from 40 to 1 This unit of instruction, generally a larger division of school work than the recitation and smaller than the course, is both an administrative and a pedagogical unit, and should in every case be determined beforehand through co-operation of teacher and super- 80 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 1 20 minutes, spent continuously upon one course under the teacher's active supervision in classroom work. "Subject class" means any group of pupils who recite or in any other way work together co-operatively during a class period upon any high school subject under the immediate direction of a class teacher. SYSTEMS OF ADMINISTERING COURSES "Elective system" is the plan of administering the choice of subjects and courses whereby each pupil indi- vidually may receive from the principal or a designated teacher guidance in his selection of courses, but may not be restricted in this selection. "Group system" is the plan of administration of pupils' choices of subjects and courses which places restrictions upon these elections of courses, generally making selections contingent upon the remainder of the work planned for the given school year or other years, these prescriptions and alternatives being pointed out in the schedule of classes or otherwise by some system of advice and guidance made clear to the students. As with the elective system, the group system allows for individual combination courses. "Curriculum system" implies the organization of courses into distinctive curriculums definitely planned with reference, not to each individual's personal needs primarily, but with reference to the different educational requirements of special groups of pupils, curriculums based upon social as well as upon psychological consid- erations. This system emphasizes chiefly the election of curriculums only, allowing some leeway within each curriculum, but allowing for the time little freedom for individual choice of studies belonging to other curricu- lums than the one to which the pupil has been assigned. HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 81 "High school major" means three credit units done in sequence in any high school subject, as English, Latin, German, history, mathematics; or three credit units in some "allied group/' such as physical science, biological science, social science, manual training, household arts, or fine arts. "High school minor" means two credit units of work similar in character to that described for a major. "Pupil" rather than "student" or "scholar" desig- nates boys and girls enrolled in elementary and high schools. "School class" refers to that group of high school pupils whose school status, based upon their school marks and promotion records, is officially denned with reference to their year of graduation, as senior class. "Grade" (with the year 9th, 10th, etc., attached), as 10th grade, is used to distinguish the "school class" of high school pupils, rather than "freshman," "sopho- more," "junior," and "senior." "Marks" (not "grades") means the qualitative esti- mates of the pupil's work in courses which constitute the official school record. "Honorable dismissal" 1 refers to conduct and charac- ter only, and is never to be given unless the pupil's standing as to conduct and character is such as to en- title him to continuance in the school granting the dis- missal. In this statement full mention should also be made of any probation, suspension, or other temporary restriction imposed for bad conduct, the period of which 1 The definitions of these last two terms are adaptations of reso- lutions adopted by the sixth conference of the National Conference Committee on Standards of Colleges and Secondary Schools, Feb- ruary 19, 1913, as is, substantially, the definition of "credit unit" given above. 82 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION restriction is not over when the papers of dismissal are issued. "Statement of record" refers to the recorded results of a pupil's work in the classroom, and in every instance contains all the important facts pertaining to the pupil's admission, classification, and scholarship. EXPLANATORY COMMENTS ON THE TERMINOLOGY DEFINITIONS All the terms, with the obvious exceptions, "secon- dary education" and "unit of instruction," are defined in an administrative sense and do not have primarily pedagogical distinctions in view. Apologies are frankly offered for venturing to define secondary education qualitatively. It seemed necessary to preface the other terms with some such rough characterization of the field. "High school" is defined above broadly so as to in- clude all education of public character which may be of secondary grade, whether vocational or general, com- posite or special, junior or senior. 1 "General" and "vocational" education, having refer- ence to curriculum education and not to the character of any isolated course or subject, are distinguished pri- marily as to immediate purpose, the former offered mainly for those (about one-fourth of the high school 1 One state superintendent writes: "I approve of all your terms except your too broad definition of high school. It seems to me we should limit the term high school to the institution that has been so long regarded as the standard, based upon an eight-year elemen- tary course and lasting four years." On the contrary, I have here taken the position that nobody does right now know how to characterize the "standard institution," and that the term "high school" may now well become a generic term, as "college" to an extent has become in the literature of university catalogues. HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY S3 enrolment) who have expectations of further education of more advanced grade; the latter offered for those who either before or upon high school graduation definitely plan to engage in some wage-earning pursuit, and also offered to attract still others who are not enrolled at all. There is no implication here that general education has no vocational value, algebra, for example, nor that voca- tional education has no cultural value, an agricultural curriculum, for example; but that in a curriculum with the former as its emphasis the pupil is clearly postpon- ing specific vocational training, and in the latter type of curriculum he is consciously preparing to enter imme- diately upon it. The various kinds of vocational education of secon- dary grade are denned so as to represent them as equally vocational and as thus co-ordinate in function. Enrol- ments in these curriculums reported in Bulletin No. 22 for 191 2 of U. S. Bureau of Education justify also this co-ordinate ranking. An examination of several hun- dred printed high school "courses of study," " curricu- lums' ' according to our proposed terminology, seems to indicate the prevailing tendency of large high schools to organize their programmes of study into substantially the five curriculums defined above, although there are more than five terms for the correlated instruction offered. The terms distinguishing between "independent voca- tional schools" and the same kind of education in the form of a vocational curriculum in a high school of the standard type are so denned as to make clear the differ- ence between the prevailing "single system" of high schools and the proposed "dual system" seriously advo- cated in some states. Even the legal terminology thus far of the different states that have passed legislation is 84 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION confusing on this point. In many educational discus- sions the administrative and the pedagogical issues in- volved are anything but clear. The average layman, for example, identifying high school with the general curriculum, will not think of other possible curriculums for the same high school. He will naturally think that a new kind of school must come into existence for the new function. Seeing the contrasting pedagogical func- tions of the two kinds of instruction proposed, he as- sumes that with this difference must exist also the ad- ministrative distinction — in short, that different schools must be administered. The terminology items seek to show the equal possibility of thinking the two kinds of curriculums, general and vocational, within or without the present system of public schools, while admitting in either case their pedagogical distinctiveness. In other words, they seek to avoid the confusion of using "school" and "department" or "curriculum" or "division" as identical or equivalent. The terms relating to matters of internal school man- agement, supervision, and especially reporting and for- mulating of policies, are proposed with a view to clear- ing up a certain evident confusion in the minds of many high school principals. It should be noted that "sub- ject class" and "school period" are here so defined as to refer either to the old "recitation" type of class- meeting, or to the laboratory period, or to the class period (single or double) in which a good portion of the time may be devoted to supervised study or other par- tial substitutes for this traditional activity of formal reciting. It might be a good thing, perhaps, to drop the term "recitation" altogether. The assumption in denning "curriculum" is that eventually every high school will design and administer HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 85 some genuine curriculum, the small high school often only one, the large high school many, and different types of large high schools different sets of curriculums. It is clear here that the proposed connotation and usage of this term and of the term " course" below will cause, at first, great inconvenience, as the custom is wide- spread in all circles to use " course of study" in the fourfold sense of " programme of studies," "curricu- lum," "high school subject," and also of "course." We are just entering, as is pointed out above, an era of cur- riculum building, curriculum thinking, and curriculum controversy. It is a critical period in high school de- velopment. Proponents of general and of vocational high school education often do not understand each other. College and university faculties do not under- stand the demands of high school principals with refer- ence to entrance requirements; and these principals do not understand the conclusions to which these faculties come in their academic discussions of this question. If "curriculum," "high school department," "course of study," "high school major" or "minor" and other such terms, reflecting clearly actual school practice, should mean approximately the same thing in our printed catalogues and other educational literature, and if our educational journals could all adopt this elemen- tary framework for necessary discussions of these funda- mental issues, it is more likely that we should get some- where in our teachers' association meetings and local conferences, and get further in our practice and in the institutional co-operation of school and college. The term "department" here is temporarily rescued from its ambiguous use in certain legislation on voca- tional education, and is adopted to call attention to the fact that it is an administrative unit, and that its mean- 86 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION ing in high school administration, from the nature of secondary education, must, as with "major" and "minor," convey a meaning quite different from "col- lege departmentalism," certainly in the large majority of high schools. An "extra credit" has reference entirely to high school graduation, a "credit unit" refers to the evalua- tion of high school work by higher institutions. High school graduation and college entrance standards may or may not be identical. The very difficult questions of the "unit" and "credit unit" values of the 9th and 10th grade work, as compared with the nth and 12th grade, or of the effect upon unit value of work done in "allied" subjects upon a credit unit in a given subject in this group or of the different "unit" and "credit unit" values of different qualities of work (as designated by "marks") can, in these preliminary suggestions, be barely mentioned as a problem later to face, "Units of instruction" is introduced and so defined as to give, through official recognition and sanction, some basis for high school classroom supervision. If teacher and supervisor are essentially in agreement as to "units of instruction," supervision of teaching becomes possi- ble. This evaluation of subject-matter of courses in terms of class period time is one of the first steps toward standardization of high school courses. This "unit of instruction" is defined at the risk of introducing confu- sion because of the great need that the attention of schoolmen be drawn to the supervisory practice it sug- gests. The suggestion should not be interpreted as ad- vocating necessarily the same units of instruction and time values for different teachers of the same course. It merely means that no course should be conducted in disregard of this principle. HIGH SCHOOL . TERMINOLOGY 87 Several of my co-operating critics among the state superintendents do not wish to restrict "graduation" to the completion of fifteen units. They think those completing work in two and three year high schools should be allowed to "graduate." This paper, notwith- standing, advocates the restriction suggested in the defi- nition above, even in case the "junior high school" should become an established feature. The common confusion from interchange of usage of "marks" and "grades" is familiar to all schoolmen. The usage suggested is proposed as a corrective. "Pupils" rather than "student" or "scholar" seenis to be the decided preference of the large majority of high school principals and teachers as the characterizing term to apply to their charges, and is, therefore, here recommended. Attention may well be called to the attempt to de- scribe "commercial education" in broader and more liberal terms. It is noteworthy that many state super- intendents independently comment upon the necessity of dignifying and also differentiating curriculums sup- plying training for different business occupations. It should be realized, also, that " teacher- training educa- tion" in high schools is a fact, with state laws authoriz- ing its support in a good number of states — not a theory about the functions of high schools. This revolutionary measure bids fair, if it is more than a temporary make- shift in teacher training, to revolutionize the high schools in extent of years of schooling as well as in character of instruction and "setting" in a state system of education. There is a feature of the definition of "evening class" which represents an attempt to improve upon what ap- pears to be a blunder in the formation of recent laws relating to vocational education in Indiana, Massachu- 88 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION setts, and other states, in that the character of instruc- tion offered in such publicly supported education need not necessarily be restricted in subject-matter to that dealt with in the day employment, a law which is work- ing injustice already and which is defeating the voca- tional interests it was framed to foster. The phrase "course of study" is dropped, as it now frequently enjoys the three usages recommended in turn for pro- gramme of studies, curriculum, and course as noted above. The writer suggests these restricted uses for the above terms partly because he believes they are in the main correct and that they will clear up certain obscure but important current issues in high school administration. The chief reason for offering them, however, is to arouse discussion and to receive suggestions. Any criticisms, suggested additions to the list or suggested omissions, will be seriously considered in the hope that eventually some definite proposals may be made to different educa- tional associations and journals, by the adoption of which they may contribute also to clearness in educa- tional thinking, so far, at any rate, as it is concerned with the administration and supervision of secondary education. THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE (Current high school developments disclose many "issues." The movements looking toward providing federal and state aid for types of secondary education have made most prominent the fundamental issue of whether or not our prevailing system of secondary education can provide adequately all the kinds of education of this grade that society requires. This situation, involving as it does the most pro- found educational questions, has, in the opinion of many, received too hasty legislative consideration. The method of this presenta- tion (with apologies to Plato and Berkeley) is to discuss more vividly than mere abstract exposition will allow some considerations which should serve as guiding principles. The well-known Cooley Bill for Illinois contemplates a "dual" system of public secondary educa- tion for the "vocational" and for the " non- vocational " pupils after they have completed the elementary school or have reached the maturity of fourteen years of age. It therefore serves to raise the very vital question of proper instructional and training functions of our existing public high schools. The persons of the present dialogue talk as they have talked in print. In many cases the actual phrases are re-employed here. The author pleads "poetic license" in case the authors disclaim this very literal application of their educational doctrines to the high school. Aside from this special application, he thinks he has not misrepresented their several educational philosophies, references to which are clearly indicated in the foot-notes. — Author.) PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE Members of the Educational Committee of the State Legislature. Chairman and Members of Legislative Committee of the State Teachers' Association. Dr. John Sturm, Pedagogue. John Dewey, Educational Philosopher. William E. Ritter, Biologist. Cassius J. Keyser, Mathematician. Paul Elmer More, Editor — Litterateur. Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States. 89 90 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Georg Kerschensteiner, Director of Education in Munich. A " bewildered " High School Principal. A College Professor of Education. An Advocate of the Cooley Bill. A Director of a German Gymnasium. A Headmaster of a French Lycee. A Headmaster of an English Public School. A State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Scene. A Conference Room at the State House, Spring- field, 111., called to consider "The Reconstruction — or the Duplication — of the State's System of Sec- ondary Education." Chairman of the Legislative Committee presiding. Gentlemen, Distinguished Visitors, and Members of the Legislative Committees : A momentous issue is to be considered by us this eve- ning. Questions of profound educational significance and administrative difficulty are involved. Departing from our usual and, for the most part, necessary prac- tices of logrolling, pooling of inexpert opinions, and bal- ancing of interests represented by our committee mem- bership, we propose to spend one evening upon the merits of the educational issue before us. May we proceed at once? What basal principles shall guide us in reconstructing the system of public high school education in our state? What methods and what organizations of instruction must we provide and secure for our boys and girls between the ages of 14 (or possibly 12) and 18? And, consistent with our decision in this matter, what administrative machinery, both central and local, will best insure for us the accomplish- ment of our purpose ? THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 91 I suggest, because of this purely educational charac- ter of our meeting, that we arrive at tentative guiding principles by voicing our yeas and nays upon each minor issue as we proceed, thus reflecting and preserv- ing for reference as near as may be the "general sense" of this more or less expert body. We shall proceed. Dr. Sturm. Dr. Sturm (a sort of pedagogical Rip Van Winkle). Modern Gentlemen and Educators: I have been asleep since 1589 until a few days ago. I am assured, how- ever, by six of the distinguished representatives present that the history of education presents no other type of secondary school curriculum upon which have been modelled any such number of secondary systems as my curriculum at Strassburg, which for 43 years I refined toward pedagogical perfection in turning out graduates adept not only in Latinitas pur a, but in Latinitas ornata. These gentlemen indeed insure me that I have hit upon the essential principle of curriculum building, namely, centering upon one kind of content. This content, as you all know, is* Latin. Exclusively for four good hours every day for 10 years Latin in our famous school was taught, read, spoken and written. Imitation, good memory in reproduction, Latinizing ourselves in the good imaginary Roman atmosphere secured the greatest intellectual endowments. (The members of the conference are impressed, but in different ways, by this confident old German.) Dr. Georg Kerschensteiner. I am intimately acquainted with the historical developments in Germany since 1589, and partly agree and partly disagree with the views expressed by our venerable Dr. Sturm. 1 Moreover, I l G. Kerschensteiner, "The Schools and the Nation" (London, trans., 1914). 92 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION have personally followed for 25 years the struggle of Prussian higher schools for the monopoly in education. I was keenly concerned in the Kaiser's decree in 1900, settling the question of " privilege' ' and allowing the Realschulen to share with the Gymnasien this monop- oly in education. What I questioned, even about this momentous decree, itself an educational compromise, was whether it really represented a movement in the interests of a more profoundly useful state system of secondary education. Since the 1826 controversy of Thiersch and Schulze two theories of secondary educa- tion have articulately existed and been strongly cham- pioned in Prussia. Thiersch, like our respected Dr. Sturm here present, advocated one pillar for the secon- dary curriculum and insisted that this should be the classical pillar. Schulze advocated what I shall call the "steam engine" method, or securing an " all-round" education by driving abreast, as it were, in each boy's mind the classical and the scientific instruction. In my opinion, sir, future time will justify Thiersch in his one-pillar basis for a curriculum, but history will record his mistake in his exclusive advocacy of the clas- sical pillar. The most fatal demand which secondary schools the world over have had to face is the demand for this dream of general all-round education. It im- poses such conditions that necessitate cramming the 12 to 18 year old with information only — conditions that make impossible the moulding of an harmonious soul from within. It further implies the equally fatal assumption that we educate all along the same general direction. To test the sense of this body, I suggest, Mr. Chair- man, that we approve, as our first fundamental require- ment for reconstructing secondary schools, the principle THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 93 of circumscribed specialization of instruction. Our first vital educational question is to decide between special- ized curriculums, or a general type curriculum. I believe in a one-pillar classical school, or in America or France in one-pillar "curriculums." I believe in the equal value of a one-pillar modern language curriculum, a natural science curriculum, a classical curriculum or equally in a number of one-pillar special vocational cur- riculums. We want men, not lexicons. Let us not labor under the delusion, however, that the so-called " intellectual studies" only can produce culture. The screw-vice or turning-lathe may also present weighty problems and furnish motives for thorough theoretical research. Gentlemen, as a foreign visitor I have trespassed upon your hospitality and have become disputatious, I fear. My conviction that I am advocating, not a substitute and alternative for culture, nor a compromise with de- mands of culture, but really the first essential law of all organization, that a school curriculum must rest upon one pillar, leading to culture through one main depart- ment of learning, of wide range, but unified by a single idea, is my only excuse. Chairman. Is there a motion that we vote upon this educational principle ? (All remain serious and thoughtful, but no action is taken.) We shall then proceed with the discussion. May we hear from Mr. More, formerly editor of the Nation ? Mr. More. I agree with Dr. Kerschensteiner that our secondary school must train citizens rather than merely efficient civil-service officials; that our students' work must show mastery in some field, and that there are many fields of alluring interest. I could not have sup- 94 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION ported the proposed motion, however, because I believe the best thing a secondary school can do is to seize upon the best educational material and work it to the ut- most. 1 I believe in an intellectual aristocracy, a natural aristocracy — and in the continued and augmented pub- lic educational provision for the support of this select scholarly class. The unity of this select class is our only means of obtaining the real end of our democracy. This class will and must formulate the ideal of pure humanity and of moral freedom. Gentlemen, I congratulate you upon having called together this group for this particular purpose of estab- lishing norms in education, of stating the purposes of schools. Thus far there has been scarcely a conscious effort to make of education an harmonious driving force. I agree with the English teachers of our Rhodes scholars and with the Prussian gymnasial exchange teachers and with the Carnegie Foundation (Fifth An- nual Report) that young American boys and girls are unacquainted with the hard manipulation of ideas, genu- ine exercises in intellectual gymnastics. They do not know firm reasoning. Even when they grow up and become college professors, they show a singular inability to think clearly and consecutively, and do not exhibit the habit of orderly and well-governed cerebration. Their higher faculty of the imagination has not been disciplined. They have never had the sublime vision. In short, we do not try hard enough to thin out the un- malleable minds and to provide for the entrance of the select into the real nobility of the intellect. State Superintendent. The speaker's phrases are lofty, but we educational officers must think in terms of the 1 P. E. More, "Academic Leadership," The Unpopular Review, vol. II, no. 3, pp. 32-152. THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 95 specific courses and combinations of courses for our cur- riculums, and must suggest desirable curriculum types as guides for 250 or more high schools, on the average, in our different States. Mr. More. I was for the moment transported to the realm of pure ideas. I will be specific. I mean that we now know that some studies are more effectively educa- tive than others. (Cites investigations to prove that classical students surpass their rivals in all fields where a fair test can be made. 1 ) In some respects I agree with Dr. Sturm, in some with Dr. Kerschensteiner; but I differ from either on some other points. English, for example, cannot be the backbone of a sound curriculum. There are too many names and dates, too much unsystematic and irrelevant geography and grammar, and too frequent evaporation in romantic gush over beautiful passages. German and French afford some exercises in mental nimbleness, but are scarcely rigorous enough for this single-pillar cur- riculum foundation. Mathematics and physics require some close attention and firm reasoning, and are an essential part of a curriculum. I am, however, sceptical of the effect of the non-mathematical sciences on the immature mind. The usual elementary and pottering experimentation in chemistry or biological science af- fords an almost negligible mental grip. My experience as editor leads me to believe that science in itself is likely to leave the mind in a state of relative imbecility. Its students not only lack the graces of rhetoric, but, aside from giving an account of an experiment, they do not think lucidly and logically. Now, gentlemen, Latin and Greek, not as Dr. Sturm taught them, but as I would have them taught — from 1 Op. cit., p. 137. 96 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION their sheer difficulty, their organization, the refined men- tal exercises in discriminating nearest word equivalents, the effort of lifting one's self out of the familiar rut of ideas into so foreign a world — act as the only supreme tonic exercise to the brain. Their surpassing educative possibilities, moreover, have been demonstrated, as I have pointed out, by scientific investigation of effects, as well as through the educational experience of the world. The modern classical ideal, this initiation into the spirit of Hellenism, has held captive even the great- est minds. In conclusion, gentlemen, our secondary schools and our colleges are selective agencies. Those who can pass their high standards must constitute the living reposi- tories of our modern learning, and must be the modern governing oligarchy, an oligarchy of the intellectuels, a culture which all with unmalleable minds must support, and to which they must bow. This limited number of secondary pupils must pass through a common intellec- tual training, acquire a single body of ideas and images, become a noble culture cult. Their initiation must be through this single group of studies, the classics, accom- panied by a modicum of the mathematical sciences. These studies alone have a specific power of correction for the more disintegrating tendencies of the age. (There is an observable impulse to applaud the sound of these noble utterances, but still no definite proposal to commit the group to any principle.) Cassius J. Keyser (speaking with warmth). I have been engaged for years in the study and classification of specimens of human thought, and have no quarrel with Mr. More on the human worth of rigorous thinking. 1 r C. J. Keyser, "The Human Worth of Rigorous Thinking," Science, Dec. 5, 1913, pp. 789-800. THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 97 This rigorous or pure thinking is a relatively rare phe- nomenon. The ideas of the vast majority of so-called educated men and women are too nebulous and vague, too little refined and denned to be available for con- catenative thinking and rigorous discourse. Most of the world's thinking done on a given day on the streets or farms, or in factories or stores, or in offices of doctors or lawyers, or in school or college classrooms, or — pardon me, gentlemen — in our halls of legislation comes far short of the demands and standards of rigorous thinking. A Member of the Legislative Committee. I wish to suggest to the professor that this is possibly why we cannot understand the drift of his remarks now. Professor Keyser. The drift of my remarks is that the goal of all thinking — of all education — is mathemati- cal, not linguistic. Through mathematics alone the in- tellect attains harmony. It is the means of giving wing to the subtler imagination. It is the basis for criticism, for speculation, for esthetic judgment, for ethical evalu- ation, and even for religious ecstasy in contemplating ideas under the form of eternity. In short, gentlemen, there is no co-ordination of edu- cational disciplines. All disciplines are subordinated to the mathematical. I agree with the one-pillar base in the construction of a curriculum, but I do not agree with Dr. Sturm or Mr. More as to what this base shall be, nor do I agree with Dr. Kerschensteiner that almost any field of knowledge will serve as the curriculum core. Mathematics is our only hope, gentlemen. Mr. Wm. E. Ritter. Gentlemen of the conference: I have devoted a good deal of time to the inspiring task of formulating ten biological discoveries and generaliza- tions which have, I believe, very great importance to civilized men, but which, through the inadequate posi- 98 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION tion in the curriculum of biological sciences, are by no means widely known. 1 I shall not detail these ten bio- logical laws here, but stake my scientific reputation upon the assertion that these laws are of very great moment to the higher intellectual and spiritual life of the people generally; that the high school boy or girl is capable of understanding the most essential things in these discoveries, and that most of them have bearing upon the universal problems of personal experience. I agree with Dr. Kerschensteiner and dissent from the views of Messrs. More, Keyser and Sturm, to the ex- tent at least of asserting that biological studies can well be the pillar of a curriculum. Chairman. My committee are somewhat hazy, gen- tlemen, on these technical matters of educational values. It appears that each branch of learning has its cham- pion. I feel constrained at this point to call upon our scholar statesman, President Woodrow Wilson. Mr. Wilson. We have in this country, if I may apply my thoughts on college education 2 to the high school, a miscellany of courses excellent in themselves, but ar- ranged with no organic connections, with no fixed sequence, with little regard to any particular congruity between the several parts. I do not find myself in sympathy with the one-pillar theory, gentlemen. For the sake of making a clear issue, therefore, I shall advocate a three or four pillar curriculum and sketch what I wish it to accomplish. Our country needs men whose minds have had a 1 W. E. Ritter, University of California Publications, vol. IX, no. 4, pp. 137-248, March 9, 1912. 2 W. Wilson, "The Arts Course as Distinct from the Professional and Semi- Professional Courses." Proc. of Asso. of Am. Universities. Eleventh Annl. Conf., pp. 73-88, Jan., 1910. THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 99 vision of the field of knowledge, whose intellectual sym- pathy is genuine and catholic, and whose power of com- prehension is well developed. This citizen must be able to receive, to see, to discriminate, to sympathize, and to comprehend. He must state things with precision and reason with exactness and fearlessness, moving hon- estly and directly from premises to conclusion. He must be able to state a fact without stating an opinion. The three ideal elements of our curriculum must be (i) a discipline of principle, not the old barren discipline of process; (2) an enlightenment, not of mere information, but of acquaintance with the thoughts and deeds and moving impulses of the modern world; and (3) a manly freedom of one whose interests accord with the general interests of society. The pillars of such a curriculum should be science, literature, and the field of history and politics. (For the college I should add philosophy.) Through science he, the student, would get preposses- sions of scientific inquiry, the fixed scientific habit of mind, which will enable one to walk about the world less a stranger to the processes, results, and means of pro- duction in the realm of nature. As Huxley admonishes, his mind must be stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and Of the laws of her operations. In literature he could get intimations of the overpow- ering delights of enlargements and thrill, and be stirred by human adventure, move within the spirits of other men, and sweep the horizon for all the airs that are astir. The necessity of history and politics in providing general orientation for modern students is too obvious to elaborate. This three-pillared arrangement, gentle- men, represents my practical solution of the question before us. I am unconvinced of the feasibility of Dr. 100 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Kerschensteiner's curriculum with a vocational pillar, although I appear to be more modern than some of the other speakers in other respects. I have even appointed a Federal commission to look into this matter of voca- tional education of secondary grade. Chairman. For the sake of making our issue clear, may we hear again from Dr. Kerschensteiner ? Dr. Kerschensteiner. I respond heartily to the ideals of President Wilson. They are the genuine ideals of college men of Oxford. They do not, however, apply, I believe, to the secondary-school system as a whole which America is now developing. It should be clear that America must do, through some enlargement and rami- fication of function and multiplication of curriculums of her secondary-school system, what European systems of France and Germany partly seek to do through exten- sion of their elementary-school system. You have an absolutely unique social and educational problem. Your secondary schools are also people's schools. Ours are not. The typical American city has varied interests and activities, a heterogeneous population, families of wealth, families of small means, families cultivated, fami- lies uncultivated, families with conflicting economic in- terests, some with, some without influence, representa- tives from all of which are engaged in professional, industrial, commercial, artistic and domestic occupa- tions. Your secondary system of education must either select one of these classes and leave the rest to other educational agencies, as ours frankly does, or it must meet all these varied educational requirements. If the latter is really your basis for organization, support, and development, then you are, in my opinion, committed to the multi-curriculum basis. This circumscribed spe- cialization of the materials and skill exercises for in- THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 101 struction and training is your first fundamental require- ment. Pursuing my first principle of a one-pillar basis for all sorts of secondary education, I answer your spe- cific question as well as the definite issue raised by Mr. Wilson by saying : I can well believe that a school, either of modern languages, or of natural sciences, or a tech- nical school, would be of quite equal value with one of the older classical schools; but what I cannot admit is the value of a classical, modern-language, natural- science, mathematical, manual-training, fine-arts insti- tution — that mongrel production — pardon my limita- tions in the softening of meanings in your language — of certain dilettanti with a passion for organizing. With such a hopeless conglomeration of subjects, all of equal value, our future secondary schools should have nothing to do. Director of Prussian Gymnasium. Gentlemen, your illustrious statesman President is voicing the historic and present ideals of our Gymnasium. We seek just this, a broad humanistic training, making one intelli- gent and independent in the world of the arts and sci- ences. To my great surprise the whole discussion so far, with the exception of that of my countryman, Dr. Kerschensteiner, seems to assume the European, not what I had supposed was an American, conception of secondary education. (No dissent.) Headmaster of a French Lycee. May I inquire if the one and one-fourth million American high school pupils now enrolled and the three-fourth million of high school age out of school and now idle or in blind alley occupa- tions are all destined to receive this high training for intellectual leadership in professional careers of which we have heard such glowing accounts? (No one seems inclined to answer the inquiry.) 102 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Headmaster of an English Public School. According to our English Board of Education, 1 secondary schools have a twofold function — the training of those who aspire to occupations requiring a highly trained in- telligence and those who plan to extend considerably into later years their educational preparation for life. There must be, however, a "Common Course" for both groups. In extreme cases the Government will allow a vocational bias to the curriculum — never a vocational base or pillar. Our national cardinal pillars are the seven usual academic studies, with large weight placed upon the foreign languages and mathematics. I suppose I may speak for my German and French colleagues as well as for England with respect to one important point not yet mentioned. Our secondary schools serve as excellent agencies for segregating the classes from the masses — a most convenient and appreci- ated feature. Chairman. These characterizations of foreign types of high schools are interesting, and Mr. Wilson's educa- tional statesmanship inspires us all, I am sure. It will be well to have some comment at this point from our American High School Principal, despite his continued look of bewilderment. Bewildered American High School Principal. Gentle- men, I have no such clear ideas of the purpose of the high school as have my visiting colleagues from Europe or the university specialists here present. Whenever we American high school principals hear of some new curriculum we at once regroup our high school subjects and thus provide, on paper, the curriculum desired. Most of these curriculums, however, are merely the re- *" Curricula of Secondary Schools." Circular 826. (Board of Education, London, 1913.) THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 103 sultTof a reshuffling of courses. They are merely paper curriculums. As a matter of fact, we have in America no " pillar theory" of curriculum construction. I re- cently read carefully the published curriculums of 40 high schools of American cities with about 20,000 popu- lation. These 40 schools offered 180 curriculums, aver- aging more than four curriculums each. I know that no one of them furnishes four thorough and distinguish- able trainings for as many intelligibly grouped divisions of the students. I myself print eight curriculums for our pupils, but most of them represent varieties of the college preparatory, Those that do not are vocational mainly in name. From the points of view of the func- tions of secondary education, the principles of curricu- lum construction, the bases for assigning students to curriculums, systems of educational and vocational guidance, and the securing of teachers of vocational edu- cation, I am forced to admit to this body that I am entirely at sea. I feel that the American high school is somehow on trial, and that radical readjustments are impending. I have found this conference absorbingly interesting. I hope, however, engrossing as these spec- ulative questions are, that something more definite may issue from it before we adjourn. We principals have to do something each day. We wish safe guidance. Chairman. Before going on to this practical consid- eration of the next step in the development of secondary education, I am sure all of us should like a unifying word from Professor John Dewey, America's best-known philosopher of education. Mr. Dewey. All the discussions thus far have been as grist to my philosophical mill. Every statement has some measure of truth. I believe with Mr. More and Mr. Wilson in giving a prominent place in the curricu- 104 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION lum to those subjects directly touching upon human life itself, its art, its literature, and its politics — that knowl- edge which touches our offices as human beings, which lays hold of our emotions and imagination and unifies character. These things stir men to action, and they are good. Although these in practice are the last things the average student gets from the classics, the ideal remains. Nevertheless, at least an equal place in the curriculum must be given to the sciences. 1 This scientific attitude of mind must be fixed during the early years of life. The future of our civilization depends upon the widen- ing spread and deepening hold of the scientific habit of mind. High schools must discover how to mature and make effective this mental attitude. Civilization must be ruled, not as heretofore, by things and words, but by thought. I would go so far as to say that only the gradual replacing of a literary by a scientific education can assure to man the progressive amelioration of his lot. Our boys and girls should have some idea of kinds of evidence, of proofs, and a lively interest in the ways knowledge is improved as well as a marked distaste for unscientific conclusions. Science has done none of these things. It must. It has formed no social or moral ideas, but if we are ever to live and be governed by in- telligence, not words, science must have something to say about what we do. You see, gentlemen, the curriculum pillar I should erect. Moreover, this emphasis upon science as method, as habit of mind rather than as subject-matter, in no way precludes any of the curriculums Dr. Kerschensteiner advocates. I shall even go further than Dr. Kerschen- x John Dewey, "Science as Subject-Matter and as Method." Science, Jan. 28, 1910, pp. 121-127. THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 105 steiner. My conception of all secondary curriculums — and I admit a variety, from the college preparatory to the trade curriculums — must all be shot through and through with vocational connections. The realization that organized knowledge arose in connection with in- dustry and human needs must permeate the whole school. All instruction must, of course, rise to the plane of general ideas, must be personalized and inter- pretative, never merely narrative, negative, destructive. The social and ethical, the genuinely vocational, as well as the purely physical or mental, come within our scope here. These are my general principles. I shall have more to say upon the practical decisions when our body here moves on to a definite issue. College Professor of Education. In order to be clear as to how Dr. Kerschensteiner's principle of definite goals for each secondary curriculum is to work in every- day practice, I wish to inquire if in his specialized cur- riculums he would have, say, one-quarter or one-third of the total time allotment of a student devoted to this major or pillar subject, and, say, one-half of the remain- ing time to cognate or allied subjects and the remaining time to the still more remotely related and indirectly contributory fields? Dr. Kerschensteiner. In so-called academic work the gentleman describes the proposed school application very well, but for the technical curriculums I should suppose the so-called "project" work would make the procedure more complicated. Chairman. Curriculum making has been called the "indoor sport" of schoolmen. I begin to see its deeper aspects. We are glad to have these deeper issues raised. We shall hear from the State Superintendent. 106 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Slate Superintendent. We have two sharply opposing views of the Ideal American High School. One of these is that the high school must be a miniature university in form of organization, with its agricultural students, its students of the commercial arts, students of the mechanic arts, students of the domestic arts, and its col- lege preparatory students. This means that the varied high school programme must have curriculum offerings for these important and distinguishable groups — all within the public school system. It is the counter sug- gestion offered as a substitute for and better than the separate and undemocratic and costly plan for extension of secondary education provided by the well-known Cooley bill, which, if passed, will tend to impose upon the present high school only academic responsibilities and thus weaken it in the popular mind, and deprive it of the rejuvenating effects of the parallel and competing vocational curriculums. The State Commission bill, favored by all the school people, as I interpret it, carries rather the implication of the desirability and practica- bility of several high school curriculums, preserving the good features of the Cooley provision and omitting the "dual system" feature. This "curriculum-differentia- tion" feature of the high school instructional programme is the common feature upon which harmony is sought. It seeks, moreover, what both approve — and it reflects the real cause of the whole issue in every State in the Union — this need of vocational education. The other view, the traditional view of the high school, is that identical items of knowledge, identical curriculums, a single curriculum, in fact, is the ideal toward which designers of high school curriculums should strive. This is presented as the only safeguard to social sympathy, national loyalty and other com- THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 107 mon virtues essential to a democratic civilization. To those who have looked long for curriculum designs in the high school programme, to say nothing of the ele- mentary, the panicky fears of curriculum differentia- tions are groundless. The arraignment of the move- ment toward curriculum variations seems like raising up a bogey or straw man and hitting him very hard. Those senior and even junior high school principals, with the exception of those in the larger cities, with whom I have talked have rarely found possible yet even a partial differentiation. Besides, I have found no one who, even in the remote future, hopes to differentiate trainings so completely that a liberal amount of com- mon instruction will not be required in all the curricu- lums. The German higher schools, under a dual or even triple system of local administration are undemo- cratic and un-American, not for the lack of common elements of instruction (for they have these every- where), nor from the fact that their limited number of differentiated curriculums are well and carefully de- signed for special governmental purposes (for they are admirable in this respect) , but because they do not pro- vide for some classes in their system at all. The princi- ple of "special privilege" characterizes all German sec- ondary schools. The more thoroughgoing curriculum differentiation on a purely democratic basis of social requirement and individual preference and suitability would seem rather to provide, within our thus extended secondary system of public education, just that daily contact, social intermingling, mutual acquaintance and enlarged appreciation of diverse educational and voca- tional aims and ideals represented in our high school student body. This student body, too, will be much larger and must be vocationally more representative 108 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION than it is now. Fundamentals for our educational and social democracy must be provided, but not by the single rigid curriculum, even were this curriculum to combine all the good features of all the distinguished specialists who have spoken. Advocate of the Cooley Bill. I agree with all that has been said with respect to the great need of all sorts of vocational education for boys and girls of high school age, about two-thirds of whom are in school and one- third of whom are even now in blind alley jobs or in vicious idleness. I agree with the one-pillar theory of curriculum making. I agree that we must furnish some other than the traditional kinds of high school educa- tion for these adolescent youths of both sexes. Every speaker has admitted that all systems of secondary edu- cation have, on a scholastic basis, become selective in- stitutions, and have despised and ruthlessly thinned out of their ranks those, to use Mr. More's phrase, "with unmalleable minds." Secondary educators all over the world have always been blinded by their devo- tion to the intellectually superior minority among their pupils. They fail in entrance standards and otherwise to allow for the multitude who cannot satisfy the same scholastic requirements by completing the elementary- school system, and they fail to work definitely with and for those — at least half their total enrolment — who can only make beginnings in high school work. Our sec- ondary educators are, more than half of them, young women. Out of each hundred of the men even, every 10 have had only four years beyond the elementary school, 45 only from four to eight years of some sort of training, 30 eight years, and 15 have had nine or more years, still academic, for the most part. Of the 25,000 women, whose training is more restrictedly academic THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 109 and even linguistic perhaps, the amount of such prepa- ration is practically the same. In some of our states nearly one-half of the whole high school teaching force shift places after one year. A small proportion are pro- fessionally trained in the administration, pedagogical, and social work of the high school. Gentlemen, the moving spirit of American public schools, like that of the European systems, is too firmly established to make room for what you all admit is needed — specialized secondary curriculums for the needed skilled artisans, for the mass of farmers, for the homekeepers and home servants, for the clerks and independent small-scale business men, for the young aspirant for rural-school teaching, for three-quarters of the high school population, and for the other three- quarter million who should be in the high schools and are not. Your present-day, typical high school and college educator cannot deal sympathetically with the aims of vocational education. 1 His predilections, in disregard of the so evident present necessity of tempo- rizing adjusted curriculums, is for the purely intellectual approach, even to problems of skill as well as to those of understanding. Furthermore, I doubt his and her ability in this field. For this reason I advocate the Cooley bill. We have too much at stake to run the risk of accepting the paper curriculums such as the high school principal present admits are now the rule, where indeed even a pretense at vocational education is pro- vided. We need a new kind of Federal Board of Voca- tional Education, a new and separate state board, cuV tinct local boards, distinct school districts, distinct school administrators, a wholly new kind of teacher, new types *See D. Snedden, Bulletin 18, Proc. of Nat. Soc. f. P. Indl. Edn., Oct., 1913, PP. 55-59. 110 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION of teaching, new sorts of apparatus, and separate state and local school funds. This movement, with our many and increasing national associations, is the twentieth- century religion — a social educational philosophy, a new solution of social problems, an indication of a profound educational revolution. Seven states have passed vo- cational education laws, and as many more are working for one now. In some respects most of them have tem- porized with tradition. With the exception of Wiscon- sin, their steps, while in the right direction, have been timid and hesitating. They offer the shadow for the substance. They are exploiting a cheap vocational ed- ucation; they are deceiving themselves with formulae of forms of vocational education too simple and too easily comprehended. They are turning out products upon which the real vocational world looks with pity and contempt. Gentlemen, let us have all that the learned speakers have advocated, but let us also make sure of the present vocational need also. The Cooley bill provides educa- tionally for what we all want. No one opposes any of its features, except certain technical matters of the machinery of administration. Chairman. Does any one propose a definite expres- sion of this body on any of the issues raised ? State Superintendent. I wish to add a few comments before we test the sentiment of the conference. In my opinion, despite the fact that we have approved no definite step as yet, we have made great progress. We have sensed the power and dignity and integrity of our representatives of pure scholarship; we have noted the right ring in the voices of those who feel the urgency of vocational education; we appreciate the legitimate and natural points of view of our foreign visitors, and we THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 111 accept as genuine the fervid arraignment of our present system of public high school education by the advocate of a new and parallel system. So long as I have a voice in the legislation for our own state I shall champion all the educational ideals here presented. I would supplement what the last speaker has said — and admit even more of the shortcomings of our present system. Massachusetts enrolls about 60,000 in her high schools. She has about 45,000 of the same age in un- productive employment. Vermont enrolls only 5722 of her 25,000 15-18-year-olds. Likewise, an estimate of 87 school superintendents of Illinois leads me to say that this state has 34.5 per cent of its adolescents out of school and idle or in undesirable employment. Fur- ther than this, 32 per cent of these school administrators do not think it possible for the high school to offer a vocational curriculum. This curriculum making and thinking is a new thing, even if it prevails. It marks an epoch in high school development. It cannot be accomplished in a day under any system. It is, under present conditions, the rare school that can do any real experimentation in this field. We do, however, have numerous experiments which are indicative of a movement toward differen- tiated curriculums. There is a notable effort of scien- tists in the different fields to co-operate in relating sequentially the various high school science courses, in providing a more suitable introduction, and in adjusting subject-matter, methods and new kinds of courses to the different curriculums in which these courses are func- tioning. Likewise, all the language and literature work of the curriculums shows the same sort of co-operative designing and adaptation purpose. It is true of the historical, civic, and economic instruction. The at- 112 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION tempts of manual-training departments to expand and ramify, to extend their fields, to correlate with freehand and mechanical drawing, to become adjusted to trade or agricultural demands are likewise indicative of un- derlying curriculum designing. Absolutely no field of education has developed so rapidly as the secondary field. I am of the opinion that we may safely legislate with reference to all these desirable curriculum changes and additions within the present system; that it would be too expensive and impractical otherwise; that the present high school needs the exhilarating effect of such new spirit and novel pedagogy; that the curriculums with the new pillars need the steadying standards of the old ones, and that they also need some of these aca- demic subjects with which to round out any specific vocational training which may form the curriculum base. In conclusion, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the conference, I move that it is the present sense of this body that — Chairman. Pardon me. We are to hear again from Mr. Dewey. Mr. Dewey. I believe we may still follow where the argument leads. The ends in view of the last two speakers are the same. We must do nothing to make our present organized public educational system indif- ferent to this new and vital movement, still less antag- onistic to it. 1 We must not deprive industrial educa- tion of such valuable co-operation, nor literary educa- tion of the pedagogical and moral influences of this vocational spirit in education. This infusion of new and 1 J. Dewey, "Should Michigan Have Vocational Education under 'Unit' or 'Dual' Control?" Proc. of Soc. f. P. Indl. Edn., pp. 27-34, Oct., 1913. THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 113 fresh purposes merely means that the industries and the business houses and the workingmen and the home- keepers are joining in with the college in making known to high schools desirable preparations for high school students whose career intentions point in their several directions. Assuming this interest and concern of the community as a whole, we want for our public high school, through its differentiated and well-designed cur- riculums, a complete rounded-out scheme representing all factors in a unified school system. The Cooley bill represents a desperate measure, a measure of last resort. One large fallacy is that it assumes that many children must leave school at 14, and creates an agency which is thus largely interested in doctoring and patching up these children after they get into industry. The ten- dency will be to be less interested in them before they leave school. Though we must do what we can for those whom the school has lost, still our fundamental necessity is to change our educational system so that these children will not, and cannot afford and will not wish to, leave school generally at 14. An American city of 40,00a 1 should have a large centrally located high school occupying a whole block, with auditorium, sev- eral good laboratories, a gymnasium, a library, and pos- sibly the beginnings of art collections. This should easily be the most important institution of the city. Moreover, it should exist for the education of the whole people. The regular day attendance should be 1500, the evening attendance of youths and adults 2000, and the social-center activities numerous and varied. Such a high school should profoundly influence the home life, the spiritual life, and the commercial and industrial 1 See Report of a Survey of the School System of Butte, Mont., June, 1914, p. 68. 114 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION life, as well as the aesthetic development of the entire city. We cannot split nor duplicate such elaborate physical plants, but more — we cannot establish two sources for educational uplift and inspiration. Our high schools have a history; they are a part of the educational personality of all our cities and towns; they should be allowed to grow — indeed should be forced to expand — but never to divide. Headmaster of French Lycee. The last speech reminds me that M. Buisson of the Chamber of Deputies has introduced a bill of similar import in France, advocating a unified national school with liberally bifurcated cur- riculums, and a three-cycle curriculum arrangement, allowing for a broad vocational education. Director of German Gymnasium. There is a similar principle in the strong movement in Germany for the "Einheit School." Headmaster of the English Public School. The Liberal Party of England likewise is proclaiming the ideals of national education in many particulars much like the movements named. College Professor of Education. Secondary education in all civilized countries of the world is the object of national inquiries and reforms. With a loyal and com- prehending trust we are turning to the public high school as the guardian of our modern culture. At pres- ent this high school is puzzled by conflicting necessities; it is hampered by contradictory and sometimes harping criticism; it is bewildered by its unescapable responsi- bilities. 1 It knows that it must expand to meet the composite needs of a whole people. It wishes to appre- hend the nature of these needs. Even with lavishness 1 Annie K. Tuell, "Our 'Classical Recollections,'" Atlantic Monthly, Dec, 191 4, pp. 778-786. THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 115 in experimental waste it must meet with a practical in- telligence the necessity of the laboring world for efficient vocational preparation. It must also do even more than it is now doing to keep clear the road to the trea- sures of deeper learning for those who, by fortune or by energy of divine intellectual discontent, can prolong their search well beyond the high school years. The problem of secondary education is a baffling and a double one. Let our high schools honor first their great popular and urgent vocational mission, but let them at the same time indulge a little of that wholesome defer- ence and that heartening devotion to learning without which any and all of us are in a sorry plight indeed. I move you, sir, that it is the sense of this body that— The American high school is inclined toward expan- sion from within to the extent of strengthening still further the language, the history and the science cur- riculum pillars, and of adding bona fide vocational cur- riculums and fine arts curriculums; That the professional status of its teaching ranks is steadily rising; That its ruling administrative policy is favorable toward all legitimate extensions of school activities; And that, therefore, all legislation with reference to the education of youth above 14 years of age should build upon the existing national system of public high schools. Chairman. Those in favor will please stand. The motion prevails. Chairman. We are indebted to you, gentlemen, and we assure you we shall deal in executive session more intelligently with the issues involved in the bills which are soon to be passed upon by us and recommended by us to the legislature. THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD The work of the secondary-school teacher assuredly falls within one of the most stimulating and interesting periods of human development. Every one knows that during the " teens" boys and girls "grow up" (to use the root meaning of the Latin adolescere). Jimmie of the grades becomes Mr. Brown of the high school seniors, while his sister Mabel undergoes almost under our eyes an even more striking transformation into young womanhood. Of course it is possible to exaggerate; there is no cataclysm, no overnight metamorphosis, yet those who have commented upon the physical and men- tal alterations characteristic of the period have com- monly regarded them as sufficiently rapid and suffi- ciently extensive, in comparison with the more gradual alterations of childhood and with the steadier progress of maturity in the years that follow, to be regarded as constituting a special period of peculiar significance, especially of peculiar significance to those teachers whose business it is to know human nature and to make impressions upon it. The actual span of adolescence is somewhat variable; we think of it as roughly covering the time between puberty and maturity. Puberty is defined by the physiologist as that stage of physical development at which an individual first becomes capable of begetting or bearing children. Ordinarily this stage is reached by girls in their twelfth or thirteenth year, and by boys in their fourteenth year, though there are marked varia- tions in the time of its appearance, e. g., from as early as 116 THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 117 the tenth to as late as the twentieth year. There is a close connection between growth in height and pubertal change, so that the stage of physical development that is attained may often be estimated correctly by noting the rate of increase of stature and of weight. The fact that girls reach the onset of puberty earlier than boys is likewise reflected in their outward growth; there is actually a period between the ages of 1 1.5 and 14.5 when girls are taller than boys, and a period between the ages of 12.5 and 14.5 when girls are heavier than boys of the same age. In other measurements, like strength of grip, lung capacity, etc., girls again are found to reach a period of rapid physical development earlier than boys, though they never, as a group, excel the boys in these measurements. All of these physical changes and many others that appear at the same time, like lengthening, thickening, ossification, and alterations in shape of bones; marked increase in breathing capacity accompanying enlarge- ment of the thoracic cavity, radical increase in the size and strength of the heart, appearance of facial hair in boys, the alteration in the voice of boys, known as "mutation" (usually a drop of about an octave in pitch), the enlargement of the pelvis and bust in girls — all of these physical changes are quite obviously closely connected with the advent of other well-known aspects of sex development in both sexes. The phenomena combine to signal the transformation from childhood to adult life. Just what alterations go on in the brain we have no precise means of knowing; but we do know that the de- velopments just indicated must be associated with some sort of corresponding modifications in the nervous sys- tem that controls the body, and again we do know that 118 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION adolescent boys and girls do think and feel and talk in ways different from those of childhood, and that these changes, too, must be reflected in some sort of corre- sponding developments in the nervous system. In seeking to classify and understand these mental alterations it seems natural to expect that their ex- planation will be found in the same general principles that underlie the bodily alterations of the period; that is, that the psychological aspects of adolescence will be found to be manifestations, sometimes direct, often per- haps quite indirect, of the unfolding of the drama of sex. In fact, it is difficult to see any other explanation. The child is essentially an egoist, an individualist; he is moved to follow out his own desires; he is originally and naturally selfish (however much the careful training of parents and teachers may have overlaid or transformed his native bent); for him " self-preservation is the first law of nature." The expansion of the interest in sex at the time of puberty is indicative of the preparation nature is making for the individual to participate in the life of the race; for nature the preservation of the species is more important than the preservation of the indi- vidual. It becomes, therefore, important that interest in the opposite sex should arise, that love and courtship, with all their tremendous mental stimulation and their con- cern for others, should supplant the self-centred atti- tude of childhood. And thus it comes about that the highest forms of altruistic conduct — the development of respect for others, the seeking to act in such a manner as to secure the approbation of one's fellows, the out- pouring of sympathy, the yearning for the beautiful, the sacrifice of selfish satisfactions to promote the wel- fare of others — that all these and similar phases of men- THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 119 tal and moral development, as well as such more obvi- ous and possibly less worthy manifestations as interest in the opposite sex, self-consciousness, "showing-ony' and interest in adornment, are to be understood and interpreted as manifestations of sex. Stanley Hall, to whom we owe so many of our present-day studies of adolescence, refers to the more remote or indirect mani- festations as the "long-circui tings " or " irradiations " of the sex instinct; other psychologists refer to them as "sublimations" of the sex interest. It will perhaps, then, be understood that the actual development of these sublimations is not always accom- plished or at least not effected as it should be. The problem is to make the strong instinctive tendencies that emerge at this period serve as motives for worthy conduct and not to permit them to become debased or debauched. The problem is to use the driving power of sex to socialize the individual. Evidently the problem is closely associated with the inculcation of ideals, and especially with the skilful utilization of the religious sentiments that seem so commonly to become a power- ful factor in the motives behind the conduct of youths and maidens in the mid-adolescent period. This problem of guiding the thoughts, sentiments, and ideals of boys and girls who are becoming young men and young women can hardly be dissociated from the closely related problem of guiding their physical development through the same period. Much interest has attached in recent years to the matter of instruction in the physiology and hygiene of sex. Only the stupid will deny the uncommon importance that attaches to this question; only the ultraprudish will declare that teachers and parents ought to avoid discussion of sex hygiene. 120 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Out of the maze of conflicting opinions we do discern a few general trends of agreement. Thus (i) it is evi- dent enough that all normal children have a perfectly natural curiosity about the facts of sex and that this curiosity leads them in early childhood to ask simple naive questions. (2) It is agreed by most persons who have thought over the matter at all carefully that parents ought to meet these early questions with equal simplicity and readiness to satisfy the curiosity, and that anything like prudish avoidance or repulsion of the child's queries tends to erect a most unwholesome barrier between parent and child, and to develop a sort of taboo about the whole subject that is distinctly undesirable and the source of many mental disturbances in after-years. (3) The " policy of silence," as some writers have termed it, is wholly indefensible in the light of the facts. Children uninformed or misinformed by their parents get information from others, usually from their play- mates, and in a most lamentable form. Lack of paren- tal instruction is responsible for endless worry, mostly quite unnecessary, on the part of boys and girls entering the period of puberty, and doubtless is responsible, too, for some measure of actual immorality, if not for some part in the calamitous spread of venereal diseases. (4) Ideally, parental instruction is to be desired. Practically many parents, whether through ignorance or false modesty or procrastination, fail to fulfil their obli- gations to their children, and the question that then arises — ought church or school to stand in loco parentis in these circumstances? is answered differently by differ- ent persons. So far as can be gathered, no systematic movement for bringing sex instruction under the gui- dance of the church can be discerned in this country. THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 121 In some high schools, normal schools, and colleges there has been achieved real success in bringing these matters clearly and yet skilfully and inoffensively before the student body, usually by means of a few talks by some competent person before the two sexes separately, or by discussing the ethical and social aspects of sex in this manner and supplementing this presentation by informative instruction in connection with courses in physiology, zoology, botany, or general biology. 1 On the other hand, there have been reports of trials that were not so successful. A great deal depends upon the personality of the speaker and upon his sympathetic understanding of' the mental attitudes and the stock of ideas of the pupils before him. It would seem desirable, for instance, that no talks should be given by "outsid- ers'' unless the school authorities were provided with advance copy for editing or for rejection. Probably, also, it would be politic for school principals or super- intendents to enlist the co-operation of parents before- hand by means of conferences, parent-teachers' associa- tions, and the like, and then to make attendance of pupils at the school talks optional or by the request of parents. (5) We do not know yet just what topics ought to be included in an attempt at formal or informal instruc- tion. There is much debate, for instance, as to whether 1 See, for instance, W. H. Eddy, "An Experiment in Teaching Sex Hygiene," Journ. of Educ. Psychol., 2, Oct., 191 1, 451-458; also W. S. Foster, "School Instruction in Matters of Sex," same, 440- 450; and a symposium in Journ. of Educ, 75, March 21, 1912, 313- 323. Further discussion of the content of school courses in matters of sex may be found in Clara Schmidt, "The Teaching of the Facts of Sex in the Public School," Pedag. Sent., 27, June, 1910, 229-241, while a proposed graded course of instruction is presented by B. Talmey, M.D., in his book, "Genesis; A Manual of Instruction of Children in Matters Sexual," New York, 19 10. 122 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION the abnormal, the pathological aspects of sex ought to be touched upon, as to whether right conduct can be secured better by this variety of appeal to fear. Most persons are agreed that discussion of these phases of the problem ought to be deferred until perhaps the late high school period. There seems also to be considerable agreement upon the general principle that the impart- ing of the main facts as to sex might well come in the period before puberty when the child is not especially self-conscious, and when these matters seem to come up quite naturally in the course of other work in nature study, physiology, and hygiene. There is likewise con- siderable agreement upon the general principle that in high school instruction the main stress should be placed upon the ethical and social aspects of sex — such as the right relations of the sexes, the meaning of the family, of love, courtship and marriage, the dignity of mother- hood, etc. One of the tendencies of adolescence obviously closely associated with the sex instinct is the ripening into full function of the social instinct in its various ramifica- tions. As compared with their mates in the grade school, boys and girls of high school age are distinctly less self-centred, are more interested in others, are more likely to seek the society of others, are more pro- foundly affected by the opinions of others, are more prone to behave in such a way as to gain the good-will of others (especially of the opposite sex), and are more ready to give up their own personal satisfaction in order to help another. All these shifts of attitude are evi- dently of far-reaching significance for the mental and moral development of their possessors, and of corre- spondingly great significance for the teacher who would seek to mould this development. We say "seek to mould THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 123 this development" because, although the shifts of atti- tude just cited are undoubtedly instinctive at bottom, and therefore the common property of all human beings at these ages, they are not always fully accomplished; human instincts are more or less modified by training and environmental conditions generally. Consequently, the primary problem of adolescent training, as I see it, is to supervise and guarantee, as it were, that this fun- damental transition from the self-centred mind of child- hood to the socialized mind of adulthood is properly effected. It is worth our while to consider some of the methods by which this realization by the individual of his place in a social system, this development of the sentiment of duty and responsibility, can be brought about. One of the signs or symptoms of the awakening social tendency is the greater tendency toward the formation of groups of all sorts — of clubs, societies, unions, leagues, organizations, and what not. The adolescent takes kindly to the idea of banding together for some com- mon purpose, whether it be recreative or athletic or philanthropic or merely social in the narrower sense. Of course boys and girls do things in groups when they are children, but most of the active and persistent group activities of children are made for them and largely run for them by their elders. In the prepubertal stage there is hardly a boy who doesn't belong to some sort of spontaneously organized "gang." This gang is usually a more or less well-organized, even though transient, organization for carrying on athletics or some other form of physical activity, rarely for the sort of literary, artis- tic, or philanthropic activity that grown-ups organize societies for. These spontaneously organized societies, especially the rudimentary ones organized by boys, 124 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION have been rather carefully investigated, and numerous valuable ideas for the assistance of adults in superin- tending the development of social tendencies have been derived from the investigations. 1 It has been shown, for instance, that boys and girls cannot be handled to the best advantage in the same organization, that boys drawn from different social strata do not fuse well, that even skilful leaders cannot always maintain these or- ganizations for indefinitely long periods, that societies formed for serious moral purposes ought not to have this aspect too prominent, but, rather, supplementary to a programme appealing to physical activity, with a reasonable amount of mystery, ceremony, and secrecy. Secondary-school teachers, as teachers, are concerned in these social developments of adolescence when they take the form of organizations within the school itself. It would be unusual, indeed, to find an American high school of any size that did not boast of several organiza- tions — athletic teams, class societies, musical clubs, camera clubs, walking clubs, school papers, etc. For a summary of studies of these organizations we cannot do better than refer to a report of a committee of the Mas- sachusetts Council of Education, 2 T. C. Whitcomb, chairman, from which the following conclusions may be quoted : "i. Class organizations, literary societies, musical organizations, art clubs, and school papers are helpful 1 See, for example, Winifred Buck, "Boys' Self- Governing Clubs" (New York, 1903); W. B. Forbush, "The Boy Problem" (4th ed., Philadelphia, 1902); J. A. Puffer, "The Boy and His Gang" (Bos- ton, 1912); H. Sheldon, "The Institutional Activities of American Children," Amer. Journ. of Psychol., 9, 1898, 425-448. 2 "Report on Organizations among High-School Pupils," 69th Annual Rept. Brd. Educ., Mass., 1904-1905. (Published Boston, 1906, as Public Doc. No. 2, pp. 178-198.) THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 125 to the pupils and a benefit to the school, provided they are under the oversight of the school authorities. "2. Class committees for the purposes partly com- mercial (class-pins, photographs, dances, etc.) are espe- cially in need of the most exacting regulations. "3. While more than half of the athletic associations which include and direct the varied athletic activities of the school are under the supervision, more or less com- plete, of the teachers of the schools, the right to control has been assumed rather than assured. Under this assumed control the participation in athletics is condi- tioned upon rank in scholarship. "4. A large majority of the teachers reporting con- sider athletics a benefit to the schools. Sixty-five per cent believe that both scholarship and discipline are improved. But all agree that this is only true when all such matters are under the control of the school authori- ties." A special instance of the problem of organizations in the high school is set by the secret society. Partly in imitation of the college fraternity, partly as a natural expression of the social tendencies of the period, there has developed in many secondary schools a series of secret societies, both for boys and for girls, that have presented difficulties of no small degree to the admin- istrative authorities. Every study of the high school fraternity that has been conducted by unprejudiced in- vestigators has revealed a strong opposition to them on the part of boards of education, principals, and teach- ers. It is felt that these societies are essentially antag- onistic to the democratic spirit of the American high school, and that there is no real need for them that cannot be met in some better way. In schools where they have not gone so far as directly to antagonize the 126 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION school authorities and to disrupt discipline, or have not degenerated into sources of positive moral damage, they have at least been prone to interfere with school poli- tics, to create class, race, or social prejudices, and to interfere by their social functions with the work of their members as students. When action has been taken against their continu- ance by school authorities, the fraternities have usually declared their innocence in these accusations or have contended boldly that their affairs were no concern of the school since their meetings were held off the school grounds and outside of school hours. But legal deci- sions, as, for example, that by the Supreme Court of the State of Washington, have fully upheld the rights of the school authorities to control or to abolish the secret societies, and there are now so many states in which their existence has been outlawed that the exigency of this particular problem has been much reduced. In general, the group-forming tendencies of the high school period, however, are valuable assets to the teacher, and they need to be conserved and utilized rather than thwarted. Attempts have been made in many schools, in this connection, to turn the group ten- dencies to account in the recitation and in the general activities of the school. There have been, for instance, more or less successful attempts to "socialize" the reci- tation. In some types of school work, such as history, civil government, and perhaps some phases of labora- tory work, it appears feasible for a skilful teacher to proceed by what the college student terms a " seminary " method. The main topic is divided into a series of assignments, and individual pupils look up and report upon these assignments while the remainder are sup- posed to listen intelligently, and afterward to discuss THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 127 the report critically and to summarize it on demand. It is evident to any one who has tried this method, even with mature and highly interested college students, that it has certain advantages — appealing to co-opera- tion, stimulating competition, encouraging critical lis- tening — but that these may be outweighed by the un- evenness of the contributions made by the different class members, the failure to secure unity and co- ordination, and the tendency to consume undue amounts of time. 1 Somewhat analogous points may be made with regard to utilizing the social tendencies of the adolescent period for assistance in carrying on the administrative, and especially the disciplinary, phases of high school work. Several years ago there was great interest, for instance, in the "school city" plan. In substance, each pupil became a citizen in a community, divided into wards (the several classrooms) and equipped with all the ordinary paraphernalia of city government, mayor, al- dermen, police, board of health, and what not. To these officials, elected in a form that followed as closely as might be the ordinary mechanism of city elections, was turned over all, or nearly all, the ordinary problems of school operation. This plan, and many others more or less similar to it in spirit, seems to work out well when new but to die out when the novelty has worn off. In most self-governing school plans, experience shows, oversevere penalties are inflicted, jealousy is aroused, enmities arise between pupils, and what advantage may lie in the real-enough training in the details of civil gov- ernment is probably counterbalanced by the equal op- portunities for training in petty "graft" and cheap poli- 1 For detailed discussion, consult C. A. Scott, "Social Education," especially chaps. VI and VII; also J. Dewey, "School and Society." 128 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION tics. The best plans appear to be those in which the teachers retain dominant control. It has been the fashion to ascribe to the period of adolescence not only an awakening of these instinctive tendencies that we have been discussing, but also an awakening of the senses: sight is alleged to grow keener; likewise hearing and the other senses. More careful scrutiny of the facts shows us, however, that this so- called awakening is not primarily a sharpening of the senses as such, but rather an augmentation in the feel- ings that are set in play by these senses; an increase, in other words, in the interest that is taken in things seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted. A further factor in the "awakening" is surely the broader point of view, the wider intellectual horizon, of the adolescent; phases and aspects of life that are uninteresting or even quite un- noticed by the child take on meaning for the maturer mind of the adolescent. As an illustration of this process of mental develop- ment reference may be made to the various studies of the growth of ideals as related to age and sex. Numer- ous investigators have studied children's ideals by get- ting oral or written answers to such questions as: "What would you most like to do when you grow up?" "Whom do you most want to resemble and why?" "If you could have your choice of any position in any imaginary new city, what would it be?" The results show that younger children almost always name as their ideal some person well known to them and their immediate environment — their parents or relatives or their teachers, whereas just about the dawn of puberty there is a significant widening in the range and variety of ideals, so that characters in public life, in fiction, and outside of the immediate environment in general, tend THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 129 to replace the ideals of childhood. At the same time corresponding alteration takes place in the range and variety of occupational ideals. Thus, occupations se- lected as indicative of wealth, beauty, and social eclat tend in adolescence to be replaced by occupations char- acterized by altruistic, philanthropic, and humanitarian motives. All these alterations in ideals are more evi- dent in the replies of boys than in those of girls. Sev- eral investigators have bemoaned the tendency of girls to name masculine ideals (boys rarely name feminine personages) and have suggested that teachers of girls ought to make a special effort to acquaint them with the lives of noble women who best exemplify the pe- culiar virtues of their sex. The writer has himself been struck with the very great importance that may attach to these alterations in ideals, especially in their effect upon the choosing of a vocation. Evidently there may be danger in both direc- tions; a boy of real ability who leaves the high school because carried away by some transient longing to tend a soda-fountain may ruin a possible career as a civil engineer of merit, whereas a boy of mediocre or poor ability who persists doggedly through high school and college because fired by an ideal of service to mankind through the ministry, may waste his own efforts as well as the money and time of friends and teachers in a vain effort to attain to a calling for which he is really unfitted. Every teacher knows these instances of overambitious ideals; they arouse one's sympathy, but they certainly do not make for the general efficiency of our social organization. The adolescent alteration of ideals is perhaps only one outward evidence of the general inward alteration of point of view to which we have already alluded — that 130 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION is, the general tendency to remake conduct on a basis that shall permit of consideration of oneself in one's re- lation to others rather than merely in relation to one's self alone. This shift from egoism to altruism, if those terms do not exaggerate it too much, is very neatly brought out in the characteristic religious phenomena of the period. Every one who has been observant knows that adolescence is pre-eminently the time of religious conversion. Figures show that a considerable part, doubtless more than half, of all conversions oc- cur during the ages fifteen to seventeen. This fact is hardly attributable to an accident; it denotes the operation of some definite factors, and these factors evi- dently relate to the general underlying physical trans- formation that makes adolescence what it is. The point is, then, that whatever be the creed embraced by the convert and whatever be the particular variety of con- version that he exhibits, and whether this be gradual or sudden, and whether it be " conventional" (in the sense of following the general form prescribed or implied by the religious body that has been influential in bringing it about) or unconventional — in any event the real ker- nel of the experience is just this rearrangement of atti- tude toward the relation of self to others that we have already mentioned as constituting the kernel of the mental alterations of the period in general. Looked at in this way, religious conversion is really simply the out- ward symbolizing of the inner experience that is, or should be, natural to all normal adolescents. The great contribution of religion to life might be found, accord- ing to this view, in supervising or " guaranteeing, " as it were, the moral regeneration that is so much desired. The very emotionality of religious experience is doubtless of peculiar value in this connection, for the THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 131 stronger and more all-pervading the sentiments that attend this moral birth, the surer and more complete is the process. One of the special problems raised in religious peda- gogy in this connection is: what ought to be done to minimize or avoid the doubts and struggles that many adolescents pass through, especially in the later years of adolescence, in trying to harmonize the conflicting views of life that they have absorbed at various stages of their mental and moral development? These difficulties are ofttimes quite serious, particularly in the case of young men and young women of the more thoughtful sort, espe- cially when their education is continued through the college. The problem usually arises when the widening of the intellectual horizon discloses facts and principles that seem quite at variance with the notions of things that were imbibed in childhood, especially with notions about the general plan of the universe and about the religious views of childhood — the nature of evil, the probability of life after death, the possibility of mira- cles, the efficacy of prayer, etc. There are some who believe this sort of reconstruction is inevitable, and that the best thing to do is to encourage the doubter to dis- cuss his difficulties freely with some older and wiser per- son; there are others who believe that reconstruction would be unnecessary if the early religious teachings were less dogmatically, less literally, presented, or even subordinated to the simple inculcation of the funda- mentals of good conduct. Doubtless there can be laid down no rules that would apply in detail to all cases, In answering the analogous question: ought we to tell our children of Santa Claus and permit them to discover later that the whole story is but a myth ? we find that some children are merely amused when the truth is 132 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION revealed, whereas others are really appalled at what they deem the deliberate falsehood of their parents. Another special problem associated with the mental and moral awakening of adolescence relates to the ap- pearance of what some persons refer to as the period of "sowing wild oats." It certainly does seem that most boys, at least, before they " settle down" as reliable and steady-going adults, do pass through a period of more or less lawless conduct, or perhaps break out now and then in wilful misconduct of the most exasperating sort. 1 Criminologists speak of "adolescent criminality " and sometimes make what seem to the writer quite far- fetched assertions about the various "manias" charac- teristic of adolescence. It would seem that the general situation in which the adolescent finds himself is suffi- cient to account for most of this "crime." In the na- ture of the case contact of individual with individual is widened, control by the home is less stringent and con- tinuous, and the temptation to "try something once," just to get the experience, is obviously increased. Moreover, there may be financial or social needs to be met that tempt to minor acts of an unlawful nature. Add to this the internal condition — the passing through the period of mental and moral readjustment when old sanctions of conduct are felt to be "silly" and childish, while the newer ones have not been completely devel- oped — and we would appear to have the conditions under which most of the misconduct of adolescence arises. A goodly fraction of the downright cases of per- sistent and repeated criminal offenses turn out to be committed by persons of subnormal mentality who really, that is to say, don't know enough to foresee the 1 See Swift, "Some Criminal Tendencies of Boyhood," Ped. Sem. t 8, 1901, 65-91, for typical illustrations. THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 133 outcome of their behavior or to control their conduct by the higher social motives. One of the most obvious general principles for affecting the reformation of the adolescent whose conduct is antisocial is, then, to try to develop within him those sentiments that are summed up in the words "duty" and "responsibility." If these sentiments cannot be aroused, lawlessness may be ex- pected, and the individual is usually destined to become a social nuisance. Attempts have been made frequently to outline modi- fications of the secondary-school curriculum to accord better with the psychological aspects of the adolescent period. In many respects these attempts have been less effective than hoped for, because we are still ignorant of much that we should know of the intellectual develop- ment of the period. A sample instance is seen in vari- ous proposals for the modification of high school science to fit the needs and interests of high school students. Thus, in Hall's "Adolescence" (vol. II, chap. XII) will be found an extended argument against the prevailing type of instruction in this field as being too technical, too quantitative, too much restricted to the logical pres- entation of pure science, and too much dominated by the college entrance demands. For this would be substi- tuted especially popular and applied aspects of modern science, with considerable insistence on the lives and work of the men who have discovered and applied the great ideas of science. In this instance scarcely any one doubts that high school boys are interested in popu- lar science, and that most of them would prefer to dab- ble with kites, photography, wireless apparatus, and the raising of guinea-pigs than to solve equations illustrat- ing the laws of action of wind on surfaces, or learn the formulas underlying the use of a developer, or seek to 134 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION understand the detail of Mendel's law, but the question might still be raised: may not the more rigid, logical, quantitative, systematic presentation of the older text- books retain some merit when we look forward to the ultimate outcomes of the pursuit of knowledge in the secondary school? These and countless similar prob- lems as to choice of subject-matter and method of pres- entation cannot be settled forthwith by inquiring merely: what would boys and girls prefer to be taught and in what way? What we really need is a series of educa- tional experiments in which the merits of different bod- ies of subject-matter and different methods of teaching each of these bodies are ascertained by trial under proper conditions, and with a wide range of criteria of excellence in mind. One criterion, and possibly the foremost, would, of course, be: how well does this sub- ject and this method of teaching it seem to fit the mental needs and interests of the average secondary-school stu- dent? Another illustration of the same problem is found in the problem of choosing a foreign language for the first- year work of the high school student. Latin has by long custom been generally accorded the place of honor, yet many psychologists believe that there is a distinct emergence at about the age of fourteen of interest in spoken language — distinct enough, at any rate, as to make many boys and girls want to "pick up" a smat- tering of familiarity with some tongue other than the vernacular. Since little or no stress is laid on the use of Latin in conversation, might it not be much better to begin, say, with French, and thus utilize the interest in speaking a new language? "But," we may answer, " French is easier if taken after Latin, and Latin affords a fine chance to drill the student in sentence construc- tion and grammar, much of which he failed to learn in THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 135 the grades." Here, again, why not make a crucial ex- periment and measure the results in every way that we can devise? A final sample problem: does what we know of ado- lescence indicate that boys and girls should be educated in the same school and in the same studies, or not ? No reflection is needed to understand that this problem is a complex one; so much depends upon conditions. For the average small community two high schools, one for each sex, are out of the question; even in most cities the high schools meet geographical needs and cannot be used for sex segregation. Shall we, then, use the same building but different subjects? Or, if the same sub- jects, shall the sexes recite in different sections? Or shall the course of study be the same in some parts and different in other parts? If so, which parts shall be different? This is not the place to try to answer these questions lib detail. It may be pointed out, however, that the notion that prevailed not so long ago that girls were in- capable of keeping pace with boys in their high school studies has been exploded quite completely; on the contrary, the average scholarship is almost invari- ably found to be better in girls than in boys (possibly because the girls are more docile or more interested or less distracted by outside appeals or merely possessed with somewhat more retentive memories). Again, it may be pointed out that not too much stress need to be laid on the notion — fairly prevalent, I think — that girls tend to suffer in physical development if forced to take the same work as boys and at the boys' pace. It may be admitted that as a group girls are more apt to worry about their school work and are more incited by competition for grades and promotion. The "grinds" in most schools are oftener found among the 136 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION girls. It may be admitted, also, that the monthly physiological disturbances to which girls are subject render them more exposed than boys to physical dam- age from overstudy. But, on the other hand, most high school teachers seem agreed that these cases in which, to use Huxley's celebrated phrase, we "spoil a good mother to make a poor grammarian," are pretty excep- tional, and that far oftener girls, and boys, too, who break down in health during their secondary school work have simply paid the penalty for breaking the rules of hygiene outside the school. Late hours, social excesses, pampered appetites, and the zeal of misguided parents in overburdening their children with accessory tasks would appear to account for the development of most cases of neurasthenia and general fatigue in the high school student body. Finally, it is evident that the determination of the degree of differentiation between the work of boys and of girls is in part a sociological question. Much de- pends upon the ultimate career of each sex. Thus, in so far as the natural and normal centre of interest and activity of woman would seem to be the home, it ap- pears to most persons self-evident that instruction in the multifarious aspects of home-making would be par- ticularly pertinent to young women. Likewise, in so far as women are likely to share the interests and activi- ties of men, it would appear equally self-evident that they need to be versed in these activities, too. Whatever may be the ultimate decision on the dif- ferentiation of the curriculums offered the two sexes, the experience of most colleges and of many high schools indicates that on the whole better work is done by both sexes when they recite in separate classes. THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 1 The junior high school movement is sweeping the country. It marks a general educational reawakening, renaissance, reconstruction. This association has made it first a field of investigation, then a propaganda and slogan, now a constructive programme for development. The department of superintendence has embodied it in its resolutions. The United States Bureau stands commit- ted to it. Many state departments are making it state- wide. Large cities are adopting it wholesale. Small cities in impressive numbers and with impressive admin- istrative originality are making their own ingenious ad- justments to the idea. Surveyors of all kinds can think of no recommendable school policy that does not specifi- cally incorporate junior high school features. Local city politics finds it useful, popular. All sorts of propagan- dists like it. Co-operating agencies affiliating with public schools (library associations, for example) see in it some- thing promising. University departments of education and normal schools and all other agencies for preparing teachers are finding new aspects of professional prepara- tion for this type of teaching, new educational ideals toward which to point the intending teacher. Text- book houses with the expected enterprise are announc- ing new junior high school series of text-books, heralding, they claim, an education with new and invigorating in- gredients. Teachers' employment agencies have begun to use the new term and to recommend for positions those with the newly required qualifications. Standing 1 Address before the general session of National Education Asso- ciation, July 6, 1 916, New York City. 137 138 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION "expert" commissions of inquiry (your own national commission on Reorganization of Secondary Education and the North Central Association Commission on Unit Courses and Curricula) are preparing large areas, in fact the whole country, for the intricate kinds of inner readjustments the adoption of this fundamental change in school policy calls for. There are now educational courses in our colleges and normal schools in the junior high school problems, given by "experts." There is a literature, a terminology, a lingo, a cult, an educational philosophy, an educational party. Recently a well-known educator was invited to address a state teachers' association by debating the affirmative of the proposition that junior high schools could be made an integral part of our public-school sys- tem. He replied that he would debate this question anywhere if there could be found any one who would consent to take the other side. One was found to make the sacrifice. They still exist. What is more difficult to find is their real objections to the fundamental educa- tional ideals we have come to associate with, indeed to identify with, the junior high school idea. There are, however, we must continue to realize, two distinct educational parties with genuinely opposed plat- forms — unlike, you will notice, our present political par- ties. One party banks on tradition as such. It thinks our educational history has developed by some inevitable law of growth, that it now represents an institution possessed of virtues which come from such bona-fide and vast experimentation as has characterized that of our educational machinery. This party is historically minded. What we have represents about what we should have. The fate of schools is in the hands of des- tiny. The architecture of our present administrative THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 139 structure, therefore, has something sacredly American about it. This party is conservative and has seen by experience just what ordinary school-keeping is and just how difficult and almost hopeless a thing it is actually to renovate the whole plant. They, too, know the educational machinery of the other national educa- tional systems. They are impressed with the fact that these great and so-called civilized nations have not ac- cepted the sorts of educational innovations and astound- ing extensions and differentiations of functions which such a fanciful conception as the junior high school sug- gests — and really means to its proponents. Democracy to this party means as much democracy as, in the judg- ment of its leaders, the teachers and the scholars and other participants in the educational process can stand without practice. They start with the school machinery and, thinking in its terms, allow as much of democracy as its terms will connote without too much stretching. There is another party. This second party begins with democracy and its needs, and thinks into this social and industrial setting just the kind of education it seems to require. This party is made up of the more radically minded temperamentally. They think with amazing confidence of what the educative process is capable of becoming. As with their modern conception of democ- racy, so they start with a modern conception of the psychology of educative processes, that they are expres- sive processes, that knowledge is a real process, a real method of expression, and hence that all school exer- cises, such as reciting, studying, student activities, auditorium performances, shop trainings, laboratory technics, " projects," " socialized" class-meetings, and other new and more intimate sorts of exercises with the supposedly hopelessly academicized "humanity" sub- 140 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION jects must smack of realness. Thinking thus of the entire educative process, this party tends to think of new and novel and often, also, confusing ways of giving opportunity to these new demands — ways that make the old type of formal school-keeping itself look un- natural. The junior high school is their opportunity. With the new political and civic ideal and the new psychological goals we have this party actually adopt- ing a new philosophy of life, an "educational realism,' ' a new scale of values, a new theory of what constitutes reality. Theological dogma and, in this case, literary formalism cease to be the creators, or carriers of our realities. Politics and science and industry and war make a new realm of values, point a new goal of educa- tion. With this the new party has also become imbued with the notion that our ideal of universal education is low, and our method of allowing a wrong selective principle to work in creating an 8th-grade dead-line is un-Ameri- can. This new party rejects all European notions of the necessarily selective character of secondary educa- tion. This party wipes out every distinction between elementary or common school education and public secondary school education. It gives in the whole his- tory of the world a new definition of secondary education. It creates a junior high school transition stage which will tide over the gap which has baffled all dreamers of uni- versal education since the day-dreams of Horace Mann. With this new ideal of a new universality and non- selective education reaching beyond the 8th grade have come economic conditions which make practically im- mediately realizable this pushing upward and this liber- alizing and enriching of the common school's instruc- tional programme. THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 141 One other factor operating in the minds of this new party regarding the immediate possibility of graduating from the junior high school rather than from the 8th grade as the rule is the realization that in academic achievement the American boy at the end of the 9th grade has not by two years done the equivalent of the French or German boy who finishes the eighth year in the common school. On the other end of the reorganized secondary school in America is to be noted the fact that in the present stage of our educational development the public high school must take on for the state's necessity some pro- fessional or vocational functions such as teacher train- ing, practical engineering, etc. All this upper extension is bound up with the junior high school unit, as it is supposed to function in the new complete system. This new party possesses educational courage to the point, perhaps, of recklessness, stands for experimental meth- ods to the point of extravagance, for the conscious exer- cise of new mental processes and for the vigorous exten- sion to new boundaries of its field of service. What is meant by the junior high school ? One writer thinks the junior high school is a school made up of the upper grades (7 th and 8th) and the lowest grade (9th) of the present high school, and " organized after the plan of a high school as regards curriculum, nature and method of recitation, instruction and supervision." This, the author says, is the "real junior high school — the school of to-morrow." Another says it is a school of these same grades or even of the 7 th and 8 th grades "which offers regular high school subjects" and also "prevocational education" whose purpose of existence is "congregation and segregation"; congregation from many surrounding elementary schools and segregation 142 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION from them into a new atmosphere where indeed, for educational purposes, different groups of these pupils can be given different trainings in certain subjects. Neither of these definitions is at all adequate to the variety of junior high schools in existence, to the distin- guishing purpose of junior high schools, or to what should characterize the ideal junior high school. De- fining the junior high school in the narrow but more nearly correct sense as a special institution, we should say that, in intent, it is that portion or department of the public-school system above the 6th elementary grade, including the 7th and 8th, and usually the 9th also, which is organized under a distinctive internal management with a special principal and teaching staff, or under a six-year secondary school department divided into a junior and a senior high school of three years each, with one general management. Such a school in these first three years provides for departmental teach- ing, partially differentiated curriculums, for prevoca- tional instruction and for systems of educational advice and guidance and for supervised study. No definition which merely says it is an institution which shifts the 7 th and 8th grade boys from elementary school to high school properly represents the ideal of this school. This is after all, however, but a narrow and technical definition of the junior high school. The adequate defi- nition must be in terms of the profound meaning of the movement — if it is profound. The junior high school in this deeper sense suggests the breaking up of our ele- mentary-secondary public-school system into smaller, more intelligible, and less unwieldy administrative and curriculum units. It is but a rediscovery of what Euro- pean nations, in their more intensive cultivation of the restricted and selected field of secondary education, THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 143 have found to be an administratively and pedagogically necessary arrangement. Thinking from the point of view of American democracy, we have first thought all into the secondary system as a matter of citizen's right. We have not thought yet sufficiently of how to group and adjust our administrative machinery and instruc- tional programme to them now that we have them enrolled. European school-builders and curriculum- makers, thinking not of how to populate secondary schools but how to select, have had their genius chal- lenged not with a condition of democracy but with the problem of how best to organize logically, and hence economically, the various subject-matters offered throughout the twelve years of the complete selective secondary school period. They are ahead of us, there- fore, in economic methods of breaking up into curricu- lum units the twelve-year stretch of education which we in America wish to make as nearly universal as possible. The French "cycle" scheme for curriculum organization represents an established principle of curriculum con- struction which the junior high school promoters have been quick to adopt in theory. To effectively practise this fundamental principle will take time. A reconcep- tion of subject-matter of public education in terms of one six-year elementary functioning unit, one interme- diate three-year transition period, partaking in content, method, administration, and school atmosphere of both the elementary and the secondary, and one three-year period of genuinely secondary work, is fundamental in- deed. Nothing less than this is the real meaning of the junior high school. It is no wonder that the courageous who have accepted the educational challenge of this opportunity are floundering. Despite these bewildering and often vague aspects of 144 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION the movement as a whole we are already able to draw an attractive picture of the modern junior high school which is to be. It is the American common school breaking into the secondary field. To appreciate the democratic signifi- cance of this we have but to imagine the Folkschule graduate invited to go ahead in the Gymnasium. The pupil population of the junior high school will include not only those now in 7th and 8th and 9th grades, but all of these ages now "overage" in the ele- mentary six grades and all over fourteen who for any reason are out of school. It is a pupil democracy. Russia has the most advanced stage to-day, and she has the most elective and exclusive literary cliques. She also has the fewest theatres and audiences, and the few- est elementary and secondary pupils — all drawn from the upper classes. The Great General Public in our country in education, as in drama, pays the piper, and its pressing needs must call the tune— ragtime till it can be refined into Beethoven. So the Great General Pub- lic is now dominating the schools. It is taking over sec- ondary education as well as elementary. With it, of course, must come fundamental changes, broadside re- adjustments. Our clientele has at last become this very same great, new, eager, childlike, tasteless, standardless, honest, crude "General Public." As for blaming any- body — for the schoolmaster at least it is poor fun to blame such a great primal force as democracy. So much for the pupil population of our junior high school. Its material plant has not been reduced to one type. However, these buildings are being planned for strictly junior high school purposes. Especially are they being so built as to emphasize flexibility in the administering of instruction, shop facilities for prevocational education THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 145 of all varieties, physical education, general business fundamentals of both skill and information, concrete acquaintance with the world of fine and home arts, auditorium and directed study facilities, etc. The pro- portionate space given to shops, kitchens, cafeteria, print- ing equipments, laboratories, gymnasiums, swimming- pools, assembly-rooms, real junior high school libraries and museums is much greater than one finds in the ordinary school-buildings. There must be a junior high school architecture. These buildings must be also community-centre plants of a unique sort, not parallel- ing the senior high school functions in these respects. In addition to these features of the material plant we may expect to find increasingly art rooms and spacious grounds and other appointments in keeping with this critical three-year unit in the reorganized public-school system. The school atmosphere will not be either elementary or secondary, as* we now know it. It will be a junior high school atmosphere or it will be a failure. It either has its unique character and tone or it is but a sham solu- tion of a very vexed problem of public-school reform. We shall have better teachers and better supervision and more men teachers and a more pointed, focussed curricu- lum. More men will become junior high school princi- pals, and there will be a more nearly divided teaching staff on the lines of sex. Starting a junior high school creates a situation calling for a selection of high-grade teachers to whom to intrust such an institutional ex- periment in a system of education. Better salaries will figure, broader training will be at a premium, years of experience will count, and those with deepest under- standing of youth will be selected. Comparative edu- cational results and records of all sorts will result. 146 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION The six-grade elementary units in buildings to them- selves will now be cleared of all but the young children, their single curriculum purpose will be clarified and their obstacles in the way of average pupils will be out of the way. This policy of "lifting" the overage from the six- grade elementary school will have a wholesome effect upon all entrance requirements standards for admission to the next higher stage. Likewise those who have spent three years in the junior high school with its now increased exploration facilities and flexible curriculum offerings will and should naturally expect to be passed on to something in the senior high school department which is more specifically designed to fit them for some more definite sort of life-work. Then possibly even the colleges may get from all this a suggestion of an educa- tional guiding principle for making their own admission requirements. As to subjects and single courses, new and old, I have already referred and to progressive text-book makers who are even now on the job. Every single subject now found in the three grades concerned will undergo — in- deed, is already undergoing — transformation. New principles of organizing so-called general courses in all the main lines of junior high school work, English, mathe- matics, general science, general social science, foreign languages, practical arts, commercial work — all presage an educational era for the making of better pedagogi- cally constructed "units of instruction," topical and problem goals of intermediate education which is going surely to point us to new meanings of educational method. As to curriculum organization of our courses we are at least now to have design where there was none. Some one has said what he misses in 7 th and 8 th grade work is design. The junior high school organization THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 147 creates a situation in which instruction without curricu- lum purpose will be painful when in evidence. In short, we are forced to search for bases for our schemes of training. Here we may have curriculum differentiation or we may not. We may differentiate on vocational grounds, or on those purely of individual differences, or on none at all. The thing is that we have got to face the problem of whether we can point our instruction of these grades in any definable direction. Indeed, cur- riculum differentiation is the crucial issue, whatever we do about it. We have already in our crudely conceived prevocational education begun to adjust our instruc- tion in this prudent way to some sort of inevitable in- dustrial test to come in the life of the junior high school pupil, saving him all the while from narrow specializa- tion. Already, also, we have become increasingly con- vinced, from our crude scales and tests, of the consistent evidences of the inherent and universal natural differ- entiation among these children. No "common ele- ments" can produce like effects. Here it takes uncom- mon elements to produce similar effects. Future prob- able careers suggest some flexibility in our courses; this relatively constant proportion of poor, medium, and supe- rior students reinforces the suggestion. A mere tinkering with 7th and 8th grade subjects in the old environment and with an unchanged teaching staff and supervision cannot do what we already know must be done. These internal matters of educational reorganization offer opportunities which must not be squandered. The psychological value of this junior high school is that it provides just this favorable new situation for seriously conceived plans closely related to a clear educational philosophy of administration. If the junior school is airything it is the three-year section of our public-school system, which, with its newly de- 148 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION veloped types of " generalized " subject-matter, " proj- ect" and other like methods of teaching, democratic and free policy of school management, and intimate and intensive study of the individualities of pupils, seeks to direct pupils in finding themselves by exercising their various traits, exploiting their various aptitudes, and making possible intelligent choice of any special sort of definite training which may be followed in the senior high school or in higher educational institutions. It is our clumsy, crude, and still more or less vague but yet unmistakable attempt to shunt our educational ma- chinery during this particular three-year period into the field of diagnosing and consciously exercising, by means of more various and more liberally conceived kinds of trainings, the individualities of pupils. Into this picture of the modern junior high school, in addition to these larger features of the material plant, the principal and the special teacher, the new entrance requirements, the new and renovated old subjects, the curriculum differentiations, simplified organization, dis- cipline adjusted to early adolescence, and equipment, must go such features as directed school and home study, systems of organized educational and strictly vocational guidance, lengthened school-day and school-year, carefully supervised student activities, and card catalogues of indi- vidual differences recorded in such a way as to affect the daily administration of the school. Ask ourselves how many of these features of a school are possible in Euro- pean systems and we begin to appreciate the American- ism of the junior high school idea. We understand neither Americanism nor the junior high school thor- oughly at present, yet we can believe in them. They are both struggling for expression. What are the criticisms? It is urged that at the age of twelve there are no radical changes into adolescence THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 149 as one notes at fourteen. But the very idea of a junior high school is to work gradually into secondary meth- ods and subjects. It is urged that we are creating by this three curriculum unit arrangement three water- tight compartments in our school system instead of two, and making it therefore possible to subdivide still further. This argument fails obviously as an argument. Opponents think the change necessarily means com- pletely differentiated curriculums from the first junior high school year, failing entirely to distinguish different bases for flexibility in a course of training, and failing to recognize all degrees of partially and progressively dif- ferentiated lines of work. Again it is to be feared, we are told, that if we segregate the six-year elementary school " elementary graduation" will mark the natural dropping of place for the majority — this in the face of many figures to the contrary from widely scattered junior high schools. Forgetting the fact that the new plan of entrance to some part of the junior high school will be in force the opponents argue, too, that the over- age will, when they reach the compulsory age (in what- ever low grade they are), tend to drop out. Instead they will be^happy and adjusted in the junior high school itself before any such condition prevails. It is argued that general reorganization of our schools must follow any such step as starting a junior school. It will, and this is the best argument for it. They are even speak- ing of cost — forgetting the striking feature it possesses of more fairly equalizing things by raising the per capita in the upper part of elementary organization. They claim that grammar-school teachers are now better teachers than high school teachers, and that grammar- school conditions are better school conditions, and that all this is an argument against cutting the 7th and 8th grades away from the elementary school and engrafting 150 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION them upon the high school — overlooking the fact that this is not what is proposed. Other arguments are that the plan is better fitted for the city schools than for the small schools and that, therefore, credentials admitting pupils from the smaller to the larger schools would be made more difficult; and that children driven from the common school earlier will be " sorted" into differen- tiated courses, according to their probable future em- ployment. Such arguments are doubtless offered by their authors merely because they must offer some sort and find these the only available ones. It is very clear that they do not touch vitally the chief educational problems genuinely constructive high school admin- istrators are facing. The junior high school is more than anything else a term adopted to denote design in our educational organ- ization and administration. It means that something other than tradition and accident has come to influence our development. It means some sort of uniqueness both in the pedagogy of school subjects new and old, and in the spirit of our administration. It means the Americanization of a world-tested principle of curricu- lum-building. It means flexibility and, therefore, sci- ence in the manipulation of our total school plants. Meaning in a restricted sense reorganization of the three intermediate grades it in reality means reorganization of the entire public-school system. It has as a term pre- vailed because of the spirited championship of its ideals by effective educational leaders in the face of as deter- mined, even more violent, opposition. Why does it stand for us to-day as our chief educa- tional problem ? In the first place, because it, like fire, though indispensable in the right place and in the right hands, is still dangerous; because it is misunderstood, THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 151 because its proponents exaggerate its immediate values, because like all real reforms it really cannot be fully understood by any one at the present stage of its evolu- tion — it is our prime educational problem because, of course, the junior high school is the adopted caption for an institution which, whatever we think of it, is spread- ing everywhere. The junior high school in its name and independent physical existence and form of organ- ization is but the outward manifestation of a sound new philosophy of education. It is the name we have come to associate with new ideas, promotion, new meth- ods of preventing elimination, new devices for moving selected groups through subject-matter at different rates, higher compulsory school age, new and thorough analyses (social, economic, psychological) of pupil popu- lations, enriched courses, varied and partially differ- entiated curriculum offerings, scientifically directed study practice, new schemes for all sorts of educational guidance (educational in narrow sense, and also moral, temperamental, and vocational), new psychological characterizations of types in approaching the paramount school problem of individual differences, new school- year, new school-day, new kind of class exercise, new kinds of laboratory and library equipment and utiliza- tion, and new kinds of intimate community service. It has somehow fired our educational imagination. It is a part of our educational philosophy already. Even its vigorous opponents have done the cause valu- able service and made real though so far negative con- tributions. From now on, however, it would seem that all educators should pull with the current, and construc- tively help clarify the real "junior high school idea." JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 1 Our problem, as I see it, is so vital, its issues so urgent, its aspects so diverse, that it is difficult even to state the topic of our discussion without revealing a personal bias and also a recognizable educational philosophy. If one says "intermediate school' ' some see here a deplorable conservatism and a bald and uninteresting outlook. The name is, really, more vital than it may seem, and the greater and greater relative frequency with which one hears the term "junior high school" actually indi- cates the trend of the movement. In this discussion we may, if we can, disregard any ulterior designs in the use of the name "junior high school." We may go further and disclaim other now natural assumptions as to the essential features of the reorganization we are all dis- cussing. Those actively engaged in and committed to the "reorganization" plan face, of course, the problems of how many administrative units (of separate principals and teachers and students) we may best make; and the more perplexing one, of how many curriculums within the different cycles (or units) must be organized and administered for our different groups of pupils. We may, for example, finally divide the first six years and kindergarten into two programme and curriculum units, and the last six years of public education also into two, thus having four cycles in our twelve-year public school 1 Read before the High School Conference, University of Illinois, Nov. 19, 191 5. 152 JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 153 curriculum offerings. We may again, despite present strong indications, revert largely to the "two-division" plan of precious and of recent memory. Thirdly, we may, as seems most likely at the present time, increas- ingly accept the three-unit division or cycle arrange- ments, i. e. : elementary, junior high, senior high. Even if the three-division scheme prove most acceptable with reference to matters of purely administrative machinery, we have still the major question of where (in terms of school age) to differentiate curriculums in the three newly divided stages of public education, and the ques- tion of degrees of differentiation in the two upper cycles. Here again neither the name nor the types of curricu- lums, nor the desirable curriculum affiliations and com- binations are even near settlement. Again those possi- ble three or four type variations of the six-three-three plan itself, which will be conditioned by size of city and character of school system, are but vaguely conceived, are being experimented with under only partially satis- factory conditions for scientific testing for their special merits, and are as yet nowhere clearly and finally deter- mined. All this is merely to say that the term "reor- ganization" refers to all the newly proposed cycle divi- sions of the public school by years — elementary, upper- elementary, lower-secondary, upper-secondary. Now it happens that most critical attention, for rea- sons already thrashed over and commonly accepted, is now focussed upon the middle cycle. The boundaries of this middle ground are not settled. We shall refer in this discussion, therefore, for obvious reasons, only incidentally to the reorganization problems of the first six years or to those of the last three years (four or five if we include the junior college) and we shall deal chiefly with the reorganization affecting the seventh, eighth, 154 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION and ninth years. We shall all grant that no part of the whole educational system, public or private, will remain unaffected. Nowhere at present, also, is the full mean- ing of the movement now upon us fully understood. Everywhere schoolmen feel sure there is much of pro- found significance beneath the surface. Once — in 1893, for example — our secondary education leaders may have, as they professed they did, faced a relatively clear and simple set of high school problems. The historic Committee of Ten were easily unanimous in their hearty and confident indorsement of their famous programme for American secondary education, which they so effectively launched. They were proud of their agreeable unanimity. They were mostly inter- ested in subject-matter, content of courses, providing something to teach, and at least one method of doing it. No other fundamental purposes of real life and of des- tiny of nations figured for them in any specific way. The National Education Association Committee on Articulation of School and College inherited this some- what narrow though definite problem, but brought to it a spirit of adjustment quite admirable, if a bit cocky and defiant. They sacrilegiously denied the sole principle of unity of the older committee of eminent educational au- thorities. This second report is now the most influential single piece of literature in existence in furnishing a model high school curriculum for those inclined to vary the traditional, single, "college preparatory" type. The chief interest, however, of this energetic second national committee seems to an outsider to have been in the questions of educational values of particular subjects and in ingenious manipulations by administrative de- vices of their (assumed necessary) single but new type of high school curriculum. They looked for a new flexi- JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 155 bility and advocated a method of manipulating admin- istrative machinery. They instituted no fundamental re-examination of all subject-matter with fearless refer- ence chiefly to the more heterogeneous groups now in high school, and of those still more varied and urgently needy groups who are not, but who should be in a high school of some type. Essentially they sought to lighten the yoke of college entrance and to liberalize the college entrance principle, rather than to strike right out and construct different kinds of high school curriculums for the socially, economically, and psychologically distin- guishable groups of actual or possible high school stu- dents. The North Central Association and similar in- terstate standardizing agencies in other sections of the country have had for years committees on subject-mat- ter who worked always from the point of view above — the unit-making possibility of it all. In 1 91 2 the North Central Association appointed also a standing committee on administrative prob- lems of high school reorganization. In 19 14 the two committees found that they could not keep off each other's preserves. So they were consolidated into one committee — the Committee of Fifteen on Reorganiza- tion of Secondary Education and on the Definition of a Unit. They, too, are being driven, as was the National Commission, to invent a philosophy of secondary educa- tion. Now increasingly everywhere the broadening ad- ministrative and deepening pedagogical questions are seen to be interrelated. So the National Commission hopes something will come out of the co-operative work of its twelve subcommittees of liberal specialists in sub- ject-matter (with their achieved administrative com- mon sense), all undsr a central " Reviewing Committee/ 7 whose function is to harmonize and integrate the results 156 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION of the various committees into a unified programme of development. 1 We here are similarly presenting in juxtaposition the administrative features and problems and the peda- gogics of the special subject-matters. If we can bring to bear upon the problem administrative common sense and harmoniously interrelated subject-matters and get them formulated into a purely educational pro- posal, we may reasonably hope to grasp what we are at liberty to call "the junior high school idea." We should give it a spirit as a whole, we should combine admin- istrative and pedagogical considerations into a platform of reform in school work, and we should so conceive this junior school idea that its underlying ideals will appear to affect the interests of all grades of public-school work. In short, neither skilful administrative manipulation nor special pedagogical reform in more or less unrelated school subjects can convey to one any meaning of "re- organization" worth discussing. Let us for a time for- get the corresponding but indirect effects of reorganiza- tion upon the six elementary years and upon the senior high school and junior college and let us consider the junior school. I shall attempt to present the movement itself, to specify distinguishable problems and place them in their proper groupings, sense the relative proportions of these different groups of new problems, suggest prob- able solutions where practice and educational princi- ples seem to furnish any assuring evidence, note the trends of developments in different types of school sys- tems and different communities— all the while pointing 1 Since this article was written the commission has appointed a special Subcommittee of Administration of Secondary Education also. JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 157 out in particular what we do not know about the junior high school. I shall understand by "administrative problems" both those which are of a profoundly social nature, relating directly to the demands of democracy; the more techni- cal ones of a financial sort; and the strictly professional ones, such as curriculum organization and the various new features of school management supposed to be essential accessories of the new organization — type of principal and teacher, new text-books, new relation to college (new units, etc.), vocational guidance, and super- vised study. "Administrative problems" should in- clude also certain phases of the selection and educational organization of content of courses. Administration, thus comprehensively and spiritually interpreted, is in a sense the most vital feature of any old or new organization. From one point of view it outranks even good but isolated unco-operative teach- ing of special subjects. It is the spirit of the system which can taint or can inspire all the co-operative work of the school. Now the spirit of our reorganization must be governed by this clear philosophy of educational administration. Our particular question is: "Can this essential spirit of administration get its best expression in new units of internal government, new curriculum units, new types of school activities, new kinds of group consciousness and group exercise, new school relation- ships — all typical of the associations which its ad- vocates connect with the junior school idea ?" In other words, can we interpret the junior high school as an out- ward manifestation of a sound, new philosophy of edu- cational administration ? That it is a manifestation of some sort of philosophy of school administration we are sure. Why do its advocates associate it with new ideas 158 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION of promotion, new analyses (social, economic, and psy- chological) of its pupil populations, new schemes of all sorts for guidance (educational, moral, temperamental), new psychological characterizations of types, new school- year, new school-day, "class period "? It has somehow set on fire a sort of educational imagination which can- not be checked. The particular plan one proposes may be debatable; yet its agitation brings results. Its advo- cacy is a means to an end. The junior high school is no fool-proof device. Suppose it to be only a fruitful pretext; still schoolmen are using it in order purposely and in the spirit of progress to confront themselves with a condition demanding consummate knowledge and skill in both teacher and supervisor. Superintendent Study, of Neodesha, after three years of experiment and successful experience, thus in sub- stance puts his experience into advice regarding the four fundamental steps to take if one moves at all in this new direction — that of organizing a junior high school. i. The first requisite for success is self -preparation of the superintendent himself. He must hold a reasoned position backed up with contagious enthusiasm, he must be patient, tactful, and willing to wait for results, and he must know how to present his cause as well as know the formal technical arguments themselves. 2. The school board must be educated thoroughly before the reorganization step is taken. Being a sole promoter is fatal and wrong in principle. This sort of an educational step imposes a responsibility which the board must share. 3. Likewise the principals and the teachers must understand the aims and purposes of the new curricu- lums and methods of instruction, and help create the new atmosphere of success. Many superintendents JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 159 have forgotten this democratic necessity, and their lieu- tenants have not rallied around them. As Superinten- dent Horn, of Houston, reports, it is very difficult to get the "junior high school idea" into their minds. 4. There is another factor: the parents and the com- munity. The possible values of the new plan must be patiently and clearly and constantly taught them through press and platform and pulpit, and informally on all sorts of social occasions. This step is the occasion par excellence for educational idealization on the part of the entire community. Superintendent Study means that if you believe in the new organization scheme at all you must believe in it hard. He has, I think, the only legitimate point of view and has well defined the only excusable attitude for those who venture out upon these waters. He has estimated the essential steps. These, rather than merely mechanical equipment, or a sort of standardized instruc- tional minimum, or type of building, or kind of text- books, or length of class period, are the real prerequi- sites. Before we are through with reorganizing, of course, all these matters {externa, as the Germans call them) will be affected; but no schoolman should hesi- tate to adopt those characteristic features of the junior high school which will make his school system more effective, even if he cannot at first conform to some- body's arbitrary definition of such an organization. Among these specific steps there is no one order of pro- cedure. Some schoolmen Begin with the hardest prob- lem first, that of curriculum reorganization and partial differentiation; others find it better to begin with some extra-curriculum feature such as vocational-guidance systems, schemes for study and record of individual dif- ferences, supervised study, departmentalism, the mere 160 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION addition of new subjects, the formation of slow-moving and fast-moving groups, or even social-centre activities. These are details. What is useful to keep in mind is that complete reorganization cannot be accomplished at once, and that one cannot merely wait till a professional standardizer tells him he can launch the full-fledged junior high school machinery. All the good things which characterize systems which have acquired these combined functions through some years of practice and adjustment must be bought with the price aggressive schoolmen are accustomed to pay for such high out- comes. As this discussion is concerned primarily with those matters of administrative character as distinguished from others purely educational and even pedagogical, it may be well at this point to go into more detail regard- ing definite questions. Let us enumerate those typi- cally non-instructional administrative problems. Shall there be an individuality about the junior high school building? Los Angeles, Cal., Kansas City, Kan- sas; Trenton, N. J.; Houston, Texas; Neodesha, Kan- sas; MacMinnville, Ore. (all uniquely situated), furnish us hints. Houston reports: "Our junior high school buildings have been admirably planned for the purposes outlined above (junior high school purposes). Espe- cially are they adapted to the policy of emphasizing in- dustrial education and physical education. They have a much greater proportion of their space given to shops, kitchens, laboratories, gymnasiums, and assembly-rooms than is ordinarily found in school-buildings. In our South End building in particular it would have been possible to erect a building to accommodate at least 50 per cent more students with the $250,000 which the building cost, in addition to the grounds and equip- JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 161 ment. This would have been done, however, by adding more class-rooms at the expense of shops, laboratories, etc." I wish he had added "special libraries," as he could have done. He has a real junior high school library. He has also a swimming-pool. Other build- ing features are being tested in the other places named. Where shall the directive and administrative authority be? For a long time this will be a debatable question, and already some heat and strong opinion are in evi- dence. We are here confronted with a fresh situation in which, free from traditional prejudice, we have a fine opportunity for establishing an adjustment of admin- istrative and supervisory relationships and co-operations which is impossible under the old system. For obvious reasons one hesitates to cite examples. What subjects are to be offered under these new condi- tions? I can only reflect briefly typical opinion and special practice. The report of the Committee on the Reorganization of the Public School System of Wisconsin says in sub- stance: English, with larger emphasis upon literature suitable for adolescents, elementary mathematics, in- cluding the simpler elements of observational geometry and algebra of the equation, general science (or elemen- tary science) — all three interlocked with history and geography and taught with reference to later advanced sequentially related work; constructive work in all the general manual training of the public school, in domestic science, drawing, and agriculture; systematic exercise in the form of music and physical education. The addi- tional variables of this extended programme must be selected with a view to pursuing it for two years, giving it a thorough try-out and the pupil one, also. Other systems make more extensive inroads into newer fields, 162 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION differentiating the work in such fields as civics, com- mercial branches, mathematics, etc. Solvay, N. Y., is a good example to be cited later. So much for the mere addition of subjects and courses. What measure of curriculum differentiation shall there be? Some so-called junior high schools have little if any and rest their claim to their title upon extra-instruc- tional features. Leavitt and Brown, in their book "Prevocational Education in the Public Schools," advo- cate two clearly distinctive curriculums, and base their suggestion upon the practice in a few selected schools. In addition to this sort of differentiation, leading to dif- ferent sorts of content for different pupil groups, we have also the kind of differentiation determined by the presence of "accelerant groups" and "slow-moving" groups in the same subject. This is cited by Briggs (Annual Report of U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1 914) as one of the most important reasons for a junior high school. Given these distinguishable groups we have three different methods of administration with ref- erence to them alone — obviously a new educational pos- sibility opened up by the movement. What shall be the modifications of subjects because of their different "curriculum settings"? One junior high school principal writes: "The work as we give it is divided into six separate curriculums. While often the same subjects may be required in the different cur- riculums, there may be considerable difference between the subject as given in one curriculum and the same subject as given in another curriculum." English, in other words, means less technical grammar than in the old elementary single curriculum; English in the domes- tic, practical arts and prevocational curriculums means no technical grammar at all. History in the academic JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 163 and commercial curriculum is like the traditional courses; in the domestic, practical arts, and vocational, it places much more emphasis upon inventions and commercial history. Arithmetic in the academic early in the course treats commercial applications of percentage as algebra, and treats their mensuration as geometry; the commer- cial curriculum devotes all the time to commercial appli- cations, works more narrowly to attain a trade standard of accuracy and speed in computation (sacrificing some- thing of the purely mathematical exercise). So it is with the drawing work and the science work. He goes on to explain how the academic group takes German five times a week, while the commercial is taking type- writing two years and bookkeeping one, and the house- hold-science pupils are having two double periods each in cooking and in sewing, practical arts pupils four double periods in shop and one double period in shop drawing, and the vocational pupils, their longer school- day and school-year in practical work. All "academic" boys and girls get some of the shop work or the cooking and sewing. What entrance requirement to the junior high school ? All over age from the now better, more economically organ- ized six-year elementary school. What shall be the entrance requirements to the senior high school? Superintendent Spaulding says age and maturity, not scholastic attainment; not ability to do the work offered in the "single curriculum" senior high school, but ability to do something different from the babies of the first six grades and something which the modern upper high school must, if it does not now, offer. Superintendent Maxwell would have no "scholastic en- trance requirement" for the group who are destined for the vocational work of the junior high school, but he 164 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION would add a more rigid scholastic test for the others — a compromise. Of the three practices I like Spaulding's. How record credits ? To be dogmatic: by the semester hour plan, as in college, because of the desirable varying of number of class periods for courses in order to assist in meeting the situation arising from accelerant classes, new features, etc. How shall the same subject {German or Latin) be differ- ent in form and in unit of credit value when given in junior and in senior high school? (See Annual Report of North Central Association, Committee on Definition of a Unit — 1914.) This solution is tentative, but prob- ably in the right direction. What unique systems of advice and guidance are espe- cially suitable for junior high schools ? (See Somerville, Mass., Superintendent C. S. Clark's Annual Report, 1914.) What is the most practical system of card-index of indi- vidual traits , etc., and what can we do with all this per- sonal information of pupils, once we get it? Experi- ments are numerous, but as yet no single system stands out from the others. What are the qualifications of the " home teacher " u ad- viser teacher" "mother-teacher" in regard to preventing impossible assignments (a danger of all junior high schools at first), in dealing with absences, discipline, etc.? A new functionary is here being developed. (See McMinnville, Ore.; Houston, Texas; Decatur and Urbana, 111., et al) What is a junior high school laboratory work ? Indi- vidual experimentation, or wholly demonstrational ? And in what subjects practicable ? (See N. E. A. for- mulation of " Project, " Report of Committee on General JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 165 Science, February, 191 5.) This is still a controversial issue in which neither side has as yet touched bottom. What is a junior high school library ? (See Springfield, 111.; Houston, Texas; Decatur, 111., for reports showing widely differing facilities.) What is the proper class period, number of periods per day, per week, proper division for study and for recita- tion, variation with subjects ? (Variation here is indica- tive of most thorough experimentation with many dif- ferent combinations of features.) Can we standardize the home study for this cycle as the French do ? and can we administer our own standards ? (No data of value as proof, but much of "suggestive" value.) What is practicable and what desirable regarding depart- mentalism? (See Reports from Rochester and Solvay, N. Y., and H. W. Josselyn's "Survey of Accredited Schools of Kansas" for variations of so-called " depart- mentalism " itself.) What shall be the number of studies taken at one time by the pupil in junior high school, and how many times per week? (See North Central Association Report, 1914, which appears here to be in direct opposition to the central idea of exploitation and exploration of interests and aptitudes of pupils partly by means of a greater variety and larger number of courses. See also the "concentration" method of administration of curricu- lums in Manual Training High School, Indianapolis.) How standardize the instruction hours per teacher per week ? (Extreme variation in practice.) Shall junior high school teachers be college graduates? (This is evidently a common ideal.) What is a reasonable salary scale as compared with 166 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION senior high school teachers ? (Some advocate same scale, some even a higher.) May we expect an interchange of teaching service and of supervision, as well as of apparatus and of library facili- ties ? (Different systems will soon be able to contribute pertinent experience here.) What is the minimum number of pupils essential to the ideal junior high school organization? Merely enough for full classes, for sections in laboratories and for special libraries; enough to justify special auditorium exercises for credit; enough for accelerant groups; enough to reduce the per capita costs to what figure? (See Hol- land's Report of Louisville Public Schools, 19 13, 14, and H. W. Josselyn in Johnston's "The Modern High School," chap. V.) As to arguments, I shall not rehash them now. They are familiar to all who read modern educational litera- ture, or even to those who merely attend educational meetings. Each side urges the cause of democracy itself as the first argument, and from this goes forth into "castes in society" and "tampering with curriculums," down to mere matters of administrative device. The extent of the movement is now impressive. There are at least six states which have "resolved" and taken other steps. Many teacher associations, includ- ing the National Education Association and some large universities, including University of Michigan and Uni- versity of Chicago, have adjusted temporarily their en- trance requirements, and the North Central Association has twice announced its intention to propose some more fundamental method of articulation. The National Commission of Secondary Education and the Depart- ment of Superintendence are committed. At the pres- JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 167 ent time a large number of schools in the North Central territory alone report themselves as unorthodox, most of them being clearly "intentional" junior high schools. A larger number report their intention to reorganize in the near future. Douglass in 19 13 was in communica- tion with 135 such schools. Briggs, in the Annual Com- missioner's Report, 1914, cites 167 cities as having one or more junior schools, and elsewhere speaks of being in communication with 193, and says that 222 others had declared their plans formed for such a step. The North Central territory contains the same impressive propor- tion of these intending the reform. Doubtless many of these are not full-fledged junior high schools. The more interesting thing is that they are such in what to them is some essential feature, and in their intention of grad- ually incorporating others. I believe their spirit is a good one — launch right out when the preparations above specified are made, and do the thing which seems best to start upon. Local conditions will determine which ones of all those enumerated steps should come first. As to proofs we have at present only case records of successes of individual systems — no appraisal of large numbers of systems with reference to items of improve- ment in common measured under comparable condi- tions. Furthermore, we have no reported failures or reversions to the older type. Thus far we have mentioned the strictly administra- tive problems largely external to the curriculum differ- entiations themselves. The policy of curriculum differ- entiation and specialized trainings in the senior high school scarcely longer admits of argument. It is the great issue in the junior high school. There is a sense in which curriculum differentiation at this junior school 168 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION stage is questionable. Certainly few would advocate pigeonholing all the pupils of these grades by absolute segregation with specialized methods and courses and distinctive subjects. There is another sort of curricu- lum differentiation, however, which is basic to the very junior high school idea itself. It may be progressively illustrated by Richmond, Ind. ; Trenton, N. J. ; and Sol- vay, N. Y.; and by certain extreme vocational curricu- lums in Massachusetts and New York. We may say that the "prevocational issue" appears to be the most prominent reason or pretext for junior high school curriculum differentiation. Briggs calls at- tention to the fact that there were only 57 of the 167 junior high schools which he examined which differen- tiate their curriculums on some other than a so-called vocational basis. This term, " prevocational,' ' appears to be an ill-chosen one to cover, as it does, all the cur- riculum variations from the traditional academic cur- riculum. We may distinguish, as regards their attitude toward prevocational work, the following as typical of curriculum-makers for junior high schools: 1. The traditional academicist who will have none of it. 2. The average fair schoolman who will make — often from necessity — the gingerly solution of adding two subjects — manual training and domestic science. 3. The "Cole type" (see Cole, " Industrial Education in the Elementary School"), who will rejuvenate the academic subjects a bit and add a new subject which is called "Industry," which will function in giving "indus- trial insight" and "appreciation of labor." 4. The Indiana spiral plan of a sort of academic or- ganization in much detail of the state-required voca- tional subjects in the upper grades to be followed by elaboration of same material in high school. JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 169 5. The state aided vocational work (specialized and intensive) for selected junior high school boys and girls in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts. 6. There is what we may call the most recent — Leav- itt and Brown's — "new general prevocational educa- tion" for the "prevocational type" of boy and girl. It does not contemplate any new names for school sub- jects, but does propose entirely new content for this special, psychologically different group. 7. There is the Solvay "five-curriculum" scheme, with the third "readjustment" year for those who change their curriculum after the two years' try-out. 8. The "Ettinger cross-section curriculum scheme" of New York City is both interesting as an offered substi- tute for the Gary system and for being now tried out in some New York schools. 9. Then lastly we have the Gary plan, and now nu- merous variations of it — a scheme of such fundamen- tally and profoundly reorganized materials and methods that even curriculum differentiation is not necessary — since there is left no academic curriculum from which to differentiate. The junior high school has before it all these models of differentiation. For whom definitely are all these differentiations of curriculum devised? Leavitt is an illustration of an advocate of curriculum differentiation on the ground of psychologically different types of junior high school pupils — the "scholastic type" and the "prevocational type." His differentiated curriculum is not for the "thousands and thousands who succeed in school work now," but for the overage or retarded. Even some of these are not "serious," unless they have acquired a "chronic dislike for school." One suspects that Leavitt 170 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION is after all, however, thinking of a large number of pupils, not only of those overage in the overburdened first six grades, but also of numbers of those in their grade who have not been gripped by academic interests. One suspects, too, and hopes that Mr. Leavitt is vision- ing some final and fundamental reorganization of all public-school work of these grades. Solvay makes its " five-division" differentiation with "social needs as the curriculum clew." The Ayres method of analysis of pupils' "career probabilities" as used for the "read- justment year" is employed to correct errors in curricu- lum placement. The "Ettinger plan" is preceded by parent-teacher conference and correspondence. These are but a few of the plans for curriculum differentiations now being achieved in the junior high school period. All bear close relation to the next problem, that of the con- tent of the courses constituting the curriculums. The "junior high school idea" implies the earnest and thoroughgoing examination of all subject-matter with a view to its definite aims and values. The further work of the National Society for the Study of Educa- tion in following its work (Fourteenth Year-Book) in some of the traditional elementary subjects by an ex- amination into the new subjects and courses as they vary with their "curriculum settings" in junior high schools will be awaited with interest. The increasing number of junior high school manuals now being published contain quite elaborately and care- fully worked-out "units of instruction" within the newly established junior high school courses. This is, of course, indicative of the most profound and far- reaching phase of the whole movement. Indeed, the movement itself might be said to exist and to gather its momentum in order thus to eventuate and culminate in JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 171 a thoroughly reorganized educational aim, content, and method. This paper has sought chiefly to suggest the administrative instrumentality which will likely further this wide- spread spirit of public-school reform. 1 1 Most of the references to particular junior high schools in the text above were chosen for local reasons or because of recent corre- spondence freshly in mind. No attempt was made to include even the most prominent institutions of this type, such as Los Angeles, Grand Rapids, Berkeley, Columbus, Boston, Madison, Trenton, Rochester, Evansville, Salt Lake City, Dayton, etc. CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION There are still a few high schools that cling to the traditional college preparatory curriculum, to which all pupils are subjected. Then there are those that attempt, through the elective system, to meet the needs of each individual by placing him in just those courses which he needs. Under this plan there are presumably as many curriculums as there are pupils. Theoretically, this sys- tem is sound; in practice it has not worked. A third method is found in those schools that have adopted the " group' ' system. Under this system courses are ar- ranged into groups according to logical sequences and relationships. Those courses that are closely related to the study of Latin, for example, are required in the Latin group. These "groups" are almost always domi- nated by tradition and by college entrance requirements, but theoretically the groupings are logical from the standpoint of subject-matter. It often happens, of course, that some of these groups are, in effect, curricu- lums. Thus the mechanic arts, the household arts, or the commercial groups are likely to be so designed as to meet fairly well the needs of definite groups of pupils and are, therefore, by chance, frequently true curricu- lums. There are likely to be many incongruities in such curriculums, because the chief considerations in their construction are considerations of subject-matter and not the needs of the students they are supposed to serve. In some schools, as in the high schools of Los Angeles, CaL, curriculums have been designed in view of the needs of well-defined pupil groups. The manual of the Los Angeles high schools shows many such curriculums. 172 CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 173 The Los Angeles boy who desires to enter the engineer- ing department of the state university will find the course which he needs laid out for him in one of the high schools. The boy or girl who desires to become a stenographer will find a stenographic curriculum, in which are required those subjects and courses which will fit one for that vocation. In Los Angeles the chief consideration is the boy or the girl and not subject-mat- ter, nor tradition, nor narrow formulas of mental disci- pline. Very few schools, however, have passed the " group " system in their curriculum planning. In his " History of Education in Iowa" (19 15) Mr. Clarence Ray Aurner gives an unusually complete list of representative programmes of studies in force in Iowa high schools at that time. Mr. Aurner points out that these programmes of studies are being constantly en- riched and are passing through processes of constant reorganization. A critical study of these programmes has failed to reveal a single Iowa high school that had progressed beyond the "group" system of administering programmes of studies. In 191 5 Doctor C. E. Holley made a study of the curriculum offerings of fifty-four high schools, located in cities of 4,000 or more inhabi- tants, selected at random throughout the United States. He secured his data from high school bulletins published between 191 2 and 1914. Doctor Holley says, in sum- marizing his study: "Curriculum differentiation has been attempted by many who have hazy ideas as to what they are doing. Few curriculums were found which were planned for a clearly differentiated group of pupils. Most of them were mere ' paper ' or administrative cur- riculums. It seems that few schoolmen are doing real curriculum thinking." Within the past three years the writer has critically analyzed the programmes of studies 174 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION in over fifty of the largest high schools in the country and has found the same conditions. There are other respects in which there is the widest diversity in the administration of courses in high schools. The variation as regards constants, studies required of all pupils, is well known. A census of high schools would probably show that in no two schools are the requirements alike. All require English, but there the similarity ceases. Some require three and some require four years of English. Some require mathematics and some do not; some require science and some do not; some require one course in history, others other courses, and some none at all; and so on to the end. Apparently there is complete disagreement as to what subjects, with the exception of English, are indispensable to education for democracy. The problem of sequence and diversity has scarcely been considered by schoolmen. Under the group sys- tem there is sequence with a vengeance, altogether too much of it, for the sequences are likely to be in the most closely related subjects. Under the elective system, on the other hand, it is difficult to secure the necessary- sequence. Again, in an examination of groups in the programmes of studies of various schools, few conscious attempts have been found to secure diversity. But under the elective system there is likely to be a rush for snap courses and first-year courses, with the result that there is too much diversity and no sequence. In the curriculum history of the Decatur, 111., High School is epitomized the experimentation of three-quar- ters of a century in American high schools. The Deca- tur High School was established in the sixties. In 1868 a curriculum was published. This curriculum, with others, is preserved in the reports which have been made CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 175 from time to time by the superintendents of schools in Decatur. At that time the Decatur High School offered only one curriculum. All pupils had to pursue this cur- riculum, which was in effect a college preparatory and, therefore, a true curriculum in the sense that it served one clearly defined pupil group — that group expecting to enter college. The only option was that of substitut- ing some other study for Latin. Pupils not intending to enter college were not compelled to take Latin, although a study of the curriculum leaves one in doubt as to what subject they could have taken instead of Latin. This curriculum remained in force for a number of years, probably until 1892, when a new programme of studies was printed. The old single curriculum system had failed in De- catur and was now elaborated into four curriculums or, more properly, "groups'' — the English, the Classical, the Latin, and the Scientific groups. An analysis of these four groups will show that they were very much alike. In fact, the only difference between the four was that in some more Latin was required than in others. In the classical and in the Latin groups four years were re- quired, in the science group three years were required, while in the English group no Latin was required. The classical group was so called because Greek was required. Once the pupil had selected his "group" there was prac- tically no opportunity for election of subjects, since all subjects were prescribed throughout the four years in each group. This attempt to adapt the work to the needs of the pupils did not succeed, so in 1899 a new system was introduced. In the period between 1892 and 1899 the Committee of Ten of the National Education Association had made its historic report. The discussion of how to adapt the 176 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION programme of studies to the students had begun in earnest. The movement in favor of the elective sys- tem was in its heydey. Decatur High School was swung to the extreme. All "groups" were abolished and the programme of studies was administered on an almost completely free election system. Four years of English and two years of mathematics were required of all pupils. All other studies were elec- tive and the pupil would theoretically be placed, upon the advice of the principal, in those courses best adapted to his peculiar needs. This system was in vogue until 191 1, but it failed to justify the claims that were made for it. An exhaustive study of the four-year individual curriculums of those pupils who had graduated from the high school in this period showed an almost utter lack of organization of courses so far as the individual was concerned. It was found that outside of English and mathematics few subjects were pursued longer than a year. There was an almost universal tendency on the part of pupils to take first and second year courses to the neglect of advanced courses. The one exception to this was the languages where tradition and a rule that two years of a foreign language must be taken in order to obtain credit in it toward graduation, unless the pupil had previously done two years in another foreign lan- guage, operated to secure more sequence. In 191 1 a new high school building was completed, and for the first time numerous and varied manual arts and commercial courses were to be offered. In a series of faculty meetings it was decided that a better curricu- lum organization must be obtained. The result was a return to the "group" system. Ten groups were estab- lished — the Latin, the German, the science, the English, the history-civics, the art, the commercial, the mechanic CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 177 arts, the household arts, and the normal preparatory. Four years of the major subject was required in each of these groups in addition to four years in English. Such other courses were required as had logical relation from the standpoint of subject-matter to the major subject of the group. This scheme was in vogue four years. It was an im- provement over the free elective system, because for the first time the pupil had some guidance in the matter of courses pursued, coupled with the advantages of a rich and varied programme of studies. But the plan was unsatisfactory. In the first place, it was found that there was too much sequence and not enough diversity. The four-year requirements in two studies worked very great hardships. A single failure might cause the pupil endless trouble in arranging a schedule of classes that would permit his completing his group in four years. Exception after exception had to be made, with the result that all regulations were practically thrown to the winds. There was a tendency on the part of the pupil to overspecialize. In the second place, the faculty came to believe that some of these groups were un- natural. There was, for example, no excuse for a Latin "group," or curriculum, in a high school in which there were perhaps not six pupils who would ever spe- cialize in Latin, and if there were those in the high school who would make the teaching or study of Latin a life vocation, they must first complete entrance require- ments in order to enter the university or college where they could prepare for their life-work. Such pupils properly belonged not in a Latin curriculum but in a college preparatory curriculum. It was also agreed by the faculty that many subjects required in the various groups were out of place because they had been placed 178 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION in the group requirements through considerations of subject-matter rather than with regard to the needs of the pupils to be served by the study "groups." In 191 5 the whole matter was threshed out in a series of faculty meetings, and a new organization of the pro- gramme of studies was effected. It was decided that there were three large groups in the high school whose needs must be met by the programme of studies: the college preparatory group, the vocational group, and that group which would not enter college and did not, for good reasons, care to prepare for definite vocations, but desired a general liberal arts training in the high school. Curriculums were designed, therefore, to meet, as nearly as possible, the needs of each of those three groups and, in so far as possible, with the equipment at hand, to meet the needs of subdivisions of the large groups. So there were established college preparatory and normal preparatory curriculums that would admit to the various colleges of the state university and to the normal school of the district. Likewise a number of vocational curriculums were worked out, such as the household arts, including the sewing and the cooking curriculums; the mechanic arts, including the wood- working and the iron- working curriculums ; the commer- cial, including stenographic and bookkeeping curricu- lums; the music curriculums; the fine arts curriculum; the agriculture curriculum; and the teacher- training cur- riculums. The general curriculum, poorly named, per- haps, was planned for pupils who do not care to enroll in any of the vocational curriculums and do not care to take the mathematics or languages required in the col- lege preparatory curriculums. Experience had shown that this was a very real and definite pupil group. In all fifteen curriculums choices were offered. CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 179 In order to secure sequence and diversity it was de- cided to require of all pupils, in four distinct subjects or departments, two majors of three units each, and two minors of two units each. This system, copied, in fact, from the colleges, insures that the four years' work done by the pupil will have organization, and that he will pursue certain studies long enough to obtain some mas- tery of them. It also insures that he will have that diversity of training which is fundamental in a liberal education. The general curriculum could not be con- sidered a snap curriculum and an easy mark, because the pupil electing it is required to have his two majors and two minors, which call for good, hard, serious work. Finally, it was decided that three years of English, one year of mediaeval and modern history, a half year of civics or a whole year of American history, one year of a laboratory science and one semester each of physical education and chorus, should be required of all pupils. It is unnecessary to present the arguments for requiring English. At present there should be little disagreement upon that point among schoolmen, although there would probably be disagreement as to the amount that should be required. In brief, the reason for requiring mediaeval and modern history and civics, or American history, is that the prime business of the school is to prepare boys and girls for the intelligent performance of the duties of citizenship in a republic. In order to per- form these duties the pupil must be intelligent as regards the present political and social order and as regards the relations of the major nations of the world. In order to accomplish this end American history and civics and modern history are indispensable. These constitute the irreducible minimum. Since the greatest contribution of modern times to civilization and to the thought of the 180 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION world has been that of science and of scientific method, no pupil should go out from the high school without an introduction to at least one great field of science and to scientific method. The physical well-being of people rests at the foundation of all education, culture, and civilization, and, therefore, physical education should be one of the school requirements of all pupils. The limi- tations of the plant alone determined the amount of this work required at Decatur. Finally, music was rec- ognized as a great socializing force in community life. Every student should have some appreciation of music in order that he may participate to the fullest extent in this great unifying experience. Here again the lack of space in the building at Decatur determined to a degree the requirement. In some such manner must the curriculum problem be solved. In every high school of any size certain groups of pupils will be found for which carefully planned curriculums must be provided. One such group, ever present, consists of those who will enter colleges or normal schools. Instead of Latin " groups" and science "groups" which meet nobody's needs, curriculums should be outlined for this group on the basis of the requirements of the state university, the head of the state school system, and of the normal school of the district. Another well-defined group is the commercial group, another the mechanic arts, another the house- hold arts, another that group needing a general, liberal arts curriculum. The scientific method of approaching the curriculum problem in a high school is through a survey of the abilities and vocational needs and inten- tions of the pupils. Such a survey, while not absolutely necessary, will throw great light on the problems, espe- cially in the larger schools. CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 181 Once a decision has been made as to what curriculums are needed, the problem is faced of what courses ought to be required in each curriculum. The test will be no longer that of the logical relationship of subject-matter but that of the needs of the pupil group to be served. Those courses will be required in the commercial cur- riculums that will best fit one to become a good stenog- rapher or bookkeeper or salesman. If a course in Latin is required in the stenographic curriculum it will be because stenographers will improve their vocabularies through a study of Latin and not because of any logical relation of Latin to any other subject required in that curriculum. But it will not be easy to construct these curriculums. Scientific investigations need to be made to determine just what training is required to fit for each vocation and to determine what vocations need to be considered in curriculum-planning. It will take years of inquiry, investigation, and experimentation to develop the best possible curriculums. In like manner the problem of constants must be attacked. The present diversity of practice in this re- spect is ridiculous. It characterizes us as a profession of loose thinkers. Can we not agree, say, on whether or not some of the social sciences ought to be required, and, if so, what constitutes the sine qua non. All that has been said concerning the problems of cur- riculum-making in the senior high school will hold good in the junior high school. The same principles of cur- riculum differentiation, of constants and of sequence and diversity, will hold in the junior cycle that will ob- tain in the senior cycle of our secondary schools. The remarkable growth of the junior high school system dur- ing the past five years leaves little doubt of the per- "182 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION manency of such an institution in our system of public schools. This growth of the junior high school idea means that, in this country, students of education are rapidly accepting differentiation of curriculums begin- ning with the seventh year. The differentiation in the junior high school will not be carried to the extent that it will be carried in the senior high school. There are, however, certain large groups for which specific curricu- lums will be designed. One such group consists of those who will ultimately enter college. Another group is composed of those pupils who desire a general liberal arts training in the senior high school but will not enter college. A third is composed of those pupils who will enter the vocational curriculums of the senior high school. This group will be differentiated in curriculum- planning into three or four subdivisions. There are those girls who are clearly destined for the household arts curriculum of the senior high school. There are boys who will enter the industrial pursuits. There are pupils who will enter commercial life as clerks, book- keepers, salesmen, stenographers, and some will even- tually become managers. Clearly there must be a household arts curriculum, a manual arts curriculum, with variations, for boys, and a commercial curriculum. In many Communities an agricultural curriculum will need to be added to these, or substituted for one of them. Still another group in the junior high school is com- posed of those boys and girls who, for economic reasons, never will enter the high school, and for whom specific vocational training of a trade nature must be provided. This will mean a number of curriculums leading to apprenticeship and, in many instances, fulfilling the function, in part at least, of apprenticeships. It is in CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 183 i this field that the junior high school organization will largely justify itself. In order to do this it must extend by a year the school life of that group that has not been entering the four-year high school. And it must pro- vide effective continuation work for those whom it can- not hold through the 9th grade. The George Wash- ington High School of Rochester, N. Y., offers a variety of industrial arts curriculums that constitute a living prophecy of the possibilities of the junior high school in industrial education. What curriculums, then, will there be in the junior high school? In general, there will be the college pre- paratory, general, commercial, industrial arts and house- hold arts for those pupils destined to enter the senior high school. In addition, there will be a group of cur- riculums of a highly specialized trade character for those who will never enter the senior high school, but who will at once become wage-earners. The principles of diversity and sequence, and of con- stants, applicable to curriculum-making in the junior high school will be the same as in the senior high school. If we accept the principle of differentiation in the junior high school grades the problem of constants, or of the common elements as they are called by Professor Bag- ley, is a matter of supreme importance. For obvious reasons, more work ••in more different subjects will be prescribed for all pupils in the junior high school than in the senior high school. To the prescription of Eng- lish, social science, science, music, and physical educa- tion in the senior high school must be added arithmetic, geography, and the manual arts in the junior high school. Great educational battles will be fought over the amount of time to be given to these constants and to the character of the subject-matter and the method 184 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION in these courses. The disagreement as to the content, organization, method, and length of the general science course is characteristic of the chaotic condition as re- gards these constants in the junior high school at the present time. But there is almost as much disagree- ment on mathematics and the social sciences. Every development in these grades points clearly, however, to the general adoption of differentiation above the 6th grade. The constants will not be permitted, therefore, to take so much time as to prevent the offering of defi- nite curriculums in these grades. The very fact that the number of constants will be greater in the junior high school than in the senior high school will make less difficult the problem of sequence and diversity. Once the battle has been fought and the constants agreed upon, the matter of sequence and diversity will have been practically settled. There will be a sufficient number of constants running through two or three years of the junior high school to assure both the desired sequence and diversity. A reorganization of curriculums in both the junior and senior high schools, with a distinct differentiation of curriculums in the lower school, will raise the question of the entrance requirements of the senior high school. Under the traditional organization of schools all pupil9 are placed upon the 9ame basis in this respect, all are put through the same paces in the grades and have, presumably, had the same preparation for high school. Differentiation of curriculums may in a measure undo this arrangement. There is likely to be some differ- entiation of entrance requirements as well as of cur- riculums. Completion of certain curriculums in the junior high school may admit to certain curriculums in the senior high school but not to others, with the pro- CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 185 vision, always, that a way must be left open, without imposing too great penalties, for industrious and capa- ble boys and girls to enter any senior high school cur- riculum and to realize any ambition that the public schools will permit. The senior high school must, of course, always be held open for those overage pupils who ought to be admitted, regardless of scholastic prep- aration, to those courses that will be of most profit to them. There may be differentiation of schools as well as of curriculums. In some of the larger cities there are manual arts high schools, commercial high schools, and liberal arts high schools, but the sentiment in favor of the cosmopolitan high school seems to be growing. The powerful argument in favor of the cosmopolitan high school is the social argument. It is a dangerous thing to accentuate the social stratification of society by separating in our secondary schools the boys and girls who are destined for the professions and for positions of leadership in our social and industrial life from the boys and girls who will be artisans and will fill subordinate positions. The same theory holds in large measure for the junior high school. It is not possible within the limits of this chapter to go into details regarding the organization of subject- matter within the courses in the high school. In dis- cussing curriculum policies it is assumed that the sub- ject-matter of the particular course will be selected with a view to the special needs of the pupil group to be served by that curriculum of which the course is a part. In the larger school it will be possible to differentiate courses. It will be possible, for example, to have one set of English courses for pupils who will go to college, another set for those who will enter vocations, and an- 186 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION other set for those who will neither go to college nor enter the vocations, but who desire more general train- ing. But such differentiation cannot be justified in the case of constants. It is very important that the leaders of democracy should rub elbows with the rank and file of democracy in some of the courses in the high school. These courses must, by all means, be the constants. Any great differentiation of subject-matter in the con- stants will, therefore, be a dangerous thing, but beyond the constants there will be little danger of too much differentiation. Eventually the only limit upon it will be the problem of administration. SOCIALIZED RECITATION The character of the work done by a 9ystem of schools will be determined primarily by the methods employed in its recitation groups. The organization and type of curriculums, the selection of subject-matter, the social organization of the schools, the spirit of the administra- tion, are all important and essential, but these factors cannot make socialized schools unless the methods of instruction employed in the classrooms harmonize with the methods of democracy. If a democracy demands citizens capable of independent thought and initiative, citizens who can co-operate, who conceive the highest purpose in life to be service to society, then the methods of the classroom must develop such a citizenship. Where the aim of the schools is to train boys and girls to be submissive subjects of an autocratic state, certain methods must be followed in the schoolroom; where the aim is to create upstanding citizens of a democracy, wholly different methods must be employed. In the first school the emphasis must be placed upon conformity, in the second upon independent thinking. Contemporary thought, investigation, and experimen- tation in schools of education and in public schools have done much toward the development of scientific meth- ods. Experimental and educational psychology and child study have made invaluable contributions to this end. Standard tests and measurements and statistics have revealed many weak places and have already set up some definite standards of attainment. In the bet- ter schools there has been a resulting improvement in the efficiency of classroom instruction. This scientific 187 188 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION attack on the problems of method is only in its infancy, but is in every way essential to the development of good schools, and must be continued and extended. There has been a tendency, however, to overlook the most important fact of the school and of the recitation group, the fact that the school and every group in it present social situations as genuine as those of adult life. Dewey has insisted again and again that the school is life. In a state which is controlled by the people it is imperative that this corporate life of the school and its groups be so used as to evolve in its individual members those habits, prejudices, and interests essential to good citizenship. Of course in an autocracy the aim must be to substitute for this natural life a forced and unnatural one, to suppress instead of stimulate certain phases of intellectual curiosity and to create habits, prejudices, and interests entirely different from those demanded of a free people. But in either case the methods of the classroom are fundamental. The socialized recitation must be based on a socialized curriculum and subject-matter. It would be impossible to maintain a natural and significant social situation in a class in an American high school by drilling on the grammar and the forms of Sanskrit. Sanskrit can be a practical and interesting subject of study for only a few people. High school children might be compelled to drill over Sanskrit, even to master it, but they would have to be driven to it, and only in rare instances would a pupil acquire any real interest in a subject related so remotely to modern life. Sanskrit is not taught in our secondary schools, but much of the subject-matter that has crept in or has been retained through the force of tradition has about as little interest for boys and girls as has this dead language. SOCIALIZED RECITATION 189 Much dead wood has been retained in the curricu- lums through the force of habit and of tradition, or, in the case of the high school, has crept in through the influence of the university and of the college. For ex- ample, much of the subject-matter of the traditional courses in mathematics has about as much relation to the needs of boys and girls, or of adults, as has the San- skrit language. In history and civics much of the work has consisted of drills on relatively unimportant dates and facts of military and dynastic history and the mechanical details of constitutions and forms of gov- ernment. In English we have compelled the mem- orization of the principles and forms of grammar, but we have failed to obtain habits of correct speech because our methods have not caused the pupils to feel the need of correct speech and have not constantly practised them in it. It is not necessary to go into detail in de- scribing this type of unsocialized subject-matter. The movement for the elimination of such matter and the substitution of vital material has been so pronounced in recent years that alert teachers are alive to the situation. It is not, however, merely a question of subject-mat- ter, but one of guidance as well. The study of Latin, for example, is of cultural and vocational value to some boys and girls and should be retained in the curriculum. But for many others it has no value, because it is im- possible for them to learn it, or to become interested in it, or because of the little service it can ever render them in the vocations which they are likely to follow. There are still high schools in which every boy and girl must pursue the study of Latin, or geometry, or algebra, or of other subjects that, for many, have no cultural or vocational value. For many boys and girls these studies 190 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION are of no more value than cube and square root in arithmetic and should be eliminated from their curricu- lums. The subject-matter in all the courses must be just as vital to the immediate needs of boys and girls as it is possible to make it, and every pupil must be directed into those courses that are significant to him. Given such subject-matter and a proper guidance of pupils into courses and curriculums, a situation is created that forms the basis for socialized instruction. In such instruction the emphasis will be placed upon pupil participation and co-operation. The teacher will keep herself in the background just as much as is con- sistent with economy of time. Frequently the pupils will work together in the collection of material and in the presentation of it so that the class will become an open forum for discussion. Every pupil who presents a proposition will be obliged to defend it by citation of authority or by adequate proof. They will not wait for questions from the teacher but will often question one another and will carry on the work of the class fre- quently without direction. When a class is working in this spirit a premium is put upon individual investi- gation, reading, and research. The pupils are dominated by a spirit of inquiry and respect for the truth and a desire to know the truth. Only in such an atmosphere can be developed those qualities of leadership and intel- ligent following fundamental to the life of a democracy. A large element among American teachers, particu- larly in the colleges and universities, has been accus- tomed to decry the importance of the study of methods in the preparation of teachers. This element has scorned the work of the normal schools and of other teacher- training agencies and the insistence of public-school supervisors on the development of efficient methods. SOCIALIZED RECITATION 191 But there is ample evidence of the power of the methods employed in the classroom in forming the character of a nation. Modern public-school systems have now been in existence over a hundred years, and we can begin to judge them by their results. Without doubt the German schools have been the chief factor in the creation of a nation blind in its devotion to a ruthless, autocratic government. The loyalty of the German people to the Hohenzollern autocracy was created first of all in the German classroom. In a recent address Dean James E. Russell described the results of the methods used in the German schools. I quote at length. In school he [the German boy} finds himself in a class of thirty or forty other boys of the same age, the same social status, and with the same general purpose in life. . . . His schoolroom is generally unadorned save by portraits of the emperor and empress, the crown prince, and perhaps a few other notables. The room is not surrounded by blackboards as in American schools. A small board stands on an easel be- side the teacher's desk — the most significant fact in the equip- ment of a German school. It means a type of work wholly foreign to our mode of recitation. In fact, I know of no word in the German language that will adequately translate our word "recitation." The German boy does not recite lessons; he re- ceives instruction. He is never assigned tasks wholly new to be worked out at home. Home tasks are by way of reviews or elaboration of what has been learned in school. And what he learns at school is given him by his teachers. He is never en- couraged to guess at anything. His teacher knows what he should learn, and under the skil- ful guidance of a master he learns what is set down for his grade to acquire in the most expeditious way and without mistakes. He has no text-books with elaborate foot-notes, glossary, and compendium. In history, for example, the text is what we should call a syllabus and in mathematics it is a collection of problems. He rarely consults a reference book and he is denied 192 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION the use of a library except under a teacher's guidance. It is a teacher's business to teach, not to waste a pupil's time in hap- hazard guessing. So the boy goes to school every day, in win- ter before daylight, returning after dark at night. In the making of Germans little weight is attached to the content of the curriculum. . . . The principle that methods of teaching and modes of discipline make the man, while what he learns determines his career, will surprise some Americans who have delighted to deride methods as a hobby of those who have nothing to teach. Their idolatry of German scholarship, moreover, would be more intelligible if they knew the signifi- cance of German methods of instruction. . . . By example and precept, by persuasion if possible or by force if necessary, the German teacher attains the end to which his profession leads — "the making of God-fearing, patriotic, self- supporting subjects of imperial Germany." This legend, just quoted, stands at the head of every official document issued by the Prussian ministry of education for the guidance of teachers in the conduct of school work. The direct object is summed up in the one word "subject" — not citizens in a democratic or representative government but subjects of an imperial power. Military rule demands obedience, implicit, unhesitating, cheerful obedience. The ideal of German patriot- ism bears its first fruit in the German school when boys learn to respect authority, to believe what they are taught, and to acquire the habits, mental and physical, of their masters. . . . The state that depends upon military power for its security and advancement must imitate and, so far as I can see, any variation whatever from the German norm would be a confes- sion of weakness. But if other ideals control, such as the theory that the greatest good of all is best subserved by the highest development of each, some other system of education must be found that will assure civil order and social security. No thoughtful student of education will claim that the case for the German schools has been overstated by Doctor Russell. His description may be accepted a9 the cold and scientific analysis of an authority. When we reflect that the spirit of modern Germany ha9 been created by these methods and that it9 sys- SOCIALIZED RECITATION 193 tern of schools has been used in an attempt to make an autocratic power master of the world, that the dia- bolical efficiency of the German schools threatened the development and happiness of all liberal peoples, and endangered the very existence of democracy on the earth, the imperative need for developing right methods in American classrooms is vividly apparent. No one would contend that such a spirit as has been described above has characterized our methods. Here there has been more freedom, more encouragement of study and research, of initiative and independent thought, more toleration, but our methods have been rather unconscious than conscious, and, in many re- spects, have not been calculated to develop a thinking citizenship. Miss Romiett Stevens, of Teachers College, Columbia University, in her doctor's thesis made a study of the use of the question in the American classroom. She had stenographic reports made of many recitations in the high schools and in some classes in the upper grades of the elementary schools of New York City and vicin- ity. This study reveals some very interesting condi- tions. The following are typical results of her inves- tigations: LENGTH OF RECITATION, FORTY-FIVE MINUTES SUBJECT NO. CASES LOWEST NUMBER OF QUESTIONS HIGHEST NUMBER English 19 20 17 25 " 39 " 49 " 55 41-43-53-61 35 - 56 - 68 - 70 200 142 165 History Mathematics Miss Stevens followed several groups of pupils throughout the day, in order, as she said, "to find out 194 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION the amount and kind of intellectual stimulus meted out to our pupils by the questions." Here are the records of two groups: FIRST-YEAR HIGH SCHOOL— FORTY-MINUTE PERIODS German 176 questions. English 88 Algebra 120 Latin 61 Science 71 Total 516 7TH-GRADE GROUP— THIRTY-MINUTE PERIODS History , 76 questions. Mathematics 85 " English (two periods) 97 " French 65 " Geography 88 " Total , 411 The cases given are only typical of what Miss Stevens found and may be assumed to be fairly typical of con- ditions existing generally even in the better schools throughout the country. There are, of course, many excellent teachers who are far more effective, some who are skilled in throwing the maximum of responsibility upon the group and the individual, and in giving the maximum of opportunity for thought and self-expres- sion. But these teachers are pioneers, while the great body of instructors in American high schools are using the methods so graphically portrayed by Miss Stevens. What opportunity is there for the cultivation of initia- tive, for stimulating intellectual curiosity or indepen- dent thinking, for practice in co-operation, in recita- tions in which the teacher asks in forty-five-minute periods from 100 to 200 questions. Think of a first- SOCIALIZED RECITATION 195 year high school group facing a daily machine-gun fire of 516 questions or of a 7th-grade group facing a daily fusillade of 411 questions! What opportunity could there be for thinking ? Why should a teacher ask even 55 questions in an English recitation of forty-five min- utes? It is recognized, of course, that in some recita- tions where drill is the aim a large number of questions may be legitimately asked, but it was not such recita- tions that Miss Stevens was investigating. Miss Stevens has admirably analyzed the results ob- tained by this method of instruction. In pointing out the weaknesses of this method, she has at the same time emphasized some of the processes that must go on in the right type of class-meeting. She says: The large number of questions suggests that the teacher is doing most of the work of the class hour instead of directing the pupils in the doing. One reason why 1 50 questions can be asked in forty minutes is due to the fact that the teacher can think more rapidly and talk more rapidly than his pupils, and so, in order to cover a large amount of subject-matter, he carries the trend of the lesson through his questions, the pupils merely punctuating the series with short answers from the text. The large number of questions suggests that whenever teach- ers, either individually or collectively, preserve such a pace for any length of time, the largest educational assets that can be reckoned are verbal memory and superficial judgment. It is quite obvious that with the rapid-fire method of questioning there is no time allowed a pupil to go very far afield in his experience in order to recall or to associate ideas in fruitful ways. He is called upon merely to reflect somebody else — the author of his text- book generally — in small and carefully dissected portions, or to give forth snap judgments at the point of the bayonet. A method that, with amplification and refinement, would serve admirably the ends of German autocracy. 196 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Miss Stevens further emphasizes, by contrast, essen- tials in good method. When pupils become interested in their work and begin to think for themselves, it is very natural for them to ask ques- tions, and they will do it invariably if allowed to do so. In the elementary school the children are encouraged to seek informa- tion, but in high school there is no time apparently for individual initiative. Take what the text-book gives you and be satisfied seems to be the watchword of many classrooms. A glance through the stenographic reports shows that few questions are asked by the pupils, and when asked they are passed over apologetically or deferred to a more convenient season. . . . The large number of questions suggests that in actual prac- tice there is very little effort put forth to teach our boys and girls to be self-reliant, independent mental workers. The discrepancy between our theory and practice is nowhere more patent. There is no use in claiming to teach boys and girls how to study and how to command their own intellectual forces by the current practice of keeping them at the point of the bayonet in rehearsal of text-book facts at the rate of two or four per minute. The principles that should govern teaching in the secondary schools are not fundamentally different from those that should govern in the elementary schools or in higher institutions of learning, but it is the secondary school that is charged with the responsibility of the edu- cation of youth in its most impressionable years. It is imperative, therefore, that American secondary-school teachers give the utmost attention to this problem and endeavor through continuous experimentation to de- velop those methods best calculated to train good citi- zens for the republic. The outstanding features of these methods are already clearly discernible. SOCIALIZED RECITATION 197 i. The questioning done by the teacher must be well planned and with a view to provoking thought and dis- cussion on the part of the class. There must be just as little questioning as is consistent with economy of time and thought. Time and opportunity must be given for the pupils to think and to express their own thoughts. Class discussion is necessary. The pupils must cease to wait always on the questions or on the direction of the teacher. 2. If scientific questioning is to be done, the assign- ments must be carefully made. The chief responsibility of the teacher in conducting the work of the class will be in planning assignments of work that will result in good recitations. 3. In aJl work there must be a constant effort to make the subject-matter of instruction of vital interest and of practical value to the pupils through relating it to life and to community interests. The pupil who leaves the study of Latin without having had his use of the mother tongue perceptibly improved or without having felt in the study of the Latin literature some of the universal experiences and longings of the race, and having had his outlook on life and his sympathies broadened thereby, has not been well taught. In physiology and hygiene, or in community civics, many community problems should be studied by the class. In like manner history, English, geography, the sciences should be used to stimulate the interest of the boys and girls in practical problems. In some subjects the relation may seem remote but often the remoteness is more apparent than real. 4. Finally, every opportunity must be used for form- ing in the boys and girls the habits of co-operation, prejudices in favor of the social good, interest in com- 198 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION munity affairs, and the desire to assume civic respon- sibilities. When we have set out to attain these ends some of the sins of the past will become virtues. For example, it will probably no longer be an unpardonable sin for one pupil to help another. Instead, a premium will be put on certain forms of co-operation and team- work among members of the class. Intellectual curi- osity will be stimulated and prized. Efforts will be made to give special opportunities for the exceptionally gifted pupils with a view to giving them the most ade- quate training possible for leadership. The application of these principles will vary in dif- ferent subjects. There is, for example, far less oppor- tunity for certain types of initiative in the study of mechanical drawing than there is in the study of Eng- lish. In mechanical drawing much of the work must be by imitation. In this subject the pupil must spend a great part of his time implicitly following directions. In following these directions there is little room for in- dependence of thought, but when he has mastered the fundamentals of the subject there is ample room for the employment of the project method. The pupil may be required to make drawings by copying or he may be given projects to work out on his own responsibility or in co-operation with his fellows. In some schools mechanical-drawing classes have designed and drawn the plans for furniture, residences, gymnasiums, school- buildings, and for many other real projects. Every subject offers its opportunities. A group in a class in physiology and hygiene made a study of the milk-supply of the city. Before they had finished a thorough investigation they had widened their scientific knowledge and had gained a new insight and a new interest in many practical civic problems. The English SOCIALIZED RECITATION 199 classes in a large high school made a survey of all the mistakes in grammar in all classes, and in a Good Eng- lish Week conducted a campaign for better use of the mother tongue. Citizens addressed the pupils on the value of good English in business, in social intercourse, and in the professions. At the close of the week the study of English had a greater significance to every boy and girl in the school, and at the same time pupils and teachers had done much toward discovering not only the defects that must be corrected but the methods of correcting them. A class in geometry made a most interesting collection of problems drawn from every-day life, illustrating the principles which they were studying. To many the subject of geometry would seem most difficult of socialization, but for this class the subject seemed practical. A subject that cannot be made of vital and immediate interest to the boys and girls prob- ably ha9 no place in the curriculum. In the first century and a quarter of their existence the public schools of the United States have been suc- cessful. If America was true to her ideals in entering the World War on the side of the liberal governments, that fact was largely due to her public schools. The schools have fostered in the hearts of the boys and girls the love of freedom and a faith in democracy. America was slow in coming to a full realization of the issues at stake in the great conflict. For more than two years and a half she remained out of the struggle unconvinced of her duty, but at all times, thanks to the public schools, the people were at heart deeply in sympathy with the Allies in their fight for democracy, and finally their training and their faith led them in. No single generation can solve the problems of democ- racy or fully achieve it. Every epoch will bring forth 200 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION its new problems. The welfare of free governments requires that the methods employed in the public schools be such as to insure that each generation will be pre- pared for its responsibilities. It is imperative that we become nationally conscious of these methods. Public safety will no longer permit the large body of American high school teachers to drift along in their work largely unconscious of the meaning of the methods which they employ. There are many signs of unrest. Some fear that we are entering a period fraught with many dangers. The schools must stand as the bulwark against violent revo- lution. They must do this first by so educating all the people in politics, economics, and sociology that they can have the basic information for thinking their prob- lems through to solution, and, second, by developing in them the ability to initiate and co-operate, and the spirit of fair play and toleration upon which all co-operation must be based. The method employed in the public high schools of America is a matter of national concern. If a nation loyal to Prussian autocracy could be created in a half- century by the methods used in the German schools, then it follows that the American public schools may be used for the national weal or woe. The great Ameri- can experiment cannot succeed if the public schools do not create a citizenship with a faith in democracy and with the capacity for carrying on the experiment. SUPERVISED STUDY Few movements affecting so vitally the traditional organization of the American secondary school have gained such wide-spread recognition as has supervised study. A decade or two ago the secondary schools of this country held sacred the proposition that forty min- utes was the length of the classroom exercise. The pu- pils were dismissed at the end of the forty minutes with the assignment that so many problems were to be solved before the corresponding hour of the next day. How they were solved, the methods used, the time wasted, the habits formed, or the disgust and dislike for the subject because of inability to do the work assigned — these were not the concern of the school. The teacher's duty was to test the pupils in such a way as to detect how much and how well they had done their work. It was her duty to mark zero for the day the lad who failed to report any problems solved. A splendid in- spiration for the next day's work ! During the past decade there has been a gradual shifting of the emphasis from the recitation to the supervision of study. There is no section of the coun- try in which some of the leading secondary schools are not organized definitely for the supervision of study. In a recent survey it was discovered that in an un- selected group of schools from Ohio to California super- vised-study programmes had been worked out in repre- sentative schools in all parts of the country, and that the number operating such programmes was compara- tively large. One of the most significant facts bearing upon this 201 202 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION topic is found in the proceedings of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for the year 191 7. The association formally recognized in its 191 7 meeting a new type of period by adopting the fol- lowing resolution: "Additional time added to the reci- tation period as denned under present North Central Association Standard, for the purpose of supervised study, shall not be interpreted to mean a double period but a single recitation study period. " This was an important forward step. Some state inspectors hold- ing to the letter of the previous standards of the associa- tion had refused to accredit schools operating a super- vised study programme, especially if the teachers were teaching more than 240 minutes daily. While serving as chairman of the Commission on Unit Courses and Curricula of the North Central Asso- ciation, Doctor Charles Hughes Johnston called the at- tention of the association particularly to that standard of accrediting secondary schools which reads: "The efficiency of instruction, the acquired habits of thought and study, the general intellectual and moral tone of a school are paramount factors, and, therefore, only schools which rank well in these particulars, as evidenced by rigid, thoroughgoing, sympathetic inspec- tion, shall be considered eligible for the accredited list." In the work which he began he recognized that the association was taking note of the new function of the school in assuming the responsibility for acquired habits of thought and study. Accordingly, in discussing the efforts of schoolmen to elaborate the possibilities of a qualitative definition of the unit of high school work, based upon the best practice in North Central high schools, he says: "The present report, Part II . . . with the modifications our commission will suggest SUPERVISED STUDY 203 presently represents, therefore, clearly a careful attempt to propose to the association a set of recommendations which do definitely touch the pedagogical problem avoided so completely by the quantitative unit." In part II of the report to which Doctor Johnston referred the first sentence reads: "It is recommended that longer periods be provided for purposes of supervised study." Later in this same report there is a recommendation that in schools operating a supervised-study schedule the laboratory periods should be study-recitation periods of from sixty to seventy-five minutes in length, in ac- cordance with the standards proposed by the Commit- tee on Reorganization of Secondary Education of the National Educational Association. Clearly supervised study has already made itself felt in the organization, administration, and standardiza- tion of modern high schools. But this applies particu- larly to the senior cycle of secondary education. In the junior high school, whether because of its closer connec- tions with the practices of the elementary school, or be- cause of a greater felt need for it, supervised study is universally the custom. In many cities where new modern junior high school plants are either projected or are under way, the old- time study room is conspicuous for its absence. That supervised study is commonly recognized for the junior high school is evidenced by the additional fact that the North Central Association has gone on record, recom- mending that "the junior high school at least make co- ordinate its emphasis upon the direction of study and the traditional activity of reciting." It has further recommended "a daily schedule of six full hours of study, recitation, or laboratory work, and five full hours as a maximum teaching schedule." 204 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION The attempt to standardize an educational practice by such an organization as the North Central Associa- tion is an indication that that practice has become a fixed part of the administrative organization of the sec- ondary school. In fact, this marks the beginning of the second stage of a movement — that stage in which there is an attempt to evaluate the relative merit of this or that type of organization. The merit of the movement itself is no longer questioned. It seems reasonably safe to assume that supervised study has become a widely acknowledged responsibility of the secondary school. There are certain fundamental reasons why the super- vision of study has outlived its day of "fad" and has become recognized as the school's responsibility. In the first place, thoughtful educational writers, be- ginning with McMurry in his book "How to Study" and continuing with Judd, Parker, Hall-Quest, John- ston, Colvin, and others, have championed supervision of study as a part of the school's work. They have advocated either a type of organization that would pro- vide definitely for supervision of study or a socializa- tion of the recitation itself so that the emphasis would be shifted from the formal work of reciting to pupil co-operative effort. Of the latter type of recitation Dewey is the best ex- ponent and gives the clearest statement. He says: "Where the school work consists in simply learning lessons, mutual assistance, instead of being the most natural form of co-operation and association, becomes a clandestine effort to relieve one's neighbor of his proper duties. Where active work is going on, all this is changed. Helping others, instead of being a form of charity which impoverishes the recipient, is simply an aid in setting free the powers and furthering the im- SUPERVISED STUDY 205 pulse of the one helped. A spirit of free communica- tion, of interchange of ideas, suggestions, results, both successes and failures of previous experiences, becomes the dominating note of the recitation. So far as emula- tion enters in, it is in the comparison of individuals, not with regard to the quantity of information personally- absorbed, but with reference to the quality of work done — the genuine community standard of value. In an informal but all the more pervasive way, the school life organizes itself on a social basis." In outlining the work before the Commission on Unit Courses and Curricula of the North Central Associa- tion, Doctor Johnston stated that " Supervised study means something much more fundamental than some arbitrary lengthening of the class period, and mechani- cal division of its activities into study and reciting. It means a new kind of educating process and a new ideal of mental economy and of co-operative intellectual work through class or group organization." These are good pictures of the spirit of supervised study. Any change in organization that does not in- clude a complete socialization of the work in the class- room misses the real point involved. Supervision of study is more than a negative solution of the problem of securing preparation on the part of the pupil. It is the means by which the recitation becomes a laboratory in which activity on the part of the pupil precedes the giving of information by the teacher. In the second place, supervised study undoubtedly has some psychological justification. Judd has written an excellent chapter on the psychological aspects of the problem in his " Psychology of High School Subjects." He makes it clear that there are sound reasons for in- cluding supervised study in the school programme. 206 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Colvin, in discussing supervised study, emphasizes also its psychological aspects. "It is the teacher," he says, "who should aid and lead his pupils in their schol- arly pursuits; he should not appear, more than is abso- lutely necessary, as an umpire in the game of learning, or as a taskmaster, who exacts his dues. More and more it is being recognized that the teacher must be a teacher in the only sense in which the word can be justly used, namely, in the sense of one who helps those under his instruction to secure knowledge, to acquire skill, to obtain insight and to gain appreciation. . . . The conduct of the recitation will be changed, much to its advantage. . . . Supervised study means the elimina- tion of lesson-hearing, so often the bane of high school teaching to-day. When the necessity for testing the knowledge of the pupil and for drilling him during the class exercises no longer exists, then the teacher will be compelled to use the recitation to realize the main pur- pose for which it exists, namely, for the stimulation of interests, for the acquiring of insights and appreciation, and for the development of reflective thinking." Among the psychological aspects of the problem, sev- eral which carry weight might well be discussed briefly. It might be stated that the ones which follow are gen- erally those advanced by schoolmen to convince boards of education that a supervised-study programme should be adopted. (a) Pupils left to study alone, especially at home, lose much time unnecessarily. Very few pupils of their own initiative get down to work at home without some loss of time, and after they do begin they permit many interruptions. (b) Pupils studying at home often acquire bad habits of study. SUPERVISED STUDY 207 In many instances it is expecting too much of the pupil to suppose that he will work out efficient habits and methods of work. He will blunder along, and out of this blundering come his habits of work. (c) The teacher, generally speaking, is a better guide than the parent or fellow pupil. In the Hammond, Ind., high school, in which super- vised study is in operation, a bright little fellow in an algebra class was asked how he liked supervised study. He replied that he liked it because it saved time and he could secure better help of his teachers than he formerly got elsewhere. He admitted that before the introduc- tion of supervised study he often borrowed the work of other pupils and was able to bluff his way through class. It is well-known that parents, in their eagerness to help pupils, will practically assume the responsibility of pre- paring the lessons from night to night. (d) Supervised study makes better provision for in- dividual differences. Thorndike and others have demonstrated that within the same class some pupils will do four, &ve y or even seven times as much as others. With a properly social- ized supervised-study type of recitation provision can be made for these differences. An example of this is to be found in the experiment conducted in the Springfield, 111., high school where a constructive at- tempt has been made, especially in Latin and mathe- matics, to organize the work to provide for individual differences. (e) Supervised study brings the teacher into closer personal contact with the pupils. It gives the teacher a chance to see how pupils work. It reveals their weaknesses and strong points, their likes and dislikes, their methods of study and attitude. The 208 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION teacher becomes acquainted with the real problems of student life. Teachers working under a supervised-study plan will often change their lesson plans after the recitation is under way because they can see that they are not meeting the needs of the pupils that day. Likewise teachers will frequently change their assignment before the study period is over. Under the older plan teachers ordinarily would not feel that this could be done safely. The teacher is not compelled to continue class in- struction longer than necessary to meet the general needs of clearing up common difficulties and of testing pupils on their organization of material. Beyond this point instruction should become largely an individual matter. (f) The period following the recitation is the oppor- tune time to prepare the next assignment. The pupils and teacher are in the mood to continue the work. The problem is set and is fresh. This en- ables the pupil to utilize immediately the class experi- ences and thus bonds of association are more likely to be definitely established between the class work and his individual effort. This results in greater interest and tends to keep the pupil in school. (g) It develops initiative and independence in the pupils. Instead of robbing the pupil of initiative and inde- pendence, supervised study results in just the opposite. No sensible teacher will do the work of the pupils dur- ing the study period. She will see to it that the pupil uses good study habits, does not waste time, and does not become discouraged because of failure. If the pupil asks for help she first satisfies herself that help is nec- essary, and if the pupil has raised the point in good SUPERVISED STUDY 209 faith he puts himself in the attitude of a learner seek- ing knowledge. The teacher will do exactly what the teacher of chemistry does in the laboratory when a pupil cannot determine what the chemical reaction has been. No one will claim that the introduction of lab- oratory work in science has weakened the pupils and robbed them of their initiative and independence. Quite the contrary. In the same way the study period in mathematics becomes a laboratory for the setting up and the solution of real problems which arise with the pupil at a time when he can secure guidance, as against help given by a fellow pupil or a parent. Qi) Supervised study fulfils the best laws of learning. Study immediately following the recitation, in which the pupils have expressed in good form their prepara- tion, and have evaluated their material, enables the pupil to make immediate use of the recitation material in the preparation of his next day's assignment. It enables him to make a real beginning in the prep- aration of the work assigned. Any part incompleted must be taken up later, and this will provide for a second recall of the recitation material and of the ground covered in the preparation. Before the recitation the following day the pupil must organize his material, but this is not done as if he were trying to get his entire lesson just before going to class. It is a final effort to complete his work and definitely organize it for presentation. It is distinctly not " cramming." These distributed periods of learning, as they afford greater time for bonds of association to be built up, are in strict accord with the laws of memory and forgetting. It provides study at a time when the pupil is in the mood. This, together with the fact that he can and does make progress in the study period, makes him more 210 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION anxious to complete his work. The pupil is more likely to feel that his preparation is identified with a need and thus his interest is awakened. The pupil will make the connection between the teacher's assignment and the work to be done. It will be discovered that the pupil under a home-study pro- gramme frequently leaves the classroom with vague notions as to the methods of attacking the next day's lesson, or just how to apply the suggestions which the teacher made. Often the child gets the wrong notion and the next day's work is not prepared. Supervised study is justified, if it does nothing more than guarantee to each pupil a clear understanding of the assignment and the suggestions as to methods and applications made by the teacher. As indirectly implied in the preceding paragraph, assignments will be made with extreme care. The teacher, who has been careless in this respect, will soon discover that much depends on the assignment. The work of the pupils will soon demonstrate any weaknesses in the assignment. Likewise, better teaching must be one of the inevitable results. In the third place, supervised study is justified by the results obtained under fair and competent teachers. Experimental education supports this statement. In the Joliet, 111., high school, failures were reduced by about 50 per cent in algebra, geometry, Latin, and Ger- man in four years. In the Bloomington, Ind., high school, Minnick demonstrated that supervised study in geometry was better than home study. Failures in the Richmond, Ind., high school were materially reduced for the school as a whole, within a two-year period. The type of organization by which supervised study is most commonly administered is that of the lengthened, SUPERVISED STUDY 211 divided period. The length of the period varies from about sixty minutes as a minimum to ninety minutes as a maximum. Usually the first part of the period is given over to recitation and the latter part to study. In most schools it is customary to assign each teacher five classes, including teachers of the so-called laboratory subjects. The laboratory subjects are given no more time than English, for example. In some schools the end of the recitation part of the period is indicated by the ringing of a bell. This one thing has caused as much argument as all other phases of the organization put together. Until teachers have learned to minimize the importance of the old testing type of recitation and give it its true evaluation, there is every reason to be- lieve that teachers must be required to keep within certain limits. In a recent survey of supervised study, the universal complaint of high school pupils was that teachers "ran over" their part of the period. Teachers can be the best judges of how long they should continue the group recitation of the question-answer type when they have decided to eliminate much of it from the classroom. It is clearly a misuse of the plan to have the teachers teaching in the old way for fifty of the sixty minutes. As a variation of the usual type of organization, the uniqueness of the plan in operation in one of the large Middle West high schools is described somewhat in detail. The school-day is one of four eighty-minute periods, with a "shifting" period of the same length which replaces one of these periods one day each week, except that on Monday the "shifting" period does not have a place. On Monday periods i, 2, 3, and 4 are run. On Tuesday the "shifting" period replaces the first; on Wednesday, the second; Thursday, the third; 212 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION and Friday, the fourth. As classes are scheduled for the shifting period the same as for any other, this plan enables the school to maintain in reality a five-period day with but four periods any one day. The following diagram will make clear the administration of this scheme. Monday . . . Tuesday . . . Wednesday Thursday . . Friday. Shifting 2 Shifting 2 2 3 3 3 m Shifting 3 4 4 4 4. Shifting A full-time subject, such as algebra, Latin, English, meets four days each week. If, for example, a pupil takes English the first period he attends class on Mon- day, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday only, the shift- ing period replacing the first period on Tuesday. Under this plan it is clear that a teacher having five classes hears but twenty recitations per week. The periods are divided into recitation and study, with approximately forty minutes given to each. Thus it will be seen that the pupil carrying four subjects has 160 minutes for supervised study on Monday and 200 minutes each of the other days. A pupil carrying five studies has 160 minutes daily for supervised study. Naturally, objections are offered to supervised study. It is not a panacea for all the ills of secondary-school organization. Some pupils will fail to pass under super- vised study, and it is not as desirable for excellent pupils as for the weaker ones. The real objections, however, have to do rather with the external phases of the prob- lem than with the problem itself. Practically no one has ever disagreed with the proposition that the school SUPERVISED STUDY 213 should assume the responsibility for acquired habits of work. It is argued that the organization of the school for purposes of definitely directing the study of pupils will tend to weaken the pupils and rob them of their initia- tive. They will come to depend too much on the teacher. The implication is that the teacher will do the pupil's work. This objection is easily answered. The teacher will not do the pupil's work in any scheme of directing study. She will use every means at her com- mand to make it possible for the pupil to make prog- ress in his work, and thus become interested and gain confidence in his own ability to do the tasks before him. Parents and fellow pupils are poorer guides and helpers than the teachers. They do the work for the pupils. One contributor to The Ladies' Home Journal for Jan- uary, 1 913, in discussing the arguments for supervised study in the school rather than home study, gave an example of what was happening under the title of "The Widow Who Was Dead Right." A widow came to the superintendent of schools with the following complaint: "I have four little girls attending your schools. I am up at five o'clock in the morning to get them off to school and to get myself off to work. It is six o'clock in the evening when I reach home again, pretty well worn out, and after we have had dinner and have tidied up the house a bit it is eight o'clock. Then, tired as I am, I sit down and teach the little girls the lessons your teachers will hear them say over on the following day. Now, if it is all the same to you, it would be a great help and favor to me if you will have your teachers teach the lessons during the day, and then all I would have to do at night would be to hear them say them over." 214 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION It is a small incentive for the pupil to go day after day to class without having made satisfactory progress. In such cases the pupils must put in extra time with the teacher or fail. A little direction from time to time and an observation of the pupil at work will prevent much discouragement. Supervision will create confidence, and with confidence initiative and real effort will follow. While the majority of parents seem to favor super- vised-study programmes, there are always many in the community who object to the children having no assign- ments or parts of assignments to do at home. They say that it is much more difficult to keep their children at home and satisfied. This objection is strong enough to warrant the attention of those planning the introduc- tion of supervised study. This point raised by parents has its counterpart in an objection often entered by the faculty, namely, that pupils do not feel a sense of responsibility for further preparation after the close of the study period. This fact, for it is such, emphasizes the importance of pro- gressive requirements in regard to preparation. After the pupils have had a year or two of supervision, surely some home work should be required to supplement that done in school hours with the teacher. Differences in ability should also be given consider- able attention, and the brighter pupils should either be held for more work or work of a higher quality. Un- less this is done, a valid objection can be registered against supervised study. Supervised study should not bring the work of the bright pupils down to the level of the average pupils. It should accentuate differences. Under proper administrative control this can and will be done. It is argued that it costs more to operate a system of SUPERVISED STUDY 215 directed study than a system of recitations and study halls. Practically speaking, the cost is no greater. In smaller schools it probably would require an increase in the teaching force. In schools of 500 pupils or more it will not increase the cost of instruction, as the number of extra classes which can be taken by all teachers of former double-period studies will probably offset the re- duction in the number of classes assigned to teachers who had formerly taught single-period studies. Further- more, fewer teachers would be required in large study halls. In the Kansas City, Kan., high school the cost was not increased to any appreciable degree. In the Richmond, Ind. 7 high school, with an enrolment of 750 pupils, there was no increase, whatever, in cost. Even if the cost is greater, this cannot be advanced as a valid objection. If the direction of study is a thing of value, if it is a new function of the school to teach a "tech- nic of study," the cost may properly be greater. Offsetting any possible increase in cost of instruction, the reorganization of the school on a supervised study basis results in a fuller use of the school plant. It re- duces very materially the number of pupils having va- cant periods, and thus large study rooms can be divided up into recitation rooms. More classes can be accom- modated daily in the science, manual-training, and household-arts rooms, thus cutting down the large per capita equipment and laboratory overhead expense. Teachers will find a wider use of library facilities not only possible but desirable. Whole classes can be taken to the library for work under the direction of a trained librarian and the class teachers. In the English de- partment a part of the period can well be utilized in organizing and administering a course in library in- struction. 216 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION The objection most commonly urged and the one that strikes at the very heart of directed study is that teachers do not know how to teach pupils how to study; that the directed-study part of the period is little more than wasted. The teachers, it is urged, are not qualified to undertake this work successfully. If the supervision of study is a worthy part of the school's work, it is not a valid objection to say that teachers are unprepared to teach pupils how to study. It is the duty of schools of education to give particular attention to this matter in the preparation of teachers. High school faculties should bring everything to bear on the solution of this problem. They should study and plan methods by which the largest results can be achieved. Twenty years ago it was impossible to get adequately trained teachers for the manual-training and household-arts branches in our schools. We began as best we could to organize these courses, and gradually raised our standards for teachers until to-day we have instructors as competently trained in these departments as in many others. The same thing will be true of the training and ability of teachers for the work of directing the study of the pupils. There is ample room for constructive work along this line within the school itself. Few high school prin- cipals have made constructive attempts to work out with their teachers principles governing the direction of study. Supervised study should be adopted as the result of study and deliberation on the part of the faculty rather than the determination of the executive head to reorganize the school. Teachers will thus feel some responsibility for the success of the plan, and will study ways and means of making the study period a vital part of the classroom exercise. SUPERVISED STUDY 217 In any scheme for the supervision of study, attention must be given to the form and methods of the recitation with a view of emphasizing the social phases and mini- mizing the old question-answer, all-the-pupils-listen- while-Mary-explains type, but even more important than this is the solution of the problems of the study period. Physical conditions affecting study, individ- ualizing the work of the pupils, wasteful methods, spe- cific application of the materials of the recitation, diffi- culties common to the entire group, working out with the pupil a satisfactory method of procedure in the preparation of the lesson — these are problems that should engage the attention of the teachers and admin- istrators. A constructive attempt to solve them will result in a technic of study that will permanently ac- crue to the benefit of the pupil. In this programme the teacher will assume the role of a "director" in the recitation, but that of a "teacher" in the supervision of study. SUPERVISION OF TEACHERS AND TEACHING Unfortunately, in the discussion of the many problems of supervising the teaching staff as well as in practice, a clearly defined distinction between the supervision of teachers and of teaching has not been made. These two phases of staff supervision should be treated dis- tinctly as separate parts of the same general problem. There is opportunity to do a particular piece of super- visory work in each of these fields, and it is unfortunate that they have not been treated separately both in theory and practice with the view of developing a real technic in supervising teachers as well as in supervis- ing teaching. Supervision at present deals almost entirely with the problems of teachers in their relationships outside the classroom and in their disciplinary problems within the classroom. There is little constructive supervision of classroom teaching problems beyond this point. Al- though the greater portion of the work of supervision is done in the field of teacher supervision, insufficient attention has been given to the development of methods of handling the problems involved, or to the advisability of considering this a definite part of the supervisor's work. On the other hand, in supervision of teaching, where relatively little work is actually done by the high school principal in a supervisory way, many serious at- tempts to develop methods and check results have been made. The first business of the teacher is to teach, and we should give not only more attention to supervision of 218 TEACHERS AND TEACHING 219 teaching but seek for means by which the one charged with the duties of supervision may do more effective work. On the other hand, when teachers are brought together in one large institution there are social prob- lems, cross-connections, and relationships that call for supervision of teachers. In the one-teacher school the teacher's problems are simple enough, but the school, as Doctor Charles Hughes Johnston said, is no longer an assemblage of teaching units. It is an institution with an institutional consciousness. It is quite neces- sary that teachers work together in harmony and that there be developed among them an esprit de corps. It is just as impossible to secure the best results in the modern secondary school where teachers are not work- ing in harmony as it is in the city when everybody is at cross-purposes with the city officials. In most schools, as has been indicated, this phase of supervision is handled in an unorganized, indefinite way. Problems are met when they arise. Often noth- ing is done until things become serious and teachers are working at cross-purposes, yet teacher co-operation and team-work are mighty factors in the effectiveness of the teaching activities of the school. Teacher supervision has a direct bearing on classroom instruction, and should be handled in a definite, constructive way. It is too vital to delay longer an attempt to develop a construc- tive technic. Great business organizations spend much time and energy in keeping up the morale of the men in their employ. They even engage the most expensive men to manage or supervise the employees in order that a spirit of mutual co-operation may exist among the men themselves and between the men and the organization. Certain great corporations have through the efforts of 220 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION the executive officers or the supervisory expert built up an enviable shop spirit and their employees thus do their best work. Even prospective employees may be found on waiting lists because of the spirit that has been built up — quite apart from the matter of wages. Business firms have thus capitalized the results to be derived from the definite, constructive supervision of the work- ers employed. They know that it pays, and the better the technic the greater the pay. The efficiency of our national army is a splendid ex- ample of this kind of supervision. We may leave out of this discussion the necessity of individual efficiency and training. These factors are inherently necessary, but the strength of an army also depends upon co- operative efficiency and good-will. The people of the United States through far-sighted leadership saw at once the need of developing among the men a spirit of co-operation and good-will through the administration of certain great social programmes destined to make the men feel deeply the community of effort behind them at home and to draw them together in bonds of mutual understanding. Our cantonments quickly had their hostess houses, their Y. M. C. A. huts, and their Liberty theatres. For our overseas troops millions in money were spent to administer to their common welfare. The result was the greatest fighting force in the world, be- cause it had the spirit of co-operation and the morale. This work in its way is just as important in the present comprehensive secondary school as in business, or even in the national army. In the smaller school the problem may not be great, but in the larger school, where it is fundamentally necessary that teachers work co-operatively, the principal or heads of departments charged with supervisory duties must use extreme care TEACHERS AND TEACHING 221 and tact to the end that the work of the school may be done with militant harmony. The supervision of teachers may keep down to a mini- mum differences among teachers, departmental differ- ences, and differences between the executive head and the staff. This is far from saying that there is no place in the system for honest differences. People of convic- tion should not be required to surrender their principles of conduct and thinking so long as they are honest and professional in their attitude. The principal of experience in a large school is apt to be familiar with factions in the faculty. These usually have grown out of issues on which there may have been justifiable differences of opinion. It requires great tact to deal with such problems and build up a co-operative spirit, to say nothing of preventing an actual open break. A principal cannot expect to maintain loyalty of effort and purpose in the faculty if he is unable to maintain the same professional attitude toward all members of the staff who have constructive suggestions to offer for the welfare of the school. It is not to be assumed that all teachers are equally strong or meri- torious, but merit should be accorded a welcome regard- less of its source. University faculties occasionally furnish glowing ex- amples of petty jealousies, petty politics, and wire-pull- ing. In discussing the internal problems of a certain university, one professor said that a coterie of fellow teachers were able to control the executive head, and that they often let it be known that requests from cer- tain members of the faculty would not be honored for action. He stated that no one dared approach the trustees over the head of the institution for fear of breach of loyalty. Thus hemmed in without recourse 222 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION and with no one heading the institution with the cour- age to give every one a fair hearing, incipient intrigue and rebellion were ever present. This experience has been duplicated in some high schools. The testimony of the university professor points to the possible solution of such difficulties. In this day we talk of prevention rather than cure. Strong medi- cine should be the last resort. Happily a new spirit is springing up in the administration of both universities and high schools. It finds its highest expression in that organization of the faculty whereby the members may actually make contributions to the solution of the in- stitutional problems as they arise. In some universi- ties real efforts are being made to write constitutions which will remove autocratic methods of administration and democratize the faculty. In the secondary field some principals are organizing their faculties into stand- ing committees which are urged to give their best thought to the problems formerly held sacred by the principal. With some such democratic organization of the faculty and with an honest purpose behind it, the faculty need not be asked for co-operation on any im- portant matter of general concern. They have some responsibility and a voice in the institutional control of the school. In many matters under this arrangement the faculty can exercise considerable freedom. In busi- ness organizations esprit de corps is often secured through some sort of bonus system. In the school participation in administration will serve the same pur- pose. Participation in administration has of late been given a new impetus. Social unrest is operating in the pub- lic schools. Teachers in some instances are organizing and uniting or affiliating with labor-unions. They are TEACHERS AND TEACHING 223 calling for definite means of securing a voice in school administration. They have even suggested in some in- stances that the classroom teachers should select the superintendent of schools. Indeed, the last word in school administration has not been written. Those charged with supervisory duties have a responsibility in the matter of directing these movements into the right channels. One thing seems clear. The autocratic meth- ods of dealing with teachers are about to become the relics of bygone days. The new day of co-operative ef- fort will call for a higher type of supervision of teachers than we have ever experienced before. Two distinct movements can be discerned in the re- cent developments in school administration. One ap- parently is directed against the present type of admin- istration; the other is seeking for means by which the problems of school administration may be worked out co-operatively. One is more or less mandatory; the other more strictly professional. Both call for careful consideration. If teachers feel that real democracy in school admin- istration can be attained only by the organization of classroom teachers or by affiliating with some class or faction in our society, the situation is serious indeed. This feeling must be reckoned with. It must be guided. This movement, if it may be called such, should be directed into the channel of co-operative effort. Our house must not be divided. Class or group organiza- tions of teachers must be justified or condemned in the final analysis upon their work. It is to be hoped that teachers and administrators alike will work for the development of that high type of co-operation which springs from mutual confidence and community effort. The N. E. A. Commission on the Emergency in Edu- 224 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION cation has rendered the profession a great service in directing recent tendencies in school administration. This commission advocated the formation of teachers' councils on a comprehensive basis and the suggestion has met with general favor. The teachers' council is designed to bring together the entire teaching force for the solution of school problems and policies. It will enable various teacher organizations within any given system to work together and thus insure real democracy in school administration. "No educational suggestion," says the December, 1 91 9, N. E. A. Bulletin , "has ever been taken up more quickly and more generally throughout the entire coun- try than that of the N. E. A. Commission on the Emer- gency in Education concerning the organization of teachers' councils. Two items in the suggestion met with instant approval everywhere, that of an organiza- tion in which teacher, supervisor, and principal could work together, and that of requiring by law that all questions of school policy be submitted to the teachers' council for consideration before being made effective by the board of education. "Teachers, superintendents, and school officers were alike ready for this recommendation, and the commis- sion was the one body in a position to say the word. Hundreds of teachers' councils have been organized during the last four weeks. A teacher council wave is literally sweeping over the country. Councils are being organized rapidly and boards of education are preparing rules in harmony with the general plan. It is based on the principle of democracy in school administration. This is one of the most important steps in the educa- tional progress of the year. It prepares for team-work in every school system. It does not do away with TEACHERS AND TEACHING 225 other organizations among teachers, but it provides a means for all getting together on the best things thought out in special groups and elsewhere. Without this all- inclusive group there is ever the danger of a house divided against itself instead of a house whose parts are bound solidly together. With all forces working to- gether, great things will be accomplished during the period of reconstruction in education." Aside from the maintenance of an esprit de corps and building up a spirit of co-operation in school ad- ministration the renewed emphasis upon such matters as the social organization of the school, professional growth, and a professional attitude toward administra- tive changes makes the constructive supervision of teachers an essential matter. With the clearer conception of the school as a social institution wherein should be utilized the social activi- ties of boys and girls as a means of inculcating those social, civic, and moral virtues essential to good citizen- ship, as a means of training in leadership, and, finally, as a means of democratizing the school, the organization and control of extra-classroom activities have become not only expedient but positively necessary. In our better schools the teachers who have not assumed some responsibility for the guidance of social activities are not fulfilling their full duty. The day has passed when teachers can count the day's work done when they have heard their last class. Faculties often must be converted to this point of view and frequently opposition arises. To carry on a constructive social programme the principal must be able to give and take in the assignment of duties to teachers. At first much of the work may have to be done through voluntary workers, and the head of the 226 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION school need not be surprised if some teachers, individ- ualistic in their training and " teaching" experience, actually oppose social activities. Such discouragements should not be taken too seriously. In one high school the work has progressed so far that a committee of the faculty now devotes nearly all of its time to supervising the faculty and pupils in their social activities. The teachers in this school expect, as a part of their work, to sponsor some club or society, and the faculty com- mittee has had to formulate definite rules of procedure in the matter of the formation of new clubs and in the control of social activities. If the school authorities have a fraternity problem, or other equally grave social issue to face, it is very essential that teachers have the social point of view. There are no more certain means to rid the school of secret societies than to supplant them with justifiable social activities which make just as strong an appeal to the adolescent boy or girl as loyalty to any particular clique. Supervision of teachers is a very important fac- tor in the successful prosecution of an extensive social programme. The supervision of teachers outside of the classroom and without direct reference to the actual technic used in class instruction is the source of much of the inspira- tion leading to professional reading and study. It is largely through the work of teachers* meetings, the individual and casual conferences with teachers, that they are awakened to the need of further study and preparation. Sometimes this inspiration grows out of actual classroom supervision, but more often it comes from the other sources mentioned. No doubt more in- spiration should come from constructive classroom su- pervision, but until more of this work is done, and even TEACHERS AND TEACHING 227 then, much of it will come from supervision of teachers. Principals, then, may well regard their personal contact with teachers outside of class as an opportunity to in- spire them to further study and reading. A professional attitude, even an experimental one, toward such innovations as supervised study is secured largely through supervision of teachers rather than teaching. Paving the way is done through committee work, through consultation with individuals, and through faculty meetings. A system of weighted credits can be introduced without waiting for the right attitude on the part of a majority of the teachers, but the principal has enough responsibility in any such matter without having to carry the opposition of a large number on the staff. The preceding points thus indicate the reasons for and the possibilities of that phase of staff supervision which touches the extra-classroom relationships and activities of the teachers. They indicate the need not only of recognizing a distinction between the work of supervis- ing teachers and that of teaching but also of giving the former more constructive attention. It is quite clear that teacher supervision is not independent of instruc- tional supervision. There is here, however, a field of administrative activity that has not been sufficiently stressed in the past. It will pay to set about develop- ing a kind of procedure that gives the supervisor a real chance to demonstrate qualities of leadership in super- vision. There is ample opportunity. The point of view stressed here is the need of atten- tion to this work as such. The supervisor should take the lead in matters of this kind, and direct the faculty rather than be directed by the course of events from day to day. The work that has been done has been too 228 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION haphazard, too much like guesswork, too much given to keeping the machinery going. It seems evident that too much depends upon the co-operation, good-will, and professional interests of teachers to leave this work to be handled carelessly. While supervision of teachers is important, as has been pointed out, it is not more important than super- vision of classroom teaching. The need of constructive supervision in classroom teaching is perhaps greater in the secondary school than in any other unit in our pub- lic-school system. Until quite recently the training of secondary-school teachers did not include practice in the technic of classroom instruction. Few schools of education have as yet adequately provided for actual training in technic based upon the theory of teaching and other courses. What has been done is not yet as thorough nor as extensive as that provided for elemen- tary teachers. The training of inexperienced teachers in the secondary schools is yet largely in the hands of the secondary-school head and his assistants. In schools up to thirty or thirty-five teachers the principal can be held directly responsible for the super- vision of teaching. In a school of thirty-five teachers he should be given one assistant principal and two full- time clerks. As the number of teachers increases he should be supplied with more clerical help, and possibly he should have a second assistant principal in order that he may devote as much time as possble to the larger problems of supervision. In a school of seventy- five teachers there should be at least four office clerks and two assistant principals or advisers, one each for the boys and girls. The assistants should give practically all of their time to administrative work. Supervision of teaching should remain the duty of the principal as TEACHERS AND TEACHING 229 long as he can do the work satisfactorily. In the larger schools some of this work may be delegated to the heads of departments, who should have part-time teaching schedules. If heads of departments do supervisory work, they should have the same general point of view as the principal. Even in the largest school the princi- pal should look upon real supervision as one of his main duties. The reason for so little supervision is threefold. In the first place, the principal is usually so tied down with the petty details of his office that he cannot find time to talk individually with his teachers, to say nothing of spending on the average two hours a day in the class- rooms. In the second place, the superintendent often assumes the responsibility for selecting teachers, and hence the principal does not feel that he must supervise the teaching. Third, and most important, the princi- pal in many cases is not qualified to do the work. To be a successful supervisor of teaching the princi- pal, himself, should be a masterful teacher in at least one line of work, and be thoroughly familiar with the educational literature in that line. He will find it help- ful to illustrate by teaching a class the point or points he wishes to emphasize with the teachers. Aside from courses in the theory and practice of teaching, and prob- lems of method, the supervisor should at least have pursued thorough courses in the history of education, pure, experimental, and applied psychology, including child study, and philosophy of education. As an ad- ministrator he should, of course, have pursued various courses in the organization and administration of school systems. Aside from his educational preparation, the principal ought to be interested in the technic of teach- ing and be an active student of the problems of method. 230 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION He will be more efficient if he is also a student of human nature, sympathetic and level-headed. With this educational equipment and these personal qualifications, the principal may well keep before him at least three important factors essential in constructive supervision. First, in co-operation with the teachers a philosophy of education or faith upon which the "fash- ion" of the classroom instruction in the school will de- pend should be developed. The problems of teaching should be attacked co-operatively. The principal or supervisor will not wish to force his point of view upon the teachers. Teachers cannot be expected to change their methods or view-point with every change in prin- cipalship. These problems should be attacked in a spirit of mutual understanding and helpfulness, and this is the point of view held throughout this discussion. Second, after the faculty's philosophy has been de- veloped, the supervisor must have a pretty clear no- tion of his problem or problems in working with the in- dividual teachers. Third, supervision should include personal, private conferences with the teachers. The development of a creed or philosophy in co- operation with the faculty is important. Without some sort of creed an atmosphere favorable to socializing the recitation, for example, cannot be generally created. Without an accepted philosophy the principal cannot inspire confidence in the teachers to try in reality the project method in teaching. He cannot reduce his supervision to basic principles of conduct in the class- room. He becomes a "tool" in the hands of that teacher of long experience who has worked under many so-called supervisors without criticism — the teacher who knows she is right and defies suggestions. The point of view arrived at in co-operation with the TEACHERS AND TEACHING 231 faculty should be the working basis in supervision. Its application in the classroom, however, becomes an in- dividual matter between the principal and the individual members of the faculty, but even here the supervisor should be true to the principles agreed upon generally by the faculty. Only through such a spirit of co-opera- tion can unity of teaching effort be maintained. The purposes to be served by supervision should be rather definitely determined before the work is under- taken. This will vary with the school, as things which may be serious problems in one school may be very simple in another, if, indeed, they are problems at all. By all means the principal should make a general sur- vey of his teaching staff, and a study of the individual teachers. In a general survey the point of view of the teachers can be learned, while the study of the individual teachers will enable the principal to locate the imme- diate points of attack. In some schools it will be dis- covered that the teachers have the social point of view and the big task is to bring about a refinement of tech- nic to make the work effective. In others just the op- posite condition may be found. The number of new- teachers in the system, especially in this period of war- time reconstruction, is a very important point. The principal finds he has a big job ahead to bring them into line with the general attitude of the more experienced and better teachers. If he does not supervise these new teachers he may soon find the teaching attitude of the whole faculty changed. Three very general results that may be secured through supervision may be mentioned. These do not exhaust the list by any means, but they will serve the purpose of showing the importance of setting up a pro- gramme of things to be achieved. 232 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Supervision should result, first of all, in an open- minded attitude toward methods of instruction. With- out this attitude the school will rarely be able to make much progress in trying out new methods or conducting experiments on a large scale. Supervision should result in prevention of failure. This implies an understanding of the reasons for failure and the ability to give assistance of the right kind at the proper time. Teachers fail because of (a) lack of interest in the work; (b) lack of confidence; (c) lack of judgment and sense of relative values; (d) lack of co- operation with other teachers and the authorities; (e) poor preparation and lack of vision; (/) inability to manage pupils; (g) unfortunate personality; and (h) lack of technic in actual teaching. Others might be men- tioned, but these are generally the reasons underlying any recommendation for release. Supervision may be of assistance, particularly in a, b, /, and h. It may be helpful in c, d, and e. While the principal should have satisfied himself on all these points in engaging the teacher, points e and g especially should have definitely settled the teacher's chances of employment. Failure of a teacher once on the staff should be regarded seri- ously by the principal. On the other hand, supervision should result in locating the unworthy teachers and gradually eliminating them from the system. Supervision should result in the correction of defi- ciencies in experienced teachers who are not beyond hope and in the improvement of already efficient in- structors. It should result in an improvement on the part of such teachers in assignments, in preparation, in interest in the work and the pupils, and in the tech^ nic of method. The personal interview with the teacher is one of the TEACHERS AND TEACHING 233 most important factors in supervision, but it is fraught with grave dangers as well as great possibilities. The personal interview may easily prove disastrous for the teacher and, if continued improperly, also for the prin- cipal. Some administrators, effective in teacher-train- ing, have had great results attend their personal inter- views. The interview should be casual, not forced, and should follow reasonably soon after the visit with the teacher. If a teacher is interviewed for the purpose of increasing her usefulness, that fact means that she has done some things commendably well. Starting with the good points, it may be pointed out how her effectiveness can be increased. The supervisor must shun all ap- pearances of littleness in his suggestions and be definite in his statements. He must base his remarks on facts and not opinion. If the criticism is to be largely ad- verse, it will be well for him to wait long and patiently until facts in plenty support his contentions. By all means teachers should be called in for interviews for the purpose of commending them for the excellent things they have done, but they should be told explicitly the reasons for the commendatory statements. Such inter- views will inspire confidence, especially on the part of those who have taught successfully for a number of years. It is in the personal interview that the supervisor especially feels the need of definite data upon which to base his statements. Generalities merely create differ- ences of opinion, and under such circumstances the teacher is moved to defend herself even when she knows there is justification for criticism. To meet this supreme test in supervision the use of standard tests, experimental studies, and schemes for rating teachers are valuable. It is possible through ex- 234 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION periment and the use of standard tests to measure the results of teaching in sufficiently tangible form to serve as a basis for definite discussion on the part of both the teacher and supervisor. Some available tests and sug- gestions in regard to experimental study are mentioned in another chapter. The supervisor should avail him- self of every opportunity to supplant mere generalities in discussing teacher problems with specific facts. The weakness of most rating schemes lies in the fact that they are too elaborate, and call largely for opinion in estimating the teacher's worth. Some schemes are so elaborate that they are absolutely impractical in the hands of the supervisor. Much of the information called for in such rating plans is not necessary either for a better understanding of the teacher's work or for an ultimate increase in her efficiency. Why all the ques- tions about personal equipment, preparation, neatness, and the million little details about the recitation? It would require one hundred visits to rate a teacher accu- rately, and when the sheets were filled out the inter- pretation of the infinitesimally piecemeal result would, indeed, require the services of an artist. Matters of preparation, experience, success in other schools, per- sonal , equipment, community interest, and the like are covered at the time the teacher files her application and is employed. When these matters have once been passed upon and recorded, why bother the supervisor longer with them ? A rating scheme to be usable and effective must be simple and designed to check the teacher on real points vital to the technic of method. In any scheme provi- sion on the card or sheet should be made for specific statements of the reasons for adverse criticism or special TEACHERS AND TEACHING 235 commendation. These statements should be entered immediately after the visit. The points covered in a rating scheme should include such general topics as (a) the assignment, (b) the pres- entation of materials, (c) relative amount of teacher vs. pupil activity, (d) kind and degree of pupil participa- tion, (e) application of classroom materials, (/) physical conditions, and (g) peculiarities, strong points and weaknesses. Under these general topics there should be no more details than absolutely necessary to bring out the facts. Peculiarities, strong points and weaknesses rather should be written up without trying to formulate a set of tentative questions designed to cover all pin- point aspects and phases of the teacher's work. Of course, in commenting upon such points statements ought to be specific. Each teacher should be visited sufficiently to enable the supervisor to form a just con- clusion on each point in the rating card or sheet. Given these general topics, what fundamental points should be looked for under each topic? The following points are suggestive: (a) The assignment. Was the assignment identified with the experiences or needs of the pupils? (Project method in teaching.) Did the teacher anticipate difficulties and suggest means and materials of assistance in completing it ? Was the assignment worthy ? (b) The presentation of materials. Was the material treated logi- cally or psychologically ? (c) Relative amount of teacher vs. pupil activity. Without the use of the stop-watch, relatively how much of the class period is usually consumed by the teacher? How much by the pupils ? (d) Kind and degree of pupil participation. Was the participa- tion active or passive? Did it grow out of real group 236 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION effort to solve the problems before the class? Did the pupils really solve problems before the teacher gave the information? How generally did the pupils enter into the discussion? Did the teacher direct the situation or domineer it ? (e) Application of classroom materials. Were specific applica- tions made or did the work stop with generalizations? Was there a real effort to show the possible connections between the work and the pupil's every-day life, or did the theory of faculty psychology prevail? (/) Physical conditions. A general survey of the room. (g) Peculiarities, strong points, and weaknesses. Such general points as attitude of pupils (discipline), type of questions used, mannerisms, waste of time, and others should be noted. Some such scheme should also be developed for rating the work of teachers in supervised study, since many schools are now operating on that basis. Not long ago a superintendent remarked that it was not easy to visit teachers in a school operating a supervised-study plan, since about half of each day was lost so far as super- vision was concerned. There is or should be just as much technic in handling the study period as the recitation. Few supervisors have as yet attempted to develop a technic of study with their teachers. In this early stage of supervised study it is difficult to state just what should be looked for in supervising the study period. The topics stated below might well be included in a rating sheet or card: (a) Provisions for study. Are study materials available? Is the equipment adequate ? Are the physical conditions of the room satisfactory? Do the pupils have good seats and the proper lighting ? (b) General atmosphere of room. Is there an atmosphere of study? Are the pupils moving about the room without TEACHERS AND TEACHING 237 interfering with others? Is the laboratory atmosphere maintained ? (c) Pupil activity. Are the pupils gathering material, reading, observing, experimenting, and maintaining their pur- poses until results are secured? Are the pupils working independently or are they depending too much upon the teacher ? (d) Teacher activity. i. General. Is the teacher actively or passively in touch with the pupils? Is she interested in the study period as a means of developing habits of study? Is she experimenting to determine the best methods of study in her subjects? 2. Pupil co-operation. Is the teacher assisting the pupils in learning the art of co-operatively attacking their problems ? 3. Individual differences. Has the teacher taken the ability of the pupils as the basis of differentiation in the amount and kind of work done? Does she make a flexible assignment? 4. Directing study habits. Is the teacher seriously attempt- ing to direct the individual pupils in their methods of attack upon the assignment ? Is she really making an effort to modify the pupils' study habits in her sub- ject ? In rating teachers there should be perfect frankness between them and supervisor. They should know ex- actly what the supervisor is looking for when he visits them, and they should hold copies of the rating sheet. They should also see the ratings given them. Only with such frankness between supervisor and supervised can one hope for progress in teaching efficiency. Supervision of teachers and teaching is one of the principal's most potential responsibilities. Through constructive work in this field he can determine the spirit of the faculty both within and without the class- room. The principal who neglects either of these two 238 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION general phases of supervision is not fulfilling his obliga- tion directly to the teachers and pupils under his charge and indirectly to the community. Teachers, pupils, and patrons are entitled to the highest possible efficiency in our present secondary schools. INTERNAL ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT The administration of the American secondary school is traditionally autocratic. That man who by sheer force of personality has been able to dominate the en- tire situation in a school, to discipline unruly boys, to impose order and industry upon the pupils and faculty alike, has risen to the place of greatest responsibility, and has been proclaimed a successful head master, or principal. Only within the last two or three decades has a new conception of discipline come into existence, while even to-day the old conception characterizes the administration of a majority of our high schools. During the last three decades pioneers have been trying to conceive of the discipline and the government of the school as an educational opportunity rather than merely as a problem of law and order. These admin- istrators and theorists think of discipline as a positive rather than a negative process. They believe that in the corporate life of the school lie rich opportunities for moral, ethical, and civic training. Here should be prac- tised those habits of initiative, self-control, industry, courtesy, morality, and those civic virtues that must characterize the well educated. In the school the pupil should perform civic duties and responsibilities similar to those which he must assume as a citizen of a democ- racy. In " Moral Principles in Education/' John Dewey has tersely expressed this point of view: "Moreover, the society of which the child is to be a member is, in the United States, a democratic and pro- gressive society. The child must be educated for lead- 239 240 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION ership as well as for obedience. He must have power of self-direction and power of directing others, power of administration, ability to assume positions of responsi- bility." The advocates of the new theories of school manage- ment and control are keenly conscious of the ends to be achieved and of the problem. They are developing suc- cessful methods through experimentation. Those who cling to the old ways are generally not conscious of the philosophy underlying their practices, but the old and the new methods may be clearly differ- entiated. Doctor Johnston has, in his "Party Platforms in Education," in a whimsical yet clear-cut passage stated the underlying philosophies of the two methods. One or two sentences will bear repetition at this point. Doctor Johnston has the " absolutists" say: "They [the pupils] must lean upon the teacher's will. We believe that the school should not suffer the wast- age otherwise due to this inevitable floundering of young pupils incident to all their attempts to acquire a code of self-discipline with self-direction. "The school is primarily a disciplining institution — in morals as in intellect — and not a place for individ- uals to go through the farce of ' practising their indi- vidualities.' Pupils need rather above everything else to practise unpleasant effort, to cultivate the capacity to endure drudgery, to become reconciled to 'hard, un- coaxed, uncomplimented work.' " And the "experimentalists": "We believe that the characteristic, direct and more or less literal, school emphasis upon repressive disci- pline, external direction of will, and submissive obedi- ence to 'teacher's orders' or to traditional conceptions of an education superimposed upon children's natures ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 241 should be largely but gradually replaced by a different sort of emphasis. This new emphasis should be upon the constructive rather than upon the destructive policy of making educational use of all school exercises of class- room and of playground — every incident of school life — that they may present a ' working contact ' with the average affairs of every-day life. "From the point, then, of school discipline the school is primarily an institution for reproducing the forces and environment of typical communities and for gradually developing in accord with this controlled social school atmosphere the ' working structures' of individualities found in the pupils. The public-school pupil comes not primarily to learn but to practise virtue, not to be ' overlaid' with a moral veneer, however solidly, but to evolve, through the modern school's reproduction of life's very acts of choice and of self-control in various intercourse with his fellows, that fundamental con- sciousness of active workable Tightness which we call character." Snedden has set the problem concisely and at the same time described the two points of view. "....« The world once knew exactly how to give moral education, but that was before the days when we talked about democracy or encouraged the rank and file of people to think for themselves, when discipline, authority, dogma, and other forms of bodily and spiri- tual coercion prevailed — as they prevail in Germany — it was easy to produce a submissive, docile, obedient people, a people composed of individuals too well 1 broken' to break a law or do an immoral act, if they thought anybody was looking. "In a democracy we have the far more difficult and worthy task of making a people at once law-abiding 242 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION and self-governing, wholesome in moral life and yet capable of free thinking, respecting all that is good in society and yet slaves of no authority. Truly we are still in the early exploration stages of this great new work" 1 In the School Review for March, 1918, Miss Olivia Pound reports on an investigation of pupil activities in seventy-five representative high schools. Touching the point under discussion, Miss Pound says : "There is a wide difference in opinion among school authorities in regard to the advisability of student par- ticipation in the management of the school. Twenty- three administrators seemed to have no definite opinion on the subject. Others seemed to confuse the project with student self-government, or were opposed to it altogether, as the following comments will show: 'Stu- dents should study and recite, teachers should teach and supervise'; 'Students should not have a direct voice in governing their fellow students'; ' First and second year students are incapable of self-government, and Juniors are little better. I think Seniors need to be backed up by a pretty definite set of restrictions'; 1 There should be no student participation in the gov- ernment of the school. A school must be a benevolent despotism 7 ; ' There should be no student participation absolutely, except as school spirit and respect for proper authority may assist.' "On the other hand, many schoolmen are enthusiastic over the possibilities arising from student participation in the management of the school. The following quo- tations will give the views of some of them: 'It is ideal in my opinion'; 'They should participate just so far as they will go. If they succeed they have other things 1 " Character Education, Educational Administration and Super- vision,'' June, 1918. ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 243 added unto them'; 'They should participate to a con- siderable extent. To be trusted is to be saved. Chil- dren should get in the habit of taking responsibility'; 'They should be allowed as much freedom as tends to develop respect for law and order, with a large spirit of co-operation with the faculty'; 'Student participation is valuable toward bringing the pupil's mind to a realiza- tion of what education and its implements mean for good citizenship.'" Principals who think the sole functions of pupils and teacher may be expressed in the doctrine, "Students should study and recite, teachers should teach and supervise," or, "A school must be a benevolent des- potism," are probably not conscious of the implications of their beliefs. In all probability it has never occurred to them that school government on this basis would differ from the ideals of democracy as the night from the day. On casual inspection schools under their di- rection might seem progressive. There would prob- ably be found numerous pupil "activities" and a large amount of freedom. A close investigation would show that these activities were faculty-directed, while the actual government of the school was autocratic. When this dictum holds, the pupils will not "get in the habit of taking responsibility"; they can never be brought to a full "realization of what education and its implements mean for good citizenship." In this book it is assumed that the school must be, like the state of which it is a part, a democracy, and this chapter is based on the theory that a democratic organization of both the faculty and the pupil body of the high school will provide the best opportunities for the moral training of its youth, will result in better dis- cipline throughout the school, better courses of study 244 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION and methods of teaching; in short, in a more efficient school from every standpoint. In the last three decades many attempts have been made at pupil government. These attempts have re- sulted in a monotonous series of failures which have been due primarily to a fundamental misconception of the function and the purpose of democracy in school government. It is impossible to turn the government of the school over entirely to the pupils for just the same reason that it would be impossible to turn the gov- ernment of the United States over to young men and women of the country who are under twenty years of age. These young men and young women are not yet ready for self-government. They need to be practised in the art before they are given the largest responsibili- ties. So in the school. A second reason for these fail- ures has been that pupil self-government was attempted in schools in which the government of the faculty was autocratic. There can be no hope of successful demo- cratic organization of the pupils unless the entire organ- ization of the school, from the top down, is democratic. The first consideration, then, is the faculty. In the final analysis the success or failure of any sec- ondary school must rest upon the principal. The prin- cipal is held accountable for the policy of the institution under his direction. This explains, in part, his ten- dency to autocracy. It also makes obvious the funda- mental importance of the relation of the principal to the faculty and to the pupils. The principal must not be too much limited by legis- lation, or so surrounded by committees and organiza- tions co-ordinate in authority that he will become pow- erless. Large powers must be reposed in this office, but the principal is not weakened if there are regularly ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 245 constituted and official channels by which the faculty can contribute to the determination of policies. Nearly every college and university has some organ- ization that provides, nominally at least, official chan- nels for faculty contributions to the administrative policy of the school. In most instances such organiza- tions are rudimentary, consisting often of only a few standing committees appointed annually by the presi- dent, and in most instances the democracy is more apparent than real, actual authority being vested in deans and directors rather than in flexible committees, or in senates and councils; while in a few institutions there are officially adopted constitutions, representing the best thought of the instructional staff, and vesting in the faculty large legislative and advisory powers. There is at present a well-denned movement, coming largely from the faculties themselves, toward greater democracy in university administration. Already some constitutions have been adopted or proposed that will prove to be real contributions to the theory and prac- tice of educational administration. In high schools, on the other hand, even standing committees are practi- cally unknown, while no high school has ever reported a constitution, written or unwritten. There is no reason for less democracy in the high school than in colleges. The bachelor's degree is now the sine qua non for employment in accredited schools; masters' degrees are very common, while even doctors' degrees are becoming numerous in the larger institu- tions. The best high school faculties are superior in training to the best college faculties of three decades ago, and to the faculties of many small colleges of to- day. To the high school teacher is left most of the actual administration of the school. It is a short- 246 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION sighted policy that does not make opportunity for the teacher to participate in the legislation which he must carry out. High school teachers are, with few excep- tions, intensely interested in the professional as con- trasted with the scholastic problems of their work. Pro- fessional training is now demanded of most beginning teachers either by law or by the regulations or policies of boards of education. The faculty should participate in determining the policy of the school. If this participation is to be real and effective, there must be officially constituted chan- nels for the expression of faculty opinion. Democracy that is not organized is not democracy. Many princi- pals believe they are giving the teachers a large share in the direction of the school when they frequently call experienced members of the force into the office for con- ferences about particular problems, and when they act on the advice they receive on such occasions, or when they assign to the most capable and experienced heavy administrative responsibilities. But this policy fails in reality in bringing to bear upon school problems the best thought and experience of all members of the staff. This end can be attained only through some organiza- tion which will make suggestions so easy and natural that teachers will not feel that they are exceeding their prerogatives when they point out defects of adminis- tration or criticise policies. It is not difficult to define the limits of faculty prerog- atives in the matter of legislation and administration. All matters which directly concern internal adminis- tration are legitimate subjects for faculty considera- tion. Under this head would be included all the reg- ulations and rules of procedure relative to the purely internal government of the school. Under this head ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 247 would also come the development of courses of instruc- tion in the various departments, the organization of these courses of instruction into curriculums, and the making of rules regarding pupil choices of curriculums and courses and the requirements for graduation. Other legitimate subjects for faculty legislation are the award- ing of scholastic honors, the management of inter- scholastic pupil activities, both literary and athletic, the management and supervision of pupil societies, methods of educational and vocational guidance, the adminis- tration of home rooms, including discipline, record of attendance, and the numerous other duties connected therewith. Of course faculty legislation is subject al- ways to the veto of the principal or of the other regu- larly constituted school authorities. The faculty would not be concerned as a legislative body with the employment of teachers, the fixing of sal- aries, the introduction of new subjects of study, the erection of buildings, or in determining the general pol- icy of the school system of which the faculty is but a part. These larger policies must be determined by the board of education and the superintendent of schools. However, it is sound policy for the superintendent and the board to seek systematically the advice and co- operation of all principals, supervisors, and teachers in the development of school policies. An examination of the practices in American city school systems will show those systems to be most progressive and efficient that secure the maximum co-operation and initiative from the teachers. Participation in the determination of school policies is vital to the professional growth and development of the individual. The teacher who is compelled merely to carry out the thoughts and plans of others year in 248 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION and year out, and who must always fight for the right to express in her work her own individuality and thought must inevitably become mechanical in her teaching and, eventually, so crystallized in her methods as to make the reception of new ideas next to impossible. There are to-day altogether too many such teachers in Amer- ican high schools. Every progressive administration finds such teachers the greatest obstacle in the way of new ideas and methods. These tragedies can be avoided only by a faculty organization that will stimulate the maximum of professional thought and initiative on the part of the individual teacher. Teachers should always be trained in service. Con- ditions make this imperative at this time in our high schools. While some professional training is now re- quired for admission to most high school faculties, the facilities for the technical training of American secon- dary teachers are, as yet, wholly inadequate. Partici- pation in the determination of policies, in the admin- istration of the school, in the development of courses of study, of curriculums, and of methods is the natural starting-place for all professional study and growth. If the administration does not encourage such participa- tion it will be the rare and exceptional teacher who does not atrophy. Where participation is required and inde- pendence encouraged every teacher should maintain through a long period of service and into old age an open mind and a capacity for growth. The particular form of faculty participation is not important so long as there is the reality. It is impossi- ble to have real participation from all members of the faculty, inexperienced as well as experienced, without some regularly organized channels. It is not unthink- able that there should be in large high schools, just ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 249 as in some large universities, constitutions giving the faculties their specific rights and responsibilities. It is fundamental, however, that the machinery of the school should not crystallize and eventually defeat the ends for which it was created, and this is always a very present danger. Flexible committee systems embrac- ing all the teachers will serve every purpose and will not invite this danger. a The spirit maketh alive, the letter killeth." In one large Middle West high school the principal appoints annually the following standing faculty com- mittees: Organization, Standards of Scholarship, Stu- dent Affairs, Professional Study, Assemblies, Credit Adjustments, Curriculum Adjustments (Heads of De- partments). The following are a few of the special committees that were appointed in this high school in a period of two years: Curriculums (two committees — one on curriculum organization and one on studies to be required of all pupils), War Work, Farm Work (co- operative with United States Boys' Working Reserve), Scholastic Honors, Commencement Activities. Each of these special committees was promptly discharged after having faithfully performed its duty. In this school the heads of departments conduct department business on the same principles. Where there is a co-operative organization of the faculty, pupil participation in the government of the school can be made a reality. This means that the cor- porate life of the institution can be used for the civic and moral training of the boys and girls. The American high school has been characterized in the last three decades by an amount of pupil "freedom" unknown in any other secondary school, with the pos- sible exception of certain great English schools. Pupil 250 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION activities of all kinds, athletics, amateur dramatics, lit- erary and debating societies, departmental clubs, social clubs, have given great charm to high school life. Some- times this freedom has degenerated into anarchy or has resulted in antisocial or snobbish clubs and societies such as high school secret societies. In a few instances disastrous experiments have been made with pupil self- government. In contrast with the austere and auto- cratic government of the German secondary schools, a government designed to crush initiative and indepen- dence and make loyal and obedient subjects for an autocratic state, this freedom in American high schools has offered real opportunities for the development and expression of individuality. But, with few exceptions, the possibilities have not been realized. Our freedom is too frequently only a veneer for what is in reality an autocratic government rather than the expression of a genuine democratic spirit in the life of the school. The German secondary school is well designed for its purpose of creating submissive German subjects. Pupil initiative and responsibility, independent social think- ing, are no more wanted there than in the German state. Conformity is the all-important thing. First of all, there must be obedience in the state. Obedience, therefore, is the first lesson taught in the German school. Just the opposite method must be employed in train- ing boys and girls for citizenship in a democracy. There must be respect and obedience to law, but thinking obedience. Independence and initiative must be en- couraged, the social mind must be cultivated. The habit of participation in civic affairs must be formed. A prejudice in favor of the common good and a willing- ness always to place the common good above selfish ends, even at great personal sacrifice, must be instilled ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 251 in every individual. The ideals of co-operation, fair play, respect for the rights of others, and the habit of judging individuals only by their true worth are funda- mental to the success of American democracy and can be fully developed only by the public schools. There are outstanding examples of high schools in which the pupil government organizations have with marked success largely taken over the actual govern- ment of the school. Students of this problem should investigate the methods employed in such schools as the William Perm of Philadelphia, the Manual Arts of Los Angeles, the Washington Irving of New York, the Decatur, Springfield, and New Trier Township High Schools in Illinois, and others. In another chapter a detailed description is given of the pupil participation plan in operation in one school. An excellent expression of the spirit and aim that should characterize pupil participation is found in the following quotation from an editorial from a paper pub- lished in a high school where there was an active and effective organization for pupil participation in school control. "There is a strong similarity between the governing methods inside the school and those of the outside world. The school is a little state, a little democracy all by itself. There is the same opportunity for corrupt politics, the same chance for graft and pork-barrel legislation, that there is in the governing circles of the nation. "Thus the student should be just as particular in his selection of members for the school councils as he in- tends to be in casting his vote for representatives for Congress later on. The school is to be congratulated upon the personnel of the councils this year. It seems 252 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION that the students have been guided by the proper idea in their choice of representatives. " As the citizenship of a democracy has a great respon- sibility in the electing of its representatives; so the rep- resentative has his responsibilities. The member of the student council must be just as particular as regards the kind and quality of the business transacted in that body. "Upon the student's attitude toward the school gov- ernment now will be built his attitude toward the State and nation later on. Keep in mind, student, that the school is a little republic; that the councils are the legis- lative bodies; that the principal is the president. Treat the laws of the school with the same respect with which you treat the laws of your state. If you do this, we predict that you will be to your nation the kind of a citizen that it needs: the citizen that votes for the best man regardless of his party; the citizen that respects the law, not because of the force behind it, but because he realizes that obedience to the law is necessary for the welfare of the whole community. Then you will be the kind of citizen needed to keep this country in its posi- tion as a model to all other nations." The editor of this paper and the author of this edi- torial was himself a member of the " student council." Participation in its work was probably the finest experi- ence in his high school life. Who could state more clearly the ideals of American citizenship ? Again the spirit and not the form of pupil participa- tion is the vital thing. There may or may not be con- stitutions. It is essential that the school be regarded as a community and the faculty and pupils as citizens of it, that the responsibility of governing this com- munity fall on teachers and pupils alike, and that the ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 253 pupils exercise the functions of government through their regularly elected representatives. The practice of the boys and girls in the art of self-control must always be under advice and control of the faculty, but it must be real, and always the hardest thing for teachers to learn will be to keep far enough in the background. At first the attempts must be more or less crude on the part of both faculty and pupils, for democracy in school government is a new adventure. There will doubtless be many failures. It will take many years, perhaps decades to develop a satisfactory technic. Eventually the home and the church must become deeply involved. Indeed, the principles underlying this theory of moral and civic training are so fundamental and the problem is so vast that the school alone will not suffice for their complete realization. " Truly we are still in the early exploration stage of this great new work." Any high school administration that neglects even the smallest opportunities to throw responsibility on the pupils is recreant to its civic duty. A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME The adolescent boy and girl are by instinct social beings. From earliest childhood it is instinctive in the child to crave companionship. In these earlier years friendships are easily made and just as easily broken. Comradeship and infatuation are fleeting, indeed. Within the brief space of a day's time two children may be on friendly and unfriendly terms in succession many times. As the dawn of adolescence approaches the friend- ships formed are more lasting and the response to the instinctive call for social intercourse becomes more abid- ing. Adolescent children form friendships often lasting over a period of time. During this period the child by instinct seeks for and creates social situations in which he can become an active participant. With the com- ing of this period the child feels less dependent upon his parents for guidance and there is an outcropping of independence and freedom from the home in the grati- fication of the social instincts. Boys and girls of high school age have reached that stage of development in which they actively create social situations in which they can participate more or less independently of direction from an external source. Not that they are not amenable to suggestions from the home or the school, but they are intensely and mostly interested in the social activities which are a natural expression of their desires or which they have had some share in initiating. This tendency in the adolescent boy and girl can be utilized and directed. It is possible for the home 254 A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 255 and the school, through suggestions of the right sort, to guide and direct these social proclivities into the right channel, but it is an impossible task to abolish social activities from the lives of high school boys and girls. These activities are the natural expression of human nature. It is by no accident that the social affairs of high school boys and girls have become an important matter, nor that Forbush, in describing high school problems, could say: "A visitor to the assembly room of a city high school will often find the black- boards crowded with colored drawings, executed with ingenuity and some artistic skill, advertising a dozen different student organizations. These 'side shows' to the main ' circus ' have become a very important part of modern public-school life. They are manifestations of varied instincts which are not satisfied in the school curriculum, and furnish opportunities for expression of talent for which the school work itself is insufficient. Their significance in education is, therefore, great, and progressive high school teachers are regarding them as an addition to their own opportunities." As has been suggested, it is possible to direct the social life of high school pupils. The form of direction must be that of sympathetic guidance and suggestion, keeping in mind the outcropping of instinctive tenden- cies. It is during this period that the instinct of clan- nishness or the gang spirit reaches its strongest devel- opment, particularly among boys. At this period mighty bonds tie boys to the gang or the secret club or frater- nity. The pull of this form of social organization is a strong force with the high school boy. He will swear an allegiance to his gang or club that transcends in his estimation the importance of his obligations to all other institutions, This is not an exaggerated statement. 256 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Boys have declared solemnly that their oath of alle- giance to secret organizations were the most sacred things in their lives. They have been known to state honestly that they regarded their obligations to such organizations as more fundamentally important than their obligations to the school, the church, or the home. Furthermore, the number of instances in which high school boys have betrayed the secrets of their frater- nities or girls of their high school sororities have been very few indeed. In fact, it is doubtful whether any adult has ever been fully informed upon these things. This unalterable allegiance is even more abiding with the high school boy than it is with the adult. With these tendencies naturally a part of the very life of the high school boy and girl, not only is it funda- mentally correct to state that their social proclivities must be directed in so far as possible into worthy chan- nels, but their social life under this direction must be real and natural. School authorities must seek for the development of situations in the social organization of the school that make a natural appeal to the boy and girl and secure their active interest. The school in its organization of social activities must meet these social tendencies and set up a type of social life that parallels the expression of the instinctive tendencies. The history of the social organization of the tradi- tional high school is replete with examples of what happens when the social life has been left to develop in a haphazard, undirected manner. It is well within the truth to state that high school secret societies, clannish and exclusive clubs, and the practices growing out of the formation of these organizations, are the natural re- sult of lack of direction. We have in too many in- stances considered social activities not only an unnec- A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 257 essary but a harmful adjunct to the school. In fact, we have sometimes gone so far as to say openly that we should discourage social activities on the fallacious ground that with the advent of these things the stand- ard of scholarship declines. We have indeed been very short-sighted in our inability to utilize social in- stincts as the means of developing a programme of natural and purposeful social activities that will help raise the standard of scholarship and conduct. This general lack of appreciation of the fundamental im- portance of the social problem in the organization and administration of the modern secondary school has been a very formidable factor in the development of that type of high school society typified by the fraternity. The history of the development of the social life in one large high school during such a period of haphazard guidance is typical, and for that reason may be used as an example of the results attendant upon the neglect of this whole problem. This particular high school is cosmopolitan in its organization. There has been nothing of the extraordi- nary in its growth and development. It developed in much the same way that other traditional high schools have developed during the past two or three decades. As the student body increased in numbers the social activities of the pupils began to come to the front. As in other schools of its kind, the social proclivities of the boys and girls found expression in some form or another. As was generally the policy in those early days, those in charge of the institution either took little interest in the affairs of the boys and girls outside of the class- rooms or actively sought to suppress as many of them as was humanly possible. Somewhat later in the development of the school the 258 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION traditional scientific, debating, and literary societies were organized and fostered by the faculty as a means of furnishing an outlet for the abundant spirit of the adolescent boy and girl. The meetings of these organ- izations were serious, and it can truthfully be said that they fulfilled the purposes of those early attempts to organize and direct social activities. It may even be said that their meetings fulfilled some of the worthy purposes of secondary education. As these clubs were operating and reaching the ze- nith of their influence, other clubs and organizations were developing innocently and taking a definite place in the lives of the boys and girls. In most instances these clubs or organizations grew out of associations entirely apart from the school. One source of these new inde- pendent organizations was the Sunday-school class or club. In the beginning the social activities incident to the Sunday-school organization were the reason for their formation. They were to strengthen and help ^build up a higher interest in the work of the Sun- day-school. In other instances neighborhood clubs were formed among the children of families having common interests. It was natural that their children should be drawn together. There were other circum- stances out of which this type of club grew, but these two examples are sufficient to give a setting for the development of independent clubs and societies which came to involve a considerable number of pupils. Already certain suppressed facts in connection with the apparent innocent beginning of these organizations are evident. First, the school authorities were slow to capitalize purely social activities for educational ends. Second, they were unable to see the far-reaching effects of these organizations springing up in the community A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 259 quite independent of the school. Third, these inde- pendent clubs and societies were, in the beginning, entirely worthy of the time and effort spent in organiz- ing them and in conducting their affairs. For a period of years the faculty, through steadfast maintenance of their methods of dominating the poli- cies of the debating, scientific, and literary societies, had kept these organizations in line with their tradi- tional ideas. On the other hand, the independent organizations in the community, lacking the guidance of those trained in the psychology of adolescence, quickly came to exist purely for social purposes. The members divorced their activities from the control and influence of the Sunday-school and even of the parents. This was a very natural step, as is evidenced by the fact that it has been duplicated in hundreds of independent cases throughout the United States. The members secured pins, developed a sort of secret code, and adopted some type of symbolic language, word, or act. It is no mere coincidence that these organizations in this particular school found their counterpart in other cities, and that out of these common expressions of social instincts there developed national high school fraternities and sorori- ties. This development is the outcropping of the in- stinctive tendencies of the adolescent boy and girl when left to their own devices. Almost before the authorities had taken cognizance of these independent organizations they had become se- cretly a part and parcel of the social organization of the school. They brought into the school not only their outward emblems of secret-society connections, but also the spirit of clannishness and undemocratic ideals. The members went together, sat together, ate together, and worked together within the school in order that 260 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION they might further the interests of the organizations to which they belonged. Quite naturally the debating, scientific, and literary clubs sponsored by the teachers reacted in one of two ways to this new spirit. They either adopted the ways of the secret societies and went as far as they dared in imitating their methods and spirit, or the members lost interest and their clubs passed out of existence. With this important situation confronting the faculty no guiding hand was forthcoming to combat the evil tendencies set up. The members of the secret societies began to wear their pins openly, which in some instances had been purchased at a cost of sixty dollars and even more. Dinner dances, theatre and automobile parties, smokers, and annual banquets occupied the time of members and ran up the cost of being one of the school's "four hundred" to overwhelming figures. Their organ- izations were maintained solely for social ends. The members looked with considerable condescension upon the plebeian activities of the rank and file of the student body. Such participation in the school's activities as they indulged in — class elections, athletics, school par- ties, and other activities — was more for the purpose of putting forward and advancing the interest of the fra- ternity than due to their real interest in the work of the school. In class elections and in athletics their tactics often bordered upon the political chicanery too fre- quently encountered in adult life. In one instance a worthy boy was, through the political manipulations of the secret societies, defeated for a very important office. In another instance one fraternity sought for and finally secured practically absolute control of the athletic situ- ation. One year not a single non-fraternity boy made a place on the interscholastic football team, although A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 261 there were six times as many non-fraternity as fraternity boys enrolled. This state of affairs is not to be wondered at when one considers the code of ethics under which such organizations have been known to operate. As a part of one code, for example, the boy who is a member of a fraternity in good standing automatically becomes a non-member when the principal or other person in authority asks this question: "Are you a member of a secret society or fraternity?" He honestly (?) an- swers "no" to this question. Immediately upon an- swering "no," according to the code of ethics, he is automatically reinstated in good standing. Under this regime, as has been suggested, many of the orthodox clubs of the school died from lack of in- terest. They had become too common, too plebeian, too trivial. The school had taken on a new air. The pupils felt that they must either belong to a more socially elect group or indulge in no activities whatever. Other of these clubs adopted in spirit the methods of secret societies. For example, they selected or "spiked " pupils upon the unsustainable bases of wealth, family connections, social standing, automobile, and section of the city in which the pupils lived. In one instance a girl was proposed for membership in one of these organ- izations because her father had built a new home with a ballroom on the third floor. In another instance a very worthy girl was " blackballed' ' by her fellow pupils because she did not dress sufficiently well to suit their tastes. In still another instance the girls had an un- derstanding among themselves not to ask to any func- tion, dance, dinner, or party any boy who did not drive an automobile. Naturally there developed out of this state of affairs 262 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION an unsustainable social life. At the beginning of each new semester a mad rushing or spiking season was con- ducted by all of the secret societies and exclusive boys' and girls' clubs. It was indeed a hilarious period for those who were lucky enough to be chosen for member- ship. They were banqueted at the principal hotels of the city, given automobile rides and theatre parties. But those worthy boys and girls who for some trivial reason were not selected were deeply touched and visi- bly affected. In many instances they withdrew from the school. In every case they were hurt by the condi- tion of affairs which permitted fellow pupils to sit in sole judgment upon them and say publicly that they were unfit to hold membership in certain organizations. Snobbishness and exclusiveness ran riot. All clubs and societies of the school came to be regarded as a means by which the pupils could indulge in purely social activi- ties. The school was composed of cliques and groups, and it was impossible to unify generally the student body. School spirit was at a low ebb because the first allegiance of too many pupils was to some club or secret society. This social condition had a marked effect upon dis- cipline, attendance, tardiness, and, as would be expected, upon scholarship. There was an enormous amount of tardiness and absence on the part of those who were free to attend school regularly. School obligations rested very lightly upon the pupils. Classes were at- tended or skipped almost at will, and it became a common expression among citizens of the community that one could tell where the high school building was located when he came within five or six blocks of it by the number of pupils who were standing on street cor- ners or otherwise idling away their time. A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 263 The statistics given below are true of the conditions that prevailed in the school during the height of the secret-society regime. The records of all of the secret- society members and of an equal number of non-secret- society members were studied. The non-secret-society group was made up by taking the name of the first boy on the school register, which was written alphabetically, and every fifth boy thereafter, unless such fifth boy was a secret-society member. In this case the next non- secret-society boy in the list was taken. The statistics are true of one school year. The secret-society members were tardy 802 times While the non-members were tardy only 412 times The secret-society members were absent 1,386 times While the non-members were absent only ■. . . 1,085 times The secret-society members failed of passing in. . . 102 studies While the non-members failed of passing in 48 studies The secret-society members made a mark of 90 per cent or more in only 96 studies While the non-members made a mark of 90 per cent or more in 152 studies In this connection the scholarship records made by those of these same pupils who remained in school one year after the social life of the school had been reorgan- ized on a democratic basis are interesting. The former secret-society members made marks of 90 per cent or more in 32 per cent of their studies as against 19 per cent the previous year. The non-mem- ber group made marks of 90 per cent or more in 45 per cent of their studies as against 29 per cen" the previous year. The history of the development and intrenchment in the school of this unnatural social life has been dupli- 264 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION cated in many schools. It shows very clearly the re- sults attendant upon the general lack of appreciation of the social problems of high school boys and girls. It also reveals the need of directing their social tendencies into worthy channels. The surest guarantee against such conditions is the organization of the social life of the school, first, in keeping with the instinctive social tendencies of the high school age, and, second, in conformity with the fundamental principles of a democratic society. Need- less to say, it is much easier to organize and develop such a social programme before the school has become pervaded with the snobbish spirit of the fraternity and the sorority than it is after such evil tendencies have developed. In fact, after secret societies have become well established, it is well-nigh impossible to succeed in reorganizing the school through a constructive policy alone. Repression becomes a necessity, but a repres- sive policy must be accompanied by a constructive one. A constructive social programme is the best means within the reach of school authorities to combat evil tendencies and misdirected social activities, although, as has just been said, it may have to be supported for a time by a policy of suppression. A constructive social programme designed to organ- ize and direct the social life of high school boys and girls for educational and citizenship ends becomes a profound obligation. If we are to train boys and girls for participation in the civic, moral, and social respon- sibilities of democratic citizenship, we must provide the means by which the pupil may begin the practice of this citizenship in its best sense while he is yet in the high school. So many boys and girls do not complete the work of the high school that it is doubly important that A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 265 those who remain be thoroughly grounded in the respon- sibilities of citizenship and also in the sterling qualities of leadership. The characteristics, therefore, of a pur- poseful programme of social activities should be in keeping with the principles of democracy. True democ- racy seeks for the highest development possible of the individual, but at the same time it demands that the individual shall use his talents for the betterment of his fellow men. It presupposes both leadership and fol- lowership. It opens up the avenue of opportunity to all persons alike, the individual being limited in his advancement to circumstances quite apart from the theoretical organization of our society. In this sense democracy is not a leveller of persons or talents. De- mocracy makes room for people of varying degrees of ability. In a democracy, therefore, we find some people more fitted to be leaders than others, some more intelligent than others, and some more refined than others. They differ in their point of view, in their attitude toward social, civic, and moral obligations, in their home life, and in other ways. While some may accept the narrow view of social democracy advocated by extremists, it is an impossible task to reduce all individuals to the same general level. On the other hand, those who, because of natural endowments, family connections, wealth, refined man- ners, or for other reasons, seek to develop for them- selves a caste or class group are wrong. The caste sys- tem in America ought to be an impossible thing. Re- gardless of the position one occupies, he should use his power and influence for the betterment of society as a whole and not alone for selfish ends. With such a theory underlying our social structure, people of wealth, 266 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION of refinement, of social standing, or those occupying positions of leadership, should conduct themselves in such manner that by virtue of their associations with others they may become the means of inspiration and of growth rather than objects of suspicion and even hatred. Returning for the moment to the secret society in the high school, it is fundamentally vicious in its tenden- cies because it creates within the mind of the adolescent boy and girl a kind of caste idea which is positively harmful to both those within and without these organ- izations. It forces mere boys and girls into maturity long before they have attained the perspective and bal- ance of adults. A constructive social programme, therefore, is that programme which is designed to utilize the social activi- ties of boys and girls coming from all types of homes in such manner that all will accept the point of view that merit alone should count in the advancement of the individual. Such a programme of social activities must be built upon certain fundamental principles in keeping with this conception. First, the principle of active student participation must be dominant. The boys and girls must be given some opportunity to participate actively in the deter- mination of policies and activities growing out of the social life of the school. The best training for the activities of a democratic life can be instilled in the boy and girl through practice. In general, a demo- cratic social programme is impossible unless the active participation of the pupils becomes a dominant part of that programme. Second, a constructive social programme must be built upon the principle of worthy activities. It is en- A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 267 tirely possible to substitute acceptable activities for questionable ones if they are organized in keeping with the interests of the boys and girls. Worthy activities are those organized and administered in such a way as to meet one or more of the purposeful ends of secondary education. They are worthy if they support or moti- vate the work of the classroom. Third, the distinctly social life under a constructive programme will be made incident to the worthy activi- ties of purposeful clubs or societies. Fourth, a constructive social programme will be a varied and comprehensive one in order that the maxi- mum number of pupils may participate in the extra- classroom activities. Fifth, activities under such a programme will be open to all pupils of the school on exactly the same basis. Sixth, faculty participation and support are essential. The members of the faculty must understand the prob- lems involved and actively co-operate with the pupils in their social affairs. They must lend a helping hand. As has been clearly indicated, the time is past when the teachers can shirk the responsibility of directing the social life of high school boys and girls. The success of a large high school in the Middle West in reorganizing its social life and developing a demo- cratic atmosphere in the school through the use of such a constructive programme as has been outlined is worthy of comment. In this school there were eight secret societies and seven exclusive clubs which in many respects were legalized secret societies. When the com- munity and the board of education through propaganda had become aroused to the state of affairs, action was taken by the board abolishing these organizations from the school. This action was not taken, however, until 268 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION the pupils had been prepared for the inevitable step. A demand for purposeful clubs should be developed as far as possible before formal action is taken against fraternities. In some schools formal action has not been necessary to remove secret societies. They have died from lack of interest because of the dominance of the spirit of purposeful clubs. Immediately following the action of the board the faculty formulated and an- nounced to the pupils and the community their policy looking to the formation of new clubs and activities. The regulations announced provide: i. That membership in student organizations shall be open to all pupils on the same basis. 2. That membership shall be determined by the work and purpose of the club in accordance with the rules set up by the society and approved by the student affairs committee. 3. That all meetings shall be held in the high school building. 4. That all organizations shall contribute, in some way, to one of the objectives of secondary education. 5. That all meetings shall be sponsored by high school teachers. 6. That all bills shall be audited by the financial board of control. 7. That no student shall belong to more than one society other than his class organization, unless he meet, at least, the eligibility requirement in scholarship of the athletic association. 8. That members, upon severing their connection with the school, shall cease to be members of high school organizations in exactly the same manner as one ceases to be a member of a class organization. 9. That any pupil or group of pupils wishing to apply A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 269 for permission to form a new club should arrange for a conference with the student affairs committee by seeing the principal and filling out the application blank. The reaction of the pupils to the constructive policy initiated is interesting. The presidents of the exclusive girls' societies, which, in one or two instances, had been in the school for twenty years, were called into the prin- cipal's office for a conference at the time the societies were abolished. They welcomed the opportunity to take part in the new programme of activities in which all girls of the school had been invited to join. Some of these same girls who had not, as a rule, associated with those outside of their group, were among the very first to "big sister" the timid, incoming freshman girls. These girls not only entered into the work of newly organized, purposeful, democratic clubs, but they helped to initiate them. The presidents of the boys' societies admitted that their societies were undemocratic. One president stated that he had no desire to remain longer in his organization and that he had expected to with- draw even though the school permitted the societies to continue. Some of the leaders in the former fraternity groups entered whole-heartedly into the formation of worthy societies which were organized on a democratic basis. The response of the student body generally was spon- taneous and genuine. With the exception of one fra- ternity group, which for a time continued its activities in a clandestine manner, the fraternities satisfied the board as to their conduct. The vast majority of pupils entered into the spirit of the new activities, and by the end of the first year many purposeful organizations were in operation. Through these organizations and their activities, practically every pupil in the school was par- 270 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION ticipating in some way in the social activities of the school. An exclusive dramatic society was replaced by a democratic one, and so many applied for membership that a waiting list had to be arranged. The new society had a purpose, and for the first time its membership was generally open to pupils having dramatic ability. The candidates for membership could not be "blackballed" by fellow pupils, and those who had ability could be sure of acceptance into the society. Exclusive debat- ing societies were replaced by a real discussion club that immediately had a membership as large as that of those replaced. Other examples of constructiveness in hand- ling the social activities of the school, such as the initiation of a writers' club, all girls' league, a music club, the student council, a nature-study club, a chem- istry club, and the girls' athletic association, should also be mentioned. Membership in these clubs was based solely Upon merit and the interest of the pupil in the work of the particular club or society. It is significant that the new programme of social activities resulted in the elimination of undesirable clubs and societies and the initiation of worthy ones without serious conflict of purpose between the faculty and stu- dent body. This fact demonstrates that there is a de- mand in our secondary schools for a democratic, pur- poseful organization of the social life of the student body. The spirit of the student body and hence the spirit of the school are determined to a very great degree by the type and spirit of the social life. Through the evil tendencies set up by the wrong type of club or society the work of the school can be interfered with to a remarkable extent, as has been demonstrated many A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 271 times. On the other hand, the right sort of social organization may become a powerful factor in training for citizenship. It opens up the avenue for training in citizenship through practice, and this is the best assur- ance we have that our boys and girls will go forth from the school capable of participating in the responsibilities of adult life. A real obligation rests upon the school to direct the social activities of high school boys and girls into worthy channels. SOME SOCIAL ASPECTS OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES The wave of enthusiasm for games, especially for outdoor sports, that swept over this country in the last two decades, illustrated by the rapid spread of the playground movement and the growing popularity of outdoor games for adults, such as tennis and golf, indi- cated clearly that increasing emphasis would be placed in and out of schools, on the values of physical training and particularly of play. The war has given this movement a mighty impetus. The examination of millions of draft men has taught Americans invaluable lessons. Hundreds of thousands of men were found incapacitated for military service by physical defects that in youth could easily have been removed by medical attention or through proper regi- mens of corrective physical exercises. Others were in- capacitated, not from any organic defect, but merely from lack of wholesome physical exercise. The war has also shown that the nation that neglects its man-power endangers its existence. Man-power consists of the entire people. Public health is a national concern. Military success depends not merely on the army of select men, but upon all who toil. Large numbers of physically unfit reduce the industrial efficiency of the nation and endanger the success of the army. With characteristic practicalness the Americans, the moment these facts were clearly understood, turned to a con- sideration of solutions of the problem. The instrument for its solution must be the public schools. A technical discussion of physical education has no 272 PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES 273 place in this volume. The purpose of this chapter is to examine briefly the larger aims that should charac- terize a programme of physical education in the junior and senior high schools and the spirit in which it ought to be administered. Any effective system of physical education must be based on thoroughgoing medical inspection. This medi- cal inspection must begin at the cradle and continue throughout the child's public-school life. A cumulative record for every individual is essential, a record that the pupil will carry with him from room to room and from school to school, one that is practical and usable and is used. There is medical inspection in some Amer- ican communities, but in few places is it effective. Cumulative cards are kept, but for want of adequate equipment and adequate forces for medical inspection and physical education these cards are frequently un- used. Elaborate examinations and record-making are of no value unless an honest attempt is made to remove the defects and to record progress. There must be a thoroughgoing system of corrective exercises for the elimination of physical defects revealed by medical inspection. Such provision will require an expenditure of time and money as yet unknown in American schools. But that it is necessary has been shown by the experiences of the war. Human life has been shown to be so valuable, even from an economic point of view, that no state can afford anything short of the maximum physical development of every individual of normal mentality. Adequate provision for physical education in Ameri- can schools requires a work-study-play programme ex- ceeding the dreams of even the most ardent pre-war advocate of physical education. The provisions in 274 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION American high schools are at present utterly inade- quate. It is unusual to find physical education or play required for more than a year or two even in the best schools, and because of physical limitations it can rarely be required for more than one or two forty-five-minute periods per week. To be effective, this work must be continued not merely throughout the school period but throughout life. The high school must provide a gen- erous period of play for every boy and every girl for every day the school is in session. Such a programme will necessitate large and well-equipped playgrounds and possibly large gymnasiums. The present tendency toward outdoor play seems to be, from every point of view, exceedingly wholesome and may result in mini- mizing the importance of gymnasiums even where the winters are cold. But whatever may happen to gym- nasiums, commodious grounds will be required. It will be impossible to carry on an effective programme of physical education in a junior or senior high school whose real estate consists of a down-town city block entirely occupied by the building. Large school sites will be necessary and a programme of study that will permit of continuous use of these grounds by large groups of pupils throughout the day. Well-trained teachers will be the most essential factor in such a programme. The normal schools, colleges, and universities must meet this teacher need. In the programme of physical education of the future the chief emphasis must be placed on the playing of games. It is primarily to stress this point and to em- phasize the social values that must accrue from a whole- some programme of physical education that this chap- ter is written. Many experts hold that games provide, for those who PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES 275 are normal physically, the most natural and best possi- ble physical training. Games have been introduced into gymnasium class work, and are rapidly encroaching upon the time given to the formal gymnastic drill. The setting-up exercises are recognized as valuable, but no longer monopolize all of even short physical-education periods. The game has values, which no set of calis- thenic drills can possibly have. These values are social, and explain the importance of the position which games are usurping in the life of our schools, in the regular class work, in physical training, and, above all, as an extra-classroom activity. The validity of our present athletic practices must be determined primarily by an examination of these social values. Such an examina- tion will at the same time make clear the spirit and the activities that must dominate the physical-education programme of the future. The educative value of play depends upon a strict and immediate enforcement of the rules of the game. Play without the enforcement of law, the rules of the game, immediately degenerates into mere license, and becomes antisocial rather than social, the participants becoming mere buccaneers, stealing victory by cunning or by flagrant violation of ethics and law; but where the rules are enforced games provide one of the finest and most effective means of moral training. Where rules are enforced and the ethics of the game are observed, victory depends upon obedience, loyalty, courage, the sinking of self in the common cause, team-work, devo- tion to duty, initiative, self-reliance, determination, the ability to face seeming defeat resolutely and coolly and with self-control. Every one of these values is elemen- tal and must be included in any statement of the moral aims of education in a democracy. These virtues are, 276 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION to be sure, cultivated in many other activities of the school, in some more and in some less, but nowhere more effectively than in a hotly contested athletic game. The boy who in a fit of anger commits an ugly foul which brings down on his team the penalty which loses the game is given a vivid lesson in the importance of self- control. He will exercise more of it in the next game; and the boy who bows to the will of the umpire is con- ceiving a respect for law that is bound to function in every situation in life. Then there is that spirit of fair play, that attitude of mind and conception of sportsmanship on the player's part which will make it impossible for him to take un- fair advantage of an opponent, which will make every sharp practice repugnant, and which will cause him to rejoice in his opponent's victory and sympathize in his defeat. The man or woman who carries such ideals of sportsmanship into the practical affairs of life cannot help being a better citizen, and must become thereby more efficient in the rough-and-tumble, give-and-take, of the business and social world. Games in our public schools are, moreover, demo- cratic. Rich and poor rub elbows together and merit wins. The best man makes the team. The entire group is unified by one common cause; social, racial, and financial distinctions are forgotten in support of a team, itself composed of representatives of all social elements. The human relationships between all classes which such an experience establishes cannot but eventu- ate in strengthened democracy. The effect on the individual is no less important. Loosely managed, the games will detract from study, will create of the boys cheap sports, self-centred lovers of publicity, will lead to imitation of the evils of PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES 277 professional athleticism; will inculcate, instead of the manly virtues, rudeness and dishonesty, and, in general, a low standard of behavior. Under proper admin- istration those personal virtues mentioned above, of honor, courage, loyalty, obedience, courtesy, will be fostered both in the individual and in the group. If the athletic systems of the great English public schools have meant anything, they have meant the training of Eng- lish youth in just these values. But in England it has been the ruling class which has had the advantage of this training. In America the masses must receive it. If these experiences are worth anything, they must be brought within the reach of all. It must be the aim of the junor and senior high schools to make it possible for every pupil to play games, to represent something or somebody in athletic contests. These ideals cannot be fully realized until every member of the school, boy or girl, can have the privilege of representing some group in the school in a game; and this goal cannot be attained until a sufficient number of experts are employed to organize and direct the schools in the playing of games, and sufficient gymnasium and playground space has been provided to accommodate during the course of the day the whole school. With the advent of a longer school-day and more adequate facilities for play, provision will be made for both indoor and outdoor play during the day, after the fashion of the Gary schools. There are few schools at the present time in which the ideal of every member participating in play can be realized. The American people have not yet been educated to the point of the necessary financial support. In the meantime, the circle of those participating in games can be enormously widened, the public must be educated to their value through interclass games, and the 278 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION pupils must be organized into clubs for athletic sports, all under faculty supervision but largely under pupil man- agement. In one school in which the every-member- participating ideal cannot be realized because of lack of funds, the following intramural athletic activities are carried on: interclass basket-ball tournaments for boys and girls; interclass baseball tournament for boys; inter- class track meet for boys; interclass gymnasium contests for boys and girls; tennis tournaments for boys and girls in neighboring playgrounds and parks; a hockey club, with interclass contests, for girls; a "hiking" club for girls, and cross-country runs for boys. With even a small playground wonders can be accomplished in mass athletics when there is a will to do it. There are those who fear that interclass and inter- group contests will lead to rowdyism, sometimes in the form of color rushes and class scraps. Experience has taught that these outbursts will not occur where the internal government of the school is on a democratic basis. To forego these activities through fear that they cannot be controlled is to neglect one of the richest op- portunities for education which the school affords. It is no longer necessary to argue in America that the playing of games has the same value for girls as for boys. The future mother of the race must not only be strong and womanly, but also be filled with the same high ideals of honor, courage, loyalty, and devotion that we consider indispensable to the men of the race. Games can make the same high contributions to both sexes. Identical provision for physical education and play must be made for both sexes. Are interscholastic athletics justifiable? Ever since these contests were forced upon unwilling faculties by the pupils they have been the object of attacks by many PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES 279 critics. Nor has the marvellous development of our interscholastic activities into a gigantic business with enormous crowds, enormous gate receipts, boundless en- thusiasm, with complicated machinery in the form of associations of schools, and with large bodies of officials and elaborate codes of rules for the government of these contests, lessened the amount of criticism. It has, rather, increased it. The very magnitude of these enterprises from a financial standpoint is one of the chief objectives of the attacks of the critic. One of the clearest statements of the arguments against intercollegiate athletics is an argument by President Foster, of Reed College. 1 President Foster holds that the aims of athletics, when conducted for education, are (i) to develop all the students and fac- ulty physically and to maintain health; (2) to promote moderate recreation, in the spirit of joy, as a preparation for study rather than as a substitute for study; and (3) to form habits and to inculcate ideals of right living. When athletics are conducted to win games, says Presi- dent Foster, the aims are (1) to win games — to defeat another person or group being the chief end; (2) to make money — as it is impossible otherwise to carry on athletic business; (3) to attain individual or group fame and notoriety. "These three — which are the control- ling aims of intercollegiate athletics — are also the aims of horse-racing, prize-fighting, and professional base- ball." President Foster says that intercollegiate athletics must be incidental to a regime in which every one plays for pure recreation. He bitterly arraigns the vices of college sports — "commercialism," neglect of studies, "immorality" — and advocates as a cure the suspension of all intercollegiate athletics for a generation. 1 Atlantic Monthly, November, 191 5. 280 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Other criticisms are that five or eleven men cannot take exercise for five hundred people, and that the pub- licity which the "star" player receives is particularly harmful to boys of high school age. The most common arguments on the part of school- men, in favor of interschool games, are: that (i) ath- letics help to discipline a school by providing an outlet for surplus youthful energy; (2) they foster a more unified school spirit; (3) they thereby make for democ- racy; and, finally, they provide an innocent and stimu- lating recreation for the spectator. Apologists even of the spectacular side of these great contests are not wanting. . . . Luther Gulick says: "During the late years we have been hearing great condemnation of intercollegiate athletics on the ground that the games were played for the spectators, and that the spectators, because of their insistence on victory and sensation, were debauching the game. Most matches are played for the spectators. A great baseball or football match ranks with the great play; it is for the spectators. The individual becomes fused in the great social whole. This power may be used either for right or for wrong, but let us dismiss the notion that great school games are conducted for the benefit of the player. So far as mere muscular exercises are concerned, they can be secured just as well alone, in one's room. The great things in life are social, and these great games, having appealed to the masses, must be examined pri- marily with reference to their social effect." 1 It is evident that interscholastic games cannot be justified on the ground that they afford opportunities for physical education. The number that receive this training is negligible, and is the group that needs it 1 Journal of Education, September 10, 1915. PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES 281 least. These contests must be justified on purely social grounds, if at all. Even President Foster does not en- tirely condemn them. He says the attendant evils have become so great that they ought to be suspended for a generation. Such drastic treatment will not commend itself to many people, but few will disagree with his con- tentions that these contests ought to be incidental to a system in which every student participates in games. There are, however, important values, peculiar to inter- school contests themselves. It is a splendid training to meet the pupils of a school from a neighboring city in a hot contest, to put forth every ounce of effort in a clean fight for victory, yet showing the visitors every courtesy and consideration, to bear victory with modesty, or to accept defeat with becoming grace. The treatment to be accorded visiting teams affords a real opportunity for training in self-control, and for developing that tol- erance and regard for a stranger, a rival, or an oppo- nent that marks the cultured man or woman. Again, these contests, gripping the interests of all the pupils, are powerful factors in creating a wholesome community of interests and in creating fine traditions in the school. Rightly used they may be made an effective agency for the moral and ethical education of the spectator as well as of the players. High school athletics ought to be kept on a strictly amateur basis. Every reward of a utilitarian character ought to be abolished. The practice of giving sweaters, blankets, expensive watch fobs, and other useful arti- cles to members of teams is, fortunately, fast falling into disfavor. No such taint of commercialism should ever be connected with these games. The giving of the school letters is, of course, free from all such objection, and can be made the occasion for crystallizing in the 282 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION minds of the pupils the highest ideals. Of course, in a democratically organized school, as much responsibility as possible will be thrown on the pupils in the organiza- tion and management of games, both intramural and interschool. Every such educational opportunity must be improved. From the standpoint of the administrator, then, the social values of physical education are of scarcely less importance than the immediate aims of developing good, strong, clean bodies, and at the present time these social values need special emphasis for the reason that they may be overlooked. It would be possible to attain the immediate aims of physical education without securing these social values. A most efficient system of medical inspection and of body-building exercises could be devel- oped and maintained without any reference whatever to the social values that ought to be attained. But such a policy would be most short-sighted. The English people have long been noted for their love of outdoor sports and their ideals of sportsmanship. The people in general, and particularly the middle and upper class of Englishmen from which her statesmen have been drawn, have been lovers and players of games. It is significant that in more than four years of warfare not a single human life was lost at sea through the fail- ure of the officers of the British Navy and British Mer- chant Marine to play the game according to rules. Both on land and on sea the British were scrupulous in regard to the rules of the game, in other words, the rules of modern warfare, in a conflict that threatened their very existence. On the other hand, Germany displayed a shameful lack of sportsmanship, utterly disregarded every rule of the game. If the Germans had learned to play they could never have been so ruthless in war. PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES 283 The problem of physical education, then, is a matter of national concern. In the first place, economic and political equality depends on the possession of good, strong bodies. That nation that desires a place in the sun must be industrially efficient. Industrial efficiency must be founded upon the health and physical efficiency of the race. Secondly, no democracy can afford to over- look the opportunities afforded by an adequate pro- gramme of physical education and play for strengthen- ing its citizens in all virtues included in that splendid term, "good sportsmanship." Far more generous provision must and will be made in the immediate future by America for the physical upbuilding of its youth. In this programme medical inspection, scientific gymnastics, and corrective exer- cises will be given great emphasis. But the playing of games will be regarded as even more important. Those games that can be played throughout life will become the most popular. The school or the school administra- tion that neglects its duty in this respect will assume a great responsibility. THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 1 Recently a large university had plans drawn for a model high school building. This was in design and execution to reflect modern educational conceptions with reference to high school architecture. The first and even the second elaborate sets of plans for this " ideal" high school omitted all provision for a library. No such building as projected in this instance, we are but begin- ning to realize, can house and provide for the free and full expression of the activities which more and more are going to centre in the high school library. Indeed, the internal life of the school must for many purposes centre in the library rooms. The aggressive campaign for better books, better li- brary organization, and better school librarians has scarcely begun. We have, and rightly, aroused much enthusiasm over vocational guidance, educational gui- dance, supervised study, differentiated curriculums, new socialized recitations, school " projects" and longer school-day. Yet all this loosening up of the old formal restricted school procedure must culminate in an efficient smooth-working modern library organization and cen- tre. What is meant by "modern library organization" will become increasingly clear as I proceed. Somehow, we have not been able to make a national issue — a prop- aganda — out of our library convictions, as we have, for example, our methods of teaching spelling. We are not in the press enough. Our agitation is too ladylike. We 1 Address delivered before the joint meeting of the Departments of Secondary Education and the Library Department of N. E. A. r July, 1 91 6, New York City. 284 THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 285 hark back to anciently honored culture too exclusively. We do not adjust our library theories to the demands of the educational journals, and write in the language these readers demand. There are too few books on the library — especially the school library. There are scarcely even theories as to libraries for adolescents. We must invade the field of educational literature more boldly and read into the best educational theory to-day the library's pro- gramme and attitude. Some one has said that the modern high school recitation is one-half shop or lab- oratory, one-half library. We have not made this idea articulate in the sense of interpreting it and stating it clearly in terms of actual systematically organized school activity. All this, in part at least, means that we have not at present, in adequate formulation, either our school- library philosophy or its technic and administration. I know high school men who are finely fired with the vision of our one and one-half million high school boys and girls in the process of being made good, discriminat- ing, critical readers of our daily and weekly publications. They see that the cause of nationalizing (and interna- tionalizing) our secondary education actually does de- pend largely upon our achieving this high purpose. What these high-minded high school men do not have is such a knowledge of school-library technic, furniture, and other appointments, space requirements, trained teacher-librarian standards, economical and efficient methods of administration, which will make the library not a collection of books, but a well-organized, smooth- working, efficient "form of service." Modern high school education is no longer mere book memorization in small daily doses with verbal tests. Its method, content, and purpose have clearly broken over all bounds of mere academicism. It is entering the 286 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION twentieth-century stage responsive to the peculiar and varied educational demands imposed upon it. These demands in turn imply a library organization and equip- ment correspondingly varied. THE PRESENT SITUATION There are many evidences that the campaign for mak- ing library content a vital force in modern life is suc- ceeding. The library extension of itself into branches means its extension in function. While conditions throughout the nation are very different, still we are all becoming aware of the high spots as well as the low. We know well that the public has not developed its con- sciousness of the value of the book, that public-school pupils have not, that even teachers are not very respon- sive to the appeal for the wide and economic use of library facilities. We know, also, by shining examples in many states that this consciousness can be developed. Few cities know as keenly as Los Angeles does that as yet only one-fifth of its people use the proffered library service, and while Portland, with its 908 agencies for distributing books, may seem too far away to emulate, still no one forgets these things and more and more begin to question the possibilities suggested. While the 91 colleges and 93 normal schools, with the assistance of library schools and training schools in city libraries, seem at present a meagre source of supply for the thousands of possible fields for such experts, still they constitute the nucleus — a necessary and fairly well-organized be- ginning. Investigations like the one at Rochester show- ing reading to be, in point of time spent, the chief recrea- tion as well as business of school children, emphasizes another important kind of possible school-library ser- vice. While it appears on first looking into it that the THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 287 various state library associations seem to have effected little constructive co-operation with any considerable number of particular high schools, still the intention to do this is clearer and the method of approach determined upon. This self-consciousness of what is to be done has been clarified also by the disclosures of various so-called local "surveys." Superintendent Engleman, of Decatur, 111., has contributed much by finding out for a whole school system just what the reading horizons and the reading facilities are for his entire high school pupil population. This study in a system where the Eng- lish and other language departments are very strong has moved another school superintendent, whose school facilities for stimulating the use of books are almost criminally meagre, to give, also, his incriminating disclosure. Doctor C. E. Holley has shown the strik- ingly high correlation of library facilities in the homes of high school boys and girls in several Western cities with persistence in school. No other condition has so high a correlation. Principal White, of Kansas City, Kan., has shown that lack of library facilities appears to be a larger factor in high school elimination. More careful and elaborate studies will, doubtless, create in us the "library conscience" said to exist now in profes- sional librarians, but very rarely to be found in high school teachers. Contributing in a negative way to this conscience are the almost derisive characterizations of the present mot- ley collections of books going under the name of high school libraries. I am impressed with the fact that al- most all who write or speak on my present theme resort to this caricaturing of school libraries. Constructively and of more value, we have library idealists like Miss 288 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Hall, Miss Hopkins, and others, willing to picture for us the ideal school library, the ideal school library archi- tecture with proper provision for the library, the ideal librarian, and the ideal process when these three factors are harmoniously working together as an organic part of the school's life. We must somehow read all this into our high school educational philosophy. A sketch of the actual high school library work in a particular state will, without further comment, empha- size the need for an aggressive campaign for better school libraries. 1 An accredited high school is a school whose instruc- tion is approved by the state university, and whose stu- dents, after receiving this instruction, enter the univer- sity without examination. To these high schools, some 400 in number, was sent an elaborate questionnaire. With this list of questions we hoped to secure fairly complete information from the state as a whole regard- ing every phase of library activity. We received ade- quate replies from 183, presumably of the better half of the total number; some of these were personally visited also. These schools considered, then, enroll 60,500 pupils. They appropriate $23,485 for library purposes, 38 cents per pupil. They own 203,947 volumes, 3.3 volumes per pupil. The meagreness of this is apparent when we are familiar with the elaborate and luxurious scientific lab- oratory and the kitchen and shop equipments. Even more niggardly does this policy appear when we consider the highly paid experts who make the laboratory and shop vital by spending their professional time in per- sonal supervision, and contrast with this the almost 1 1 am indebted for assistance in interpreting the data on high school libraries in Illinois to Miss Eliza R. Pendrey, a graduate stu- dent in the university, now a librarian in Chicago. THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 289 total lack of professional experts, whose training and enthusiasm are equally necessary to secure an equally vital use of books. We find only 36 acting librarians with any technical training at all, and only 71 with any college or university training. This means with any status at all comparable with what the pupil considers "professional standing." It means that in the other 112 of the better half of the high school systems of this state either the pupils themselves, the office girl, the needy friend of the principal or school-board member, or some one needing an indirect pension, or some one book- ish but with a floating residence, is presiding over the books. It often happens that it is a teacher who must do the double (and doubly useless) task of tending the books and acting as the tired monitor of the unsuper- vised "study hall." In only twenty-four school libraries can there be said to be in operation moderately modern scientific methods of library organization and admin- istration. In nine others an acting librarian gives half time. In many others a possible two hours daily may be given. Not infrequently no regular time is allotted to any one. It is largely a matter of organization and of library conscience, therefore. We must interpret our philoso- phy of school library values in terms of possible and simple school administrative practice. Our conception of the profound educational value of all recorded intel- lectual resources which may be housed in school libraries must be expressed in terms of institutional adjustments which those in charge of high schools can adopt. Thousands of books, selected without a definite pol- icy, uncatalogued and, of necessity, therefore, mostly un- used, are not worth a few hundred always easily avail- able for immediate use. There are 92 card catalogues in 290 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION these 183 high schools. There should be 183. In the equally important matter of selection, only 80 use any kind of approved list. Some do not know " approved lists" exist, some use lists in the backs of standard dic- tionaries, some even use a text-book publisher's lists. In forty-three of these cities there is no public library. Thirty-two of these high schools provide no school library room. Indeed, only 87 of these 183 better high schools have a library room at all. In most of the other 96 the books are scattered from room to room and from hall to study room or principal's outer office, or alcove of assembly room. With no room, of course, there are no tables or chairs, no adequate reading light, no comfort, no quiet, no congenial surroundings. Under these conditions the supervision of a pupil's study amounts to little, and the much-to-be-desired adven- turous and leisurely exploitations of the world in its literature, and the wholesome light recreative reading amounts to nothing. These high schools vary in enrolment from 31 to 3,000, yet there can, of course, be no standard scale of library appropriations for the variety of equipment and profes- sional service required based upon a per capita. In many obvious respects library facilities for the small and the large high school are the same. The number of duplicate copies and the degree of co-operation with an efficient public library are two factors which affect ap- propriation. In these particular schools, however, there are within the high school group of any equal enrolment a variation in per pupil appropriation of $0 to $2. What is most interesting, however, is that the circula- tion or use of library varies not with its appropria- tion but with its library rooms and trained librarians. The school libraries least used have the lowest percen- THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 291 tage of library rooms and trained librarians, thus sug- gesting a way to allow volumes to stand unused and money and unique educational opportunity to be wasted. The only inference here is that, therefore, appropria- tion for the school library is no more standardizable at present than is health, but should correspond to possi- ble library use. There is no limit in sight. None should be set, except as to selection, organization, and admin- istration. In these schools it is pleasant to note that the open shelf has almost entirely replaced the locked cases and the closed stacks. Nearly all the books are for circula- tion. There are, however, few instances of free text- books, and, unfortunately, as yet these library facilities noted above are but infrequently open to the commu- nity or to the upper-grade pupils, and even when they are little use of them has been secured. Current periodicals increase in popularity and educa- tional use of them becomes more general. The schools report in all 1,448 magazines, 59 schools not subscribing to any, however. Free government and state bulletins are not so generally received as they should be, 130 of these schools receiving none at all. This lost oppor- tunity is particularly costly, of course, to the depart- ments of agriculture and domestic science. Again, only five of these high schools had availed themselves of the help of the Illinois State Library Commission. Two had secured free loans of books, one had had questions an- swered, while two had been helped in organizing. Here possible free and expert library service goes unused. The idea of attractive library rooms seems to be spreading. The returns show increased use of pictures, statues, window-seats, noiseless tables and chairs, bulle- tins, book exhibits, potted plants, flowers, and other 292 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION standard library furnishings and fittings. Some report piano rolls, slides, victrola records, etc. The " library consciousness" of the high school fac- ulty is reported as " low." The co-operation with trained librarians seems somewhat better, though the interest on the whole is chiefly confined to the English and history teachers and to such conventional library uses as "required reading" and a similar use of current mag- azines for specific "class reports." Some very sugges- tive things are reported, such as "bulletinizing clippings of historical interest," collecting antiques, serving read- ing clubs, planning for competitive readings, and later "extemporaneous" discussions of topics of national in- terest. It is surprising to note that scarcely any of these 183 high schools so much as mention the relation of the library to vocational guidance, the possibilities of each movement — the essence — not being realized. Maybe this is why each movement progresses so slowly. They need each other. Also a "course in vocational guidance" is wholly dependent upon library collections of the scat- tered and bulletin literature. Indeed, all free class or independent (senior high school) educational work be- yond literalness of text-book use depends upon a good school library. As to student activities, a few dramatic and literary societies are reported as having originated in the high school library. Some libraries are filing past debates and past educational records, such as examination ques- tions, by departments. Many are accumulating pam- phlets and clippings for specific purposes. In the field of art and music, likewise, sheet music and pictures are being collected. Not much is reported regarding the possible valuable collections of suitable library content THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 293 bearing upon athletics, health craft, holidays, commence- ment, and other topics upon which legitimate interests of high school boys and girls are from time to time focussed. One reports an interesting device for developing a library esprit de corps. "One phase of the work here which has proven very satisfactory and which I have not seen mentioned as followed elsewhere is the plan of having high school students as library assistants. I have one for each study period in the day, and also before and after school. Have had about twelve who have worked this year. This April I took fifteen more and gave them some talks on the work and some practice, and they will now be ready to be regular assistants next year. They charge and discharge books, and assist in refer- ence work, etc. They like it very much and are a great help. In fact, I could not manage without them. "For their side, they feel that the familiarity with all phases of library work, the training in accuracy, prompt- ness and reliability, the knowledge of many books they would not otherwise come in contact with, more than compensates for the time and work given. It also in- creases their acquaintances among students and teach- ers and altogether is considered quite an honor. The picnic, which includes all those who have worked for a semester some time in their course as library assistant, has become a very enjoyable annual affair. "The library class above mentioned is composed of the various assistants, both active and past. We have had to meet after school, and so can give but one period a week, which is often broken in upon by other things, and is not time enough for the many interests we want to take up. 294 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION "This system also does much to make the library a vital part of the school, so I have taken the liberty of calling your attention to it." Only a few schools offer classroom instruction in the library art (or science) with the school library serving as the laboratory. Many high schools are co-operating with the public library, enjoying every desirable privilege which could be offered pupils as well as teachers. In one instance the public library adjoining is almost a part of the school, a place for study with a plan of co-operation in discipline, of purchasing reference books, and a system of regular observation and report on the study assign- ments of pupils in smooth operation. In several in- stances the high school library is a branch of the public library. The most urgent reason for those with the new school spirit and the library spirit in education to come together in an institution which we shall call "The Modern High School" is that in spirit they are identical. Their atti- tudes toward the real nature of the educative process are the same. Perhaps the simplest and most desirable library con- ditions may be found in three high schools of the state of about 500 or 600 enrolment. In these the problem of attitude and discipline is not so serious as to becloud real library work, and almost ideal library conditions exist. Here are found splendidly equipped library rooms, excel- lent librarians, and serious study work being done by the pupils. One of these is in a school in which supervised-study methods have been adopted and the library fills a very vital place in the school. The young people come to the library from the various study rooms whenever they THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 295 wish to use library books, or they may sometimes obtain permission to come there to study their own books. The librarian knows personally almost all of the pupils and is able to help them in their work. She has made an interesting survey of various study methods, and the reflection of these in subsequent resulting recitations. She has found that almost invariably a lack of good study methods in the library is correlated with low- grade work in the classroom. Such systematic library work is made possible partly by the size of the school which makes it possible for the librarian thus to know the pupils and their needs and to do conscientious work with them all. Many interesting systems have been devised to check attendance in the library. Such systems include the " admit slip," the "check lists," "self-registration," etc. Similarly various systems of circulation are being used to meet various needs. One of the larger high schools of Chicago has such a great demand for books that it is necessary to circulate them by the hour during the school-day and just over- night after school. It may be noted in passing that no text-books or modern fiction are circulated, hence all this demand for supplementary study and reference work only. In some periods as many as 40 books are thus circulated and a maximum of 185 books per day has been attained. An eight days' circulation here was 1,070 plus an additional attendance in the library of 1,400 students. As the attendance in this library is voluntary on the part of the pupils, such a record may truly represent what a valuable addition and help a library is to the pupils of the school. Similarly other schools may be described which are doing earnest library work. Such library habits and 296 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION appreciation are thus being developed as will be of great value to the pupils after they leave school. English and history, and I could include almost as well any school subject, can no more be taught properly in our public schools without an adequate library organization than can botany or physics be taught without a labora- tory, or manual training or domestic science without shop equipment, or athletics without a field. Our pres- ent educational emphasis in all grades of public educa- tion, admirable in some respects as it surely is, is still dangerously and will eventually be disastrously one- sided, unless at least one fundamental oversight be seen and remedied without delay. Of our two great sources and instruments of culture, nature and human language, the former of late, as the latter in earlier educational history, has tended to usurp the field of our school efforts. Modern science and mod- ern industry have by their very vitality and obvious worth tended to make us forget the equally fundamental, if more subtle, claims upon our school equipment of human language in its broadest meaning as acted and spoken in drama and poetry, sung and read in music and literature. Somehow modern scientific and indus- trial realism in education, though succeeding in keeping alive our human passion for experimental inquiry and investigation of all aspects of nature and in satisfying our instinctive demand for participation in constructive workmanship and for conscious industrial service and practice, even in organization and leadership, still lacks a vital humanistic factor. There is one screw loose in our modernly educated high school boys and girls. Surely nature and the occupations of man, through sci- ence and rightly conceived vocational education, must be two of our instruments of democratic culture. As THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 297 surely, however, must language, in the form of literature, art, and music, be basal to any superstructure designed for our modern public-school system. The spirit of scholarship, of humanitas, has its early stages, its genetic developments, just as has the spirit of science of the con- sciousness of craftsmanship. The school library must in every respect take its place with the school laboratory and the school shop and the school gymnasium and playground. This is the funda- mental lack of our elaborate school plants to-day. They need and they will soon have this laboratory of the humanities. We must and we can without delay make it educationally bad form and bad business to allow the present impression of a modern palatial high school building, perfectly appointed in most respects, housing absurdly such a motley array of old and useless and dirty text-books, out-of-date encyclopaedias and refer- ence works, and an unkept shelf, full of equally old, black, and forbidding volumes of departments of agri- culture, "attic books," gifts often of friends (?) who wish to clean up their own attics and get their names in local papers as donors. Some recent local "surveys" have visioned for us the meagre "reading horizons" of high school pupils. We have found that persistence in schools even seems to depend upon books in the home. We know by records of successful school librarians that these "reading hori- zons" of high school pupils are amazingly broadened as we extend to them, in any systematic way, reading facili- ties. In short, we know that education will go hand in hand with accessibility to the world's store of wisdom, which — we must still not forget — is in books. School boards accept as a matter of course the necessity of spending large sums on science laboratories and even 298 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION more liberal outlays on shops for all the practical arts, even to the extent of minute conveniences to facilitate some minor instructional requirements. The new peda- gogy for Latin, for English, and for the social sciences demands quite as elaborate supplementary material in the way of modern library appointments. All such mat- ters as library staff, technical training for all high school teachers of the so-called "humanities," administrative machinery, budget apportionment, location of library rooms and their equipment, courses for credit in use of books, etc., are not fortunately unescapable administra- tive duties of school officials. More than anything else we need to think the library into our every-day school consciousness. We need to feel that a school library, moreover, is vastly more than merely a collection of even choice books. The modern school ha9 spread into an institution with function reaching far beyond that of merely intellectualizing the child. It cares for all that pertains to the complete flowering of the pupil's individuality, hygienic, intellec- tual, aesthetic, vocational, moral, religious. So the mod- ern adequate school library must be, too, an institution for the distribution and display and for demonstration of all legitimate modern educational tools. HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY Four general attitudes exist toward publicity of high school work. First, there is an attitude of indifference. Some believe in publicity in a way, but show no particu- lar interest and do not seize upon opportunities to use it advantageously. Second, there is an attitude that results in the use of publicity for selfish ends. Those having this point of view believe in publicity and are often good publicity agents for themselves first and the welfare of the school and community second. Third, there is an attitude that publicity is a thing to be shunned. Those who shun publicity interpret it as a means or method of putting forward the individual rather than the work of the school. Their modesty blinds them to the possibilities of legitimate advertising. The fourth attitude is one of real interest, but is without a well-organized and developed programme back of it. Many high school principals look upon legitimate pub- licity as desirable and necessary to realize the best from their efforts in the community. Although they hold this point of view, there is no generally accepted pro- gramme, practice, or method of securing wide publicity of the worthy activities of the school. In fact, little constructive attention has been directed toward build- ing up a programme of publicity. If publicity is to be effective it cannot be left to hap- hazard development. The thing which usually hap- pens in this event is publicity of an undesirable kind. Certain activities and events are emphasized out of all proportion to their real worth, and often unfortunate events are "played up" in the daily papers, the total 299 300 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION effect of which is actually harmful to the school. In one high school in which the reporter of the daily paper assumed the role of director of publicity for the school, the trivial matter of seating the assembly was written up under the glaring head-line "Insurrection at the High School." There was no insurrection, but some of the parents, following the lead of the newspaper, tried to make an issue of the affair. Under such sporadic attention to publicity, activities and events of deepest significance often pass by unnoticed, while many of the knotty problems of administration grow out of the lack of effort to create a tolerant, if not a favorable, public opinion among both pupils and parents. Legitimate publicity has great possibilities, and the principal or the agent responsible for the school's pub- licity really owes it to the school and the community to give the matter some thought. Big business is built up and maintained through publicity of one kind or another. It strives for the creation of good-will and faith in its product. Business men realize that it is far easier for the salesman to sell his product when people know about it beforehand and have faith in the organ- ization behind him. In a recent article, John N. Willys, president of the Willys-Overland Company, said in writing upon "Meeting the Unexpected": "We are all of us salesmen of one sort or another. No matter where we cast our lot, sooner or later that big word ' Salesman- ship ' will loom up and must be reckoned with. Whether we are selling the products of a manufacturing establish- ment or selling our services, the net result must be the same. We must, by the impressions we make, convey the idea of ability and earnestness of purpose. . . . Our promotion work consists in familiarizing the public with our product and methods so far as is practical. HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 301 We realize we cannot bring every purchaser to our plant and show him its size and capacity. Still, we must in a measure impress him with it. We do this through rational advertising in various forms. . . . We realize that a certain amount of this work creates a demand for any make of machine. . . . The great cumulative effect of this advertising is that our sales are made more quickly than if we had not done this pioneer work. No time is lost in acquainting the buyer with the prod- uct. He already knows about it." Legitimate publicity will do this pioneer work in the case of the school. Generally people believe in their schools. Their children are touched in these institu- tions, but in reality their interest is more or less arti- ficial because they do not know very much about what is going on, or how the school is really organized. Pub- licity will have a cumulative effect in bringing about a better understanding and spirit of co-operation between the parents and the school. It will create interest in the work that is being done, just as the continued ad- vertising of automobiles will to a certain extent create a demand for any make of machine. Parents will come to believe more strongly in the school as their knowl- edge of its affairs grows. There is still great need of securing the interest and faith of parents in high school work. To some this statement may seem out of place, so universal seem- ingly is the belief in the secondary school. But all of the more recent studies of elimination seem to indicate more clearly than did previous ones that pupils do not withdraw from high school for economic reasons, except in a very limited number of cases, and that more pupils really leave the school than earlier figures would seem to indicate. Van Denberg, in his study of elimination 302 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION from the New York City high schools, showed that eco- nomic pressure was not a considerable factor. Recent figures on high school enrolment seem to indicate that even fewer of those who entered the ist grade of the elementary school than the 10 to 14 per cent usually named as the per cent graduating from the high school actually complete the work of the four secondary years. Some think that 6 or 8 per cent would be more nearly accurate. Statistics in the reports of the U. S. Com- missioner of Education show that not more than 38 per cent of those who enter the first year of the high school remain to graduate. The following table, based upon the records of enrolment in 11,224 high schools, shows the distribution of pupils in each of the four years of the high school upon the basis of 100 pupils in the first year. This table is arranged by geographical division of the states. FIRST YEAR SECOND YEAR THIRD YEAR FOURTH YEAR North Atlantic North Central South Atlantic South Central Western 1 — ! 1 — 1 1 — ^1 1 — 1 1 — 1 I — 1 O O O Q C O 66 69 65 64 62 66 47 5i 44 43 45 48 39 43 28 28 37 38 United States .... In the preparation of this table the number of pupils who were actually enrolled in the first year of the high school was reduced to the base 100, and the figures given for the second, third, and fourth years indicate respec- tively the number out of the original 100 who had re- mained in school long enough to enroll in each of these years. It is true that the high school enrolment within the HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 303 past two decades has increased about ten times as rap- idly as the growth in population, but the fact still re- mains that only about n out of every ioo who enter the elementary school complete the twelve years of our public-school system. The fact also holds that this in- crease in high school enrolment has been rather directly due to a kind of idealism of the present generation of fathers and mothers that success in life is assured sim- ply by attendance upon the high school regardless of the relation the training received bears to the actual preparation for the work of life. But this period has passed. We are now in the midst of a most scrutinizing period as to the merits of the work done by the school. Attempts are now being made to justify the work in terms of the thing the pupil wishes to do in later life. We are really awakening to the fact that our loss of pupils is growing more largely out of lack of adjustment along this line than out of economic necessity. In other words, if the number who remain in our regular day high schools is very materially increased in proportion to the population over the present figures, it will be because of the character of the work offered and its relation to economic advancement rather than to faith. The truth of this statement becomes quite convincing when one is dealing with parents or pupils who have become prejudiced against further education. Faith with them is at low ebb. It is well-nigh impossible to do anything with the child from such homes. Even compulsory school laws do not help very much, accord- ing to the experiences of teachers in dealing with such pupils in evening and continuation schools unless the work offered really appeals to them in terms of life-career motives. A new day is being ushered in. Curriculums of study 304 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION are being organized to serve in reality the needs of clearly denned groups of pupils, and non-essential stud- ies and parts of courses within these curriculums are giving way to the introduction of things of more imme- diate importance. Traditional curriculums and courses are being reorganized on the basis of immediate rather than deferred values. Evening schools, continuation classes, part-time schools, and day vocational classes are being organized to meet the emergency in education and to extend its scope and opportunities. The na- tional government has entered the field through the passage of the Smith-Hughes and other educational bills. It has thus given the movement to vitalize education a great impetus. The parents must be reached. They must be con- vinced of the validity of our new appeal to the boys and girls to remain in school. We must have the genuine support of the home. We must seek to build up a "stay-in-school" spirit. The lack of information on the part of parents as to the real work of the school is ap- palling. It is not to be wondered at that parents, under these circumstances, can be prejudiced in favor of, or strongly and vehemently against, the school on the most trivial grounds. A mere incident in the day's work is sometimes sufficient to prejudice the parents against the school. In this day of complexities in mod- ern secondary-school organization we owe it to the parents to keep them informed. We must pursue a policy of publishing as many facts as possible about the school. The hidden premise in this discussion of the need of publicity in building up a faith on the part of parents in the work of the school is that publicity has great pos- sibilities in developing a genuine school spirit among HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 305 the pupils. In fact, the use of the children themselves in creating a favorable attitude toward the work of the school cannot be stressed too strongly. The parent is mightily influenced by his child. The publicity usually given athletics, for example, has a strong influence in building up a school sphit and a derived interest in other activities. The prowess of the team sheds some of its renown upon the school, and in years of marked success the entire community will be- come intensely interested. The principal and teachers will, under these circumstances, often be welcomed and counselled with by the most prominent business men of the community. One school in Illinois which won a national reputation in athletics a few years ago still feels the beneficent effects of the interest aroused among the parents. In another large high school the publicity growing out of the organization of and the activities incident to a programme for better written and oral speech was far- reaching in its effects upon the pupils and through them upon the community. This campaign did much to set up new standards among the pupils and create faith in the institution out among the parents. The particular means decided upon to accomplish the ends in view was a Better English Week. After reach- ing this decision, the teachers of the English department set aside one week in the school calendar for this pur- pose. Weeks before the date set, four committees — one each on publicity, class projects, posters, and assembly —composed of teachers and pupils were appointed to organize and carry through the many activities of the programme. The committee on publicity began early to arouse the interest of the pupils generally. It prepared a great 306 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION deal of material for the school and city papers. Through the efforts of the committee a four-minute speakers' contest was arranged and ten high school pupils made four-minute speeches in the leading motion-picture thea- tres on topics dealing with the importance of the use of good English. The topics selected were: Good English Is Essential to Every-Day Living, The Value of Clear Enunciation, The Quality of English Learned by the Foreign-Born, American Speech Week, English the Com- posite Language, The Value of Good English, Better English in the High School, A Greater Pride in Our Language and Speech, Slang, and Why Not Use Your Own Language? The pupils were enthusiastically re- ceived by the public in every instance. The week selected as Better English Week was the one set aside by the Committee on American Speech of the National Council of Teachers of English. Thus the school took part in a nation-wide programme for better speech. The committee on class projects made an appeal to all classes in the school to co-operate in the success of the week by preparing articles, writing verses, limericks, and songs for the papers. The largest single project planned, however, was the preparation of a play to be given in the assembly before the entire school and inter- ested patrons. After some discussion the writers club in the school, composed of about thirty pupils interested in writing, decided to prepare the play. The result was a one-act comedy, entitled "Ready to Wear/' the merit of which met with general approval. The committee also arranged for a tag day in the school and in each home room a sub-committee consisting of about one- fifth of the pupils was elected to take charge of the tags. They were instructed to tag any one whom they heard using incorrect English in the halls and cafeteria. HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 307 The person tagged was instructed to listen and put his tag on any fellow pupil or teacher who was guilty of incorrect usage. A number of suggested errors were given as a basis upon which the tagging should depend. Many tags were exchanged during the day. The committee on posters offered a series of prizes for the best posters prepared by pupils. Many very worthy posters driving home the benefits to be derived from the use of good English were prepared under the direction of the art department, and these were placed in the cor- ridors by the committee in charge. During the week hundreds of pupils and many parents visited the corri- dors to see the exhibit of these better English posters. The assembly committee arranged the assembly at which the contest of speakers who were to speak in the motion-picture theatres was held before the student body. This committee also arranged for an assembly, when some of the songs written by the pupils were sung and the play written by the writers club was presented. A parody on "Smiles," sung at one of the assemblies, ran as follows: There was a boy who used bad English, There was a boy who used much slang, And this boy would always quake with anguish When the "Better English" week began, For he knew that if he used a slang word Or an error in his speech he made He'd be decorated by a tagger And he simply could not be saved. The words of one of the pupils in summing up the effects of Better English Week show the real interest, enthusiasm, and success attending the week's activities. "The whole week," says the writer, "was regarded as a 308 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION great success. Some might wonder if such a movement really accomplished enough good to warrant its exten- sion. Such a deep-seated impression has been left on the minds of the pupils that careless English is wrong and disgraceful, that no one can question the good to be derived from ' Better English' week. " Mistakes are still being made and in all probability will be made as long as we speak the English language. The students have been shown, however, that it is not 'cute' or clever to use slang, and that it is really worth while to substitute good English words for slang, and that our language deserves our respect and attention to keep it free from the impurities which are constantly lessening its beauty and worth." The activities of this week's programme were far- reaching in their effect. The many ramifications of the work, the appeal to practically all pupils, the active par- ticipation in the preparation of the programmes, the team-work, and the enthusiasm of the pupils carried out into the homes unified the school to a remarkable de- gree, and awakened in the pupils the worth-whileness of a new and higher type of school activity than they had been accustomed to before. It raised the school greatly in the estimation of the parents and increased their faith in it and its ideals. This work got at the very heart of the school, the phase of school work most important, yet least emphasized and advertised — namely, the common activity of classroom teaching. The possibilities of publicity through a programme of this sort cannot be too strongly stressed. It reaches the parent through the child and makes its strongest appeal because it popularizes classroom work and makes it im- portant in the eyes of the pupil. A programme of this sort builds up a genuine school spirit. HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 309 There is still another important function of publicity in the administration of our schools. Through publicity the way can be opened up for changes in policy. By its use the administrator can make a radical change in policy seem natural and entirely consistent when the time comes for its introduction. One high school prin- cipal, together with the faculty, spent one school year in giving to the public pertinent facts on scholarship, home study, the overcrowded conditions in the build- ing, and the consequent need of making classrooms out of study halls. By the end of the year, through their recurrent suggestions that supervised study was one solution, the pupils and the community were anxious to try the new plan of organization. In another high school the principal and superintendent convinced the board of education during a summer vacation that super- vised study should be adopted. When pupils and teach- ers returned in the fall and found a new order of things, the result was not altogether satisfactory. Neither teachers nor pupils took any particular pains to insure the success of the new programme, and many objections were forthcoming from the parents. Possibly the best example of publicity as a factor in guaranteeing the success of a change in school policy is to be found when an attempt to eliminate secret socie- ties is made after they have become strongly intrenched. In this instance the high school principal takes his life in his hand unless he has the united support of his board of education and can create a favorable public opinion out in the community. He can talk the matter over with his superintendent and board from time to time, but to reach the community he must plan upon a defi- nite campaign of pitiless publicity of facts. His cam- paign must precede his attempt to eliminate the socie- 310 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION ties and be kept up throughout the time the school is dealing adversely with these pupil groups. He must show the effects of secret societies on attendance, schol- arship, and discipline, and dwell upon the unsustainable social organization of the school, the undemocratic atmosphere of the institution, and the political chicanery practised by secret-society members. The principal can- not take any chances. Once he has embarked upon such a programme he must see it through, realizing all the while that he is dealing for the most part with the most influential families in his community, while the public generally will be more or less apathetic. This general constituency must be awakened. A very good example of the effectiveness of creating favorable public opinion on this problem and the success attendant upon such a programme of publicity is to be found in the social reorganization of the Central High School, of Grand Rapids, Mich., under Principal Jesse B. Davis. His report to the board of education on the elimination of secret societies demonstrates that it is possible to reor- ganize the school and still retain the support and respect of the community. The elimination of secret societies from a large high school in a university centre where the problem was found in its most aggravated setting furnishes another example of the efficacy of a programme of publicity. In this school some fourteen or fifteen secret societies and exclusive clubs had become thoroughly intrenched, hav- ing a membership within the school of about 300, and an alumni membership in the city of about the same number. Furthermore, the university fraternities actu- ally fostered the spirit of fraternities in the high school, so that the atmosphere of the high school was thoroughly dominated by exclusive clubs and cliques. HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 311 The faculty of the school, under the direction of the principal, spent one entire year in studying social con- ditions, attendance problems, the scholarship of secret- society members and non-members, the practices of the secret-society members, both within their meetings and in the general school activities, and, finally, in securing a complete roster of secret-society members. Publicity of these facts was thorough, use being made of the city papers whose influence had previously been secured through confidential facts submitted to them. Letters were also sent to all of the parents as often as facts and new conditions developed. When finally the board of education took action abolishing secret societies, it wa9 received as a natural step. In fact, such action had been vigorously demanded by many prominent citizens, including the parents of club members. At the opening of school the following fall a referendum vote of the parents on the action of the board in abolishing secret societies resulted in 85 per cent unqualifiedly indorsing the action. Eleven per cent were non-committal, while only 4 per cent opposed it. The pupils accepted in good grace the inevitable and turned co-operatively to the problem of organizing new, purposeful, democratic clubs. These are some examples of the possibilities of genu- ine publicity in high school administration. Others will suggest themselves to those interested in making pro- gressive administration somewhat easier. The character and source of the publicity, of course, have much to do with its effect not only on the com- munity but on the pupils as well. First, and probably most important, publicity must be real and natural, not forced. Second, it must be based upon worthy school activi- ties. No one would care to have his school rated wholly 312 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION on the number of formal parties and dinner-dances given by the exclusive clubs in the school. If publicity is given to worthy activities these will come to the front with remarkable swiftness. They may even crowd out the desire to maintain exclusive club activities in the school. Third, publicity should emphasize the various activi- ties of a well-organized modern high school. This means that every worth-while activity will be treated in the light of its relation to other activities and to the school as a whole. It presages a well-balanced programme of school activities. Fourth, publicity should emphasize facts of actual teaching experiences and results. The organization of a Better English Week is a splendid example of this type of publicity. Another instance of this type is the real school exhibit or the evening session of day-school classes when the parents are invited to be present. Fifth, the most effective publicity grows out of the things pupils do themselves. They are intensely in- terested in the publicity of their activities, much more so than in the more impersonal things about the school. As has been said before, pupils are about the best source available for advertisement purposes. They should be taken more into the programme of affairs and be given as great opportunity as possible to participate in the organization and execution of student activities and in the conduct of classroom exercises. Although no generally accepted programme of pub- licity has been developed in actual practice, it is quite possible to see forcing itself to the front the aim empha- sized in this chapter, namely, that of creating interest and faith in the work of the school on the part of pupils and parents. Specific examples of attempts along cer- tain lines to accomplish this aim are extremely valuable. HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 313 One of the outstanding examples of the co-operation of the parents with the school, growing out of active publicity of the school's efforts, is found in the Frank- ford, Philadelphia, High School. There the fathers have organized a fathers' association which has a member- ship of 2,000. The meetings are held at the high school once each month, with an average attendance of 800. The organization works through committees which outline the work for the year. The folder issued by the organization in 191 7 shows the enthusiastic sup- port given the school in its work. "Last year," says the folder, "we seconded the efforts of the faculty in developing a fine spirit of intellectual endeavor by awarding prizes to honor students and to members of debating teams. We gave musical instruction to 265 boys and girls of the high school, supporting entirely the orchestra, the boys' glee club, the boys' mandolin club, the girls' chorus, the girls' string club, the quartet. We provided coaching and equipment for the athletic activi- ties of the school in which over 700 students participated. We had nine enthusiastic meetings, with a total atten- dance of from 7,000 to 8,000 men. There was for every man attending inspiration and enjoyment." Such an organization of parents must result in the promotion of the finest type of school and community spirit. Some form of parent or parent- teacher organization is found in many high schools. Another type of publicity found in many schools, but not yet common enough, is that which endeavors to create interest on the part of the pupils about to enter, and their parents. Many variations are found in the organization of this work. The traditional activity of inviting pupils, together with their parents, to the build- ing is common, but plans which are out of the ordinary 314 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION are being carried out in some cities. In the Rockford, 111., high school, for example, the idea of the "big brother'' and "big sister" in helping the incoming pupils to make adjustments is being developed. The pupils from the grade schools come in small groups to the high school and spend a day in company with an older pupil, who acquaints his proteges with the "ins and outs" of the school. In other schools boys' and girls' clubs, or the student council, take charge of the pupils, while in still others special programmes of interest are prepared for them and their parents. Probably the most elaborate scheme along this line was worked out in Pittsburgh a few years ago. A hand- book on the Pittsburgh high schools was issued and dis- tributed to the pupils of the 7th and 8th grades. Be- fore it was printed these pupils were invited to a can- tata rendered by the pupils of the high schools in the Carnegie Music Hall, and a reserved seat was given to each pupil, teacher, and principal. Between acts the cheer leader taught them the high school yells and in- vited them to the high school baseball game the next day. At the game these pupils were assembled back of the team and a group picture was taken. This picture was used in the handbook later distributed among the pupils. In essays written by the pupils the following year on "Why I Entered High School," many give credit to this handbook. No doubt they meant in reality the whole programme which culminated in the issuance of the handbook. As long as possible the high school should arrange for these personal contacts with the incoming pupils, but in the larger school systems it is sometimes necessary to rely upon literature issued by the high schools and han- dled by the elementary school principal. The hand- HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 315 book issued by the Chicago board of education in Janu- ary, 1 919, contains much valuable information for the prospective pupil and his parents. The first page is a pointed answer to the question "What does the Future Hold for an Eighth Grade Graduate ? " The second page states succinctly what the high school offers. Many school systems prepare these handbooks or leaflets, but they deserve even more attention than has been given theim A school manual can also be of great service, if it is properly prepared. Many schools are issuing manuals which describe the organization of the school and offer valuable suggestions as to curriculums of study and courses. To be of greatest service to the parents, a manual should give in detail the administration and social organization of the school. It should also give in detail the curriculum organization and the purposes each curriculum is designed to serve. It should contain much material descriptive of the courses of study offered in each curriculum and the aims underlying them. It is asking too much of parents to choose or assist in the choice of studies for the incoming pupils merely upon the basis of the names of the courses. A manual, such as described here, will likewise be of great help to the faculty not only through its preparation, but in giving them a better conception of the scope and purpose of the many activities of the present-day secondary school. The co-operation of the school in community projects is a most important source of publicity. This is often the source of the finest type of school and community spirit. During the war many schools co-operated in Red Cross work and war work activities, and as a result won the sincere admiration of the most prominent citizens of the community. Incidentally, the teachers 316 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION learned that real projects for teaching purposes can be found in the community life about them. A description of the Greek games in connection with Red Cross inter- ests given by the Central High School of St. Louis in Forest Park shows some of the possibilities of commu- nity school projects. "It was a tremendous job," says Principal Curtis, "but it brought wonderful results of co-operation and co-ordination in the school. It has made a spirit of solidarity such as we have never had before. As a result of this success we are to arrange for next spring a similar but somewhat different affair. In connection with the Greek games, each girl paid for her own costume, and the majority of the five hundred costumes were made at the school. The art depart- ment designed and made the properties, and designed the color scheme for the dresses. The manual- training department contributed much work on the manufacture of properties. The study of Greek history and mythol- ogy was stimulated. A fine spirit of co-operation was engendered among the girls of the school, and, as a result of their training, they secured a very unusual degree of skill and grace. From all sides we have learned that this was the most artistic performance of its kind given in St. Louis in many a day." Three other means of securing the right kind of pub- licity should be emphasized, not that they exhaust, by any means, the possibilities, but they should be empha- sized more than is commonly the practice. First, the principal, in so far as his duties will permit, should become a man of affairs in the community. He should be a member of and attend the meetings of com- mercial and civic organizations, and cultivate acquain- tance with the business men of the city. The more the principal can make himself felt as a business man, the HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 317 greater confidence will the efficient men of the city have in him. It means much to the school for the principal to be chairman of a boys' work committee of the Young Men's Christian Association or the boys' committee of the Rotary Club. Second, greater advantage should be taken of the school exhibit. Too often this is a more or less matter- of-fact display of the work of the year. It should be much more than this. The school exhibit can be made the school's strongest drawing card to get the parents to the building. In the preparation of the exhibit the work of such departments as industrial arts, mechanical drawing, arts and crafts should be prepared carefully and with the view of showing the results accomplished. But what of the work in history, mathematics, or Latin ? Is there no way to prepare for the proper exhibition of the activities of these classes? By careful preparation and specific outline of the work to be done on the eve- ning of the exhibit the work of these classes can be shown to great advantage by running a part of the school's daily schedule of classes. Programmes of en- tertainment in the auditorium always make a hit with the public. Another feature that elicits immediate in- terest is the living exhibit. Boys at work in the shops, girls doing projects in the school kitchen, contests in typewriting, games in the gymnasium, and sewing con- tests not only emphasize the many activities of the modern school but arouse keen interest. Third, there is some reason to believe that the school will finally use the motion picture as a means of pub- licity. A few attempts are being made through the use of slides to advertise evening schools or other similar activities. One city made use of the theatres to con- vince the public that it needed a bond issue to modern- 318 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION ize school buildings, but this was done by the use of slides and by taking advantage in a way of the people who went to see real motion pictures. With the instal- lation of motion-picture machines in most of the more modern schools, it remains now to film the school's ac- tivities, games, contests, classroom exercises, when we shall have one of the most inspiring sources of building up school spirit yet found. Many other means of securing publicity are used, each with its many variations. The city paper, the school paper, dramatic productions, debating activities, band, orchestra, athletics, student manual or code of ethics, go-to-school campaigns, vocational guidance, and placement bureaus are among those most commonly mentioned. By way of summary, there is need of high school pub- licity to create a greater interest in the work of the school on the part both of the parents and pupils. Cer- tain fundamental points in securing the right kind of publicity should be kept in mind. (a) Publicity must be a natural outgrowth of the school's activities. (b) It must be based upon worthy school activities and should grow out of the activities of the pupils in so far as possible. (c) It should be used to emphasize the classroom ac- tivities of the school, as well as the more catchy or sen- sational features of the modern high school. (d) It must seek for the real advancement of the best interests of the school. experimentalise: in secondary education Measuring the work of the school has become preva- lent, and it may be said that it is row the fashion. Standard tests and scales have been devised to standard- ize school work, to make possible accurate statements and comparisons, and to draw scientific conclusions. The statistical method has been treated by Thorndike and Strayer, Ayres, Rugg, and others very exhaustively. Strayer and Norsworthy, King, Monroe, Kelly, Bowley, and others have recently made the statistical method readable and of use to the rank and file of teachers by treating the subject in a more or less elementary man- ner. In discussing those essential parts or factors of the statistical method which the layman must use in the experimental study of the work of his school they have taken a very necessary step in making the use of stand- ard tests and scales general. The purpose of this chapter is not to attempt a re- statement of the elements of the statistical method, ex- cept to point out the few essential things about which the administrator or teacher untrained in such work must know, but rather to emphasize the need of an experimental attitude, to indicate some of the problems which should be studied experimentally, and the need of popular presentation of the results of experimental studies. The report of the Cleveland Survey on Measuring the Work of the Public Schools is made with the use of but few technical terms in statistical method. The use of the median appears first in this report on page 97. On 319 320 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION page 98 some dozen lines in small type explain the meaning and use of the term as contrasted with the arithmetical mean. Mean deviation appears first in the report on page 133, and is not explained until page 262 is reached, when another dozen lines in small type are found. The preparation of this report was not so much dependent upon the technical mathematics of sta- tistical method, although more of it was used than appears in the report, as the ability to sense the work that should be measured, the knowledge of the proper or significant preparation of tables to give the facts a meaning, and the popular presentation of those facts. The facts of this report are likewise true of many of the studies that are being made every day. The lack of an intimate knowledge of the many technical phases of statistics need not keep a school administrator from measuring the work of his system. If he will acquaint himself with the few essential things, such as the me- dian, mean deviation, scoring, and preparation of tables, he can handle practically all of the non- technical prob- lems of experimental education. Immediately, however, it should be stated that there are many fields of scientific investigation which necessi- tate the services of an expert. But the expert in a sys- tem cannot measure all of the school's practices. Even in systems with Bureaus of Research there are many non-technical problems which should properly fall to the head of the school or the faculty. It is within the scope of this chapter to set some of these problems. The time has passed when one needs to defend the statistical method and an experimental attitude toward the work of the school. The time is here to quicken the response of administrators to this work. An experi- mental attitude tends to make a science of our profes- SECONDARY EDUCATION 321 sion and to enlarge the service of the school to the com- munity. We are largely controlled in school admin- istration by opinionated educational practice. Every curriculum of study in our secondary schools is full of opinion. It was written as a compromise between fac- tions in the faculty, or between the faculty and the prin- cipal himself. In the programme of studies of the high school there is usually a statement limiting the number of hours of work which a pupil may carry, but no one knows whether this i9 the limit that should be set. The point is that administration is often without the facts, and hence is unscientific and a sort of will-o'-the-wisp affair. Opinionated administration not only prevents standards in the school system, but gives the public confidence to criticise the work of the school. Doctor Leonard P. Ayres, Division of Education, Russell Sage Foundation, in the Seventeenth Year Book of the National Society for the Study of Education ex- presses clearly the emphasis that should be placed upon the scientific method: k "Science in education," he says, "is not a body of information, but a method, and its object is to find out and to learn how. By its aid education is becoming a profession. Courses of study are being adapted to the needs of children; teaching effort and supervisory con- trol are becoming more efficient. . . . Knowledge is replacing opinion, and evidence is supplanting guess- work in education, as in every other field of human activity. . . . The future depends upon the skill, the wisdom, and the sagacity of the school men and women of America. It is well that they should set about the task of enlarging, perfecting, and carrying forward the scientific movement in education, for the Great War has marked the end of the age of haphazard, and the devel- 322 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION opments of coming years will show that this is true in education as in every other organized field of human endeavor. " The war has greatly emphasized the importance of the public schools in a democracy, but it placed our educational theories and practices in the balance. It brought into question content of courses, the efficiency of vocational programmes, physical fitness, the teaching of citizenship, the holding power of the school — in short, the ultimate success of the public school in the largest sense. With emphasis focussed upon these points, the war has demonstrated that the school must henceforth be organized and administered upon a scien- tific basis. Discontent can best be quieted by measured results, and our proposed reconstruction must have a basis in fact and not opinion. In the field of secondary education we are entering upon a period of reorganization. The junior high school is an established fact, and the six-three-three plan is rapidly supplanting the old traditional eight-four plan. This reorganization is not only a fertile field for the scientific method, but one that must be entered. Just what in point of actual fact does the junior high school do for society that was not done before? In what re- spects does it increase the efficiency of the school sys- tem ? Can the work done by the regular four-year high school be done better by reorganizing secondary educa- tion? Just what are the facts in regard to the holding power of the junior-senior high school arrangement? In matters of this kind shall we continue to be domi- nated merely by our convictions, and shall we continue to dominate public opinion by the same means, or shall we base our educational practice and theory upon facts? Shall we longer accept an opinionated profes- SECONDARY EDUCATION 323 sion, or shall we help make it a science by insisting upon the application of the yard-stick ? What fields or practices may be surveyed by the ad- ministrator who is not a skilled statistician or measure- ment expert, but who knows how to control the factors involved, arrange his facts properly, and interpret them ? A few may be suggested, but other opportunities and problems will be recognized by those who have the ex- perimental attitude. The matter of first importance is to secure the attitude. First, there is the whole field of curriculum building. It should no longer be a scissors-and-paste process to build the curriculums for the school. The school's cur- riculum policy should grow out of a study of the facts of pupil population, a study of the community, the trades and professions and the number entering them. After determining upon the curriculums to be offered, who knows for a certainty what subjects should go into them? Who knows in what year the subjects should come? What so-called high school subjects should go down into the junior high school ? In administering the school's curriculums, how may we determine upon the amount of work a pupil should carry from semester to semester? Who knows how many hours of work are best for the pupil? Should he carry three, four, or five subjects each semester? Should not some curriculums properly require a longer time for completion than others ? One of the above questions implies the relation be- tween the curriculum and the end or object for which it was set up. How may one know whether the curricu- lum concerned is the best preparation for the work the pupil has in mind? In this same connection how may one determine whether that curriculum is fulfilling its 324 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION purpose? Is there any correlation between the cur- riculum followed and the trade or profession entered by the pupil ? Second, there is the field of content of courses and elimination of waste in subject-matter. Undoubtedly, this field will remain one of controversy until experi- mental education proves something. It is a serious matter to have a pupil spend one year in commercial arithmetic, for example, if sufficient proficiency can be gained in one semester. Especially is this important when we are entering upon the organization of junior high school courses. We are constantly hearing that the subject-matter and treatment of it should be differ- ent in the junior high school from that in the senior high school. In what respects should it differ ? And if it should differ, how are we to determine upon this new organization and treatment? Hope lies in experimental education. Ay res has shown by experiment, for example, how we might save time and thus eliminate waste in spelling. This can be done in other subjects. In fact, minimal essentials in high school subjects are being determined by experiment. These two fields may seem overwhelmingly large, but if constructive work is done in them, at present it must be done in most school systems by or under the leader- ship of the secondary-school administrator. The effi- ciency expert, if the system has ©ne, is often too busy giving tests in the elementary schools. If the average administrator cannot conduct large control experiments in these fields he can at least make a beginning. The attitude is worth while. A third field covers the whole range of teachers' marks, pupil progress, promotions, failures, eliminations, repeaters, and allied topics. A study of these topics SECONDARY EDUCATION 325 may result in marked changes in methods of instruction and in administration. In one high school a study was made, for example, of fifty-seven pupils who failed of promotion in beginning German. These pupils were followed through their course in school until they either made their credit in German or dropped out. In this particular school a foreign language was required for graduation, and due to certain local conditions the pupils who began German repeated it if they failed of promotion. The second semester revealed some astonishing facts. Of the fifty- seven who had failed the previous semester, all would have been repeaters for the first time had they remained in school. Fourteen had withdrawn, and of the forty- three who remained only five made their credits. In the third semester, of the thirty-eight only nineteen were in school, and of these nineteen, three made their credits. At the end of the fourth semester, one of the original fifty-seven was still in school, and he made his credit. There had been a total of nine credits made in German by those fifty-seven pupils in four semesters, and all but one had withdrawn. This is a concrete ex- ample of what happened in one school. It is conceded that failure is conducive to elimination, but just what is happening in any particular school ? A study of this kind will convince a faculty or the public that a better adjustment of the work to the pupil would be a highly profitable piece of social work. From a slightly different angle the administrator may secure a bird's-eye view of this problem of failures and elimination. It would be interesting and also profit- able to follow the pupils who entered the first year of the school through the school until they had either with- drawn or graduated. Or, again, he may secure this 326 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION information by figuring the per cent of promotions in the classes, using the number enrolled at the beginning as the base, provided he follows this up with a study of the repeaters. This process will reveal a tremendous waste. It should be understood that to secure these data and not follow them up corresponds to the doctor who diagnoses a case but gives no medicine. There should be an age-grade table prepared each semester, and this should be followed up by making a definite study especially of the retarded boys. An age- grade table of the secondary school reveals a tre- mendous amount of retardation among boys in the 9th and 10th grades. During the nth and 12th grades there is scarcely more retardation among boys than girls. These facts make it very apparent that there is urgent need of better adaptation of work to boys, and proba- bly there should be provided some practical short courses which certain boys might well be encouraged to take. Supplementing the age-grade table and a general study of failures and elimination, it will be found profit- able to compare the per cent of failures by grades made by boys with that made by girls in the various subjects of the curriculum. This comparison will add new em- phasis to the need of adjusting the curriculums of study to the pupils. Such a study in one large high school is given in Tables I, II, and III. With the advent of weighted credit schemes, the im- portance of studying teachers' marks has been greatly emphasized. Undoubtedly, there is something wrong with our yard-stick when two teachers of the same sub- ject, after marking 500 to 1,000 pupils, will vary greatly in their distribution of marks. It is not an exaggeration SECONDARY EDUCATION 327 TABLE I A COMPARISON OF THE PER CENT OF FAILURES OF BOYS AND GIRLS IN THE VARIOUS SUBJECTS OFFERED IN THE SCHOOL SUBJECT PER CENT OF BOYS FAILING PER CENT OF GIRLS FAILING Mathematics Latin German English Commercial Science History Industrial and household arts 23 3i 23 10 10 8 4 5 23 12 5 4 7 3 2 TABLE II A COMPARISON OF THE FAILURES OF BOYS AND GIRLS IN FIRST-YEAR SUBJECTS SUBJECT PER CENT OF BOYS FAILING PER CENT OF GIRLS FAILING Mathematics Latin German English Commercial Science History Industrial and household arts 3i 4i 35 12 Not offered 11 8 10 24 17 3 5 Not offered 3 6 to say that in the absence of a policy on this point, one teacher may fail three times as many pupils as another teacher in the same department, or one may give five times as many marks of 90 per cent or above as the other. In one school the teachers' marks were charted semester by semester, and after each teacher had marked approximately 700 pupils in a period of two and one- 328 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION TABLE III A COMPARISON OF THE FAILURES OF BOYS AND GIRLS IN SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH YEAR SUBJECTS SUBJECT Mathematics Latin German English Commercial Science History Industrial and household arts PER CENT OF BOYS FAILING PER CENT OF GIRLS FAILING II 21 13 8 10 5 2 2 23 10 10 2 7 3 o o half years certain facts were clearly evident. The exact records which follow of two teachers of the same Eng- lish department are typical. 70-74 75-79 80-84 85-89 90-94 95-100 Teacher A. Uniformly a high marker. Passing mark 75%. SECONDARY EDUCATION 329 40j{ .OW65 65-69 70-74 75-79 80-84 85-89 90-94 95-1 Teacher B. Uniformly a low marker. Passing mark 75% It is an interesting experiment to have the faculty mark an examination paper, say in commercial arithme- tic and in English composition. In one school, after the faculty had been given identical instructions and duplicate copies of the papers to be marked, it was found that there was a variation of 40 per cent in mark- ing an arithmetic paper, and 30 per cent in marking a composition. Some teachers would have failed the pupils in question, while others would have given them excess credit under some weighted credit schemes. The marks given by twenty-nine members of one faculty in marking an arithmetic paper follows in graphical form on page 330. Unquestionably such facts are duplicated in many schools, and thus the real purposes of a weighted credit scheme may be defeated. Under such conditions of marking pupils a weighted credit scheme exaggerates 330 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION eo.n f- "'j::: — ----- — XT- ■-, :t:::::::::x::::::::::::::::::x:: 85 % 4---- ±::: J_ _ Tj" ~ ---'+>■$- + - _ . {""if" BOJ x::: i T :-±.:..-.:..-i.--_ ---j- Tl___]J__ Z 75K -1 r : ;+±----4:"S-i : -:-$--;|S— !| :+:|:5""::::::::::|::::::g: > °70? -U— - jxfli] 1 \\ \y\ 1 1 m x:x x:::::x:::±:::::Xix::r ::::E S -X-- - U_ - :::±:::::::::::±:::i:x::::: - :"+q +--- :::±3£:::±:::±:::!$:" T"Xr 1 U-_ 50^ 45* < r . ::±t±:: :::::::::: :±::±±::::x:::: . , ,1 ,,..., ,tC »0 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 NUMBER OF CASES The passing mark is 75%. the importance of choosing "snap" courses and easy teachers. It becomes a difficult matter to get pupils into the classes of some teachers, and likewise difficult to keep them out of those of others. A study of marks should be followed by a constructive attempt to adjust these problems. A system of marking in which the marks represent distinguishable steps of merit should follow such studies, as should also a schematic distribu- tion of marks that will make for greater uniformity among teachers. A study related to all of these deals with the progress through the school of particular pupil groups, organized on the basis of ability. Especially is this important with the organization of the junior high school. Defi- nite provision in all possible cases will be made for dif- ferences in ability in the junior high school, and the progress of each group should be studied carefully, not SECONDARY EDUCATION 331 only in that school, but also in the senior high school. In one large city system a special class is organized in one of the junior high schools. This class is prepared for the high school one full semester before the regular pupils. A comparative study of pupil groups might throw fur- ther light on the problem of the classification of pupils. A fourth field has to do with the use of standard tests and scales. As rapidly as these are developed they should be used in the administration of the school. With the definite organization of the junior high school, many of these tests and scales can be used in the scien- tific building of the programme of studies, particularly in determining curriculums, subject-matter, and time allotment. At the present time we are in the midst of a discussion as to the time element and treatment of subject material in junior high school mathematics. Again, there is much room for further experimentation in the organization and administration of commercial, household arts, and industrial branches in the junior high school. These are two outstanding examples of the urgent need of science in education, and it is to be hoped that before the organization of the junior high school becomes more or less traditional, a constructive attempt will be made to formulate principles based upon evidence rather than debate. Already many tests and scales are available for use in secondary schools. There are now some eighty-four standardized tests for use in the elementary school, many of which can be used profitably in the junior high school. Many of them can become the basis of pro- motion to the junior high school and the special classi- fication of junior high school pupils. To some extent they may become the basis of promotion to the senior high school. There are about twenty-five standardized 332 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION tests for use in the secondary school. Algebra, drawing, foreign languages, geometry, history, physical education, and physics are included in the list of subjects. 1 There is reason to hope that this list will be extended and the existing tests further refined. Experimentation in algebra has resulted in some ex- cellent tests. Rugg and Clark have developed a series of sixteen tests covering ninth-year work in algeb>ra. Pro- fessor Thomas H. Briggs is developing a series of stand- ardized compositions for use in all grades, from ninth to twelfth. In this work an effort is being made to set limits which may reasonably represent the range by grades in theme writing. Undoubtedly this marks the beginning of an attempt to agree upon limits which shall be accepted as the basis of progress through school. It is a matter of more than passing interest that in some schools the standard of attainment for promotion from nth-grade composition to that of the 12th grade is not as high as that of promotion in other schools from the oth to 10th grade. Briggs, in developing his scale, discovered that the theme rated as the poorest that could be accepted in i2th-grade work in one school was sometimes not as good as the theme rated poorest that could be accepted in 9th-grade work in another school. In other words, it was apparent that no one knew exactly what should be required of a 9th, 10th, or nth year pupil in composition, and that as among schools there were no progressive standards of attainment. When the i2th-grade themes which had been rated best by the English teachers of the schools sending them in were rated according to a scale, it was found that they ranged in merit from scarcely good enough to be con- 1 Chap. VII, Seventeeth Year Book, by Monroe; also chap. XIII, Seventeenth Year Book, by Bryner. SECONDARY EDUCATION 333 sidered acceptable as 9th-grade themes to a point on the scale comparable with university work. This one piece of work demonstrates clearly and forcibly the fact that standardized tests and scales are needed as a means of testing the accomplishment of pupils and rating them more justly. Much of the lack of standards of attainment and progress toward progres- sive standards is due to the inability of teachers to measure merit without some means of checking their judgment. This work in English composition opens up a new field for experiment in secondary education. It reveals the possible need of similar experimental work in other branches of study. The use of tests and scales relates closely to the effi- ciency of classroom methods. Much progress has been made in analyzing the elements entering into efficiency in teaching and in developing uniform rating schemes. The Boyce score card, or a variation of it, represents progress in rating teacher efficiency, but the difficulty in administering such rating schemes is that they call largely for opinion on the part of the supervisor. There is room for great variation in marking teachers even with such schemes. One supervisor may rate a teacher high with such a scale, while another may rate her low. It then resolves itself into a debate as to whose judg- ment is better, and the teacher concludes, rightly, that such rating schemes are just so much added "red tape." In many instances the thing or things that make a teacher stand out in her work lie beyond the scope of a scale. It should not be concluded that this is an argument against developing scales for rating teachers. Undoubt- edly there should be such scales, but as rapidly as pos- sible the rating should be based upon elements which 334 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION can be measured. It probably will never be possible to remove the personal element in rating teachers, but there is evidence to believe that facts of classroom work may supplant the present necessity of basing efficiency upon personal opinion. In the future it will be perfectly proper to rate the teacher in terms of results. In a certain school system in Massachusetts the superintendent had for some time questioned the efficiency of the penmanship supervisor, but he did not have definite data. It was largely a matter of guess. He tested all the grades by use of the Thorndike scale and found that the results confirmed his opinion. He called in the supervisor and asked that there be some definite improvement the following year. With the proper use of the scale the supervisor did show excellent results and he still retains his position. The relative amount of teacher activity in conducting the class is no longer a matter of opinion. The question as a measure of efficiency has been admirably handled by Doctor Romiett Stevens. The general type of recita- tion is no longer a question for debate. These points represent some of the items of measuring teaching effi- ciency in which facts may be substituted for opinion. Others will suggest themselves. Finally, the cost of education should be made the sub- ject of scientific investigation. We should know what it costs the community to secure the results which we claim for the school. This phase of investigation has been overworked in view of the use made of it in alter- ing the practices of the administration. We should not forget that we know at the end of the year how much it costs to run the system. Relatively it is unimportant to know simply that one thousand hours of instruction in the high school cost so many dollars. It is highly im- SECONDARY EDUCATION 335 portant to know the relative amounts spent in the grades and high school for instruction and all other expenses combined. We should not lose sight of the fact that cost of education should be confined largely to a comparative study of the items of expense in the sys- tem. Up to the present time cost of instruction has been the principal cost item studied in secondary educa- tion, but a study of cost should include every item of expenditure. The public is interested in totals. The administrator should, of course, know the per pupil cost, and this knowledge should be utilized in equalizing great discrepancies in securing equivalent results in the system. Further than this, cost of instruction and cost of education, except in so far as total cost is concerned, mean little and probably will be emphasized much less in the future. Rather, cost should include scientific budget making and an adjustment of expenditures as among the items included. The fields mentioned for investigation in this chapter are merely suggestive, the important point being that experiment in the administration and supervision of the school should be encouraged in every possible way. Within these fields there are opportunities without end for experimentation. These will suggest themselves to those who have the experimental attitude. Those not familiar with the statistical method will experience difficulty in getting the data collected ar- ranged intelligibly. It is highly important that they understand the significance of arranging the material in such manner as to make it possible to interpret results. Scoring and tabulating often present real difficulties. Assistance, however, can be secured of many schools of education, and frequently the technical part of the work can be turned over to an expert. 336 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Much of the success of experiment in education de- pends on the character of a report. Reports based upon statistical work must be simple and non-technical in character, and be designed to carry weight without extensive explanation. In other words, until the teach- ing profession generally becomes familiar with the tech- nical phases of measurement, the expert and the gen- eral administrator must popularize the statistical method in education through simplicity and the constant use of the results with the teaching force and the community. NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP There is an indefiniteness about the duties of the high school principal that is not equalled elsewhere in our public-school system. To be sure, the clerical phases of high school administration are well understood, as a matter of necessity, but the higher and more vital phases of the principal's duties are, as yet, indefinitely formu- lated. This indefiniteness is a reassuring sign that we are entering upon a new era in high school administra- tion. It is undoubtedly an indication that we are leav- ing behind that conception of the high school principal- ship that finds its highest expression in such clerical duties as adjusting pupils' programmes, in receiving and passing upon all excuses for absence, in the more or less useless shuffling of cards and writing of names, in answer- ing the telephone and the million relatively unimportant questions arising from day to day, and finally in check- ing up and signing the janitors' pay-roll. In fact, in our better schools, the teachers are taking exception to the principal who spends his time in clerical work, and are complaining against the lack of educational leader- ship in the faculty. On the other hand, there are still some teachers and principals, too, who regard the work of the principal as largely clerical. They look upon administration as something mechanical, a sort of rou- tine of devices, a manipulation of filing schemes, a shuffling of cards. Many principals need conversion on this point. They cannot stand it to be removed from the personal contact with pupils, arising from the adjustment of the size of 337 338 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION classes, changes in pupils' programmes, or granting per- mission for early dismissal on account of work. They look to these necessary but comparatively trivial mat- ters to establish their authority in the school. They think they must be seen in action in these mere skir- mishes in administration. What they need is the ability to visualize a General Foch. It is not a sufficient de- fense to say that these things bring the principal into actual contact with the pupils. There are other oppor- tunities of a more vital kind that enable him to display real leadership. In any discussion of the principalship it must be understood that efficiency in handling the clerical work of the office is a matter of first importance and one that cannot be neglected. The system of records and re- ports must be complete and accurate. The method of reporting and checking absence and tardiness must be simple and yet effective. The making of the schedule of recitations, adjustment of sizes of classes, necessary changes in teachers' and pupils' programmes, issuing work permits, and the like, should be systematized until these things take up the minimum amount of time. It is a matter of highest importance that the work of opening school be completed quickly. In this respect there is a wide difference among schools. In some schools it takes two or three weeks to get down to real classroom work; in others, class work of a vital kind is begun on the second or third day. The writer person- ally knows of a school in which pupils reported for enrolment in classes on Monday, the opening day, and then were told not to return until Friday. On Friday ten-minute periods were run and work did not begin until the middle of the second week. In another school some classes have been known to run for six weeks, with NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 339 an enrolment of fifty or sixty, because the principal in- sisted that he alone should make all adjustments in pupils' programmes. In many individual instances these adjustments meant no more than assigning the pupils to a different study period. Contrast this type of organization with one that has the school actually under way on Tuesday of the first week, with pupils preparing lessons in earnest for the next day's work. There is real technic in planning for the opening day of school and in getting the machinery under way promptly. The principal should make a study of these purely organization problems and refine his office meth- ods until the efficiency, or standard of efficiency, is fairly comparable with that of the best-organized offices in the commercial world. This calls for adequate cleri- cal help, a high degree of division of labor, and a wise and judicious assignment of duties to members of the faculty who are especially qualified for the particular service to be rendered. Important as this phase of administration is, and as much attention as it warrants, there are higher and more spiritual sides which, when acted upon, will con- stitute the real duties of the high school principal. Doctor Charles Hughes Johnston, in addressing the North Central Association, March 23, 1917, expressed so clearly the trend in high school administration that his words are quoted in full. "The high school," he said, "is no longer an assemblage of many tutoring or teaching units or classrooms. It is an institution. It begins to have an institutional consciousness — even con- science. Pupil achievement, real public high school ed- ucation in a democracy, depends much upon proper school organization, administration, and supervision. Proper and skilful direction of such an institution is an 340 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION essential means of providing the environment necessary for real success in secondary education." On the spiritual side he goes still deeper into the new conception of the high school principalship. i ' There is," he says, "an unfortunate distinction between ad- ministration and teaching. This distinction is based upon the view that administration is mechanical, a sort of routine use of devices and the employment of practi- cal temporary adjustments and the consumption of time in clerical occupation and more or less futile or tempo- rarily necessary pupil, teacher, and parent conferences; while real teaching is both more spiritual and more truly educational. . . . There is real technic in organizing and managing student activities, in creating an esprit de corps in the school, ... in making a system of educational guidance a real part of the school's every- day work, in making athletics democratic, moral, and educational. . . . School management in this higher and more spiritual sense implies technic, implies minimal standards of administration, implies peculiar profes- sional preparation and personal fitness of the adminis- trators, implies a high degree of co-operation of all the forces of the school." This is a significant statement of a constructive thinker. When we objectively formulate the spirit of these words, we shall pass from the mere standardiza- tion of the routine and clerical phases of the principal- ship to the refinement of the more vital means by which the modern high school fulfils its highest purposes in a democracy. In this higher professional sense there are two essen- tial factors which determine what may be called the spirit of the administration, and affect very materially the morale of the school. NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 341 The first of these has to do with the co-operation of the faculty (or the lack of it) in the solution of the insti- tutional problems of the school; the second with the attitude toward the social problems arising in the stu- dent body. There can, in the near future, be no dodg- ing of these two issues in high school administration. Accrediting agencies will, without doubt, enter upon this phase of standardizing our administrative practices. Is the school administered in such a way that the faculty can participate in the solution of administrative problems? Is the ability of this or that member of the faculty allowed to emerge, or is it being continually blocked? Are the teachers encouraged to discuss the problems of the school and offer suggestions ? Are they organized into committees to make it certain that they will contribute to the institutional consciousness of the school? Or is the administration of the type which makes it clear to teachers that they may occasionally be called upon to check the "a priori " conclusions of the principal, but that their main duty is to teach and take orders? Is the administration of that type which seeks for and results in the glorification of the head master? In a democracy there is a world of difference in these two suggested types. The one results in the democra- tization of the faculty that has always resented auto- cratic methods in administration; the other in a dead- ening of every spark of real interest in the institutional problems of the school. There is no better example of democracy and great- ness in administration to be found than that in Teachers College, Columbia University. Dean Russell has, from the beginning, organized his faculty on a co-operative basis. He has not only permitted but has encouraged the men on that faculty to bring their full genius to 342 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION bear on the solution of the problems of the institution. More than this, he has encouraged growth in his faculty. Under this leadership the ability of the able teachers has emerged. To-day he has around him a group of enthusiastically loyal teachers who have national and international reputations. There are other institutions in this country with great men on their faculties, but somehow things are blocked, something gets in the way, and the institutions themselves, to say nothing of the educational world generally, do not reap full benefit of the latent ability of these great teachers. Some principals object to placing more than a very limited amount of responsibility on the members of the faculty. Of course, in any provision for co-operative effort, the principal remains the executive head of the school, but the question of authority need not arise even in the most extreme type of co-operation. In fact, the principal becomes the constructive leader and bears the same relationship to the faculty that the teacher does to the class. It is his business to bring to the highest possible point of development the individual members of his staff. With respect to the social problems of the student body, there is urgent need of cons true tiveness. Gen- erally speaking, we have not yet sensed the social prob- lems in our schools. There are high schools which, by virtue of internal conditions, send forth their graduates with a perverted notion of democracy and actually un- fitted to participate fully in a democracy. Witness schools with Greek-letter secret fraternities; with exclu- sive literary societies whose membership is restricted to the so-called socially elect; with clubs and cliques, no one of which serves any of the purposeful ends of secon- dary education, or helps in any way to unify the com- NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPAL SHIP 343 mon interests of the school. Witness schools in which the athletics are dominated by secret organizations or cliques, and unsportsmanlike practices are permitted to go unnoticed. Witness schools in which it is considered right and proper on the part of players on the teams to spend the school's money freely, and keep a goodly part of the equipment; in which it is considered fair to "get" a player on the opposing team, regardless of the man- ner in which it is done. Why do we have these social conditions in our schools ? No one will maintain that they sprang from a desire or latent tendency to do something wrong, or to interfere with the work of the school. Then why are social ten- dencies not utilized in a positive manner, and thus directed into worthy channels? Failure to sense the social problems results in a de- generation of the social activities of the pupils. It re- sults in a degeneration of societies that were originally good. It results in a multiplicity of organizations, few of which have clear-cut or justifiable reasons for exist- ence. It breeds secret societies and exclusive literary societies. On the other hand, a constructive social pro- gramme insists that each organization meet one or more of the worthy ends of secondary education. It insists upon organizing the activities of the school on a demo- cratic basis. Members will be chosen on the basis of merit and peculiar fitness and not upon the unjustifiable basis of those particular, indefinable, social attributes that meet the ready approval of secret-society members. Under such a programme there will be many things to unify the common interests of the school, and the activi- ties will be organized in such a way as to develop to the highest possible point the spirit of co-operative effort. Our general assembly periods could be utilized to a 344 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION much greater extent than is common in furthering the social organization and unity of the school. This im- portant feature of high school organization is much neglected, or left to an accidental programme of events. In a certain large high school there is an assembly com- mittee composed of seven teachers who, in conjunction with the principal, outline the assembly work through- out the year. This is not done from week to week, but by semesters, with a definite purpose behind the work. It is impossible for any one who does not have a mes- sage to appear on the platform. During a recent semes- ter the assembly period was organized to teach patriot- ism, to further all patriotic movements, to encourage worthy school activities, and to provide high-class enter- tainment. Dramatics, public speaking, debating, class plays, student council, publications, athletics, and school clubs were among the activities encouraged. In all of these programmes the pupils were given a large part, and in many of them they had complete charge. A wise use of the assembly period will result in raising the whole social, moral, and aesthetic tone of the school. Faculty organization and the attitude toward social activities determine in a large degree the spirit of the administration and hence the soul of the institution. They are vital matters in the fulfilment of the highest purposes of public secondary schools. Coming now to certain other professional phases of administration, there are fields of endeavor in which minimal standards of administrative practice need to be set up. The first of these centres around the curriculum prob- lems of the school. A casual glance at the subjects offered in our secondary schools, the requirements for graduation, the specific curriculum constants, and the NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 345 number of elective courses will reveal clearly a state of chaos and the need of constructive thinking. Undoubt- edly, there should be greater agreement among us in regard to the administration of the subjects offered by the schools. In some schools there is an effort to organ- ize the subjects into a curriculum or curriculums, to meet certain clearly definable ends, and to serve groups of pupils who wish to attain these objectives. As long, however, as we discuss, generally, our curriculum policy in terms of the individual child we can never hope to reach any scientific justification for our practices. There is no subject or group of subjects equally good for all children, and upon such a basis we are logically forced to open our schools on a free elective basis from begin- ning to end. This state of chaos and diversity of practice indicates the need of organizing and administering the curricu- lums in accordance with the aims of secondary educa- tion in a democracy. Indeed, the faculty's first work in formulating the school's curriculum policy should deal with an expression of aims. With the publication of the report of the National Educational Association Committee on Secondary School Administration there will appear a fairly acceptable pragmatic statement of the goal of secondary education. Having formulated acceptable and worthy, sustainable aims, the faculty should then set to work on the problem of adapting the offering of the school to the needs of the commu- nity. A study of the occupations of the community, the number of people employed in these occupations, the number of graduates entering these, during the past several years, a study of what the eliminates do, a close scrutiny of the records of those entering college, and 346 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION of those who have completed the so-called vocational courses— these facts should form the basis, first, of de- termining the necessary extent of the school's offering; second, the organization of the subjects into curriculums to meet certain rather clearly definable ends; and lastly, the requirements in studies in these curriculums. A scientific approach to the problem of curriculum build- ing shows clearly that the pupil population of our high schools falls into groups, the needs of which call for the organization of curriculums. Such an approach further reveals the fact that the correlation between the occu- pations chosen, or tentatively chosen, by the pupils in the early years of their high school course, and the occu- pations actually entered, is very low indeed. Conse- quently, there is need in our schools for a system of educational and vocational guidance that is far more fundamental and effective in its operation than any- thing yet devised. Quoting again from Doctor Johnston: "Educational guidance means more than mere psychological diagnosis or vocational information and placement. It means the more fundamental effort to establish in pupils proper internal rather than externally imposed and superficial motives for school work, and to administer the whole curriculum in this more effective way." The war has greatly emphasized the curriculum prob- lems. World democracy is upon us. Systems of edu- cation, throughout the world, as one of the direct results of this war, will be built up more firmly than ever on the theory that the highest purposes of society, as a whole, are to be attained by the greatest possible devel- opment of each individual. But how can this ideal be reached? How can democracy be realized or even ap- proximated? Is it possible for us to have our curricu- NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 347 lums organized so that every child will have the oppor- tunity to make the most of himself, and will be placed under scientific guidance where he can be best 'served? Is it possible to organize our curriculums so that they actually stimulate and develop the intellectual, aesthetic, and vocational interests of the children? How can we organize the school's offering so that the children will really be trained for citizenship in a democracy — trained in co-operative effort beyond the mere needs of living together, and grounded in the social and political theories of our national life ? These are real problems. They are standing chal- lenges and are worthy of the best leadership in our sec- ondary schools. The new conception of the principal- ship puts these challenges squarely up to the principal. He must, in the future, accept them. To do less means that he either does not have a vision of his real work or is incapable of rising to the occasion. One thing is cer- tain — the principal who spends his time juggling cards cannot render large service in determining the curricu- lum policy of his school. It is doubtful if such a prin- cipal has any clearly defined and sustainable curriculum policy. With inroads on the schools growing out of war and reconstruction, with subtle forces endeavoring to abro- gate, and, in fact, abrogating to a certain degree, our child-labor laws, these problems, for a time, at least, will grow increasingly great. We cannot depend on compulsory education and child-labor laws to save the nation. There is a vast difference between mere atten- dance at school and what the child is given after he gets there. We must look to the organization and ad- ministration of our curriculums of study if democracy is to be fully realized. 348 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Of methods there follows a short discussion later. In regard to the content of the courses offered, this mate- rial should be selected in accordance with a sound prag- matic philosophy of secondary education and the objec- tives in view, in the particular school, a9 determined by the school's curriculum policy. There is one factor entering into the subject-matter offered that is too im- portant to pass over lightly. Subject-matter and its organization are largely dependent upon text-books. Without entering into the discussion of the proper place and use of the text-book, it is a fact that it plays an important part in our classroom work. Up to the present time little has been done in developing sustain- able methods of evaluating and selecting text-books. This is a field that has been practically untouched. Too often school officials are carried away by the arguments of the book man, and the fact that certain large cities have just adopted the book. Such items as the author's view-point and philosophy, the author's aims, the selection and arrangement of material, the arrangement on the page, the amount of material, kind of paper and type used, the durability and the cost should be considered. When changes are contemplated, teachers might well use in the classroom for one full semester as reference and supplementary material all texts under consideration. The second large fundamental field in which minimal administrative standards need to be set up is that of classroom methods. Thi9 implies real supervision of teachers and teaching. Generally speaking, there is no real supervision of the teachers or the teaching in our secondary schools. In fact, there is but little visiting of teachers done by the vast majority of secondary-school principals. And vis- iting is regarded lightly both by the principal and teach- NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 349 ers, because it usually ends with the exit of the visitor. It distinctly does not end in a conference that is in any sense of benefit to the teacher. Teachers succeed or fail largely in terms of their ability to carry out instruc- tions and to get along with the pupils, or rather their ability to remain masters of the situation in the class- room in a disciplinary sense. There is little attempt to understand the teacher's philosophy and views of education as they find expres- sion in the classroom. Discussion of the work follow- ing a visit is a rare occurrence, except occasionally to check up the teacher who is not succeeding in her work. But there are potential sides to supervision, regardless of the ability and success of the teachers. Teachers yearn for leadership in supervision of the right kind. They are anxious to have their work checked, and to be told that they are doing this or that thing exceed- ingly well. They are anxious to change their methods, or to try out experiments if they are working with a sympathetic principal who knows why their work is good and why it is not good, and will tell them frankly and honestly how a change will bring larger results. This means that the principal must be a good teacher himself in some one or more high school subjects. It means that he must know the psychological principles of teaching and must have rare, good judgment. It is through supervision alone that we can unify and bring to a high point of efficiency the classroom work of the teachers. A greater percentage of new teachers could be developed into first-rate teachers under con- structive supervision. Failure on the part of any teacher in the faculty should be regarded as a personal matter by the principal. It is his first business to pre- vent failures, on the one hand, and to encourage growth on the other. 350 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION With from 20 to 40 per cent of our faculties changing from year to year, supervision becomes an extremely vital matter. The new teachers, as regards classroom methods and general teaching ability, must be brought up to the school's standards, or the whole tone of the system will be changed within two or three years. The young teacher, and many times the experienced teacher, presents a serious problem in that she brings to the high school the university organization of class- room material and university methods. The principal who cannot or does not detect these deficiencies in his teachers and make a constructive attempt to modify their work falls far short of his duties as a supervisor. Supervision is a difficult matter, because it is so indefi- nite, so subtle and intangible. There is a common lack of standards, because it is so largely a human matter. Personality, whatever that is, is an important factor. It is easy to get crossed with teachers when discussing the things they do in the classroom. Naturally, we have had little or no actual supervision. One of the surest means of making it a part of the work of the principal to supervise teachers is for the superintendent to make it mandatory that he not only rate his teachers, but defend his rating in terms of defi- nite, illustrative material. The supervision of teachers and teaching, of course, strikes at the heart of the school — the methods of in- struction. Here the principal has a rare chance to exploit his philosophy of education. It is not a difficult matter to create a sentiment for sane methods — meth- ods in keeping with the school's purposes. It can soon be made the fashion of the school to democratize the methods of the classroom, on the one hand, or to make them autocratic, on the other. NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 351 Every school should have a policy in regard to meth- ods. The socialized recitation, for example, is not an accident. It is the philosophy of the administrator and teachers put into practice. There is undoubtedly no greater opportunity to create the spirit of and to practise democracy than in our American classrooms. Are the classroom activities dominated by the teacher, or are the pupils set to work co-operatively to solve the problems as they arise? Do the pupils make contribu- tions toward the solution of the question? Do they assist one another under direction ? Is there just enough skilful guidance to make the work of the classroom what spontaneous conversation is around our firesides at home? These are questions of vital concern to the principal. In this larger sense Dewey says: "The reci- tation becomes the social clearing-house, where experi- ences and ideas are exchanged and subjected to criticism, where misconceptions are corrected, and new lines of thought and inquiry are set up." A third phase of the principalship in its larger sense incorporates the leadership and progressiveness shown by the principal in conceiving, studying with his fac- ulty, and carrying through to successful conclusion new movements in education. These are matters that must receive consideration in determining the potentiality and character of the administration. This is not an issue between conservatism, on the one hand, and progressiv- ism on the other. It is merely an index to the growth and development of the whole institution. It affects efficiency of instruction and the general intellectual and moral tone of the school. These things already are em- bodied as the sixth standard of accrediting secondary schools in the North Central Association. A constructive attitude toward supervised study, for 352 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION example, is an important thing both for the faculty and the school. Supervised study means more than the mere extension of the class period and its arbitrary divi- sion into recitation and study. It means a complete reformation of our classroom practices, and the faculty should be given every chance to study this problem and be encouraged in careful experimentation. Educational guidance may be a mere formality or it may be made a far-reaching influence through a higher degree of corre- lation between school-work and life-career motives. Library organization may mean merely a sort of collec- tion of books and magazines, or it may be made the means of cultivating discrimination in reading on the part of the whole student body. Schemes for evaluating credit in terms of the quality and quantity of work done by the pupil cannot be introduced successfully without study and planning on the part of all concerned. Teach- ers' meetings may be taken up in handling the mere routine work of the school, or they may become the source of great professional inspiration and growth. The leadership of the administration is a vital matter in the development of a system of vocational education and part-time or continuation classes. The develop- ment of a comprehensive scheme for health education is largely a matter of vision and leadership, as are con- structive programmes for the aesthetic and moral train- ing of the pupils through music, art, and drama. Lastly, there must be a constructive attempt to study scientifically the school's practices. It is a difficult matter to place educational practices on a scientific basis, and thus remove them from the world of "In my experience" or "I believe." This can be done through scientific investigation and research and the testing of results through the use of standard scales and tests. NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 353 There are certain statistical studies that should constitute a minimum in high school administration. The content of the courses may well be studied scien- tifically. Ayres's investigations in spelling have in- dicated the possible elimination of waste in other branches of study, and even in high school branches. How long is it necessary for pupils to study commercial arithmetic in order to gain proficiency and accuracy? Should bookkeeping courses cover two or four years? These are important questions. Another type of study closely related to the classroom is that of teachers' marks. With the advent of weighted credit schemes, it is a matter of first importance that cumulative studies of teachers' marks be made. It will be dis- covered that there is the widest possible variation in marking not only as among departments, but among the teachers in the same department. It is likewise im- portant to make a cumulative study of promotions, failures, conditions, demotions, and eliminations. In no other way can a faculty be brought to the realization of the great loss in our schools. In some instances fewer than 50 per cent of the pupils beginning a course are re- ceiving their credits. While ages of pupils and progress through school may be more important at the present time in the elementary-school field, such a study in the high school will tend to focus our attention on the re- tardation of boys, especially, and the possible better adjustment of work to their needs. Finally, no in- vestigation of educational work can be considered com- plete which does not show the cost of obtaining the results achieved. There will undoubtedly be minimal standards set up in the near future in regard to the statistical study of the work of the secondary school. 354 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION This conception of the principal's work dignities the position. The principal becomes a pivotal man in the system, a moulder of educational opinion and practice. Thus the position carries with it greater responsibilities,, and the school touches the community more vitally than ever before. In a new and peculiar sense the principal links the school and its internal affairs with those of the community. The administration of a wide and far- reaching vocational programme implies close co-opera- tion with the commercial and industrial interests of the community. War work of a vital kind is best done when the school and community are working together with mutual understanding. A building programme to bring the schools in line with the best in educational practice must have as its foundation the faith of the people. The Boy and Girl Scout Movement, the boys' and girls' work of the Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A., social service organizations, discussion clubs composed of busi- ness and professional men, the City Commercial Club and Rotary — these community organizations and others that will readily suggest themselves offer large oppor- tunities for the principal who wishes to render his best service to his community. Identification with such or- ganizations not only dignifies the position, but does much in creating confidence and a tolerant attitude toward the things the principal is trying to do. He be- comes a "man of affairs," and ceases to go by the omni- bus title of "perfesser." This discussion has dealt with the spiritual, the sub- jective aspects of administration. Naturally these prob- lems present a new and a higher field of standardiza- tion than has yet been attempted, or, if attempted, has been completed. We may expect, however, to be NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 355 checked, or measured, by these larger phases of school administration which determine the intellectual and moral tone of the institution. There is a vast difference in the spirit of secondary schools. We shall undoubt- edly scrutinize the factors that enter into the making of the soul of the institution, and set about the task of establishing minimal standards. In this newer and more profoundly professional sense, high school administration does have spiritual and tech- nical sides as well as teaching. The principal in such a scheme must be a man strong in leadership, and capable of inspiring the best talent on his faculty. He must be a man with a sound philosophy of secondary education and a vision — a man into whose hands education in this larger sense may safely be intrusted. THE HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 1 Since the World War began every thinking man has been surprised both at the ignorance of himself and of the American people in general in matters of history, especially of those conditions, economic and otherwise, which more definitely shape international policies. The "international mind" is lacking. We have not tried to acquire this international habit of mind, and every thinking man who tries to remedy this lack in himself or in others finds that there is nothing obvious about the just-noticed immediate and actual incident he reads of. He finds that the situation requires hard thinking and thorough study. He finds himself inevitably on each issue led out into the larger relations of human experi- ence. He has to think historically, and it is hard work 1 As a member of the Reviewing Committee of the National Com- mission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education the writer has had occasion to read critically several drafts of a "Report on Social Studies." The particular committee of the commission who co-operated in making this report consisted of twenty members, selected on a plan radically different from the plan operative in the selection of membership for former national committees of this character, such as the famous Committee of Ten of 1893, with Charles W. Eliot chairman, and the other well-known Committees of Seven and of Five. Of the twenty members, fourteen are school- men in active service, four are university professors of history, and two are specialists in civic education of the United States Bureau of Education. This committee has co-operated with the American Historical Association through its committee on Definition of Pub- lic School History, and with a similar committee of the American Political Science Association. After repeated revisions and after several critical readings by the Reviewing Committee of the National Commission (consisting of eleven members at large and of the chair- 356 HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 357 for one who has had little training in it. He often build9 up his social-science point of view by going backward into history. It is at least an open question, also, whether the high school pupil may not often better do this in some such way, only more systematically, rather than by the formal chronological method. We wish to ascertain the most reasonable grouping of elements in school life and thought that will make an army of one and one-fourth million boys and girls 1 real- ize that they are members of society, that they have duties toward it and correlative rights, and that no rights exist without corresponding duties, that it is their business to have views on matters of civic morals affecting the local community, the city, the state, the nation, even the larger society of the world. The politi- cal state with its activities is only, as Green has said, the shell, the superficial appearance of the real things of man of the sixteen subcommittees, of which this present committee on social studies is one) this report has been approved and has just been issued as Bulletin of United States Bureau of Education, 191 6, No. 28, pp. 63. This article is inspired in part by the report, the features of which are: a clear discussion of the meaning "social studies," which term includes history as such but other matter of a social character as well, and as prominently; suggested courses (some of them new and interesting) which are to go to make up this two-cycle six-year extended secondary-school programme; the cycle principle of organ- izing the two three-year "sequence" units; a detailed analysis of the newly conceived ninth-year "community civics"; the same for a senior high school course in the "embryology of civilizations " ; standard preparation for the new social studies teacher; and stand- ards by which to test the methods and the pupil achievements in social studies. Other important discussions in the report concern distinctions between history and civics, local history, history for rural communities, differentiations of the courses in social studies in the cosmopolitan senior high school, and an elaboration of the theoretical basis upon which the whole report has been constructed. 1 Add 2,250,000 if we extend secondary education downward into the 7th and 8th grades. 358 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION history. The nation, the genius of the group, is the real thing, which, profoundly a part of the people, we can neither make nor destroy. The subjects to be really understood in the new history, or social science — under- stood, sensed appreciatively by public-school pupils as well as others, are such things as impulses of national feeling, the growth, development, social conditions, in- dustry, and commerce of a nation; in comparison with these the surface doings of kings and political leaders may be often of minor importance. The school's most serious and pressing work now is to teach young American democracy these facts of social import. Even religious instruction is no more important — indeed this social science ought to be taught, as in France, with a sort of conscious high-toned religious seriousness. The difficult social situations ahead of us must be anticipated by the special group of teachers in charge of the social studies. Our curriculum philoso- phy, so far as these subjects (history and other social studies) are concerned, must be thought out with a full realization of the great difficulties. The modern demo- cratic state is in danger, real danger. Other states with- out our democratic organization have done some things in a far better way than our democracy has done them. Many doubters of democracy among us have a deep impression of our amorphousness, our ignorance, our disorder, and our lack of discipline; our lazy defenseless- ness, with no conscript army and no militaristic ardor; without a steering-gear and with no " nervy" discipli- narian in the presidential chair to call us to order, to chastise Mexico, to reprimand California, to make the South sit back in a dark corner; and to dare to call the assumed bluffs of all the larger foreign bullies. Our whole democratic government, democratic social life, democratic tradition, and democratic education (what HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 359 there is of it !) enrages the sense of organization and ideal of social order, not only of a Prussian, but also of many a citizen of our own country. Maybe our modern dem- ocratic state, whatever it is (it has not ever been even clearly idealized, much less realized anywhere), is too blithely entering upon the most dangerous path it has ever trodden. Our question is, "What are our public schools going to do about it?" The answer is, they are going to do most of what will be done. Education for modern citi- zenship is a large order and covers the whole of educa- tion. In a legitimate sense, however, we may place the definite responsibility upon the courses in history and the other social studies, and inquire specifically what are the modern proposals for courses to meet the need indicated above and what is the educational principle underlying and justifying or condemning these proposals for radical reorganization. I shall deal with just one of these proposals, one which is significant and character- istic of the reforms advocated. In order to do this at all satisfactorily one must first discuss certain newer notions of the nature of history, certain criticisms of prevailing methods and aims of teaching history, certain radical reforms in organization and administration which have a bearing on the school work in history, and certain analogous reform practices in foreign countries. Woodbridge has recently said that the truth of history is a progressive developing truth to which the ages, as they continue, contribute. Even in the studying and in the teaching of history we are illustrating a tiny stage or element in the historical process. All special "ca- reers in time," of persons, groups, states, societies, races, nations, add to the process. They add to and complete the past and condition the future. This " career-in- 360 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION time" aspect of all serie9 of events reveals history as purposive and selective. He goes on to show that there is to be no complete history of anything, but many interlacing histories. Human history thus becomes a record of human progress, of actual rather than symbolic improvement, as measured by an intelligible human standard — not merely continuous accumulations of re- sults in some specified direction. The purpose of man's history must necessarily be the "ability to so use the materials of the world that they will be permanently used in the light of the ideal perfection they naturally suggest." This likewise applies to the section of his- tory which recounts national progress, Everybody perhaps now will grant that we as a people need a clearer understanding of national ideals. We need to realize what freedom means. We need to ac- quire convictions regarding the kind of organized state which will make real freedom possible. America, for example, is said to be "sick of being well." Do we know that the "decay of a national spirit follows far more surely from self-indulgence than from military disas- ters"? We have thought too much of freedom as being merely the existence of opportunities for achieving per- sonal or sectional interests — instead of opportunity for whole-hearted devotion to the sort of reality of perma- nent values suggested by Woodbridge. We need to see that our nation, as we idealize it, cannot be the spon- taneous and easy outcome of an indefinite number of scrambling self-interests or hyphenated group interests. Sectionalism, as we now see it, just after a national election, is easily our weak link. It indicates conflicts of social and of purely political ideals. How to get out of this "remedially" is not simple. One of the chief agencies, as Dewey well says, for de- HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 361 veloping the good aspects of a nationalism which will be a friend and not a foe to internationalism is the public school. This agency takes first rank. He thinks a sen- timental seclusion from this world's affairs, however, dominates present instruction in history and social sub- jects. Paraphrasing his discussions, the pupil leaving the public school at fifteen can only wonder at the odd selection of 1492 as the numeral for the year one, and can proceed through his course of American history with no suspicion of Europe save as a place from which dis- coverers set sail and colonists departed, and as the abode of men whose evil plans got good Americans into wars, and whose affairs and governments are such that the less Americans have to do with them the better. See- ing something good in this vast provincialism before the present years, Dewey now feels it very dangerous. We are in a new sense in the same world in which Europe exists and into which Asia is coming. Industry and commerce will continue, and increasingly, to interweave our destinies. The older state of mind has become a dangerous illusion. Real national preparedness depends a great deal more upon whether we teach American his- tory and other social studies in our high schools in the right way than upon a few hours daily in perfunctory military drill. Our history must be seen for what it really is — a reflection of European movements and prob- lems; as illustrated, for example, in waves of immigra- tion which, as other things, suggest our common and international world where world-wide forces are visibly operating. American history must be substituted for American mythology. There has been too much "tepid characterlessness " permeating the atmosphere of the school wherever any social topic comes up. For the American child evil, for example, has no institutional or 362 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION social embodiment in our national life. We are the vic- tims of a " whitewash of indiscriminate eulogistic lan- guage " which covers the difficult and also the interesting aspects of our social life. We are rarely vivid or " fired" in our classroom depictions of struggles between inter- ests intrenched in law, institutions, and social conven- tions, and the requirements of further enlightenment and emancipation. We talk and teach about a democ- racy in the abstract as if it were busily and mysteriously working out the miracles for us. Our secondary schools, in a measure, and even our elementary schools, as well as our universities, should become the homes of serious thought and genuine convictions regarding our real social difficulties and conflicts. The above represents, mostly in the author's own phrases, Dewey's critical attitude toward what now goes on in the average school under the name of education in history and social sciences generally. "Since it (the successful accomplishment of the ideal end in social studies) is a matter of ideas, emotions, of intellectual and moral disposition and outlook, it depends for its accomplishment upon educational agencies, not upon outward machinery." It is easy to parallel these comments with others, some of them from professional historians. Professor Carl Becker, of the University of Minnesota, comments as follows: "High school students emerge from their history courses with a very slight and not very useful body of knowledge about the past, and with a capacity to think historically that is in no proper proportion to the time spent in such courses; for the most part they have mem- orized a few facts which mean little, or a few vague gen- eralizations which mean even less. HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 363 "What i3 the solution for this fundamental difficulty in respect to the curriculum ? Frankly, I do not know. But it seems clear that some radical reorganization of the curriculum is necessary. The value which the study of history undoubtedly may have, and which it therefore should have for high school students, will not be obtained, I am convinced, until the student is made acquainted much more intimately with characters and events and those complex and concrete situations which alone make the past real and give to the study of it a practical and a disciplinary importance. This cannot be done without limiting the field covered. Perhaps the field should be contemporary history; perhaps it should be the history of our own country. In any case, I doubt whether any satisfactory solution will be found so long as we continue to give distinct courses in history, eco- nomics, civics, and sociology. Why would it not be possible (it would be difficult, certainly) to organize a single course, of one, two, three, or four years, which would embrace all that the high school gives in the so- called social sciences; a carefully co-ordinated course in which history, economics, civics, and sociology should all find their properly related place? Meantime, I am perfectly willing that some one else should attempt to organize this ideal course." Professor J. H. Hayes of Columbia criticises even recent distinguished historians for insisting that the state is the only fit object of historical study, that his- tory is "past politics," compendiums of data about kings and constitutions, rebellions and battles. Now, he says, historians and economists are increasingly giving their attention to how man, apart from state action, has toiled and travelled or done the ordinary things of every-day life. Most of the attempts at such combina- 364 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION tions, however, he thinks have been mere "social mis- cellanies." Professor Hayes thinks he himself has suc- ceeded in combining political and social history in a real synthesis, giving economic aspects to all chief politi- cal facts. He too, however, has failed, admittedly, to do anything systematically with the history of science, literature, education, philosophy, and art — other equally vital contributing "careers in time." Many more extreme views easily could be cited. Snedden, for example, thinks that history teaching will eventually be determined by the conditions under which pupils are led to comprehend their social surroundings and the underlying principles of social development. Making these approaches, the children will be led back to use all sorts of historical material for the purpose of gaining perspective and illustration; but any sort of chronologically remote history, for its mere historicity, will never be the point of departure. Indeed, there will be no more of what we have ordinarily called history. There will be instead sequentially organized courses in social studies utilizing materials of history, but in en- tirely new and independent ways. For perhaps even more radical reforms in organization of content and in method of treatment the reader is referred to a discussion by L. M. Sears. 1 I have sought thus to reflect some of the radical but constructive views of reform in public-school history in order to relate, if I can, some of the proposals for carry- ing out in practice these views to a proposed reorganiza- tion of the entire administration of the public-school curriculum itself. " Reorganization " technically means such changes in 1 School Review for November, 19 16, "Content and Method in Industrial History." HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 365 school administration as will tend to group in three dif- ferent units for both administrative and pedagogical reasons the first six grades, the next three grades, and the last three grades of our twelve-year public schools. Omitting all consideration of the merits of the so- called junior-senior high school movement as a matter of school policy and accepting the fact that this reor- ganization is coming fast and offering opportunities with it of fundamental changes in the arrangement of sub- ject-matter in every subject from the 7 th grade through the 12 th, we may point out that the social-science work for this new six-year, two-cycle secondary programme is receiving fully its share of study by the reorganizers. There are good reasons for this. The social-science work will be largely required of all, even when there are worked-out differentiated curriculums in other subjects for the various student groups. Again, in the mere matter of time available for work of secondary grade two more years will suggest greater possibilities. Again, there being on this plan three curriculum units instead of the old two-unit arrangement (eight grade and four high school) , organizers of new social-science courses will tend to conform more clearly to the three distinguishable cycle requirements and sequences of courses within these cycle divisions. Another is that history curricula and sequences are in perhaps the greatest need of reorganiza- tion upon some definite principles. The above inadequately stated new aims of public school history, together with this new 6-3-3 arrange- ments of the grades to make administrative adjustments to possible new sequences, combine to create a situation which offers great possibilities to those who would re- conceive history in its new setting. Can we in our reorganized system apply the French 366 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION and German cycle principle of curriculum construction to the whole continuous sequence of new courses in his- tory, and apply it in such a way as most nearly to real- ize the ideals set forth for the newer social science ? In each of the French cycles we find distinguishable organ- izations of subject-matter, method, degrees of difficulty, and educational outcomes expected. In the preliminary cycle, so far as history is concerned, we find the French boy passing through the infant classes of biography and anecdote, through the preparatory division of talks and tales of great personages and principal facts of national history, into the elementary division {first cycle) where chronologically summaries of the history of France are systematically given. This last four-year cycle provides a working outline for the boy of the complete history of France in her European setting, ending with France and Europe down to 1889. Building upon this second com- plete history of his own country the French boy has made a rather careful survey of the whole world from the point of view of how it has influenced his native land. While his first or preliminary history study had been largely from the point of view of political narrative with battles, martial heroes, territorial expansions, and governmental changes as points of emphasis, this second four-year cycle has systematically enabled him to fill in this sort of history outline with genuine economic and modern historical interpretations of results of crusades, industries, commerce, merchant marine, navy, trans- portation, etc. He has at this junior high school period had more and better history than the American boy who at the end of our senior high school has taken all the four history courses offered. The last cycle (of three years) again covers the ground from Charlemagne to the present day. Now begins a HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 367 still more thorough study with broad interpretations of movements, policies, and regimes, rather than reigns and dynasties. The military portions are curtailed in favor of deeper analysis of political and social develop- ments of Europe, not merely of France. Cloudesley Brereton calls this particular stage of history study (the first year being a general survey of the high points of world history) the "embryology of civilization." It is usually more advanced than our freshman-sophomore college history, probably something like the approach in the recent "Political and Social History of Modern Europe" by J. H. Hayes. 1 This kindergarten and four-four-three cycle arrange- ment is suggestive at once to those of us who are trying to do our curriculum thinking in terms of our elementary six-year, junior high school three-year and senior high school three-year cycle. Although there are certain clear objections to the particular cycle scheme as opera- tive before the war in France, still on some such frame- work we might make a strong case for the reorganiza- tion of our history or social-studies course. It may be, for instance, that this concentric method of teaching history is best suited to our first two cycles, while for our senior high school we should prefer to take up on a more extensive scale some definite period, using original sources and building definitely in some particular sec- tion of history, perhaps modern, as Becker suggests, upon our junior high school's new foundations. It is clear, too, as Dewey has forcibly remarked, that 1 See also C. H. Spence's three- year scheme for secondary civics in "The Teaching of Civics in the Public Schools," 1909. M. Fouille's scheme for "sociology" for secondary schools in Revue Internationale de Sociologie, October, 1899, and M. Bertrand's "Sociology," a com- bination of economics, the history of institutions and social ethics, "Les £tudes dans la Democratie." 368 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION we must consciously through all our social-science courses cultivate two definite aspects of nationalism; the first is that we have a nationalism to cultivate that is different from any of the nationalisms of Europe by being interracial and international hi its make-up. We have the most difficult task of all, but at the same time one that immensely enriches the possibilities to be attained. We cannot, therefore, construct our social science for any cycle on quite as narrow lines as those indicated for France. This means, to quote Dewey again, the tremendous task of " teaching each factor in respect to each other, taking pains to enlighten all as to the great past contributions of every strain in our com- posite make-up. Every pupil should know the rich breadth of our national complex of racial strains." Dewey's second factor which complicates curriculum making in history for American schools, is the fact that our distinguishing national traits have been the product of experiences in subduing nature — not other peoples and other cultures. There being no more pioneering possibilities, the masses are disinherited in so far as external opportunities for developing this distinctive American combination of traits are concerned. The public school therefore must, through its social studies largely, compensate somehow for the loss above noted and continue this development of the distinctly Ameri- can type, spirit, attitude, mind. If it cannot do this there will be a reversion to an undemocratic national regime and a false and artificial traditional culture — a "refeudalizing" of education; intellect and art and leadership for one group, labor and debasing obedience for the other. We may well ask seriously, therefore, whether we can seize the present six-three-three plan of reorganization HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 369 wave, and at the same time capitalize the invigorating newer ideals of social science by offering a definite plan for the reorganization of history courses or all three cycles of public education — a plan so definite that future text-books and other social-science material can conform to its requirements and that teachers can consciously develop methods and apply principles of sequences con- sistent with the new aims and new material and the new administrative machinery. It may be well to review briefly the main findings of an extensive investigation of the status of history teach- ing carried on last year by the North Central Associa- tion of the seventeen Middle Western states. Ancient-history teachers are more experienced than teachers of American history. The sequence of courses in history in practice is as follows: Ancient, mediaeval and modern, English, American (generally three offered, English omitted). All are full-year courses usually, ex- cept American, which is usually a part of a course of American history and government (two-thirds to his- tory). The model history recitation is 200-225 minutes per week. The determinant of aims and purposes is the maturity of the pupil, scarcely at all the age or experience of the teacher. The ranking aims in his- tory teaching proved to be: "To cultivate the power of handling facts," "to teach the use of books," and "to promote good citizenship," success in each being tested by written and oral tests, examinations, and reports on special topics. The North Central Association Commission disap- proves the prevailing method of distinguishing elemen- tary from advanced courses by mere chronological se- quence of topics. In the direction of fundamental dis- tinctions, which should mark off courses in one cycle 370 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION from those in another it suggests a different method of use of texts for senior high school courses, more, and a different kind, of collateral reading, and, because of the few students who elect history courses throughout the full sequence, a course in general history something like the French course in the "Embryology of Civilization" which introduces their highest cycle. These suggestions for improvement merely tinker with the old order of things. There are, however, many experiments available for study which represent definite attacks upon the problem of working out a genuine cycle system, a sequence of history courses, that is (a) for the first six grades which will furnish a basis for junior high school history and at the same time furnish something with a measure of unity in itself; (b) another set of courses of a definable character for the junior high school period of three years, laid out in obedience to certain general principles; and then (c) possibly sev- eral different unit sequences of different kinds of history courses for the different curriculum groups in the senior high school. R. M. Try on, of the University of Chicago, in a recent issue of the Elementary School Journal, has elab- orated well what these guiding principles should be for the Junior High School, and has also analyzed critically the cycle sequences of history courses of Berkeley, Cali- fornia; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Indianapolis. Perhaps the most important cycle organizations of social studies and the one destined to be the most influential nation- ally is the one recommended in the Report of the Com- mittee on Social Studies of the National Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education of the N. E. A. 1 1 Bulletin 1916, No. 28. See descriptive note above. HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 371 The National Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education was appointed by the N. E. A. in 191 2, in a way taking over all the work of a former com- mittee on the Articulation of School and College which itself had been a second edition of the Old Committee of Ten. This commission is composed of a reviewing committee comprising eleven members at large and the sixteen chairmen of the special committees, each of which is composed of about ten members supposed to be experts in the special fields of subject-matter or ad- ministration with which the committee is to deal and upon which it is to present a report with recommenda- tions for high schools generally throughout the nation. The particular report dealing with the social studies has been approved by the reviewing committee of the com- mission and will soon be exerting its maximum influ- ence, we may suppose. For many reasons this report, with the possible exception of the. report on the admin- istration of secondary schools, will be the most widely read and the most widely* adopted, in spots if not in toto. One of the most important historians on this com- mittee is Professor J. H. Robinson, whose writings regarding the nature of the "new history" are fre- quently quoted. A sort of text for the report is the fol- lowing from his pen: "The ideal history for each of us would be those facts of past human experience to which we should have recourse oftenest in our endeavors to understand ourselves and our fellows. No one account would meet the. needs of all, but all would agree that much of what now passes for the elements of history meets the needs of none. No one questions the inalien- able right of the historian to interest himself in any phase of the past that he chooses. It is only to be 372 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION wished that a greater number of historians had greater skill in hitting upon those phases of the past which serve us best in understanding the most vital problems of the present." The most fundamental, distinguish- ing, and also the most questionable principle assumed throughout the report is that "the most vital problems of the present" for the high school pupil are the prob- lems which he himself is facing now, or which are of direct value to him in his present process of growth. The committee believes that it will thus be possible to substitute a more fundamental and a more pedagogical principle than merely that of chronology for organizing the material that shall constitute the courses in the social studies throughout the whole extended six-year secondary programme. The term " social studies" rather than "history" more adequately suggests the subject-matter directly relating to the organization and development of human society or to man as a member of social groups. In common with all subjects in our extended six-year secondary school the controlling aim of the social studies is social efficiency. Differing from other school studies in con^ tent, these studies afford peculiar opportunity for train- ing individuals, as members of society, by cultivating patriotic and efficient citizenship — a citizenship broad enough, indeed, to include a sense of membership, for example, in international leagues. The specific aim, however, is "intelligent and genuine patriotism," this rightly conceived being among other things a real step toward neighborliness among nations. Most attempts to "socialize" the academicized mate- rial even of common civics courses, to say nothing of the old-line history courses, have been superficial and me- chanical. What is the true principle for genuinely HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 373 socializing all the social studies of the public school? This committee says the determining factor in choice and organization of materials and in method of teach- ing it, also, should be the student's immediate needs of social growth. In addition to the text taken from Rob- inson above, there is also one chosen from Dewey: "If we could really believe that attending to the needs of present growth would keep the child and the teacher alike busy, and would also provide the best possible guarantee of the learning needed in the future, trans- formation of educational ideals might soon be accom- plished, and other desirable changes would largely take care of themselves." So much emphasis is placed upon this fundamental educational principle, and it is so likely to be misinter- preted that I venture to quote a paragraph of the report itself. "The high school course has heretofore been deter- mined too largely by supposed future needs and too little by present needs and past experience. The im- portant fact is not that the pupil is getting ready to live, but that he is living, and in immediate need of such mental and social nourishment as will enable him to adjust himself to his present social environment and conditions. By the very processes of present growth he will make the best possible provision for the future. This does not mean that educational processes should have no reference to the future. It does not mean, to use a concrete illustration, that a boy should be taught nothing about voting until he is twenty-one and about to cast his first ballot. It means merely that such in- struction should be given at the psychological and social moment when the boy's interests are such as to make the instruction function effectively in his processes of 374 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION growth. A distinction should be made between the 1 needs of present growth ' and immediate, objective utility. As the boy's mental and social horizon broad- ens with the process of education, he will become in- quisitive about the facts and relations, perhaps long before he has direct use for them in the affairs of life. The best question that can be asked in class is the ques- tion that the pupil himself asks because he wants to know, and not the question the teacher asks because he thinks the pupil some time in the future ought to know." Assuming then that the first six grades have been modified properly in accordance with the demands for social education everywhere, the Report proposes the following plan for junior high school (7th-oth grades) and senior high school (ioth-i2th): Seven to nine years: Geography, European History, American History, and Community Civics, three sub- jects proper, with explanations which I shall give later. Ten to twelve years: European History to about 1700, European History from 1700, American History since 1700, and a course in social, economic, and political problems. This scheme assures provisions, as in the Indianapolis elementary course of study, for emphasizing consciously, from the 1st grade up, the civic aspects of education, though no "civics" as a special subject appears before the eighth year, no geography as such before the fourth, and no history before the sixth. Nevertheless, the child throughout the elementary no less than the secon- dary school is receiving definite instruction in civic rela- tions, just as he is all along learning something of geog- raphy and historical relations. He is getting the citi- zen's attitude and is having the foundations laid for HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 375 later systematically building for himself an organized conception of what his membership in the community, be it local or state or national or broader still, means. The "gang spirit" of boys and the "groping sentimen- tality" of girls can then, in the next few years of social study (12 to 15) be more readily turned into " useful channels of social feeling, social thought, and social action." The report elaborates three general plans for this junior high school period, each subject to variations. All of them are now being tried out. One is the old Indianapolis plan, with geography, history, and civics in sequence; another, the new Indianapolis plan, with a sort of interorganization of these subjects in such a way that the pupil hardly knows he is studying differ- ent subjects; still another is the Philadelphia plan, which starts civics as a distinct subject early in the grades, gradually increasing the number of hours per week as the subject grows more complex and the stu- dent more mature. The term "community civics" suggests a point of view; and this point of view is applied to the study of the national community as well as to the study of the local community. Emphasis is laid on the local com- munity because that is the community of familiarity for every citizen; and for the child this community is in the foreground of experience. Sense of personal responsi- bility, desire for co-operation, and the realization of membership in the local community can be more readily secured than through a study of the national community. The pupil is led to compare the social conditions of the present with those of the past, and of the immediate community with those of other communities. This should lead to the new type of history advocated for 376 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION later years. The study of vocations, for example, dur- ing this period, while incidentally helping the pupil to choose the right calling in life, would tend to create a better understanding and better relations between the different classes of people. The report states that: "Experience proves that pupils who have had such training in the elementary schools are the better prepared for their high school work, especially in the field of social studies. They are also the better prepared for the transition to the larger freedom and responsibility of the high school." The specific aims set forth for community civics are: (a) To see the importance and significance of the ele- ments of community welfare; (b) to know the social agencies, governmental and voluntary, that exist to secure these elements of community welfare; (c) to recognize civic obligation, present and future, and to respond to them by appropriate action. The following elements of welfare are suggested as topics to be studied: health, protection of life and property, recreation, education, civic beauty, wealth, communication, transportation, migration, charities, and correction. In addition should be considered the fol- lowing topics dealing with the mechanism of commu- nity agencies: how governmental agencies are con- ducted and financed; and how the voluntary agencies are conducted and financed. This committee recommends in detail illustrative or- ganizations of social studies, suggesting alternative pro- grammes, and consciously avoiding excluding still other adjustments to requirements of local conditions. The report contains many more interesting and im- portant proposals and directions. There is a large sec- tion devoted to helpful distinctions between history and HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 377 civics, one on local history with illustrations of how topics of this kind are being developed somewhere, and another on adaptation of the whole scheme to rural communities. The amplification of the course for the ninth year, which is to be either the finishing year of the junior high school cycle or the first year of the high school in the old organization, important in either set- ting, is a feature, a course characterized by a more sys- tematic introduction of national concepts, world inter- ests, and civic relations of vocational life. There are further explanations of how in the senior high school there may even be differentiation of curriculums and modified social-studies courses for the different curricu- lum settings, suggestions discrediting the vain efforts to remedy the present situation by merely adding more history courses of the old type which gains nothing, and discussions of the college-admission questions this new order of things will raise. The committee is keenly alive to the fact that "the lively contempt for history expressed by readers who would escape its weight, and the neglect of history prac- tised by educators who would escape its authority stand responsible for much mental confusion." Agnes Repplier, in the Atlantic Monthly for November, 191 6, goes on to say that American boys and girls go to school six, eight, or ten years, as the case may be, and emerge with a misunderstanding of their own country and a compre- hensive ignorance of all others. They say, "I don't know any history," as casually and as unconcernedly as they might say, "I don't know any chemistry," or "I don't know any metaphysics." She goes on to record that Henry James once confided to her that the only reading of which he never tired was history. "The least significant foot-note of history," he said, "stirs me 378 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION more than the most thrilling and passionate fiction. Nothing that ever happened to the world finds me in- different." One is tempted to ask the committee if this is the kind of history they are talking about, and one hopes somehow that it is. I have said enough about the report. One may dis- agree with its fundamental philosophy, or its method, or its subject-matter, or its arranged sequences, or finally its cycle organization; he will probably in any case find it typical of the many current attempts to improve public education. What of our most vivid incident of overwhelming social import? Professor Samuel McCune Lindsay, of Columbia University, well refers us to this, the most striking social-science lesson the World War is bringing home to us, and which in some sane way we must drive home through our " social-studies" classrooms. Germany turns out to be a " menace and a model," a dark " problem for foreign statesmen," and a " path- finder in social reform." How get and give the civic lesson ? Americans cannot comprehend how the Father- land is devoted to the people, and especially how they genuinely return this devotion. We do not realize how the common good has ever been so effectively erected into a goal for an existing state organization which not only thereby justifies its existence but perpetuates it, and even deifies it. No personal individualistic do-as- you-please American attitude is conceivable for a citi- zen of such a benevolent republic. The 3,000,000 per- sons in civil service are, in the spirit of this static state philosophy, impersonal entities in this over-individual enterprise, which looks after the individual efficiently in all sorts of social service. This regime is the whole life of the German to an extent incomprehensible to us. HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 379 With a sense of ownership of public utilities, thankfully a beneficiary in public pensioning, taxation rates, and education, his personal individuality is so beautifully ironed out for him that it cannot even be an issue. Why should caste be challenged? The generously contrib- uted and consciously felt proportionate taxes paid by the ruling (the official) ranks clearly for them, and for the beneficiaries, purchases the divine right to rule. Born to your station, if you are one of the people, your excellent school is ready-made for you. Neither you in your vocational choice, nor your school in its curriculum choice, can, nor has the need, to experiment. Central control benevolently and imperially standardizes, and on a uniformly high level, areas as large as states. The only price for such a perfect state machinery for effi- ciency is spontaneity and resourcefulness of the people. The spirit of faith in public service is highly desirable, the willingness to participate is noble, especially as it is a thing outside ourselves. What can be nobler ? With Professor Lindsay we say, "the same faith and the same spirit for service for ends outside ourselves; but for a projected end which shall be 'our collective organ- ization/ made up of ourselves, for doing things that we cannot do as individuals, cannot do by means of any lesser authority than that which the state itself pos- sesses." Nothing undemocratic is essential to the development of a nation great and strong. At present an aggrega- tion of racial and sectional groups, by placing social welfare above selfishly conceived personal rights and by cultivating social policies, we can evolve into a real nation of patriots. In the spirit of this author: "Let the schoolmaster in America bestir himself and the still more numerous 380 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION schoolmistress seize her opportunity, forget to teach hackneyed and dead-letter phrases of the constitution, and cast aside the formal civics that never gets beyond a dry description of government as it might have worked but never did, and instil in the minds of the youth of to-day a real appreciation and understanding of what our city councils, commissions, and legislatures, the health, labor, education, and other departments of city, state, and national governments are doing or failing to do to meet the real needs of eacji community. Let them above all fight the cynicism that regards a public officer as a weakling or a crook. Let them foster a respect and ambition for public service of every kind, and it will not be long before a new national spirit will be aflame in the land, and the genius of the American people, enriched as it had been by the pioneer spirit of so many lands, will devise the necessary machinery for social and democratic government in which liberty and efficiency are no longer alternatives, but are one in the basic institutions of a free, happy, and united people." PROBLEMS EMPHASIZED BY THE WAR The World War will be followed by a difficult period of reconstruction. In these years the schools will in- evitably undergo great changes. They will be called upon to meet new demands and to meet old demands more effectively. While the war has not created any new problems in the field of education it has revealed many problems in a clearer light and has shifted the emphasis in many phases of school work. The secon- dary school will always occupy a strategic position in the state. It is imperative, therefore, that students of American secondary education begin now to consider the problems that have received a new emphasis as a result of the war. The French and American revolutions of the latter part of the eighteenth century marked not merely changes in forms of government and an increase in in- dividual freedom but these political upheavals were ac- companied by great industrial revolutions that changed the whole economic and industrial system of the world. There were revolutions in education, in industry, in commerce, in science, in religion, and in every other phase of human endeavor. A new world came out of that period, the world of the nineteenth century, the marvel of all centuries. The results of the present World War will be even more far-reaching than those produced by the revolu- tions of one hundred and twenty-five years ago. We may expect political changes not only in Russia and in Germany, but an accentuation of democracy in the lib- 381 382 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION eral allied nations as well. There is every evidence that we are undergoing even now a profound economic and industrial revolution. Witness the government taking over and controlling the railroads and telephone and telegraph lines, building a powerful merchant marine, controlling food supplies and the fuel supplies, and regulating in many other unprecedented ways the eco- nomic life of the country. Many of these measures are war measures, but every thoughtful student of affairs knows there is a large measure of permanency in them. It is reported that the men in the trenches said that there would be a new France when the war was over, that there would be a new England, a new America, that things cannot remain in any nation as they were before the war. The soldiers are determined that every nation shall be made better by this conflict. In the maelstrom three momentous problems of edu- cation, each emphasised by the war, are clearly discerni- ble — the problems of the physical, vocational, and civic and moral education of youth. After the war human life will be valued and con- served. Nations now realize the meaning of man- power. Germany led in the protection and conserva- tion of health, in the movement for better housing, in the protection of women and children through the regu- lation of hours of labor, in old-age pensions and work- men's insurance. It is true that she was autocratic, protected her people in a paternalistic manner, and finally ruthlessly used her mighty man-power in a wicked cause. But this fact should not blind democ- racy to Germany's wisdom in caring for her laboring people. Since the beginning of the war Great Britain, France, Italy, and America have begun to appreciate more fully the value of human life and to make more PROBLEMS EMPHASIZED BY THE WAR 383 effective provisions for its conservation. The English education law, enacted in the late winter of 1918, in Britain's darkest hour, is, perhaps, the most forward- looking social legislation the world has ever known. The schools of to-morrow must give more attention to physical education. The conservation of health must be based on an adequate programme of physical educa- tion in the schools, embracing thoroughgoing medical inspection from birth throughout the school life of the child, effective corrective and body-building exercises, and large opportunities for play. In the chapter on physical education the social values of play are stressed. It is shown that nations as well as individuals must be good sportsmen. Germany has given a terrible exam- ple of the meaning of mere brute power. If in the last generation Germans had learned to play, they could not have committed their unspeakable atrocities. The same rule holds within the state. Where a high ideal of sports- manship exists the vexatious problems that arise in the economic and industrial life of the people will be much easier of solution. Another lesson of the war is that of industrial and economic efficiency. It was the thoroughly organized and efficient nation industrially and economically that won the war. Germany with her 70,000,000 people came very near winning in the early months because of her efficiency, efficiency not merely of the army, but army efficiency based on economic and industrial effi- ciency. When America entered the war she found herself lack- ing in every kind of skilled worker. The operations of the army and navy were greatly hampered. It was necessary hurriedly to organize great schools for training skilled workers for the army and for war industries. 384 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Because of our lamentable unpreparedness the conflict was prolonged and lives needlessly sacrificed. The tragedy of the situation has been emphasized by the peril of the Industrial Workers of the World. America can no longer have millions of human dere- licts floating about in her population. There is no room for hundreds of thousands of unemployed, for millions who cannot earn a living wage. It is from the unem- ployed and underpaid that those anarchistic movements come that threaten the whole fabric of society. The existence of such groups must be charged in part to our failure to provide an adequate system of vocational training. These conditions are due in large measure to injus- tice in economic and industrial organization. That is a problem for students of economics, lawmakers, and leaders in commerce and industry. But one of the chief factors in the creation of these submerged portions of humanity is the lack of an adequate and effective system of vocational training. These people are often unemployed or underpaid because they have not been trained to industrial efficiency and independence. Without question there will come in the epoch follow- ing the war a gradual but fundamental reorganization of our economic order with a more equitable distribution of wealth and better conditions for labor. Social jus- tice will become more of a reality and less of a phrase, but any economic reorganization, to be effective, must be paralleled by a development of vocational training in the schools. Men and women cannot be economically independent and efficient unless they have been trained to be self-supporting. With the development of ma- chinery, which will undoubtedly continue at as rapid a pace as in the last century, this problem will become PROBLEMS EMPHASIZED BY THE WAR 385 more and more complicated. It will be the business of the schools to train the youth of the country for the work of the country. There are enormous difficulties involved in vocational education. If the individual is sacrificed to industrial or commercial interests, if by the vocational training which he receives he is inexorably fixed in an economic caste, if our system of vocational training develops social strata comparable to those which have existed in Germany and other European countries, we shall have irretrievably failed. We must provide vocational edu- cation without the accentuation of caste. By our train- ing we must free and not imprison the worker. He must be vocationally trained but at the same time be made independent and resourceful. Finally, the war has taught co-operation. Special in- terests could not fight the war. It demanded the un- stinted co-operation of every agency and of every group. In England it was early discovered that capital had to be conscripted as well as man-power. The laborer was willing to make an unselfish sacrifice, but he demanded his rights along with the proprietor and the owner. The result was that the representatives of the laborer and of the proprietor and the owner sat together in the little group of the British cabinet that directed Britain's mighty war effort. Again, the English were soon amazed to find that woman was indispensable to the prosecution of the war. Every industry was soon dependent on her. Woman, therefore, was suddenly given the suffrage and called into the councils of the nation. The functions of government have been wonderfully extended and in the period of reconstruction may be extended still further. This means that the duties and responsibilities of citizenship are becoming increasingly 386 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION complex. Here is the outstanding task for the teacher. The schools must be so organized and conducted, and must employ such methods of instruction, that they will teach boys and girls to take their places as thinking citizens in a co-operative commonwealth. Germany was led into her great crime because her citizens were not trained to think independently on social and eco- nomic questions. They had had little practice in self- government. They were taught to obey rather than to think and to co-operate. In school and home the habit of unquestioning obedience to the state and to the estab- lished order was so firmly fixed in the German youth that as an adult he yielded docile and even enthusiastic obedience to a ruthless autocracy. It was, therefore, next to impossible to overcome the pitiless efficiency of the German school system, and thus liberate the people. In America every classroom and every school must be organized and administered with the aims of democracy constantly in mind. Our methods must be continually examined and modified with a view to achieving these aims. One of the most important problems of the socialized school is the overtopping problem of moral education. Private and personal rectitude is fairly easy of accom- plishment. A higher level of personal and private mo- rality and purity has been achieved at the present time than the world has ever before witnessed. But the same high standard of group morality is more difficult of attainment. Labor unions, great corporations, socie- ties of one kind or another can commit great wrongs against their fellow beings, while the individual has no sense of guilt. Not until the highest ideals of the race find expression in the moral codes of social groups within nations and in all national groups, shall we sue- PROBLEMS EMPHASIZED BY THE WAR 387 ceed in moral education. The problem is not simple in the complexity of modern life, but it is, after all, the supreme task. This end can best be accomplished in that school that attempts to create in its pupils a quick- ened social sense by providing the greatest possible number of opportunities for practice in the moral and civic virtues. We succeed well in creating a prejudice in favor of personal rectitude. We must find a method of instilling in our youth an equally strong prejudice in favor of social and civic righteousness and of creating in them that social chivalry that will cause them alway9 to put the common good above selfish interests. The supreme task of the secondary-school teacher not only in the difficult and trying period of reconstruction but always, in a society becoming continually more com- plex socially, commercially, and economically, is that of socializing the methods of the school, and through these methods giving the individual that education that will fit him for the duties of membership in this complex society, that will create in him the capacity for initiative and independence of thought and for co-operation with his fellow beings, and that will give him those prejudices and interests which will make him a jealous guardian of the ideals of a democratic government. During the first century and a quarter of our national existence the life of the frontier was a powerful agent in keeping alive and accentuating the movements for democracy in America. Professor Turner and others have pointed out that for more than a century the West- ern frontier has been the hotbed of democracy and that again and again popular movements have arisen in the Western states that have educated the people on the whole to a more thoroughgoing democracy and have made our government more and more representative 388 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION and liberal. "Jacksonian democracy," with its empha- sis on individual rights, was cradled on the Western frontier. The Republican party, with its championship of the Union and later of the abolition of slavery, came, with its great spokesmen, from the West. In latter years the movement for direct primaries, the commis- sion form of government in cities, and many other for- ward-looking reforms, have arisen in Western states. The states of Washington and California are to-day in many respects by far the most advanced of all the com- monwealths of the Union in social legislation. But the frontier no longer exists in American life. Free land has largely disappeared. A rapidly increas- ing population can no longer overflow into unsettled areas. With each succeeding decade population will in- crease in all parts of the country. The rapid growth of the cities will continue. Industrial and social problems will become more and more baffling. The duties of citizenship will become increasingly complex and will re- quire a higher level of common intelligence and a better training for leadership than has ever been required in any democratic state. In the next century there will be no hardy frontiers- men to keep bright the light of freedom and liberty. That responsibility will fall to the schools, and the schools must become truly the frontiers of our democ- racy. A century ago President Madison said: "A popular government without popular information is but a pro- logue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both." There- fore, "The best service that can be rendered the coun- try next to giving it liberty is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation and enjoyment of that blessing." The fathers of the repub- PROBLEMS EMPHASIZED BY THE WAR 389 lie believed the safety of the new nation would lie in a system of popular education. On this belief the Ameri- can public-school system was built. If America was true to her ideals in entering the World War, that fact was largely due to the success of her public schools in keeping bright in the hearts of the people the love of freedom and justice. But this utterance of Madison's has a more poignant meaning for Americans now than ever before. The experiences of war indicate that the very existence of nations and the endurance of right ideals must depend upon systems of public education. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bagley, W. C. — "The Minimum Essentials versus the Differ- entiated Course of Study in the Seventh and Eighth Grades." National Education Association. Addresses and Proceedings, 191 6, pp. 958-65. Bagley, W. C, and Judd, C. H. — "Enlarging the American Ele- mentary School." School Review, 26: May, 1918. Bell, J. Carleton, and Sweet, I. B. — "The Reading Interests of High School Pupils." Journal of Educational Psychology, 7 : 39-45, January, 1916. Bennett, G. V.— "The Junior High School." Baltimore: War- wick & York, Inc., 1919. Betts, George H. — "Social Principles of Education." New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 191 2. Bonser, Frederick C. — "Democratizing Secondary Education by the Six-Three-Three Plan." Educational Administration and Supervision, 1 : 567-72, November, 191 5. Breed, F. S. — "Measured Results of Supervised Study." School Review, 27: 186-204; 262-284, March and April, 1919. Briggs, Thomas H.— "The Junior High School." New York, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920. Briggs, Thomas H.— "The Junior High School." United States Bureau of Education, Report of the Commissioner, 1914, 1: 135-57- Briggs, Thomas H— " What Is a Junior High School ? " Educa- tional Administration and Supervision, 5:283-301, Sep- tember, 1919. Briggs, Thomas H. — "A Composite Definition of the Junior High School." Educational Administration and Super- vision, 6: 181, April, 1920. Brown, H. E. — "A Plan for the Reorganization of the American Secondary School." School Review, 22:289-301, May, 1914. Bunker, F. F. — "Reorganization of the Public School System." United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin No. 8, 1916. 391 392 BIBLIOGRAPHY Burnham, W. H. — "The Study of Adolescence." Pedagogical Seminar, i: 174-95, 1891. Certain, C. C. — "A Standard High School Library Organization for Accredited Secondary Schools of Different Sizes." Educational Administration and Supervision, 3:317-38, June, 1917. Certain, C. C. — "High School Libraries." Educational Review, 54: 76-82, June, 1917. Colvin, S. S. — "An Introduction to High School Teaching." New York: The Macmillan Company, 191 7. Cox, P. W. L— a The Solvay Junior High School." Educa- tional Administration and Supervision, 1 : 619-22, Novem- ber, 1915. Cox, P. W. L. — "Readjustment of the Solvay Schools." Educa- tional Administration and Supervision, 2 : 605-24, Decem- ber, 1916. Davidson, W. M— "The Library in the Modern High School." National Education Association, Addresses and Proceed- ings, 1916, p. 538. Davis, C. O. — "Principles and Plans for Reorganizing Secondary Education." In High School Education, edited by Charles H. Johnston. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 191 2. Davis, C. O. — "The Subject-Matter and Administration of the Six-Three-Three Plan of Secondary Schools." Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan, Bulletin No. 9, September, 191 5. Davis, C. O. — "Public Secondary Education." New York: Rand McNally & Company, 191 7. Douglass, A. A. — "The Junior High School." Bloomington, Illinois: The Public School Publishing Company, 1916. (National Society for the Study of Education, Fifteenth Year-book, part III.) Hall-Quest, Alfred L.—" Supervised Study." New York: The Macmillan Company, 191 6. Hall-Quest, Alfred L.— "The Training of Teachers to Supervise Study." Educational Administration and Supervision, 7: 160-66, March, 1921. Hunter, Frederick Maurice. — "The Socialized Recitation." National Education Association, Addresses and Proceed- ings, 1916, pp. 101-106. BIBLIOGRAPHY 393 Inglis, Alexander. — "Principles of Secondary Education." Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918. Inglis, Alexander. — "The Junior High School." Journal of Education, 84: 595-97, December, 1916. Inglis, Alexander. — "A Fundamental Problem in the Reorgani- zation of the High School." School Review, 23:307-18, May, 191 5. Johnston, Charles Hughes. — "High School Education." New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 191 2. Johnston, Charles Hughes. — "The Modern High School." New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 191 6. Johnston, Charles Hughes. — "Movement toward the Reorgani- zation of Secondary Education." Educational Adminis- tration and Supervision, 1 : 165-72, March, 191 5. Johnston, Charles Hughes. — "Curriculum Adjustments in Mod- ern High Schools." School Review, 22 : 577-90, Novem- ber, 1914. Judd, Charles H. — "The Junior High School." School Review, 23:25-33, January, 1915. Judd, Charles H. — "Introduction to the Scientific Study of Education." New York: Ginn & Company, 1918. Judd, Charles, H.— "The Junior High School." School Review, 24: 249-60, April, 1916. Keatinge, M. W. — "Studies in Education." London: A. and C. Black, Ltd., 1916. King, Irving. — "The High School Age." Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill Company, 1914. King, Irving. — "Education for Social Efficiency." New York: D. Appleton and Company, 191 5. King, Irving. — "Social Aspects of Education." New York: The Macmillan Company, 191 2. Koos, Leonard V.— "The Junior High School." New York: Harcourt, Brace Co., 1920. Lewis, E. E. — "Standards of Measuring Junior High Schools." Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa, 1916. (Extension Division, Bulletin No. 25.) Lewis, W. D. — "Democracy's High School." Boston: Hough- ton Mifflin Company, 1914. Monroe, Paul (editor). — "Principles of Secondary Education." New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914. 394 BIBLIOGRAPHY Newlon, Jesse H. — "The Need for a Scientific Curriculum Policy for Junior and Senior High Schools." Educational Ad- ministration and Supervision, 3: 253-68, May, 191 7. Newlon, Jesse H. — "Standard Library Organization and Equip- ment." National Education Association, Addresses and Proceedings, 1918, pp. 619-719. North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, Proceedings, 1916, pp. 174-92. North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, Twenty-first Annual Report, pp. 5-26. Nutt, Hubert W. — "The Supervision of Instruction." Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920. Parker, S. C— "Methods of Teaching in High Schools." New York: Ginn & Company, 191 5. Ruff, C. J. — "Junior High School Principal." American School Board Journal, 63: 57, September, 1921. Russell, W. F. — "Economy of Time in Secondary Education." Educational Review, 49: 20-36, January, 191 5. Rynearson, Edward. — "Socialization of the High School." Na- tional Education Association, Addresses and Proceedings, 1916, pp. 519-24. Smith, W. A. — "Junior High School Practices in Sixty -four Cities." Educational Administration and Supervision, 6 : 139-49, 1920. Snedden, David. — "Six- Year High School Course." Educa- tional Review, 26: 525-29, December, 1903. Snedden, David. — "The Minimum Essentials Versus the Differ- entiated Course of Study." Educational Administration and Supervision, 2: 219-34, April, 191 6. Snedden, David. — "The Six- Year Course of Study." In "Prin- ciples of Secondary Education," edited by Paul Monroe. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917. Snedden, David. — "Problems of Secondary Education." New York, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 191 7. Snedden, David. — "The Peculiar Psychological Conditions and Social Needs of the Seventh and Eighth Grades." Na- tional Education Association, Addresses and Proceedings, 1916, pp. 398-403. Snedden, David. — "Sociological Determination of Objectives in Education." Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott Company, 1921. BIBLIOGRAPHY 395 Study, H. P. — "Preliminary Steps in Organizing a Junior High School." Educational Administration and Supervision, 3:339-42, June, 1017. Tanner, Amy E., Hall, G. S., and Burnham, W. H. — " Ado- lescence and Youth." Cyclopedia of Education, 1: 39-46. West, Herbert S. — "A Junior High School." School Review, 24 : 142-51, February, 1915. Whipple, Guy M. — "Adolescence." Encyclopedia Americana. New York. Whipple, Guy M. — "How to Study Effectively." Bloomington, Illinois: Public School Publishing Company, 1916. Whipple, Guy M. — "Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence." In "Principles of Secondary Education" (chap. VII), edited by Paul Monroe. New York: The Macmillan Company, 19 14. Whitney, F. P. — "Junior High Schools, Provision for Accelerant and Retarded Children in." School Review, 27:695- 705, November, 1919. Winship, A. E — "The Junior High School." Journal of Edu- cation, 83 : 91-92, January, 1916. INDEX Absolutists, 41, 62, 240. Aesthetic education, 25-33. Adolescence, 27; psychological aspects of, 128-134; relation to mental de- velopment, 1 1 8-1 19, 128-134; re- lation to moral life, 127-134; rela- tion to social instinct, 122, 254-256; time of, 116—117. Administration, 18, 340-343. Adolescent period, 1 15-136. Agriailtural education, denned, 74-75- Athletics, in high school, 57-61; asso- ciations, 124-125; interscholastic, 278-281. Aurner, C. R., 172. Ayres, L. P., 321. Becker, Carl, 362. "Better English Week," 305-308. "Blind-alley" occupations, 11. Bourne, R. S., 11-1.2. Briggs, T. H., 167, 332. Chesterton, G. K., 8. Classics, 85, 96. Cleveland Survey, 319-320. "Cole type," 168. Colvin, S. S., 206. Commercial education, defined, 74, 75. Committee of Fifteen, 155. Committee of Ten, 45, 154, 175. Continuation school, defined, 76. "Cooley bill," 106-110, 113. Costs of education, 335. Course of study, 66, 67, 78; allied group, 77; general, 78; sequential group, 77, 78; vocational, 78; credits, extra, 79, 86; outside, 79; record of, 164; unit, 78; weighted, 330. Curriculum, 66-67, 85, 96; defined, 77; differentiation, 19-23, 42-45, 159- 162, 167, 181-184; general, 77; his- tory, 174-180; junior high school, 183, 323; organization, 20-23, !03, 143, 146-148, 159-160, 172-186, 344, 363, 366; prevocational, 168; system, 80; vocational, 77. Decatur, Illinois, 174-180. Dewey, John, 62, 103-105, ri2, 188, 204, 239, 351, 361, 362, 368, 373- Directed study, arguments for, 206- 210; arguments against, 212-216; organization of, 21 1-2 16. Discipline school, 52-54, 241. Domestic education, defined, 74, 75. Dual system of education, 93-103 Education* of feelings, 25-33. Educational guidance, 18, 56-57. Educational method, 50-51, 190-200, 348-351- Effort, doctrine of, 40-50. Elective system, 80. Elementary education, denned, 70-71. Elimination in high school, 301-305; statistics of, 302. English, 161, 174, 176, 189, 322. Entrance requirements, high school, 46-47; junior high school, 163, 184; senior high school, 184. "Ettinger plan," 170. Evening class, defined, 75. Exhibits, school, 317. Experimentalism in education, 14, 317-336. Experimentalist, in education, 13, 41- 62, 240. Faculty, high-school, 246-249, 259, 341-344. Failures, in high school, 325-330. Foster, W. T., 279. Fraternities, high-school, 125-126. French, 134. Games, in high school, 274-282. "Gary plan," 169. General education, defined, 73, 82. German, 164. Group system, 80. Gulick, Luther, 280. Hayes, J. H., 363. High school, definition, 71-72, 82. History, 356-380. Holley, C. E., 172, 287. 397 398 INDEX "Indiana sptral plan," 168. Individual differences, 23, 214. Industrial education, denned, 74, 75. Industrial efficiency, 383-385. Interest, 49, 50. Internal organization of schools, 48, 49, 239-253. James, William, 3, 5, 29. Judd, C. H., 205. Junior college, defined, 73. Junior high school, 68, 322, 330; ad- ministration, 1 52-171; architecture, 144, 160; criticisms of, 148-149; de- fined, 72, 141; entrance require- ments, 163; idea, 17; movement, 15-17, 41-42, 137, 151, 365; num- ber of pupils, 166; teachers, 145 y Keatinge, M. W., 24, 25, 29, 30. Kerschensteiner, Georg, 91, 92, 100. Keyser, Cassius, 96-97. Latin, 95, 134, 164, 181. "Leavitt and Brown plan," 168-170. Library, high-school, 283-298; admin- istration, 19; organization, 284; present situation, 285-296. Major, high school, 81. Manual, school, 315. Marks, teachers, 326-330. Mathematics, 97, 163, 176, 331-332. Method, 4-6, 26-30, 71, 250-252; educational, 50-51, 190-200, 348- 3Si. Military training in high schools, 57- 61. Minor, high school, 81. Moral education, 24, 30-32, 241. More, Paul Elmer, 93-95. National Education Association, 154, 166, 202, 345; Commission on the Emergency in Education, 224; Commission on Reorganization of Secondary Education, 371. North Central Association, 138, 155, 166, 202, 205, 351, 369. "One-pillar school," 93. Organizations, school, 123-126. Parents, co-operation of, 301, 313. Part-time class, defined, 75. Party platform of education, 37, 41- 61, 240. Philosophy of education, 1-20. Physical education, 272-283, 383; corrective exercises, 273. Plato, 19. Pound, Olivia, 242. Prescribed units in high school, 47. Prevocational education, defined, 74, 168-169. Principal, high-school, 221, 225-244, 316, 337, 355; supervisory duties of, 227-230. Programme of studies, 67; defined, 76-77. Publicity, high-school, 299-318. Question, 193-198. Recitation, length of, 193-194, 202- 203. Reorganization movement, 15, 41-42, 69. i37~i5i> 152, 322. Repplier, Agnes, 337. Ritter, W. E., 91. Robinson, J. H., 371. Rousseau, J. J., 31. Russell, Bertrand, 7, 10. Russell, James E., 191-192, 341. Santayana, George, 63-64. Sargent, Dudley, 59. Schedule of classes, defined, 77. Science, 104. School subject, defined, 78. Sears, L. M., 364. Secret organizations, 257-264, 266, 342; statistics of, 263; elimination of, 310-311. Senior high school, 68; defined, 72. "Seven School Virtues," 52-53. Sex hygiene, instruction in, 1 19-120. Sex segregation, 135-136. Snedden, David, 241. Social programme, 225-226, 254-269; fundamental principles of, 266-268, 343; regulations of, 268. Socialized recitation, 54-55, 187-200. Social science, 356-380. Spencer, Herbert, 10-21, 51. Standards for American high schools, 46.' Stevens, Romiett, 193-197, 334. Student government, 241-244, 249- 253. Study, H. P., 158. Sturm, John, 91. Supervised study, 55-56, 201-217, 236, 352. Supervision, 347-350. INDEX 399 Teachers, 35, igo, 216-238, 246; causes of failure, 232; council, 224; junior high school, 147-148; or- ganization of, 222-223; rating of, 233-238, 333; supervision of, 218- 238, 348; training, 75. Teachers College, 341. Terminology, high-school, 65-88. Tests, standardized, 331-332. Unit courses and curricula, 138. Unit, credit, 78; of instruction, 79, 86. Vocational education, 45, 82, 83, 385; defined, 73. c Wells, H. G., 6. Wilson, Woodrow, 98-100. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 021731 958 4 IMS mm ran