Class. Book CopyrightN°_ COPYRIGHT DEPOSm ¥rm: STesdjers' Professional 3Li6rarg Edited by NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL THE MACMILLAN COMPANY HEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY ■ CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS BY JULIUS SACHS, Ph.D. PROFESSOR OF SECONDARY EDUCATION IN TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1912 Aii rights reserved .^^ v^ ^ "9 COPYRTGHT, I912, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1912. 3. S. Cashing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. ^C!.A31623I PREFACE There are educational questions involving so large an area of interest that they defy treatment at the hand of an individual ; a mere enumeration of the problems that attach themselves to our secondary schools would suffice to indicate the unwisdom of such an attempt. On individual questions and groups of questions, thought- ful men and women have concentrated their efforts ; to combine their contributions to the various phases of the subject under wise editorial control into a consistent whole, to create a thesaurus of sound opinion on what the secondary school has been, is, and should be, seems the only way of reaching an agreement on the rational conduct of our middle schools. The cooperative idea seems peculiarly appropriate to this need of our educa- tional scheme. As for the present treatise, its title speaks for itself. It has been realized by the author that it is wiser to concentrate attention upon some of the problems of the secondary school and indicate their significance rather fully, than to compass all, or even a majority, of the questions that attach themselves to our system of middle schools. He has subordinated all questions of method, VI PREFACE of curriculum, to what has appeared to him the deter- mining factor in a secondary school system, the fitness of the teacher for his task; the book has, in conse- quence, become an appeal to and for the teacher. It traverses many topics which other writers have found it necessary to elaborate into special treatises; the value of these he does not disparage, though he thinks their appeal might often with profit be presented more compactly. The American secondary teacher of to-day is constantly and very properly reminded in books, educational conferences and lectures, of the technique of his task; despite some objurgators of a science of teaching it may be said, once for all, that in almost all civilized countries of the world the necessity of the professional training of the teacher is recognized. But he cannot make bricks without straw, — his own intel- lectual grasp, his capacity in the subject-matter he handles, must be beyond question ; he must be pre- pared to grow, must feel the supreme obligation to grow, intellectually ; he must experience the glow of the artist, not rest content with the cleverness of the artisan. In accord with this dominating thought, there have been added to the body of this book, besides two excursuses, a series of outlines on The Teaching of sev- eral subject groups in the Secondary School Course; their object is to rouse the individual teacher to such study of his chosen field as will give him the widest PREFACE VU possible survey of the questions involved in the pres- entation of the subject. Here and there the wording of these outlines may reveal the personal convictions of the author, but it is the author's aim, with the aid of the bibliographical notes, to invite each teacher to a formulation of his individual opinion on any and every phase of the teaching issues. With his classes the author has used similar outlines for the group of mathematical and science subjects ; he has limited him- self, in the present instance, to the historico-Hnguistic group for definite reasons ; in one and all of them there still prevails the widest divergence in procedure, the significance of which each teacher must fully grasp, if he would be an adept, not a slave to tradition. To President Nicholas Murray Butler the author is deeply indebted for the first impulse that led to the inception of the present work. In its progress he has derived constant inspiration and guidance from the investigations of Sadler and Findlay in England, of Matthias, Fries, and Reinhardt in Germany, advocates, one and all, of an idealism in education which tran- scends the borders of nationalism and of local educa- tional problems. JULIUS SACHS. New York, June, 19 1 2. CONTENTS PART I FAGB The Teacher i PART II CHAPTER I. The Present Status of the Public High School 85 II. The Private Secondary School . . . .154 III. The Educational Policy of the Secondary School 192 Excursus I. The Continuation School . . . 230 Excursus II. The Function of the Educational Ex- pert 242 Appendix: Outlines for the Teaching of Certain Subject Groups in the Secondary School Course 269 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION The American people will find it to their advantage to direct an increasing amount of attention to the sec- ondary school, its function and its problems. The task of the elementary school is of necessity defined with reasonable clearness and certainty. The task of the sec- ondary school, however, is much less fully understood. The experience of European countries will aid and guide us in many ways. A close study of the problems of men- tal growth and development, as these occur in connec- tion with boys and girls from twelve to eighteen years of age, will also do much. A study of the social and industrial opportunities and influences which are at work in present day society, both in Europe and in America, will do perhaps even more. The work of the secondary school is of a kind that necessitates differentiation and a choice between differ- ent programs of study and between different, sometimes competing, educational ends and aims. The secondary school must exist in sufficiently diverse forms and must be administered with sufficient elasticity of method to enable it to adapt itself to the needs of a complex social organism. xi xii editor's introduction In a democratic society the secondary school has one other and vitally important function to perform. It must train those who, by a process of natural selec- tion, are marked out for leadership in their several communities. It must so shape their minds and char- acters and so direct their energies that they will be able, in later life, to make wise use of the opportunities for leadership and direction that have come to them. The secondary school that overlooks this aspect of its problem is not a secondary school at all, but only a link in a chain. The rapid growth of secondary schools in the United States is evidence, if evidence were needed, that the secondary school problem is being attacked in this country with vigor. The danger lies in the fact that so many secondary schools are established and con- ducted in mere imitation of institutions elsewhere. Edu- cation by imitation is much less helpful than education for ideals. The wise policy for a community to pursue is to make itself familiar with the function and the prob- lems of the secondary school, and then to estabUsh for itself such type of secondary school, or so many sec- ondary schools of differing types, as will best meet the individual, social, and industrial needs of the children of its own population. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER Columbia University, New York, May 15, 1912 INTRODUCTION The American Secondary School of to-day is in a process of transformation; it is the outgrowth of a series of institutions, which, under the varying names of Middle or Secondary schools, in different cultural communities, represent systems of instruction that ante- date in their origin the elementary school, the college, and the university. From it have developed methods of securing the fundamentals of knowledge-acquisition (primary work) which open the possibilities of intellec- tual growth to all ; out of it have branched, as insight has increased, the countless phases of inquiry that con- stitute the burden of a higher education. The vigorous and unrestricted growth rootward and upward has constrained the parent stock within limi- tations that have made definition of the present pur- poses and functions of the Secondary School a matter of difficulty. The upper limits of the elementary school, and the lower ranges of the college studies, have poached upon the secondary school's preserves ; the attempt is here to be made to define more especially as far as the United States are concerned, its proper confines, and to set forth some of its problems and the available means of meeting them. XIV INTRODUCTION In this connection we shall freely draw upon the ex- periences of European schools. The tendency to ignore such experiences is an erroneous one; whatever has proved effective elsewhere is worthy of our serious thought; it is our duty and our privilege to adapt to our own conditions the processes that have approved themselves to expert educational opinion. Our educa- tion must be national, but need not be exclusive. There have been countless contributions, individual and collective, to the study of the problems of the Secondary School; now it was the scientific arrange- ment of programs of study, now the method and forms of instruction, again the adaptation of the courses pur- sued to the actual needs of life, that have given direc- tion to the doctrines advanced. The present author's aim, it may be stated at the outset, is to focus attention upon the necessity for America of distinctly superior attainments in our teachers. It is his belief that neither scientific classification of subject matter nor psycho- logical analysis of the adolescent mind and impulses can avail without accurate and ever-growing positive knowledge of the teacher. As he regards the situation, the day of the textbook as the paramount teacher has passed ; teachers who merely recapitulate or indifferently interpret the formu- lated statements of the textbook, who cannot contribute from a rich store of collateral information the individual INTRODUCTION XV note without which there can be no vital class interest, are useless in the scheme of a rational secondary school. The advocates of the textbook notwithstanding, our boys and girls, if they are to profit by attendance in the sec- ondary schools, must be guided by thoroughly trained, thoroughly informed instructors. And with the decline of the textbook as the sole bulwark of accurate knowl- edge, there must go hand in hand a complete revision of our recitation system, which in its prevailing form affords but the slightest stimulus to teacher and stu- dent. Our secondary school system falls short of ideal results, mainly because we lack a sufficient number of teachers competent to enlarge with the freedom of a generous attainment upon the topics it embraces. It is idle to seek elsewhere the causes of a declining interest in the secondary school courses ; weak teachers create weak courses. The example of the German and the Scandinavian countries, and more recently of France and England, points clearly to our needs. Abroad we find teachers richly informed in college and university courses that are designed to illuminate their school work, and in ad- dition they undergo theoretic and practical guidance in the art of imparting. The effectiveness of our second- ary schools will be determined by a recognition and acceptance of these two fundamental needs; we must insist on similar processes of preparation, though we XVI INTRODUCTION may depart because of our special problems from the detail in method pursued abroad. If at present much of our secondary work is pronounced lackadaisical, wanting in spirit and in incisiveness, it is primarily a question of the competent or incompetent teacher. This country can afford to possess fewer secondary schools ; it needs imperatively better-manned second- ary schools. It is an issue that should not be obscured ; our best teachers recognize the defect which is due to lack of opportunity in the college and the training school, and they zealously strive to remedy it; incom- petent and self-satisfied teachers must be confronted with the fact that the era of conventional performance is passing away. Our commonwealths too will learn to gauge the true value of capable teachers, and will sooner or later discover that the servant is worthy of his hire; it is an irreparable loss to a community to permit a com- petent teacher to depart because of a refused increase of salary ; it is not possible to measure in percent- ages the difference in value between genuine efficiency and commonplace routine attainment. Our schools require teachers who can teach, who are completely at home in the subject or subjects they are called upon to handle and who have mastered the art of presenta- tion ; the hearing of recitations can be but an incident in such a conception of the teacher's function. The INTRODUCTION XVll importance, then, of the teacher to the success of any secondary scheme of instruction should justify the pre- cedence given in this book to the chapter on the teacher. A word as to the general tone of this treatise, which to some may seem a picture gray in gray ; not to fore- stall or disarm opposing views, but in the interest of the cause that the author desires to advance. He is a firm believer in the value of outspoken criticism ; it is not in a spirit of petty faultfinding that he indicates the present shortcomings in our secondary schools. Self-complacency is the eternal foe of progress; it is not pessimistic to apply unhesitatingly the probe of ex- perience to our efforts. Let others, our visitors from abroad, commend what they find commendable in our schools ; we want to ascertain wherein we are deficient, and then endeavor to improve. There is something stimulating and wholesome in a state of mind that is never satisfied with present achievements ; in education, least of all, can any community afford to rest upon the laurels of its attainments; a virile disaffection prompts to further endeavor, to revision and reconstruction in effort. And finally we have no desire to make our schools an exact copy of any type of foreign school ; there are abundant reasons for adhering in our aims to ideals par- ticularly suited to our conditions. The courses of a XVlll INTRODUCTION German gymnasium, a French \yc6e, or an English public school, like Eton or Rugby, we would not dupli- cate, if we could, for our pupils ; they would not bear transplantation, they would be an exotic in our system. But it is the high order of efficiency in their teachers, rather than the nature of their curricula, that imparts distinction to them, and it is this quality in the teacher, professional ability and exactness in information, toward which our efforts must be directed. Granted that our aims are more modest than those that prevail abroad, they should at least be rigidly maintained and com- pletely realized. Consummate knowledge and skill in the teacher are imperatively the backbone of any and every system of secondary education. THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL PART I The Teacher I. Preparation in subject matter. " An open-minded examination of the merits of foreign systems is the guarantee that secures us against stagna- tion^ against declined — De Tocqueville. On the teacher and his preparation depends primarily the success of the secondary school. It is no easy task to create a public opinion that will accept with all its consequences the consideration of the teacher's vocation as a profession, and that will be ready to look upon the teacher as a professional expert. He himself must challenge public opinion on this subject in two ways : by his present attitude, and by the steps he has taken to reach his present station ; i.e. by his view of the true nature of his professional work, and by his professional preparation. By these will he be judged, and he has no right to claim the emoluments or the social distinc- 2 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL tions that come to a professional man, unless his atti- tude in both these respects is correct. The physician secures professional standing by evi- dence he furnishes of a prolonged course of study in which he acquires the scientific basis of his subject; to this he must add during years in the medical school and in hospital service practical clinical work, before health and life are intrusted to him. The same holds for the law- yer, engineer, architect; with this additional proviso, that in none of these callings would a man enjoy professional confidence unless it were felt that his calling were not adopted as a makeshift, but as a permanent life's work, with a clear perception of the fact that a rise through various stages to positions of responsibility will depend upon his own constant mental growth. The transi- tional work in teaching, of which this country affords so many familiar examples, whilst it may be good for the teacher, is, except in very rare cases, bad for pupil and school ; lack of perspective, absence of stimulus to secure a broader grasp, has harmed teaching as a pro- fession ; it has been assumed that any one can teach. Our conception of preparation is a curiously inade- quate one, and we may at once characterize as make- shifts some of the agencies upon which many second- ary schools draw for their teaching staff. Our normal schools are more or less adequate to the training of the elementary school teacher ; they do not suffice for the THE TEACHER 3 future secondary school teacher. As informational ma- terial, high school subjects are desirable, even necessary, for the elementary teacher, but these normal schools cannot properly embrace in their curriculum the theory and practice in the teaching of high school subjects without weakening their effectiveness for the elemen- tary school work. Their instructors are in the fewest cases capable of handling the theory of the higher sub- jects with the necessary mastery, as the statistics of their own preparatory training show ; ^ in too many instances their high school instruction is apt to be a weak effort to reach the plane of an efficient high school course. Experiences in England to train elementary and sec- ondary teachers in the same training colleges have called forth the following comment : " I believe that training is affected to a small degree by the kind of educa- tional work students are going to undertake, but it is affected to a considerable degree by the kind of education which students have received ; it appears to me undesirable to train together a pupil teacher edu- cated in an elementary school with another student who has a degree obtained at Oxford or Cambridge. On the 1 Meriam, J. L., Normal School Education (Columbia University Con- tributions to Education), Chap. VI. Thirty per cent of all normal school instructors have received no educational training in advance of the school in which they are now teaching. X 4 ' THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL other hand, I see no reason why two university graduates should not with advantage be trained together, although one intends teaching in a secondary school, the other in an elementary school." ^ The consciousness of this weakness, and of the meager mental outlook that normal school students usually bring to their course, suggested the plan of creating a special type of normal school for students of collegiate rank, intended to fit them directly for secondary work ; such a proposal was made in Massachusetts,^ but was defeated. It is in fact not feasible, and it would in- volve a wasteful duplication of effort.' The natural agency for the training of secondary teachers is the college which is to furnish the requisite knowledge of subject matter, and the training college which is to apply the general principles of pedagogy to the secondary school subjects. The demand that gradu- ation in good standing from a reputable college shall be the minimum attainment of the future secondary teacher is unfortunately not yet generally recognized ; certain it is that the intellectual outfit acquired during the second- ary school period cannot suffice for the future secondary 1 Roberts, Education in the Nineteettth Century, Cambridge Exten- sion Lectures, 1900, p. 182. * F. Atkinson, Professional Preparation of Secondary Teachers in the United States, Breitkopf & Hartel, 1893. Atkinson prefers the name " Post-graduate Pedagogical School " ; cf. Eng. Spec. Reports, 7. 381. s Pritchett, Carnegie Foundation, 5th Annual Report, 76. THE TEACHER 5 teacher. He would be likely to teach just what he was taught and as he was taught; this danger can be re- moved by the interposition of the larger mental experi- ence gained in a new period (the college years) of study and thought ; it enables the candidate to rise to some- thing Uke a critical estimate of his former teachers and their methods. An examination of the teaching body in the high schools of many states reveals a large percentage of teachers whose academic training has been insufficient. Unless the legislation of a state specifically demands of its high school teachers college graduation, a lower order of attainment is likely to be the rule. The lax- ity in a number of our older states in this respect is in striking contrast with the specific and insistent de- mand of states like California.^ What has been en- forced as a minimum standard in scholarship in several western states ought to be made by legislation the irre- ducible requirement everywhere. It could not be made retroactive, for it would eliminate a large percentage of our actual teaching force that has enjoyed either no college course or only a fragmentary one, but it should govern the appointment of new teachers, so that within a generation or less a uniformly higher scholastic stand- ard would be assured. 1 Brown, J. F., The Training of Teachers for Secondary Schools, pp. 210-214, Macmillan, 1911. 6 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL But let it be said at once : the perfunctory completion of a college course does not qualify a young man or woman to teach high school subjects. Many of these young persons have not definitely had the teaching career in view, and the actual record of their college performance does not offer a very sound guarantee of definite scholastic attainment; in the case of the teacher, more than that of any other professional man, success depends largely on the soundness of preparation in fun- damentals; for it becomes his duty to lay the founda- tions for the intellectual growth of the next generation. The character of the future teacher's own training in the foundations of his subject or subjects it should be the business of the college to determine; if the terms of admission to college are not sufficiently ex- acting to insure accuracy in fundamental knowledge (and they are not, whether tested by entrance exami- nations or by admission under the accrediting system), then the college should not send such a candidate forth as teacher without the special training that makes for accuracy. A superstructure of advanced collegiate courses, reared on a basis that is imperfect or inade- quate, propagates superficiality, inaccuracy. There is no part of a college's work more important than the proper intellectual equipment of the future teacher ; ^ it 1 Butler, N. M., Meaning of Education, p. 159. The colleges have, until very recently, done little to show that they are aware of what is THE TEACHER 7 should be recognized as a distinctive feature of college work, and if its attainment involves the creation of special sections for intending teachers, that step should be undertaken in the interest of sound teaching. In co- educational institutions and in the women's colleges, from which a very large percentage of the teachers issue, such an arrangement is specially desirable. Even in Germany, where a rigorously organized sec- ondary school system insures a high degree of accuracy in the future teacher's fundamental training, provision to emphasize this accuracy is made in the university scheme by the institution of seminars for a resurvey of the school subjects in the light of the more advanced pursuit of the same subjects. Professor Baumann of Gottingen advocates under the general heading of Schulwissenschaften ^ a fuller consideration of this relationship, and urges the appointment for the teach- ing of these Schulwissenschaften of men who have risen to the rank of advanced academic scholars from a previous career as expert teachers in secondary schools. We need, says Baumann, a special group of university professors who combine with genuine scientific bent the being accomplished in the study of education. Consequently they have failed to contribute their proper proportion of duly qualified teachers. 1 Baumann, lulius, Schulwissenschaften als besondere F'dcher auf Uni- versitdten. Leipzig, 1899. 8 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL zeal to make their subjects available for teaching pur- poses in the schools ; the teaching point of view should be constantly kept in sight, so that parallel with the scientific pursuit of a subject there would be consid- ered the questions : what can be taught (in the second- ary school) ? how is it to be taught ? to what degree are modern theories to be introduced ? "Unquestionably," he continues, " unless counteracted, the tendency of col- lege and university studies leads away from the needs of the classroom." It is not yet generally recognized in our own col- lege circles that students may very appropriately be initiated into the advanced stages of scholarly insight and appreciation, in the same subject matter that in its more elementary forms constitutes the material of instruction in the secondary schools ; e.g. a classical author, read in the schools, like Vergil, may well form the topic of an advanced college course; in the broader outlook of such a college course the future teacher would find many a fruitful suggestion that would enrich his later presentation of the subject to his class.^ There is distinctly need, in the interest of th^ intending teacher, of brief didactic courses in which the 1 In a summer course at Columbia, Professor McCrea interprets several books of Vergil to teachers {vide announcement) a. as they should be known by the teacher. b. as they should be known by the class. THE TEACHER 9 classification and grouping of the mass of knowledge in a given subject becomes a vital feature; he should ac- quire broad, but correct, generalizations from college professors who have reached these conclusions after, and because of, careful specific detail work, and who present general statements with cautious reserve. The candidate teacher for the secondary schools must not be a narrow specialist, absorbed in one subject of the secondary school course, and indifferent and inex- perienced along every other line. From the undesira- ble extreme of earlier days, when a teacher with or without qualifications for the task was expected to teach almost every subject of the secondary curriculum, we have gone to the other extreme of the one-subject teacher, and the colleges have ardently advocated this tendency to speciaHzation. Aside from the fact that the one-topic teacher is an obstacle in the arrangement of the curriculum of all but large city schools, as he is either disquaUfied or reluctant to be assigned to any other subject, this tendency to specialization is harm- ful to every type of secondary school. The one-topic teacher appreciates only the significance of his own field; desirous of making it prominent in the school curriculum, he is apt to demand in its favor a sacrifice of other topics ; being himself limited in the range of his interests, he is not likely to apportion in a judicial spirit the emphasis that should be distributed among a lO THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL number of subjects of the course.^ In fact the very intensity of the specialist operates against the primal function of the secondary school, an expansion of youth- ful interests, disclosure of various avenues of pursuit,- each with an interest of its own, each offering attrac- tions to one or the other student. As an integral part of a school organism, and as a contributor to the making of an all-round human being with a wholesome preliminary outlook into various pos- sibilities of human activity before a final choice is made, the specialist has little to offer. The interplay of in- tellectual interests should be unfolded to the growing minds of our young people ; even where a strong native bent manifests itself early, the influence of the school should be in the direction of a broadening of sympa- thies, rather than of a narrowing tendency.^ Necessary as specialization has become in the activities of life, and in the higher stages of professional activity, its limita- 1 Sadler, English Special Reports, IX, 20 : " Under right conditions technical and professional studies are restrained by the humane influ- ences of general culture from undue or premature specialization, and from selfish preoccupation in their own immediate concerns." And of this undesirable tendency in the specialist Bascom says, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1903, p. 749 : " Not only does he not rise to the height of all knowl- edge, he does not rise to the height of his own knowledge." 2 Woodhull, J. F., " Modern Trend of Physics and Chemistry Teach- ing," Educational Review, March, 1906, pp. 236-247. Canfield, James H., " Wanted : A Teacher," Educational Review, December, 1900, pp. 433- 443. Sachs, J. " The Departmental Organization of Secondary Schools," Education, April, 1907, pp. 484-496. THE TEACHER II tions do not serve the best interests of the pupil in the secondary school, and the specialist teacher in the sec- ondary school, if completely engrossed in his specialty, is not the most helpful adviser. Goethe's "Wer nur eine Sprache kennt, kennt keine " is particularly appli- cable to the one-subject teacher of the secondary school ; a teacher is likely to be the more effective in one field, if he surveys his subject from several distinctive points of view. The secondary teacher in Germany and France, what- ever his chosen line of study may be, must show mas- tery for teaching purposes in at least two additional subjects ; one of the three must always be the vernacu- lar; and the striking results attained in the clear and cogent oral and written utterances of their secondary pupils are due to this demand made on the teachers. The plea urged in favor of the one-topic point of view, that no man can excel in more than one field of activity, falls to the ground before the evidence furnished by German and French teachers. It is a wholesome offset to undue concentration of interest upon one subject to be compelled to adjust oneself to several topics, and to the pupils concerned it is of striking advantage to have the same teacher correlate their experiences gained in various subjects ; it makes the teacher more human in the eyes of his pupils, if they recognize that his mind is open to various interests. 12 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL It will be natural that the several subjects which each teacher chooses to handle will group themselves along certain accepted lines of kindred interests ; the historico-linguistic ; group, the mathematico-scientific group, these are the usual combinations ; but it will happen at times that a linguist is a first-class mathe- matician or a keen student of geographical research, that a teacher of mathematics has a fine sense of lit- erary form ; and such combinations are particularly valuable in the school life. The ability to teach, the vernacular effectively would seem for us the first step in the movement for wider teaching interest on the part of every secondary teacher ; the cooperation of every teacher in the interest of good English, a cooperation which is now often sought in vain, would be made possible. School committees and super- vising officers ought to make capacity in this direction a " sine qua non " ; the training in English, even if the candidate is not in every instance called upon to teach the English classes, would raise the standard of the secondary school ; English should not be^ merely one of the subjects of instruction, but the core of the work. This would involve a wholesome change, too, in the manner of presenting the subject of English ; it should be less technical, more distinctly cultural. A familiarity with at least three subjects of the curric- ulum, that would enable the teacher to put his abilities THE TEACHER I3 in these subjects at the disposal of the school, ought to lead to a teacher's desire to vary his teaching duties ; it should be a distinct relief to pass from the demands of an exact science, mathematics or physics, for instance, to the opportunities of stimulating the aesthetic or moral sense which a lesson in literature or in history affords. For the teacher who hopes to advance to a supervisory or administrative position, a principalship or a superin- tendency, breadth of this kind seems almost a necessity ; to judge of good performance, of sound teaching meth- ods, to estimate at their true worth the methods of ap- proach to various subjects, one must have taught himself in a number of them. Absolute unfamiliarity with the greater number of subjects in the curriculum accounts for the helplessness of principals and superintendents that tolerates the continuance of antiquated, useless methods, that hesitates to accept methods adopted elsewhere because of lack of acquaintance with the pedagogic tenets on which they are founded. The absolute dependence of principals on the suggestions of modern language teachers whose work they can only superficially judge is a case in point. Knowledge of subject matter, detailed comprehensive knowledge far beyond the actual necessities of the secondary class- room, a knowledge that feeds on the desire for more extended information, should be one of the prerequi- sites of the secondary teacher. 14 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Our present situation is tersely described in the author- itative criticism of Dean Russell ; most of our teachers are " teachers with nothing to teach." ^ We are still far from demanding, as we should, evidence of a satisfac- torily completed college course in those subjects that the candidate intends to teach. A demand, apparently so obvious, is ignored to a surprising extent ; teachers who have never carried on mathematical or classical studies in college are deemed worthy of teaching them, though they have neglected them since their own secondary school days. And yet far more should be called for ; growth in knowledge, as the teacher {)ursues his call- ing, not accidental growth, but deliberate, distinctly planned growth. The assumption that the teacher brings from his college experience the sum total of desirable infor- mation, and need henceforth devote himself only to the acquisition of the teaching technique, is fatal to his success. Every teacher of merit will admit that his initial intellectual equipment at the beginning of his teaching career was but meager; it is in the pro- cess of teaching that we ascertain promptly the frag- mentary and incomplete character of our knowledge, and find the strongest provocation to supplement and strengthen our inadequate attainment. At no stage of his career should the teacher cease to be a learner, 1 English Special Reports, X, 471-472. THE TEACHER 1 5 both in the subjects he teaches and in the wider gen- eral interests ; the teacher who is intent only upon the narrow confines of his teaching subjects does not add to his stature as a teacher ; he is in danger of degenerating into a clever craftsman. Routine, mas- tery in presentation and in class management, he must acquire, but they should be dominated by his personal ambition to grow intellectually, or else the technician will supersede the genuine teacher. This conviction of the necessity for constant intellectual growth is not yet generally held by our teachers, and it is one of the strongest indications that the professional attitude is not as widely appreciated as is desirable; teachers' reading courses, active participation in the work of learned societies and of professional gatherings, but, above all, individual study in some chosen field, or else close inquiry into the educational movements that are developing at home and abroad, these are the means of furthering professional development. The so-called teachers' meeting, which is usually limited to the consideration of the routine necessities of the school, might become under the direction of an inspiring principal or superintendent a valuable stim- ulus to growth ; the consideration of far-reaching school problems in a compact resume, or a survey of new educational or scientific tendencies by one or the other member of the teaching staff, would be a distinct l6 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL gain as well to the one assigned to the task of leading the discussion, as to the whole teaching force ; it pre- supposes a professional spirit in the conduct of such meetings. It is in well-conducted teachers' meetings of this type that supervisory officers can foster the profes- sional spirit of their junior colleagues. The judgment and appreciation of his fellow workers is quite as pre- cious to the teacher as success in the immediate exercise of his educational talent. In the wide range of subjects which appeal to the modern man of culture it is impossible for any single one to keep completely in touch with all that is new and valuable ; and yet, if we are of inquir- ing minds, we should like to hear of the best that is being offered in other departments than our own. Instead of prolonged faculty meetings, let us cultivate the art of reducing the discussions in them to modest compass, and devote the time thus gained to resumes by one or several of the teachers, say of the points definitely established in some line of physical inquiry, and the points still in debate, or a critical review of some new group of writers, or a discussion of a burning issue of the day in the light of economic or political theory. Where could a man or woman find so conveniently a body of appreciative hearers, not especially trained perhaps in the subject that appeals to him or her, and yet persons on an intellectual plane that enables them THE TEACHER 1 7 to follow a clear presentation ? And how wonderfully would such an occasion accentuate the need of clear- ness, how valuable would prove to a thoughtful person the kind of criticism, the kind of inquiry, that he would evoke ! Professional recognition, we are convinced, can only be secured by such means, not by agitation after the pattern of the trades-union. Let teachers consider that neither lawyers nor physicians combine to force their claims upon an unwilling public ; their professional standards prohibit such undignified procedure, and our teachers do not win respect professionally by proclaim- ing themselves ^^ hired'' for their positions. The more distinct the evidence of a professional spirit, the more probable is the recognition of teaching as a profession, with those practical rewards that come to the efficient professional man or woman. The need of professional training for the secondary teacher is coming to be recognized.^ Without theoretic insight, even those specially endowed in intellect and temperament will attain success only after many fail- ures ; those of average endowment may drift through many wearisome attempts into a fairly successful mode of handling their classes, but the uncertainty of the 1 For college instructors as well as for secondary teachers ; cf. the strong arraignment of college faculties by R. I. Schuyler, Educational Review, pp. 191 ff. Sept., 1911. 1 8 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL amateurish spirit makes them easy victims to every new notion, provided it be presented with sufficient assurance and persuasiveness. Training schools and teachers' colleges are beginning to offer opportunities for such training, but as yet the demand for such train- ing prior to appointment is not generally enforced ; the obvious superiority of those who have combined good academic work with sound professional training, and the enlightened demand for such a combination in some of our Western states, ought to convince those who hesi- tate to express themselves in favor of the increased requirement.^ The average secondary teacher has been in the habit of entering upon his work directly from his own student life, without a realization of the teaching prob- lems involved, of his duties and of his prerogatives ; if he has finally become proficient, it has been at the cost of serious errors, injurious for the time being to himself, and often permanently harmful to his charges. In view of the fund of enlightened experience that older teachers have gradually accumulated, it is inexcusable to have our present candidate teachers repeat the errors of former days ; the body of young teachers should be 1 The Report of the Committee of Seventeen of the N. E. A. on " The Professional Preparation of High School Teachers," 1907, sets forth excellent individual opinions of its contributing members, but is distinctly disappointing in its general conclusions; cf. Educational Review, pp. 311 ff. Oct., 1908. THE TEACHER 1 9 spared the distress of duplicating the blunders of their predecessors. It should be the privilege of capable teachers to shape by guidance and practical suggestion the early steps of young candidates ; where attendance in a professional school is impracticable, there should be designated in every school system one or several teachers to control and direct these young people in their initial teaching experiences. The experiment of coopera- tion between a teachers' college and a public school sys- tem, such as has been in operation in Providence, R. I.,^ is worthy of close study and of imitation, and the half salary assigned to such candidates in the first year is a slight sacrifice for the practical advantages it secures. The spirit of professional interest in the coming generation of teachers must become more marked ; it is as much the duty of a competent teacher to contrib- ute to the training of young teachers as to work success- fully with his immediate pupils ; it is this that the critic teacher in the normal school aims to accomplish for the elementary teacher, and it should likewise be under- taken for our secondary teachers, to whom it would prove fully as helpful. The German gymnasial seminary has within the last twenty years effected along this line of professional 1 The arrangement of practice teaching that is offered to intending teachers at Brown University is described in Luckey, Professional Training of Teachers, p. 65. 20 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL training great results. All candidate teachers are as- signed for expert guidance in small groups of about eight members to the director and selected teachers of a secondary school; the honor of such an assignment is highly prized.^ In each seminary the errors in teach- ing, due to inexperience and a defective sense of pro- portion, are carefully corrected ; evidence of hopeless incapacity or of temperamental disqualification leads to removal of unpromising candidates ; inaccuracy in sub- ject matter is practically unknown, so stringent are the demands in scholarship ; and the trial lessons under kindly but keen criticism are sufficient in number to make the young teacher after his Probejahr an efficient teacher. Our initial difficulty in this matter is due to the great number of new teachers entering the field each year. In the secondary schools for boys in Prussia with a population of 37 to 38 millions, not more than 600 to 700 new secondary teachers enter the service each year;^ deaths, retirement with pen- sion privileges after thirty years of service, occasional withdrawals because of ill health, the necessities of lA detailed discussion of the German gymnasial seminary follows on pages 35 ff. 2 The total number of boys in attendance at all the Prussian second- ary schools is 220,959, according to the government figures in 1909, and the entire number of teachers for them is about 11,000. {Monat- schriftfur h'ohere Schuleti, p. 296. June, 1910.) THE TEACHER 21 newly organized schools to meet the growth in popula- tion, account for this number ; the cases of withdrawal into another occupation are practically negligible. The teachers are members of a profession in which they re- main continuously, unless disabled, for thirty years ; hence it is possible to provide fully for the training of the new teachers in seventy to eighty gymnasial seminaries. The recent legislation for the secondary girls' schools will call for an increase in the permanent secondary teaching force; it will approximately double this number, but the number of new teachers annually appointed will still be a relatively small one. With our thousands of new teachers entering the field each year, many of them without the intention of continuing in the work as a profession, the adop- tion of the system of the gymnasial seminary would be extremely difficult; the number of principals capa- ble of directing and willing to direct these young teach- ers might not easily be secured ; besides, the candidates themselves would be slow to recognize that their com- pensation during the first or trial year could only be nominal ; on the other hand, their growth in efficiency ought to increase their earning power rapidly. The proper place to initiate an approach to this system would be in the large school systems ; with the pro- viso, however, that the supervision should not be per- functory; definite allotment of time to the supervising 22 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL officers of the seminary for this specific purpose would be an essential. ^ Among the many changes that such intelligent su- pervisory guidance would bring about, one of the most important would be a truer appreciation of the signifi- cance of the elementary or initial work in each subject. It is characteristic of most of our teachers that their ambition is always directed toward instruction in the higher classes of the secondary school ; the recent col- lege graduate prefers to teach Vergil and Cicero rather than first-year Latin, plane and solid geometry rather than the first stages of algebra ; he looks upon an as- signment to first-year work as unattractive drudgery, and strives to be emancipated from it at as early a day as possible ; the teacher of several years' experience is apt to regard assignment to first-year work in Latin or mathematics as a slight. Because, therefore, of the in- experience of the tyro and the reluctance of the experi- enced teacher, the most delicate and crucial work in the secondary school, that of the first year, is poorly carried out. This first-year work is distinctly of the utmost im- ^ Brown, J. F., The Training of Teachers for Secondary Schools, Mac- millan, 1911, recognizes the great differences between our conditions and those of Prussia ; he does not, however, despair of incorporating some of the most important features of the German system into our training system; his Chapter XI, which is essentially constructive, is worthy of special study. THE TEACHER 23 portance, and it should claim the highest teaching talent of the school ; to the prevalence of inexperienced teachers at this stage is due, more than to any other cause, the discouragement and lapse of interest of our first-year high school pupils. It has been a proHfic source of difficulties in our high schools that we have not broken with this misconception in regard to the first year's work. We have not taken into considera- tion in the arrangement of the first year that it calls for something very much more than a proportional ac- quisition of the four years' work; it involves a period of adjustment, which as an educational factor must claim a considerable proportion of the time. In this adjustment to a new phase of intellectual experience, in the transition from the exercise of the mnemonic faculty to that of reasoning ability, the art of the teacher finds its great opportunity ; it is in his power to transfigure the tiresome features inseparable from all fundamental work. The textbook may group the successive stages of advance in logical development, but the printed page is inflexible ; it does not suggest variety in the manner of progress. The mental status of the class, which can never be definitely measured in advance, suggests to the teacher various expedients, possible excursions from the usual path, to insure correct lines of procedure ; convention, tradition, must give way to the exigencies of a peculiar condition. 24 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL The first-year high school work ^ makes the greatest demands on the teacher's mental and moral attitude; here, primarily, we need his enthusiasm, his love of im- parting, his judgment and good sense to secure the elastic rebound in class-activity.^ The teacher's problem is this : how can he weld into a homogeneous school organization the composite body, coming from various influences in the elementary schools ? Elementary education, even if identical in quantity, is likely to differ in quahty ; hence the value of solidarity at this point, of a common training in processes of thought and in habits of study. For this process of welding, of unification in new mental habits, it is wise to avoid differentiation in the first year's work ; the trend toward individualism it is desirable to inhibit, until the training of the first year has established the new method of reasoning procedure. A full apprecia- tion of freedom (and this applies to intellectual as well as to political freedom) does not result spontaneously ; pupils as well as adults cannot exercise with judgment a freedom whose responsibilities they have not grad- ually learned to appreciate. As in the political sphere, so in education, absence of the guiding hand is likely to breed license, where we hope for freedom. Many of our best schools, appreciating the nature of the 1 Report Commissioner Education, p. 482. Washington, 1893. 2 Laurie, S. S., The Training of Teachers, p. 60. Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1901. THE TEACHER 25 transition, defer to the end of the first year all attempts at differentiation of courses. Even a single year in Latin, under the instruction of an inspiring teacher, should prove of great gain to our English-speaking pupils ; to recognize the significance of its highly inflectional char- acter is at once a training in precision, in thought, and a valuable introduction to all foreign language study. The deliberation with which perforce we must proceed to unravel the meaning of a Latin sentence is a new and striking experience, and of similar value is the con- sideration of the suggestive vocabulary in which the transition from the literal significance of terms to their figurative application is more easily traced than when these same terms have been dulled to current coin. The new attitude toward study is the goal to be estab- lished in the first year ; to this goal everything else should be subsidiary, even the amount of specific infor- mation secured in a number of subjects. Incidentally to the pursuit of this goal there will dawn upon the pupil under the right kind of teacher, what the various subjects may offer him in intellectual satisfaction. This opening of vistas which should be both duty and pleas- ure of the high school teacher has not received its due attention ; to penetrate through the necessary and una- voidable routine of first-year subjects to glimpses of what is in store beyond, would often change monotony and discouragement into bright anticipation. It is only 26 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL from the fullness of knowledge, from the glow of a gen- erous soul, that this illumination of the initial stages of the work can issue. Here again, the example of the German schools is significant; in every subject the teacher throughout his career may be assigned, and loves to be assigned, to the lowest as well as the higher classes ; if we remember that in the German secondary school we have a nine- year course, this becomes all the more striking. An examination of the teachers' schedule in any German secondary school will show the ordinarius (class teacher) of Prima, the highest class, assigned for a certain num- ber of periods per week to some of the lowest classes, and in some of the very best schools the Direktor (who always teaches) will himself take the beginners' class, say in French, in the first of their nine years, meet them again regularly as a class after a lapse of four years, and finally shape their advanced work in the same sub- ject in the ninth year of the curriculum. What an advantage this, to lay the foundations accurately, to gauge progress of the pupils and efficiency of cooper- ating teachers during the intervening years, and to measure in its final stage the value of an educational process ! The claim that it is dull and uninteresting to initiate pupils in the elements of a subject betrays a lack of teaching insight The primary teacher finds in- THE TEACHER 27 spiration in her simple work ; she notes the steady ex- pansion of intelligence in her little pupils, and because of her quiet devotion to her work and enjoyment of her experiences, she attains marked success. It is not an exaggeration to say that the initial work in a subject determines definitely the success or non-success of the pupils ; the art of teaching is at its highest in this foun- dation work. And in college work, too, some of the greatest teachers, men who are eminent in research work, willingly undertake the introductory course in their subject, convinced that thus and only thus do they insure correct fundamental conceptions. The teacher of long and tried experience, who realizes what gaps ineffective teaching at the early stage leaves in the minds of the pupils, should take pride in claim- ing an opportunity for this introductory work; the richness of his experience and the abundance of his col- lateral information ought to fill it with substance, with promising outlook. When every teacher may be called upon to teach his subject and every stage of his subject, throughout the course, there will develop a system of cooperation that at present does not obtain. Even in a four-year high school course there exists too frequently a hierarchy of the higher and the lower teachers in the system, and the teacher of the higher classes is apt to thrust the blame for ineffective attainment of the student body upon the 28 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL first and second year teacher ; this would largely dis- appear under the suggested change. How often will a teacher build up his presentation of a subject on the assumption of a certain quota of knowledge by the class, only to find that his effort has completely miscarried because he was building on quicksand ! It is vain in such situations to indulge in recriminations ; the teacher is himself at fault ; he has no right to take for granted what he has not assured himself of ; he must know what his pupils actually do possess of available information in a given subject. Still less excusable, and not less frequent, is the teacher's admission : " I thought I had discussed this subject with you before ; I see I am mis- taken." Such a lapse ought to be impossible ; it is the teacher's duty to keep such a record of his daily work with every class that in his preparation for a lesson he can make sure of every point covered and realize what has remained untouched. We need a much closer adjustment in the various stages of the work than is currently undertaken ; a mechanical distribution of the subject matter of instruc- tion for the several years does not suffice. No two successive first-year classes are identical in attainment, in eagerness ; a class that advances rather slowly in a given year or in a given subject may develop quite rapidly at a later stage, if its peculiarities are recognized and made use of ; it is here that a very intimate inter- THE TEACHER 29 change of information between the teachers becomes valuable. The class book as a record of daily assignments, of daily advance in every subject, is a very marked feature of every German classroom; its value to the principal, the individual teacher, and to the student body is so patent that a close study of its serviceable- ness may be recommended to our schools. The daily record, made by each teacher over his own signature, immediately upon the completion of a teaching period, is scanned by every other teacher of the same class ; it makes for reasonable assignment, for reasonable ad- vance, insures against excessive pressure by an individ- ual teacher, discloses a complete picture of the home work expected, of the class work that has been com- pleted ; it stands for conscientious coordination of each teacher with his colleagues along the lines of procedure that have been adopted for each class. The practice of the German school, interpreted to incipient teachers by a sympathetic director and his experienced colleagues, establishes for these candidates standards whose tangible excellence they recognize ; nothing could adequately replace for them the personal touch of confidential relations. In addition, however, they can turn for guidance to the publication of model lessons in the various sub- jects of the secondary curriculum. In material of 30 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL this kind our educational literature is quite barren,^ while German educational publications for several gen- erations have furnished numerous examples. In the Lehrproben und Lehrgdnge, published at Halle since 1885, there may be found a great variety of model lessons in almost every subject of the secondary field, lessons submitted by acknowledged leaders in the teach- ing field; the Lehrproben constitute a great clearing house of experiences and new devices. The model lesson of the German schools sets forth the general aims of a given topic or series of topics and the pro- cedure in detail ; it varies widely according to its pur- pose. It may be an exposition of new subject matter, or an attempt to work out a series of thoughts induc- tively or deductively, or a comprehensive resum6 of previously acquired information. The scheme of the model lesson, worked out in detail in advance, or recorded stenographically in its progress before the class, is submitted through publication to the judgment of fellow-teachers ; it often furnishes the clew to new lines of procedure, and is a measure both of the teacher's point of view and of the proficiency developed in his class. The study of such model lessons suggests to the ambitious young teacher a comparison with his own 1 This criticism does not apply to the elementary school ; cf. Mc- Murry, The Method of the Recitation, Chapters II, XI, XIV. THE TEACHER 3 1 teaching processes. Let him note how definitely the standard of previous attainment of the class is measured, with what skill an anticipation of new development in the subject matter is aroused, how the activities of the whole class are invoked for the mastery of difficulties, by what varieties of legitimate device attention, conscious and unconscious, is secured, how the clearness of exposi- tion removes obscurity and hesitation, how the conquest of the individual's doubts is accomplished without sacri- fice of class progress. Let him realize how delicate the judgment that calls a halt at a given stage of the lesson for the purposes of a summary, or brings into play the subsidiary appliances of charts, maps, or other illustra- tive material, — how timely the transition from the teacher's leadership and initiative to the assumption of responsibility by the class, when it records the net results of the points gained, — and he will find in such a lesson a wealth of suggestiveness in educational possi- bilities. These model lessons illustrate among other things the tendency to correlate advanced work with the earlier stages of the same work, and to interweave the information gained in other subjects; the teacher's acquaintance with the pupils' progress in a number of subjects enables him to reenforce the results of previous instruction. Thus, the etymological and idiomatic peculiarities in several languages are developed on 32 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL lines of analogy and divergence ; they need not be repeated in wearisome detail if they have already become familiar in the study of one language ; a wise economy promotes efficiency, and one of the most valuable results of these published lessons lies in their avoidance of needless repetition. In much that we teach there is a substantial repetition of what the pupil has already acquired under a different guise; we have been but too apt to magnify rather than minimize the burden of intellectual acquisition. How much might we gain in time and economy of effort if we used correlation more consciously, if each teacher aimed deliberately to present in related subjects the obvious application of the same principle ! To how many pupils is it made clear, for instance, that the principle of the square of the sum of two quantities is identical in arithmetic, algebra, and geometry ? A new arrange- ment, a group of facts viewed through a new facet, enlarges the pupils' knowledge without mere reitera- tion. Again, there is much to be accomplished in gauging the relative value of rule and exception. It is interest- ing to study the changed attitude of the Germans in this respect ; in all their recent school publications, as well as in the official programs of work, they guard against a possible distortion of values in this respect. We often obscure these relations in the minds of our THE TEACHER 33 pupils by unwise, indiscriminating emphasis that some- times makes the exception loom up more striking than the rule which stands for recurrent, prevailing usage. Trusting to the frequency of occurrence of the normal practice which the pupil will meet, we gather little material to establish it; our efforts are concentrated on the departures from the norm. The pupil, equally unfamiliar with both forms of usage, takes his cue from the degree of emphasis expressed for the one or the other form, and is apt to mistake that which is more abundantly illustrated as the standard. It is one thing to establish for practical purposes current practice, an- other to interpret (but only for considerably advanced students) the very interesting survivals which the so- called exceptions often represent. An explanation of our lack of model lessons in secondary school subjects it is not difhcult to find. We have been enthralled by the authority of the textbook ; in consequence there has been little inducement to work out such schemes of independent work. But with the emancipation of our best teachers from the trammels of the textbook, this need will grow ; in mathematics and science it is even now carried out, and it is not difficult to realize its value in the teach- ing of history and geography, and in developing an understanding and appreciation of literature in the vernacular. 34 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL 2. Professional preparation. The professional preparation of the teacher should embrace a number of divergent considerations, on the nature and purposes of education, the growth and re- sponsiveness of the pupil, the serviceability of certain subjects to the attainment of certain ends,^ What he requires as preliminary to successful prosecution of his work is theoretical and practical guidance as to the ' management of the classroom, the conduct of the class exercise, and the stimulation of mental activity in the pupils. This theoretical and practical work will never prove effective if its precepts are not based on actual teaching experience. Both should be in the hands of teachers whose knowledge of these two sides has been developed in actual contact with the school; this re- quires no special argument in the case of the practical work, but on the theoretical side too it may be said that the applicability of doctrine to the needs of the class- room is best measured by an expert who is actually en- gaged in teaching. The abstractions of educational * In England, as in the United States, despite the efforts of many thoughtful teachers, there still prevails a reluctance to recognize the need of professional training. To assert (Report of Birmingham Conference on Training of Second- ary Teachers, London Joum. Education, p. 331. May, 1904) that the traditions of teachers of inspiring personality, a kind of generalized ex- perience, are better than specific theoretical knowledge, embodies a considerable element of conceit. THE TEACHER 35 doctrine, the inferences that may be drawn from the history of past educational efforts, may prove useless or misleading, unless tempered by knowledge of the use that class experience may make of them. Even Germany was formerly committed to our theory that in the case of the secondary teacher knowledge of subject matter alone insured good teaching; it has abandoned this fatal misconception, and has developed within the last twenty years a most successful system of professional preparation. It has pronounced defi- nitely against mere university instruction in educa- tional doctrine and educational history.^ In its £vmnasm I seminaries which are now the recog- nized means of training secondary teachers, the theoreti- cal side of teaching is intrusted to the carefully selected heads of secondary schools. These men, acknowledged as eminent teachers and as successful expositors of educa- tional theory in their practical teaching, guide the young aspirants in the teaching field through such a survey of educational principles as applies to the exigencies of the schoolroom. Their own teaching and that of expert 1 1. P. Voss (a Norwegian). Die p'ddagogische Vorbildungzum hoheren Lehramt. Halle, 1889. Voss was sent by the Norwegian government to study the German system. 2. W. Fries, Die wissenschaftliche und praktische Vorbildung fUr das hohere Lehramt, 2d ed. Munich, 1910. 3. Langlois, La Preparation Professiotielle a Penseignement secondaire. Paris, 1902. 4. Neff , Das p'ddagogische Seminar. Munich, 1908. 36 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL associates specially designated for this work, is recog- nized as an embodiment of the best educational doctrine in actual teaching ; in consequence, the aspirant has oc- casion to witness at once the practical forms which the application of educational doctrine assumes ; the indi- viduality of each director modifies doctrine in its applica- tion to practice, and introduces the element of flexibility into the influence of the gymnasial seminary. A current criticism of the German school system that it is inflexible, that it impairs the individuality of the teacher, is disproved by the history of these seminaries ; students of the official utterances of the Prussian Ministry of In- struction would change their critical attitude, if they followed closely the experiences of the seminaries. It is left entirely with the director of each seminary to shape according to his personal convictions the training of his candidate teachers, and the government specifically acknowledges the value of freedom in experimentation.^ Contact with a number of these seminaries reveals the variety in method of guidance which exists in different seminaries ; the one director proceeds from a philo- sophic discussion of principles to the conditions of practice, the other develops in great detail the require- ments of practice before any attempt at formulation of principles is made. The records of procedure at the 1 Lexis, Die hokeren Lehranstalten^ p. 25. Publ. for the St. Louis Ex- position, 1904. THE TEACHER 37 various seminaries are carefully kept, and are frequently interchanged for purposes of comparison. It may be assumed that gradually a consensus of opinion will unite upon the most effective method of conducting these institutions ; the authorities distinctly disclaim preconceived notions ; they look upon these seminaries as so many laboratories of independent research. The test of excellence will determine eventually the merit of divergent systems of approach, but because of the value of personality in the director and his associates there will never be a levehng to one code of procedure.^ In Dr. J. F. Brown's book. The Training of Teachers for Secondary Schools, there is available in English the most recent exposition of the system of the gymna- sial seminary ; his recorded observations were made in the Franckesche Stiftungen at Halle on the Saale (Prussia), and are typical of the best that German ed- ucational theory has thus far elaborated.^ The group of schools at Halle is unique, because an ancient en- dowment (over two hundred years have elapsed since its inception) affords under one administrative head a number of types of elementary and secondary schools, a gymnasium, a Realgymnasium, a girls' school, an or- 1 A particularly sympathetic study of the various types of German gymnasial seminaries appears in Langlois, I.e. 2 The gymnasial seminary at Halle was initiated in its present form by Frick in 1881 under the old name of Seminarium prseceptorum ; cf. Fries, Die wissenschaftliche Vbrbildung, etc., p. 70. 38 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL phan asylum, an elementary school, a boarding school. The two directors who have successively given it its present prestige. Dr. Otto Frick and Dr. Wilhelm Fries, have elaborated a procedure that has been ac- cepted in the main by the government as the standard of all gymnasial seminaries. It should be stated that with the Halle group the gymnasial seminary at Gies- sen, created about the same time by Dr. Hermann Schiller, served as a prototype of the present day gymnasial seminaries, as they have been developed with governmental approval. Schiller, however, per- mitted and encouraged larger groups of candidate teachers ; his classes often numbered from twenty-five to thirty. This scheme of the larger class has been completely abandoned in favor of the smaller group (of six to eight candidates) because of the more inti- mate personal contact it allows; the close personal direction has been recognized as fundamental to the success of the scheme. The conspicuous advantage of the seminary in the Franckesche Stiftungen over all others rests however in the advantage offered to the candidates to observe constantly in the several types of schools, and to compare the applicability of method to these different schools. It is from Halle in particular that issues the doctrine of homogeneity in principle between elementary and secondary school practice. THE TEACHER 39 As with US in America the German elementary school had elaborated in its practice the intelligent application of the Herbartian Formalstufen ; the secondary schools of Germany had rejected as useless this Herbartian doctrine, until the directors at Halle pointed out its value, with nec- essary modifications, for the higher schools. The motto of the gymnasial seminary has been formulated by one of its great leaders in the phrase : " Suchen und Versuchen " (Reflection and Trial), It represents very happily the aim of all present-day German teaching as well as of its training courses. In view of the acknowledged ex- cellence in substance and in method of the German school system there is a profound suggestiveness to us in this motto. More than ever before are the Ger- man secondary schools engaged in reflection on their processes, and in trial of improved methods. Without sacrificing the unique quality of their previous attain- ments in the classics, in mathematics, in history and modern languages, they are collecting from their own experiences and from observation of efforts elsewhere means of heightening the effectiveness and the econ- omy of their teaching. Their teachers continue to be restless searchers for efficiency from the day they enter upon their career as candidate teachers until they re- tire from service ; they are ready to give of their best insight for the sake of the general cause, and freely adopt what others have produced, if it conduces to 40 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL efficiency in the schools. Such teachers, furthermore, cannot be the slaves to unalterable prescription that some would stamp them ; within the range of sound, scholarly work (and of other work the Germans have no knowledge) there is at least as great variety and flexibility as in our school courses, less mechanical con- formity, because of individual confidence in the power to produce definite results. The distinguishing features of these seminaries are the following : The candidates have attained a homoge- neous equipment in subject matter; that is guaranteed by the successful state examination^ which precedes their enrollment as members of the seminary. A limited number, five to eight, are accepted as candidates in each seminary ; this establishes an intimate personal acquaintance of the director and his staff with each one of them, with their personal peculiarities, their so- cial qualifications, their intellectual and moral attitude. It secures a very close relation between the candidates themselves ; they are accepted as j unior members of the teaching family, are considered the heirs as it were of the present generation of teachers. There is no doubt of their intention to attach themselves perma- nently to the profession ; it is highly honored in the social scale, fairly well remunerated (better than with us), and leads up to a pension for faithful service. 1 Brown, J. F., Lc, p. 194. Fries, W., Lc, pp. 1-11. THE TEACHER 4I They breathe the professional atmosphere in their in- timate contact with the teachers in service ; they are initiated into the problems and the trials of the class- room ; they are able to measure their own first efforts by comparison with the performance of tried and rec- ognized teachers ; they are invited to question these teachers in daily intercourse regarding the details of class instruction, as they witness it The majority of the teaching staff are men of acknowl- edged scholarship, and the candidates realize the possi- bility of combining scholarly aspiration with practical teaching power; they learn to appreciate the value of continued scholarly endeavor amid the routine of daily exposition ; they note that successful adherence to a pre- scribed line of advance does not preclude the maintenance of individuality and originality. They are subjected to incisive criticism, but it is tempered by a kindly attitude, for the leaders of the seminary aim to be helpful guides, pointing out the blemishes that arise from inexperience and helplessness. On the other hand these leaders are in a position to eliminate from the profession those who are manifestly incapable of becoming effective teachers, and here too lies one of their greatest services to the individual concerned as well as to the state. More important than all, these young men learn to appreciate the significance of cooperative effort to the scholar as well as to the teacher ; they see the most accomplished 42 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL and experienced teachers (often the director himself) carry out with skill and enthusiasm the instruction in the rudiments of each subject, enriching the content from the fullness of their own knowledge, and they are in a position to observe the value of teaching experi- ence at the most crucial point in the course, when the elements of a new subject are to be taught. It would be of the greatest service to our American teachers if they could gain from personal observation an insight into the Prussian Gymnasial Seminary. No other feature of the Prussian school system gives promise of greater value ; and it is characteristic of the spirit that permeates them that properly accredited teachers ex- perience little difficulty in securing an invitation to follow their work. French, Norwegian, and English students of secondary education speak with equal en- thusiasm of the sympathetic spirit that prevails in these model training schools.^ The system of exchange teachers between Prussia and the United States, initiated by the Carnegie Foun- dation, furnishes to our most promising teachers oppor- 1 Striking appreciations of the method pursued in the Gymnasial Seminaries in Chabot, Ch., La Pedagogic au Lycee. Paris, 1903. These Notes de Voyage, and especially the concluding chapter, afford illumi- nating contrasts between the German and French methods of training. Langlois, La Preparation professionelle, quotes with approval the favor- able verdict on the Gymnasial Seminaries in Paulsen's Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts, II, 624. THE TEACHER 43 tunities for the study of this system ; and the sacrifice of a year of one's professional career is amply repaid by the insight gained. That this opportunity is not more strenuously sought is, amongst other things, an evidence that the desire for professional advancement is not yet sufficiently keen. In his fourth Annual Report of the Carnegie Foundation, 1909 (pp. 147-156), President Pritchett discusses the study of German teach- ing methods made by the American exchange teachers. Shall we ever succeed in establishing such a system of training for our secondary school teachers as the German gymnasial seminaries afford ? For our guid- ance certain facts should stand out clearly. However full and exact the teacher's information in subject matter, it requires persistent study to adjust it to. the practical needs of the school. The teacher in active service must continue a student — a truism that has been pro- claimed from the housetops. What is the type of study that we ought to demand of him ? We know that the self-respecting teacher will never face his class without due preparation for the task of the day ; this obligation is quite generally recognized, but does this conception of duty meet the ideal demands of the teaching pro- fession .'' The majority of teachers undertake this ob- ligation in a literal and mechanical sense ; they prepare for the coming lesson because without such preparation their knowledge of the topics might prove inadequate. 44 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL unsound ; they rehearse the allotted topics to make themselves sure of accuracy of statement, correctness in perspective. This is not what we would regard as preparation ; a teacher who must rehearse the assigned lesson to guard against betraying in the eyes of his pupils his ignorance of the subject matter is on a low plane of intellectual effort. The assumption of such a necessity is indeed an absurdity. And yet how many teachers are so uncertain even in fields in which they profess to specialize that they themselves con the as- signed lessons to make sure of their own statements, perform the allotted examples to avoid lapses into error, etc. Preparation of this kind is a confession of inability; to the teacher the performance of these tasks should be the veritable a b c oi his art. It is preparation in the broader sense that we demand, the introduction of collateral material, the opening up of new vistas by which he should strive to illuminate the routine recitation. It is a familiar experience that those who have de- voted much thought, constant effort, after graduation to the development of their teaching powers are apt to be most diffident of success. Not hy teaching do we learn, but in teaching we learn ; docendo discimiis is but too often falsely applied ; not that teaching makes self- instruction, self-improvement, unnecessary, on the con- trary in teaching we feel our own weaknesses, and should feel prompted to go on ever supplementing, re- THE TEACHER 45 adjusting our information. The mature teacher who has never ceased to enlarge his own sphere of knowl- edge marvels that he ever dared to teach with the lim- ited outfit of his early preparation, and it is he who realizes how much better a teacher each year of future study will make him. But it is only personal effort that will make him conscious of this ever widening vista of attainable information. He only will never relax in generous interest in a subject, says a recent writer, who constantly feels a growth in his own conception of the subject. It is a curious fact that in many quarters there pre- vails with us a kind of suspicion against a teacher who scans the newest publications for additional light on the subjects he teaches ; it is in all seriousness deemed an element of danger in his teaching, this unrest because of the new avenues into which his studies may lead him ; it is feared, forsooth, that such a teacher may too easily abandon established lines of presentation in favor of new views. From a teacher of genuinely inquiring spirit no such danger need be apprehended ; the very spirit that reacts against mechanical repetition prompts him to distinguish between that which is eternally valu- able and that which is of ephemeral interest. The young teacher may, for a season, miscalculate the pro- portion of things, and accentuate unduly to his pupils what to him seems of the greatest moment, but he will 46 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL soon realize that he can present, year after year, the es- sentials of his subject with absolute accuracy, and yet, without shifting the proper balance of things important and unimportant, keep his own intellectual interests in view. As long as the teacher remains a student, an in- quirer, he will resist the dullness of the commonplace; but unfortunately in too many instances the only ad- vance striven for is in the direction of routine attain- ment, of skill in the manipulations of the art of teach- ing. Temporarily this is of course a clear gain, but the skill which is not constantly illuminated and permeated by new insight, becomes a deadly cleverness which manipulates pupils for results and tabulates their at- tainments by finely-graduated percentages. For the individual teacher it is vital to counteract the deadening effect of the inevitable repetition that succes- sive years of teaching the same subject require; he realizes that the essentials of the subject must be in- sisted upon with absolute accuracy, but if his private reading has revealed new aspects of the subject, its familiar details will be enUvened for him, and conse- quently for his pupils, by the new inspiration. There are those who dread the influence of desultoriness from such new acquisition ; they argue that it may defeat systematic work. Not so ; exuberance is eas- ily checked; sterility is the deadly sin. The good THE TEACHER 47 teacher is always the intellectually live teacher. A case in point is our striking improvement in mathe- matical teaching within recent years ; the impulse due to John Perry's articles,^ and to the description of Eu- ropean methods of mathematical teaching in the books of Young and Smith,^ has permanently affected the thought of our best mathematical teachers; individu- ally and in conferences there has been a recasting of teaching processes that is reflected in such journals as School Science and Mathematics, in activities of larger teaching bodies, as in the Report of the New Eng- land Association of Mathematical Teachers on Es- sential Propositions of Geometry, and in the newest mathematical textbooks. Similarly the teaching in modern languages is on the eve of a marked transformation, due to the growing acquaintance of the most progressive teachers, through personal observation and zealous study of the literature, with the Direct Method that has conquered its way to recognition all over Europe. In this particular case our textbook authors are still lagging ; but few suc- cessful efforts to embody the new processes have been published with us ; the thoughtful teachers are creating 1 Perry, John, The Teaching of Mathematics. London, 1902. 2 Young, J. W. A., The Teaching of Mathematics in the Elementary and Secondary Schools, especially chaps. VI and X. Longmans, 1907. Smith, David Eugene, The Teaching of Elementary Mathematics. Mac- miUan, 1902. 48 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL the demand, and meanwhile use, under many disadvan- tages, the material published abroad and in foreign tongues. So, too, in the teaching of science and of the classics, a limited number of teachers are responsible for a prop- aganda that will result in a readjustment both of meth- ods of instruction and of the aims of teaching these subjects. Under such influences it is to be hoped that those who are called upon to select teachers will meet less frequently, and accept still less frequently, the college graduate who has nothing more to learn, who feels con- tent with the higher education he has attained. It is be- coming daily more clear how infinitely complex is this apparently simple task of conveying information, of stimulating interest and developing mental and moral habits. A teacher who is completely satisfied with him- self has forfeited his usefulness ; a school prospers with the intellectual and professional growth of its individual teachers. With all his vagaries, the teacher who has originative power is a tower of strength in the community. For genuine stimulation of intellectual growth (in subject matter rather than in pedagogic skill) the summer schools of our universities afford an opportu- nity that ambitious teachers gladly avail themselves of ; to many of them these schools have been the true starting point for individual work. The earnestness of THE TEACHER 49 purpose, the maturity of the students, the clearer esti- mate of values make these brief and comparatively- sketchy courses a basis for further progress ; " learning for learning's sake " marks the general tone of the sum- mer school. Even misdirected energy is preferable to apathy, for it challenges sane energy. Valuable, however, as is the growth in knowledge of subject matter, its application to teaching demands definite theoretic instruction, definitely directed practice. The Committee of Fifteen ^ repudiate the idea of a suc- cess attainable by an intuitive feeling for what is cor- rect, "the most treacherous of all standards." There have accumulated gradually from close ob- servation and psychological deductions a certain num- ber of guiding principles that are available for every young teacher; to ignore these is to forfeit the value of previous experiences ; to apply them does not call for the sacrifice of a teacher's individuality. It is wholesome and not cramping to the mind of a young teacher, if he gives himself and his associates or supe- riors an exact account of what he aims at in his teach- ing, and why he follows out a certain procedure. Natural ability is stimulated, not hindered, by a wise and purposeful control ; the great thinkers of all ages agree that rational discipline improves native power. 1 Report of Committee of Fifteen, pp. 27-39, published for the N. E. A. by the American Book Company, 1895. £ 50 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL It is, for instance, a matter of common acceptance that the attention of a class must be secured at the outset, if successful work is to be done ; that the teacher's visual and auditory senses are involved in the highest degree to insure attention, to prevent misstatements and inac- curacies from leaving their impress on the young minds (a critical visitor is often amazed at the amount of mis- information that some teachers will allow to pass un- noticed) ; it is likewise an accepted doctrine that every lesson should follow a distmct plan, actually outlined on paper, or else mentally organized, from the terminus a quo to the terminus ad quern ; that only thus is it pos- sible to accentuate the essentials and subordinate the incidentals, a scheme quite as important for the pupil as for the instructor ; that a rate of advance must be de- termined at the outset, conditioned in part by the nature of the subject and the object of the lesson, in part by the mental status of the pupils. The achievements of a self-possessed, enthusiastic teacher compare with the vacillating processes of a novice like the steady pace of a well-trained horse with the jerky plunges of an un- broken colt. The effect on the pupils is always in evi- dence ; the conscious direction and impulse of an expert will in the shortest time develop activity, interest, en- ergy, even from sluggish pupils ; the erratic teacher will exhaust the vitaUty and attention even of the best pupils. THE TEACHER 5 1 The Art of Teaching will of necessity involve two spheres of preliminary activity — the sphere of observa- tion and that of practice teaching. Criticism must accompany both phases, differentiated according to the circumstances. The student teacher, as he observes, exercises his own critical faculty ; he notes in the class- room he is visiting the attitude of both teacher and pupils, acquires for himself a standard of proper bear- ing, interprets the attitude of the teacher, determines, if he can, the causes of abnormal conditions. They may be due to peculiar methods of the teacher or to a peculiar corporate school-attitude which he must like- wise try to fathom. Here comparison of many classes, of several schools, is necessary, observation of the same class under various teachers. Voice, manner of the teacher, temperamental details, conditions of physical comfort or discomfort in the pupils, all these factors are important. He will try to determine from the routine conduct of the lesson, of several lessons, the presence of an actual method : Is there a method ? Is it inflexible ? How does this express itself in the interest and respon- siveness of the pupil .'' Or is it flexible ? Does this flex- ibility approach the limit of desultoriness .■• Has the teacher the power to correlate his facts and to convey the impression of a design maintained throughout .-' Does the class exercise result in a distinct and appreciable advance in information or method ? What relation does 52 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL the conscious development of method bear to the presen- tation of subject matter ? This is a question of particu- lar significance and particular danger in a school that is intended to be a school of observation, for method is, after all, subordinate to that which is to be presented methodically. Is a moderate advance along the infor- mational side warranted by the significant attainment of a point in method ? (In mathematics a slow advance may really signify a marked gain in insight.) The value of such observations is enhanced for the student teacher if he can obtain from the teacher whose work he has been watching, sympathetic answers in corrobora- tion or correction of his impressions. It is a difhcult question to decide, and it has been decided in various ways, whether theoretic discussions of educational methods with the teacher candidate had better precede or follow the observational and the prac- tice work of the candidate. A novice should not, I believe, undertake observation and practice without a previous acquaintance with the fundamentals of peda- gogy ; we do not want blind groping at method. But, on the other hand, it may be set down as an axiom that the true meaning of theory reveals itself only in the light of actual experimentation ; of infinitely greater value is the renewed consideration of principles, when the test of experience supervenes. The personal equation in this case is the supreme modifying influence for the THE TEACHER 53 young teacher ; not what is the sound method of handling the subject matter, but what can I, the teacher, with the pupils intrusted to me (considering my and their personal equation), make the most effective method ? Educational principles cannot be applied like mathe- matical formulas, like immutable laws. The most valuable period of a teacher's training, then, is in the year of probation and the first years of actual ex- perience, when, studying his handbooks of theory, he measures their recommendations by the standards he has gathered in actual practice. Not every teacher, not even every good teacher, affords at all times favorable oppor- tunity for such observation as has been here described ; there are many, the charm of whose teaching is only revealed when they are perfectly at their ease ; they are disturbed by the presence of a number of observers. Such idiosyncrasies must be borne in mind when candi- dates undertake to visit in large bodies a single class- room ; it is questionable whether one then sees even the best teachers at their best, and it is equally doubtful whether under such circumstances we get the normal class attitude ; we must visit the same teacher, the same class, frequently, until the novelty of our presence has worn off with teacher and pupils. Because of these very obvious difficulties, it follows that in a school intended to serve as a model for obser- vation, none but teachers of the very highest order, both 54 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL in scholastic attainments and in didactic efficiency, should be permitted ; none of the weaknesses just men- tioned should flagrantly obtrude themselves. Teachers with crude methods, themselves uncertain in their methods, should never be permitted in such training schools as regular class teachers; if they are to be observed as models, they must not illustrate to the student teacher how not to do it. Criticism of what has been observed is the other half of the observational scheme. Here particularly the sound mind will assert itself ; it is easier to criticize than to interpret action ; we must needs project ourselves into the conditions under which we see the teacher operate, and then weigh and estimate. We must not lose sight of the fact that the prospec- tive teacher in his visits to various classes has two ob- jects in view, each of which involves a different kind of observation. It is to be assumed that every candidate plans to teach certain subjects ; in the technique of these he is for a multitude of reasons vitally interested. All the subjects of the curriculum, however, afford in- sight into the principles of those who teach them ; he is therefore also ready to appropriate what these other sub- jects may convey to him in suggestion and actual pre- cept. His attitude toward observation of his special subjects will, if he is wise, differ very markedly from his outlook upon the broader field. Economy of effort THE TEACHER 55 dictates that when he watches the teaching in his own sphere of activity, he will devote but a short time to a consideration of the general aims of the subject. With the main point of view clearly fixed in his mind, his later experience will constantly bring this question afresh before him. He will move toward the specific problems as he sees them, the method or methods of developing the subject, of securing interest and efficiency in the pupils, the aids to instruction employed, their particular value for the purpose in hand. The general principles that underlie the teaching in other subjects he will gather from observation on more sweeping lines. This matter of economy of effort in observation is not easily attained by the beginner, but he must control his energies ; even the experienced teacher is in danger of wasting his time when he inspects for his own enlightenment systems of education with which he is unfamiliar. To emerge from observation into practice teaching is to the novice a critical experience of the first order. I do not apply the words practice teaching to the crude at- tempts in class instruction which are based on no pre- ceding reflection, such work as a young college graduate might do who without guidance or deliberate pedagogic preparation believes that by some mysterious dispensa- tion he will issue unscathed from the ordeal ; I refer rather to the teacher who from prolonged observation 56 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL and preparation for the special duty comes to the task with a definite purpose, a definite scheme. All the familiarity with the subject matter that he can muster must be available ; he must have removed by careful reflection on his theme all reasonable chances of dis- comfiture on the informational path, so that his mind may operate freely in the one direction which is entirely new and personal, however frequently he may have seen others teach. His personal equation enters for the first time into the calculation, and however closely he may have studied voice, manner, bearing of others, his own individuality which, despite all efforts at imitation, pervades all that he does, and is so recognized by the pupils, becomes a potent factor in the trial. It need not be a final factor, for many a young teacher's first appearance before a class shows obvious shortcomings that admit of remedy. The main point will be that criticism of a broad, constructive type is afforded him, criticism that is capable of grasping the total value of a performance in its light and shade, that will not indulge in hair- splitting; it is this kind of work that inspires with strength and confidence, that uplifts the hearts of the weak, and yet indicates unerringly the nature of the weakness. There should be if possible both positive and negative criticism of the candidate's performance; an absolute condemnation of his performance is as undesir- THE TEACHER 57 able as undiscriminating praise; nothing is absolutely bad, nothing absolutely perfect. But beyond this, there should always be sought, either by the associates or by the teacher in authority, some formulation of a broader conception that carries the exercise beyond its concrete limitations ; from the exercise as a whole, or from some one of its phases, it should be possible to establish re- lation with some general educational problem that has evoked a divergence of opinion, or that deserves more detailed consideration. ^ Whatever we can do to arouse, aside from the technique of our profession, a vivid interest in the philosophic aspects of our work, is a stimulus to the young teacher's further inquiries. Let the practice teaching be carried on genuinely, i.e. let the pupils correspond in age and mental advance- ment to those the teacher will probably have to deal with. It does not seem at all profitable to devise what might be called an artificial class for the practice teach- ing. A seminary class of one's associates does not af- ford a genuine opportunity for the test of a teacher's power ; it does not present the mental status of the real pupil. It may injure the young teacher in various ways ; he is not dealing with representative average 1 The business of teacher (and physician alike), says Findlay, Prin- ciples of Class Teaching, p. 263, Macmillan, 1902, is to search for com- mon principles, springing out of, and again reflecting upon, daily practice. 58 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL pupils ; they would follow the bent of his questions too promptly, so that he is not forced to the full exercise of his teaching ingenuity. Again, such a mature body of colleagues will not furnish the naive surprises that come from irresponsive or undeveloped minds, and that are inseparable from genuine teaching. It is a matter of common observation, here and abroad, how rapidly under judicious and sympathetic criticism the most obvious errors of method disappear in young teachers ; there are few who are not appre- ciably benefited by an experienced guide. And these initial difficulties once overcome, there is given leeway for the development of the personal factor in the teacher. FlexibiHty in teaching, the capacity to im- part light and shade to the work, to know when the pace can afford to be accelerated, when it must be re- tarded, when the outlines, the sharp definition, of the work must be maintained at all hazards, when it is to be accentuated, when, on the other hand, a digression is a wholesome reenforcement of a set plan, when the logical array of a succession of facts will summarize what has been deftly developed in patient detail work — those are the qualities in which the growth of the teacher becomes manifest. And such growth will is- sue, not so much from length of service, as it will from independent work on his part, due to his own constant study. THE TEACHER 59 The opinion is gaining wider acceptance that many of the issues which the writers on educational subjects have been treating dogmatically, in abstract generaliza- tions as it were, have a personal implication and must be regarded from this point of view rather than from theoretical considerations. Take for instance the im- portant subject of Class Management To formulate principles which shall secure the desired ends is idle, unless the teacher's personality is capable of translating them into practice ; there is no escape from the cumu- lative responsibility centering in and about the teacher. His mental,, physical, and moral qualities determine suc- cess or failure ; whatever the constitution of the class, whatever the social atmosphere in which his educational task lies, a measure of successful performance can al- ways be reached, if he is intellectually resourceful, nor- mally balanced, free from pedantry, and inspiring. Himself an exemplar of abounding energy and vi- tality, his bearing and his view of life should inspire confidence and invite to imitation of his conduct. Of his mental equipment we have already spoken. It is no disparagement of the value of the informa- tional outfit that the teacher brings to his task to at- tribute an equal importance to the physical and the moral side of the teacher's equipment. Teaching is always an arduous task, in its preliminaries of prepa- ration, its actual conduct in the class, and its subsequent 6o THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL duties. Physical frailty is a serious handicap to suc- cess ; an abounding vitality that carries with it the evidence of physical well-being and draws upon a large reserve of unexpended energy, appeals wonderfully to vigorous, alert adolescents. Good health, a good consti- tution, sound lungs, with their concomitant, a normally resonant voice, are priceless assets of the teacher. The teacher who directly or indirectly craves by his bearing the indulgence of his class, has forfeited no slight advantage. The teacher in Germany, male or female, stands, moves freely before the class in teaching, teaches twenty to twenty-four hours per week, and continues in this prac- tice through thirty years without apparent physical im- pairment. So unusual is the sight of a seated teacher, that an apology is offered, e.g. recent recovery from severe illness, for the unusual phenomenon (in sixty-five classes visited during one stay in Germany I saw but one teacher seated before his class). The American teacher, male and female, usually sits, sits continu- ously, claims that there is something reposeful, quiet- ing, in the habitual posture at the desk ; do we lose sight of the fact that the sedentary attitude de rigeur, whether of pupil or of teacher, is not conducive to mental alertness .'' The German teacher has no fear of rapid, energetic movement in the classroom ; and his pupils move with considerable alacrity to and from the blackboard, without the slightest impairment of class THE TEACHER 6 1 discipline ; life, bustle, mobility, make the classroom more human, less abnormal. The teacher who moves freely will of necessity liberate himself from the shack- les of the textbook, or, shall we say because of his independence of the textbook he feels himself freer in his movements, able to survey the activities of his class from various points of vantage ? Without being vola- tile or restless, he is far more competent to feel the pulse of the entire class, to gauge the advisability of retardation or acceleration of pace, to modulate with discretion between the colloquial tone in teaching and the more formal utterance, to introduce relevant, col- lateral information. Physical impact of individual upon individual becomes an advantageous element of class discipline ; and many of the disabilities of imperfect eyesight, of defective hearing that will develop in teachers as in other mortals are mitigated. It is ob- vious that the physical alertness of the teacher affects materially many questions of class discipline. How often are we teachers unknowingly the promoters of disciplinary infractions, when our own activity would constitute the ounce of prevention ! How often could we by the force that inheres in unobtrusive example affect the bearing of our pupils, if we would but remem- ber that in the adolescent stage both unconscious and conscious imitation are powerful factors in develop- ment ! Well-modulated utterance, distinct enunciation. 62 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL definiteness in the information we impart should make their impression, and stimulate to similar effort. The kind of discipline that these qualities insure operates by indirect means, by agencies that the pupils do not recognize as disciplinary ; their effectiveness has long since been recognized in our elementary schools, where they have largely replaced restrictive measures of dis- cipline. There is in reason nothing to condone the lais- sez-aller policy in matters of indirect discipline which has taken possession of many of our secondary schools. Are habits of good training, which manifest themselves in distinct utterance, in neatness of copy books, of note- books, of mathematical exercises, less desirable in the advanced stage than in the elementary school, less val- uable for effective service in life ? It would almost seem that we have come to include the demand for precision and order among the uncongenial tasks on which the ado- lescent is privileged to exercise the freedom of election. The havoc that has been wrought by the outcry against the uncongenial task cannot be measured. We are approaching dangerously at times the limit when every task is considered uncongenial ; it is fair to say that in every study, in every performance of a definite duty there are broad stretches that do not appear attrac- tive ; shall we permit their elimination because the un- trained mind of the pupil fails to recognize their ultimate value ? It is but a natural development of this concession THE TEACHER 63 to find our teachers, too, clamoring to be assigned to none but congenial tasks ; it is because of this feeling that the ill-trained teacher spurns the beginnings of a study and prefers the assignment to higher classes, in which he is foredoomed to ill success, because he has never presented the rudiments properly. It is mortifying to have our great educational bodies commit themselves to false doctrine, the weakness of which the educated layman can puncture. The teacher whose whole attitude before his class is virile, creates in his pupils recognition of his ability to control, and no sensible teacher will deem it wise to forego his central position of control ; abdication of authority, if actually carried out, is fatal to school organization. There is distinct merit in various schemes of so-called self-government of the student body, in so far as they arouse to a keener sense of responsibility the immature tendencies of the pupils. As a training to self-respect, to respectful consideration of the rights of others, to appreciation above all else of the signifi- cance of duty, the creation of student councils has much to commend it. Because their appeal to their fellow students is based on the relation of peer to peer, their cooperation with the school administration will under wise guidance obviate the constant display of authority.^ 1 Burstall, English High Schools for Girls, p. 148. Longmans & Co., 1907. 64 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Guidance, however, there must be ; and the principal who does not reserve to himself the decisive voice in great questions of school policy is recreant to his trust. One of our most successful high school principals in New York City assigns many details of school disci- pline, school organizations, arrangement and character of the public exercises of the school, to committees of the pupils, cultivates in them the power of efficient per- formance, eliminates apparently himself and his teachers from constant and open leadership, — but remains all the more the constantly controlling, inspiring influence. We are imposing an unrighteous strain upon these young people, if they cannot turn in their dilemmas to the counsels of experience for guidance. Once more there applies what cannot be too strongly emphasized — training to judgment is the great function of the secondary school ; that involves careful, competent direction. Judgment, discretion, are matters of gradual acquisition, and premature responsibilities often mean a wreck of promising abilities. The qualifications of the teacher manifest themselves as potently in his attitude toward these questions as in the construction of school programs and curricula. Firmness and consistency, tem- pered by kindliness and sympathy, the management of a secondary school organization needs. More even than the elementary school pupil, the adolescent must^Be awak- ened to the conviction that his interests must coalesce with THE TEACHER 65 those of others, but not dominate them ; the school, to function properly, cannot yield to individualism running riot. Of the virile teacher, however, and it is he only who is equal to the great responsibilities of his task, it may fairly be demanded that he employ methods of discipline appropriate to the nascent maturity of his charges. Our American system differs at this point very dis- tinctly, and in very wholesome fashion, from systems abroad ; we lay stress on positive rather than negative methods of discipline. Our efforts are constantly direct- ed to make our school training an encouragement to good habits ; the positive, constructive side of our disciplinary problem is in the foreground. No more striking illustra- tion of this divergence in spirit between our educational doctrine and that of Germany exists than is afforded in the encyclopedic summaries of educational questions. Encyclopedias of education, like Rein^ and Loos,^ abound in exhaustive discussions of the delinquencies of school children ; they are analyzed, traced to their origins, set forth in their various manifestations ; the restrictive and corrective processes desirable to combat them, the methods and forms of punishment are inves- tigated. Their ulterior purpose is undoubtedly identical 1 Rein, W., Encyklopaiisckes Handbttch der Padagogik, 2d ed., 10 vols. Langensalza, 1904. * Loos, Jos., Encyklop'ddisches Handbuch der Ej-ziehu7igsku7tde, 2 vols. Vienna, 1906-1908. 66 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL with ours, to substitute for perverse and objectionable tendencies those that lead through self-control and grow- ing self-respect to ready acceptance of expert guidance, to methodical and accurate performance. Our method of approach is more in sympathy with the tendency to a gen- erous uplift, and we would not, even if we could, abandon it. We regard it as the teacher's privilege, seeing that he is the more mature, the more experienced person, to fore- stall delinquency, insubordination, rather than sit in judg- ment when wrongdoing becomes apparent. An opti- mistic attitude toward the young it is the duty' of the teacher to cultivate ; the American school teacher has fortunately abandoned the Rhadamanthine frame of mind. Firmness in control, the maintenance of dignity and authority must not be sacrificed, but it is well to act on the belief that violations of school discipline are in the main due to carelessness, to the irresponsibility of youth. In this respect the saving grace of humor is one of the teacher's most precious assets ; more than any other quality it marks the possession of a broadly humane spirit ; it irradiates the seriousness of the class exercise.^ If we believe in the efficacy of education as a leaven of good breeding, of gentle manners, and appreciate the value of habit, we as teachers must substantiate our 1 Colvin, Stephen S., " The Educational Value of Humor," Pedagogical Seminary, XIV, pp. 517-524. THE TEACHER 67 belief by the practice of all the arts that will make the schoolroom the center of decorous, animated coopera- tion in the object for which we strive. Our pupils appreciate sympathy that is not maudlin, affection that does not degenerate into favoritism, confidence that calls forth the very best efforts to which the pupil can rise ; they realize the worth of the teacher's conscientious endeavor to attune his requirements to individual peculi- arities. Intuitively they recognize the meaning of the teacher's discriminating judgments ; they know when these judgments are the outcome of a painstaking study of individuality in certain pupils,^ and they distinguish them from unwise partisanship. The aim of discipUne should be to establish class con- ditions that will secure full value from good methods of instruction. That is a superficial discipline whose char- acteristics are supposed to be achieved when the ex- ternal evidences of order and attention are established, when the physical attitude of pupils seems to indicate concentration on the duty of the hour. But we all know how delusive is this apparent attention ; below this semblance of correct bearing may lurk any amount of mental absenteeism, and the temptation to feign at- tention whilst the mind goes a-wandering, seems to 1 An interesting German study of pupil individuality is contained in Brinkmann, E., Uber Individualitatsbilder {Sckulercharakteristiken). Gotha, 1892. 68 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL thrive on this acceptance of the outward signs of con- formity. If teachers would but reaHze that they are largely responsible by their very insistence on these ex- ternals for the habit of divided attention which is the most serious drawback in the classroom. John Dewey says : ^ — " I do not see how any one at all familiar with the great mass of existing school work can deny that the greater part of the pupils are gradually forming habits of divided attention. If the teacher is skillful and wide- awake, if she is what is termed a good disciplinarian, the child will indeed learn to keep his senses intent in certain ways, but he will also learn to direct the fruitful imagery, which constitutes the value of what is before his senses, in totally other directions. It would not be wholly palatable to have to face the actual psychologi- cal condition of the majority of the pupils that leave our schools. We should find this division of attention and the resulting disintegration so great that we might cease teaching in sheer disgust. None the less, it is well for us to recognize that this state of thing exists, and that it is the inevitable outcome of those conditions which require the simulation of attention without re- quiring its essence." The old-time indications of the rigid position of every 1 Dewey, John, " Interest in Relation to Training the Will," Second Herhart Yearbook, 1895, pp. 9-11. THE TEACHER 69 class member, of rhythmic uniformity in response, do not constitute the soul of attention. Genuine discipline may be less formal, less effective externally, but it strives for the substance, rather than the outward mani- festation. It cannot be indifferent to the necessity of correct bearing, of prompt responsiveness, of specific attention to duty ; it secures habits of precision, be- cause it realizes their value, by superior generalship, not by official proclamation ; but it regards all of these as the substructure merely, to be built upon, to be de- pended upon. The interest aroused by the teacher in his subject, partly by his own manner and his person- ality, partly by the disclosure of its manifold relation- ships, its connotation, will do away with many of the ills of formal discipline. Violations of discipline, largely due to lack of interest in the teacher and in his subject, become less frequent, less attractive to a class whose native desire to know and to do, the teacher has the art to captivate for the legitimate ends of concerted and individual effort. The demands upon the teacher as initiator of new processes of thought are vastly more absorbing than under the older methods of discipline, but he finds compensation in the genuineness of re- sponse. The virility of the teacher, however, as has already been indicated in the preceding pages, implies some- thing more than physical energy — it cannot be sep- 70 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL arated from the possession of certain moral qualifica- tions through which educational influence is palpably exerted. The maturing boy and girl, striving to fill acceptably a place in the social organism, are prone to pattern their behavior, their performance, on models that their daily contact brings prominently before them. The types of conduct that the elders of their family circle, their parents or their kindred, reveal, provide ex- amples for imitation and emulation ; but the model is drawn from a narrow sphere, one that to the child stands apart from the great outside world. What are the standards of this outside world whose measure it means to take ? It may duplicate the performance of its peers, but they like itself have not met the brunt of actual life. The teacher is, of the adults outside of the family, the one in whom it has occasion to observe most con- tinuously the relation of ideals to performance ; his specific mission, as the pupil sees it, is the advancement of the latter's capacities. How in the performance of this specific task does he reveal himself ? Is he simply a purveyor of information, or does he represent in him- self the flowering of intelligence into character ? He tells his pupils of ideals, of the value of knowledge, of the service of the well-informed man to a society that needs his aid ; by precept and illustration he impresses upon them the part that self-control, unselfishness, loy- alty, gentle manners, energy, and initiative play in the THE TEACHER 7 1 record of human performance. Does he exemplify in himself what he predicates as the desirable attainment ? Is he self-contained, true, just, persistent, cheerful in the performance of his duty ? Does he actually culti- vate ideals, is he self-sacrificing, loyal to his calling ? Is he at once firm and humane in regard to his own duties, and appreciative of sincere endeavor ? ^ The emphasis with which the teacher presents his ideals of conduct and attainment invite the application by the pupil of severe criteria of judgment; what the teacher so convincingly discusses must have developed convic- tion in him. And so, more than by what he preaches, the secondary teacher influences by what he does, by what he is. Without the power of analyzing the reasons of their own judgments, our pupils apply unconsciously, but passionately, standards of their own to our perform- ances. Does our manner in the classroom, our habit of speech correspond to the ideal to which we try to stimulate them .-' We inculcate tactfulness in the relations of life ; do our own lives evidence generous deference, loyalty, innate courtesy toward our colleagues and our superiors ? The careless word, the flippant comment, the querulous sigh are significant and danger- ous revelations of the teacher's inner self to his pupils. 1 Benson, Arthur C, The Upton Letters, pp. 32, 34, 42, 52. Putnam, 1906. 72 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Our ideals may not be fully understood by youth, our frailties, however, they easily fathom. It follows that glaring discrepancies between the teacher's utterances on morals and conduct ex cathedra, and his incidental revelation of self are most unfortunate in their influ- ence on the adolescent; coming at a time when the young soul is particularly susceptible and is ready to pat- tern itself upon lives, harmonious in their consistency, the influence of the secondary teacher may transcend in its consequences all other external forces. The gravity of the situation is indeed critical, and affects powerfully a question that is at the present day constantly dis- cussed — that of moral instruction versus moral training. We are all agreed as to the desirability of morally influencing our young people in and through the school; it is freely admitted that the home which should be by its nature the fountainhead of moral training, is increasingly inclined to delegate to the school a duty which it often finds itself incapable of performing, whether from lack of time (!), of inchna- tion, or of sufficient intelligence. What shall the school do in the face of this added responsibility .? It ought to intrust work of this most delicate nature, that goes more than aught else to the making of the perfect man or woman, to none but those who have given proof of their appropriateness for the task. But how are we to determine such fitness } We know how to test after a THE TEACHER 73 fashion capacity to convey the subject matter of geog- raphy, algebra, Latin, to young minds ; but what is the subject matter involved in moral teaching, and how prove our ability to teach it ? Will competitive exami- nation-tests answer ? Are there elementary and ad- vanced courses of moral instruction, for some of which our teachers are qualified, and not for others ? Does even a high personal moral standard insure a judicious inculcation of the same standard in others ? Is it, in a word, wise to make moral instruction (ethical instruc- tion is often used as a designation to differentiate it from religious instruction) a specific subject of the curriculum, to be developed by chapter and paragraph, with specially prepared text, commentary, and illustra- tion ? There is a well-founded reluctance among the best educators against moral instruction as a subject in the curriculum. The delicacy of the problem, the dan- ger of vulgarizing things moral by elaborate processes of dissection and analysis into their component parts, of a possibly mechanical acceptance of nice distinctions, of a lip service by teachers whose souls are not in true sympathy with the course, these and similar consid- erations are urged against formal moral instruction. France furnishes a notable example of the fatuity of such a discipline. It has banished religious instruction from its national schools, and, feeling the need of an official substitute, has introduced a code of officially 74 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL prepared lessons, instruction in which it is compulsory upon the teachers to give, upon the pupils to receive. Remembering that it is enjoined upon a generation of teachers, many of whom are by conviction hostile to it, we can well imagine what degree of sincerity charac- terizes its presentation. An official pronouncement on the moral code, with official elaboration of a text at- tached to specifically prepared illustrative material, and culminating in prescribed proverbs or verse groups to clinch the general exposition — this it is according to French ideas to develop moral standards in the young. The official statement of the Minister of Public Instruc- tion prescribes that the course of Practical Ethics is to consist of " systematic readings, recitations, and talks planned to strengthen sentiment favorable to moral de- velopment and to counteract opposite tendencies." ^ M. Croiset's words below express distinctly what the school can undertake as moral training in contrast to moral instruction. Moral training of this kind has never been wholly absent from the school ; from the days of Plato on, in the teachings of the great school- masters of the Renaissance and the Reformation, in the motives that impelled the Prussian schools 1 Cf. Farrington, French Secondary Schools, pp. 298-300, and espe- cially the quotation from Croiset, Dean of the Sorbonne, that "the best lesson is perhaps that which occupies no fixed time in the school program, but which comes forth spontaneously, naively, from the very personality of the teacher and from all his words." THE TEACHER 75 to develop both intellectual culture and the spiritual gifts of youth " rousing and nourishing every noble principle of life," everywhere there is a recognition of the twofold mission of the teacher; he shapes his pupils by what he knows, by what he is. Stronger than any specific moral deductions, than any rules of conduct drawn from the subject matter of the classroom, from the contingencies of the school organism, there are at work the influences that emanate from the teacher's bearing, from his unconscious revelation of self in speech and action. It is not desirable to gird oneself for the inculcation of moral ideals at certain hours and in certain subjects ; the opportunities for ethical judg- ments, for the establishment of a strong moral influence are no more obvious in connection with the teaching of literature and history than with science and mathe- matics; they may issue from the experiences of the laboratory and the shop, the gymnasium and the school kitchen. The value of such opportunities lies in the freedom with which they are introduced ; the very unexpectedness of the connection established is apt to fix the impression. Let pupils suspect that the teacher regards history as the medium to which he can most readily attach moral reflections, and they will develop a justifiable distaste for the subject, justifiable because the pupils realize that the ostensible pursuit of the subject subserves another and remoter end. 76 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Truth, honesty, self-control, obedience to a higher law, unselfishness, a sense of duty, these and whatever other qualities reflect the spirit of morality are as powerfully im- pressed by the force of example, by the implicit procedure in the corporate life of the school, which the thoughtful teacher constantly molds, as by explicit moral disquisi- tion ; the spontaneous character of the moral deduction, its incidental appropriateness, gives it its strength. And some of the most lasting impressions, we may be sure, are conveyed when we desist from the tempting occasion for moral inferences, and allow a given impulse to work itself out unaided in the consciousness of the pupil ; is it not what our great literary artists are con- stantly doing ? Is it not the highest type of moral teaching when they invite the reader to penetrate through the outer garb of incident and narrative to the profounder moral truth that underlies, a truth that they refrain from formulating in so many words ? There is something grossly repellant to me in the very wording of the argument for direct moral instruction that it is the business of the moral instructor in the public school to deliver to his pupils the subject matter of morality!^ 1 1. Myers, " Moral Training in the School," Pedagogical Seminary, XIII, pp. 409-460. 2. Sadler, Sir Michael, Moral Instruction afid T7-ai?iing in Schools^ 2 vols. Longmans. 3. Moral Trainingin the Public Schools, five California prize essays ; especially the essay of Mr. Rugh, p. 8 et passim. Ginn & Co., 1907. THE TEACHER 77 What a responsibility, what a danger ! The path of safety, of wisdom, and of modesty on the part of the teacher is distinctly outlined in a series of notable utterances to which attention is here called at some length because of the momentousness of the subject. In his " Imitation in Education " (Columbia contributions to Philosophy, vol. 8), Mr. Jasper Newton Deahl says, p. 71 : " There is a vitalizing force in example, not found in prec-ept; in the facihty with which example may be used, lies its superior value." William James, Talks to Teachers^ p. 217: "Uncon- scious as are our routine performances in life which yet reveal our innermost character, so they act uncon- sciously in forming the moral character of the pupil." Professor Palmer of Harvard, Forum, XIV, p. 873 : " The attempt to secure morality by instruction is not only futile but pernicious ; behavior can no more be taught by rule than can correct speech." In a chapter on " Direct Moral Teaching " (in vol. X of Eng. Spec. Reports) the writer, Mr. H. Thiselton Mark, quotes from a lecture of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler : "As to the demand for more moral teaching of the formal, didactic, specific kind, there was in his judg- ment no greater waste of time in schools than this ; be- cause this sort of instruction, if anything is to be made of it, involves a prepared habit of mind which is beyond the capacity of children still at school." That this formal 78 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL method tends to breed intellectual dishonesty, a tend- ency in pupils to say what they think their teachers ex- pect them to say, is a danger apparent even to an otherwise sympathetic observer; Mr. Mark (p. 117 above), speaking of such conscious moral instruction, notes the criticism : " It is apt to conduce somewhat to a new element of illiberalism in education ; " certainly, one can regard with more equanimity the mechanical repetition of an acquired terminology in grammar or mathematics than an acquired series of stock phrases on questions of moral import. Gilbert, Educational Review, February, 1902, pp. 136 ff ., says : " Narrow special training in morals is danger- ous : it magnifies conventionality and too often makes glib self-satisfied hypocrites and judges of others. It needs to be seasoned with salt." Against the practical outcome of this method one cannot protest too energetically. To treat a fairy story, a fable with the distinct purpose of making explicit what is impHcit in it, is to pervert one of the most valuable outgrowths of human phantasy to the purely didactic point of view ; it reminds one of the distorted image of the ^Esopian fable in the wig-and-powder con- ventionality of Lafontaine which attaches its banal morality to this masquerade of French statesmen, monarchs, and dainty ladies in the guise of an animal world. When emotional experience is compelled or THE TEACHER 79 directed, no room is left for spontaneous emotion of the pupil ; it is inevitable that with such a method the fable, the story, even the historical episode, will be chosen be- cause of its aptitude for the purpose in hand. But " history," says a German writer, " is not a collection of examples to bolster up our moral tenets ; that degrades history to the rank of a picture book." ^ The school itself in its daily routine, in the relation of pupil to teacher, of pupil to fellow pupil, and to the demands of the larger social organization, in the re- sponsibility of the pupil to his own higher self, affords ample occasion for the awakening and strengthening of the moral sense. There cannot be formulated in a set of hard and fast lines, what particular phases of the moral code can be attached to the one or the other subject of the curriculum. It is pedantry to associate conceptions of order, neatness, accuracy, persistence with the teaching of mathematics, and the doctrines of altruism, of deference, of obedience, of self-control with the studies in the literary and historical group ; an in- cident of the classroom may suffice to fill the individual occurrence with a larger meaning, and to substitute for the unconsidered, involuntary reaction a reasoned moral conviction. The Terentian " Homo sura : nihil humani a me 1 Cf. a noteworthy contribution to this subject, full of striking thought, by President Faunce, Educational Review, April, 1903, 8o THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL alienum puto," rather than any code or organized line of procedure, constitutes the basis of the teacher's moral influence. What he is, he infuses into his teach- ing. One cannot be manly, loyal, patient, untiring in effort, susceptible to ideals — and a teacher — without experiencing the overwhelming impulse to foster the same tendencies in one's pupils ; an isolation of one's own aspirations that would exclude the possibility of their reproduction in the pupil is absolutely incongru- ous in a teacher ; what Palmer ^ in his essay. The Ideal Teacher, describes as the elimination of one's personal- ity, the readiness to be forgotten, is the fate, and the joy, of the teacher. It is not, as often in the case of the parent, an instinctive tendency, but a plan based on moral insight that shapes the teacher's efforts towards the efficiency in character of his pupils, and he is triumphant when his guidance has resulted in the achievement of a self-control that gives assurance of persistence, long after his guiding hand has been with- drawn ; to live in the lives of one's pupils is the ulti- mate test of a teacher's influence. Rules, formulas, wise saws will not help to shape moral conduct ; the knowledge of what is right does not 1 Palmer, George H., The Teacher, pp. 26 ff. Boston, 1908. " A teacher does not live for himself, but for his pupil and the truth which he im- parts." Cf. HoUister, Horace A., High School Administration (chap. XVI, Moral and Religious Training, with bibliography). D. C. Heath & Co., 1909. THE TEACHER 8 1 make right attractive. Conveyed as a discipline, the principles of moral conduct will evoke little response. The intangible, indefinable combination of qualities that produce an harmonious personality, if this does not im- press the young, then no theoretic exposition of moral doctrine will exert the slightest influence. It has been urged that if moral training confined itself to the formation of habits, which the pupil saw illustrated in the conduct of his teachers, it would occupy an inferior position in the scheme of the pupil's development, for as a merely imitative process, it would attach itself to concrete performances of the teacher, and the pupil would be at a loss how to act when his model had not furnished a concrete illustration. No sensible teacher, however, would be content with ethical standards, based merely on habit ; the appeal to the intelligence must be made, if broader views for the conduct of life are to be created. The all-important point is that the pupil will respond to this appeal only if he finds consonance between maxim and conduct in the daily life of his teacher. Your pupil is much more likely to accept on faith the teacher's statement on any fact of Latin acci- dence, or on Avogadro's law than on any principle of moral conduct; he applies the argumentwn ad homi- nem, and doubts the value of moral doctrine that has not touched the life of its present advocate. It is the definiteness of prescription affecting alike 82 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL the spirit and the letter of the requirement, to which thoughtful educators object. Formulation of the prin- ciples of conduct, according to the French system, is only to a degree less objectionable than the promulga- tion of a code of religious instruction such as is pre- scribed for the German schools. From our point of view, the requirement in religious teaching, as outlined in the Lehrpldne und Lehraufgaben (curricula and pro- grams of work) of the German higher schools, has been the vulnerable point in their school system. It has been the topic through which the church still maintains its hold upon the state organization of the schools ; a close study of the character of the prescrip- tion shows a greater or diminishing stringency in inter- pretation according to the fluctuations between various degrees of religious conservatism. Stringent, however, the requirement always is, even at its best. Inasmuch as it compels the teacher to become the official propounder of a definite attitude on religious questions, whatever otherwise his personal tendencies and convictions may be, it has worked distinct harm ; in an age of increasing critical spirit with respect to all dogma, it has compelled the teacher to constitute himself the exponent of a conservative dogmatism, to proclaim as his own belief doctrine which, as a man and not as a teacher, he may not freely accept. No wonder that the charge of hypocrisy is raised against much of this THE TEACHER 83 teaching, unless refuge is sought by the teacher in a soulless, outward conformity which cannot impress, be- cause it resorts to subterfuges of interpretation. "The man," says Dr. Reinhardt, "whose heart is cold spreads chilly indifference around him. Even re- ligion, that tenderest and finest subject of instruction, can be so handled by an unskillful teacher as to be- come hurtful rather than profitable." ^ And how much more serious the harm, if he lacks genuineness. And yet the Notes on Method in the Lehrpldne impress upon the teachers that " the primary condition of success lies in the living personality of the teacher and in his S'^Q'akmg out of the fuhiess of his heart "^ The fetters thus imposed upon the teacher have weakened in many cases his general influence in homes where sincerity and manly outspoken conviction are prized above all, and it has led in some parts of Germany, on the part of teachers, to organized protest against doctrinal dictation imposed upon them. A significant document of this kind is Religions-unterricht, edited by Fritz Gansberg, Leipzig, 1906, 2ipro memoria of the teachers of Bremen, fortified by expressions of lay opinion from leaders of thought in various vocations. 1 For entire quotation cf. Engl. Spec. Reports, III, p. 102. 2 Cf. Paulsen, Allgemeine Gnmdlagen der Kultur der Gegenwart,'^,i'h. Teubner, 1906; Paulsen, Geschichte des Gelekrten Unterrichts, II, pp. 503-506; Engl. Spec. Reports, III, pp. 262-265 (translation of Lehrpldne). 84 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL That " the teacher is the school " holds, then, above all in the matter of his moral influence on the pupil; his personality, his distinctions of right and wrong, his sensitiveness as to standards of action, react inevitably somehow on his pupils, however unresponsive they may be. No type of moral education, whether it be under- taken in the form of instruction or of training, can dis- place the effect of the teacher's own moral standards. To sum up, in our advocacy of a higher type of teacher we have in mind the need of teachers, superior in intellectual equipment, in physical poise, and in strength of moral character. How to secure them, how to recognize them, how to encourage their accession in increasing numbers to the profession, is the problem of the American secondary school. PART II CHAPTER I The Present Status of the Public High School The historical development of the secondary school in the United States has been satisfactorily traced from its earliest appearance to its present status in Ex- Commissioner Brown's (Elmer E. Brown) The Making of our Middle Schools ; to this work, therefore, and its detailed treatment students of this line of inquiry are referred. A brief resum6 of its argument may be found in various recent treatises, among them in Chap- ter I of J. F, Brown's The American High School (The Macmillan Company, 1909). It will suffice, therefore, to recall that the Latin grammar school of the early Colonial days has passed out of existence, that the academy, offering at first a wider range of subjects than the Latin school, a range calculated to furnish practical preparation for life, has in the last half century concentrated its efforts upon those studies that constitute college preparation, and that the field of secondary instruction in its fullest sense is to-day the province of the free pubUc high 85 86 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL school. The last mentioned type of school was not intended from its inception as a surrogate for the pri- vate or endowed preparatory school, but rather as a superstructure to the public elementary school, " to render the present system of public education more nearly perfect." ^ It was intended that it should re- semble in its practical tendencies the early academy, with similar cultural aims, but it was to be controlled by representatives of the communities that bore the ex- pense and offered its opportunities free to those who had completed the public grammar schools. Several causes, prominent among them (i) the ambi- tions of most communities to make their public high school an effective avenue of approach to the colleges, and (2) the lack of definiteness in the arrangement and se- quence of the so-called cultural courses, taken together with the very definite demands of the colleges, con- spired to make the college preparatory course the standard of attainment, the measure of efficiency, in the public high school. We all recognize the controlling force of a definite goal ; to most teachers it was a com- fort to realize in exact terms the terminus ad quern; therein lay for a long period the dominating advantage 1 1. Report of Boston School Commission of 1821 ; cf. E. E. Brown, pp. 298 ff. 2. H. H. Morgan, « The Justification of the Public High School," I, p. 629, Report of Commissioner of Education, 1889. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 87 of the college entrance demand. It is a repetition of the familiar experience that there is every advantage in a small, but well-organized body of troops as against a host of unorganized militia. A little reflection will con- vince us that our difficulties lie not so much in the choice of subjects as in the manner of handling them. The supreme desire of teachers to measure the attain- ments of their pupils by the college requirements cramps and narrows the teaching scope ; it lifts adjust- ment, adaptation, into prominence, it encourages the methods of the craftsman ; freedom in method is barred, artistic variation is discouraged as a useless or harmful departure from a standard requirement. The square peg forced into the round hole indicates the character of our prevailing secondary work. It was in the courses that were in no direct relation to college requirements that an active constructive policy was desirable ; they offered a far more delicate problem than the preparatory course, and tempted frequently to overzcalous advance into the field of untried experi- ment, with inevitable reaction when the experiment failed ; unquestionably a much wider portion of the community was concerned in these noncollegiate in- terests which were often debated by the community as a whole. Of the energy and earnestness of these dis- cussions there is no question, but they do not always display sound judgment. 88 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Despite the fact, then, that even to-day in many com- munities the public high school is valued primarily for its college preparatory course, there has been growing a con- viction that the conception of the secondary school in- volves a wider, a more generous outlook than that of the equipment of a small minority of the student body for the demands of the colleges. The work of the statistician has revealed to us that of the total number in attendance in our secondary schools an exceedingly small percentage enter college, a very considerable percentage have not intended to enter. The secondary school has not fulfilled its duty, unless it considers the needs of all who are ready to share in its opportunities. Its respon- sibility to the community, to the State as the aggregate of its citizens, requires that it shall provide for all in attendance the kind of instruction appropriate to their capacities and valuable for their future efficiency. The questions at issue must be determined by those most familiar with the tendencies and powers and limitations of adolescents, by the teachers, principals, superintendents of the secondary schools. The requirements by which fitness for the prosecution of college studies can be determined are very properly stipulated by college officers,^ and it is very natural and 1 Even under the accrediting system they exercise this privilege of judgment in the first term of the Freshman year with students ac- cepted on certificate. In its suggestive new plan of entrance examin- PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 89 proper that in some form or other they will never forego the privilege of pronouncing judgment in this respect. But the question of satisfactory curricula for its several groups of studies must rest with the teachers of the sec- ondary school. It is idle to expect those whose activities are not primarily concerned with the secondary school to construct final and authoritative programs for this purpose. In the Report of the Committee of Ten/ pp. 51, 52, we find enunciated the sound doctrine : "A secondary school program intended for national use must be made for those children whose education is not to be pur- sued beyond the high school. The preparation of a few pupils for college or scientific school should in the ordinary secondary school be the incidental and not the principal, object." The statement, however, further on, that " the colleges and scientific schools of the country should accept for admission to appropriate courses of their instruction the attainments of any youth who has passed creditably through a good secondary school course " reflects the dominance of the college opportu- nity as an ideal. There is here an obvious incongruity ; ations Harvard, whilst it abrogates interference in the details of prep- aration at the secondary school, reserves to itself emphatically the right to pronounce upon the efficiency of the entering student for further study. {School Review, pp. 412 ff. June, 1910.) 1 Published for the National Educational Association by the Ameri- can Book Company, 1894. go THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL if the main consideration is to be directed upon pupils " whose education is not to be pursued beyond the high school" availability for college work ought not enter into the question of study programs. What kind of teaching is desirable for secondary pupils of the adolescent period ? In what subjects is our teach- ing force capable to carry out the best type of teaching ? These are, it seems to me, the two leading issues which secondary school men must meet in the interests of their schools. A revision of our secondary school methods ab ovo seems necessary; we are confronted by over- whelming testimony that we are not doing justice to the 95 % of our students that do not continue into college, and that the 5 % who do go, give but an unsatisfactory account of themselves at entrance and beyond. Presi- dent Pritchett (Fifth Report, Carnegie Foundation, p. 64) has struck the keynote of our difficulties. " The high school student gains a superficial knowledge of many subjects and learns none with thoroughness. He lacks the hard fiber of intellectual discipline. . . . Education, rightly understood, is a power-producing process ; and the serious indictment against the sec- ondary school system to-day is that its graduates do not acquire either discipline or power ; • . . the ideal of thoroughness must supplant the ideal of superficiality." The average student " lacks both accuracy and the abil- ity to think" (p. 50). And again, "The total effect is / PRESENT STATUS OE THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 9 1 seen in the unreadiness of the great mass of youth to face a hard, steady pull." We must resist the unrea- soning popular demand that we ought " to teach some- thing of a great many things." The secondary school should work out an autonomy of its own ; it should not array itself in the tatters of a bor- rowed glory, and call itself a People's College ; that would only mean a cheapened college, attuned to the level of popular demands. Limiting itself to those subjects for which it has on its staff teachers of recognized ability, each high school should undertake to teach those subjects and those only ; a corollary of this proposition would be the elimination of all topics which the high school is really not prepared to teach. A firm adherence to this princi- ple would cause a wholesome, if painful, awakening in communities that clamor for the empty prestige of a high school, but are not prepared to pay for its satis- factory outfit in teachers and teaching equipment. It is intellectual fiber, intellectual ability, then, that the secondary teacher must aim to develop, not an illu- sory capacity of routine manipulation in one or several topics that are supposed to smooth the path to voca- tional opportunity ; it were well to bear in mind that the enslavement to a narrow utilitarian standard is at least as injurious as the current bitterness of complaint against college domination. A high school, located in an industrial community, that surrenders its cultural 92 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL opportunities to the specific and immediate industrial demands of its surroundings, ought to reorganize as a trade school, preparing for the special industries that happen to be in vogue ; as though, forsooth, no other outlook of equal or greater promise existed for the effi- cient student of such a school ! The cry everywhere in the business as in the profes- sional world, is for discipline, for capacity to do intensive, hard work, for mental grasp. It is felt that this implies a type of instruction, intellectually thorough and severe ; industrial and professional supremacy must be based on efficiency in the schools ; a merely digital and manual dexterity must be guided by thought, if it is to attain to effectiveness. In his " Unrest in Secondary Education " (Engl. Spec. Reports, IX, 34), Sadler describes this type of instruction as concerted specialization, differentiating it from premature specialization, " The Germans know that in order to specialize to the best advantage, nine men out of ten need the equipment which is given by a good general education." Some of the subjects our high schools have intro- duced in deference to a vague popular demand may at some future time be so presented as to insure mental power rather than routine facility, but until then they cannot rank in educational value with subjects in which the experience of generations of teachers has developed the means of promoting disciplinary power. From this PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 93 Standpoint it was unwise, for instance, for the High School Teachers' Association of New York City, in May, 1 910, to demand the recognition by the colleges as distinct subjects of admission, of stenography and typewriting. The most ardent advocates of these two subjects cannot claim for them, as they are at present taught, such intellectual training, such expansion of in- tellectual interests, as mathematics, languages, science, stimulate. They are hardly more than ancillary in a commercial course in which geography, history, eco- nomics, commercial law would be the mentally, stimulat- ing subjects. As aforesaid, what is desirable from the point of utility may be included as subsidiary to subjects that require and promote mental power ; being largely mechanical accomplishments, they fulfill at a more ad- vanced stage about the same function that penmanship does in the elaboration of a course in English composi- tion. Whilst therefore these and other subjects may be included for specific reasons in some secondary school courses " to equip for a definite means of support," the burden of proof that they are calculated to advance mental grasp rests with their advocates ; their present teaching gives little promise of such a result. There is no unfairness in demanding such proof ; the teachers of science, of civics, of household science and art, of economics have successively been called upon to meet, and have met, the same demand. 94 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Sir Michael Sadler, Engl. Spec. Reports, IX, p. 140, takes this generous view of the best that American education stands for : " Among the best antidotes to materialism and selfishness in a commercial commu- nity are idealism and self-sacrifice in the schools. A businesslike idealism is the characteristic feature of American education at its best. This combination of two great qualities will protect the schools from the dangers of vulgar utilitarianism on the one hand, and from undue excitement, superficiality, and self-adver- tisement on the other." It cannot be stated too emphatically that it is the special province of the secondary school to carry its pupils beyond the mere consideration of the material needs of life to an appreciation of the cultural elements that give intellectual scope, intellectual power. To com- prehend in the main outlines the progress of the human family socially, morally, intellectually, is a prerequisite to our participation in its vital problems. It is, how- ever, not merely the acquisition of a new series of attainments that gives significance to the secondary school period; these should be but so many means to serve its main purpose. The awakening of a genuine desire for knowledge is of surpassing importance ; it prompts to the first serious exercise of the reasoning faculty. The student inclines to measure the bearing of the past attainments of the PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 95 human race upon present conditions ; it is here that training to judgment should find its place to accompany and dominate informational growth. Obsei"vation of the adolescent reveals a strong tendency to the formulation of judgments ; it is an accomplishment fraught with dan- ger, unless skillfully directed ; here it is the teacher's privilege to guide, though he will recognize the delicacy and difificulty of the duty. To insist, as some teachers and some textbooks do, at too early a stage in the sec- ondary school on creative criticism which, if it means anything, involves independent judgment, is distinctly injurious. Of the value of the training to judgment there can be no doubt; the more varied the topics in which it is applied, the better for the student. It may take the form of severely controlled reasoning along mathemati- cal lines, it may serve to differentiate hypothesis and general law, induction and deduction ; it should be a standing protest against unmeaning acceptance of re- ceived opinion ; it insures against hasty generalizations, makes the youth discriminating in passing upon ex- periences that lie outside the range of his studies ; its beneficent influence will reveal itself most obviously in written and spoken utterance. It is a discipline that makes for mental power. Upon such training depends largely the intellectual value of our high school work ; premature judgments are the accompaniments of super- g6 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL ficiality in the pupil who forms them, and in the teacher who permits or encourages them. It is a serious miscon- ception to assume that we can abate our watchful care of the maturing secondary student. We are planning to develop a finer, rarer product, and our concern for his auspicious growth must be intensified ; the ripest experi- ence, the most painstaking guidance are necessary if he is to blossom out into a well-balanced, independent thinker. In discussing the function of the secondary school, various authorities have unwittingly obscured its most vital duty by the suggestion of a number of collateral issues that are in effect a natural and logical outgrowth of the proper attention to its primal function. The rela- tion to the state and society, to the higher institutions of learning, to the pupil's own interests, will be satisfac- torily established, if the secondary school succeeds " by instruction and discipline to lay the foundations for that cultivation and inspiration that mark the truly educated man." ^ Let it be clearly understood that the intellectual side of education is by no means regarded as the only desirable end ; the influence of education on conduct, individual and communal, the estabhshment of civic consciousness, the need of fortifying moral standards in our pupils, are in like manner problems of the second- ary schools, but we are just now concentrating attention 1 Butler, Nicholas Murray, Meaning of Ediicatiott, Macmillan, 1898, p. 160. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 97 on the problem of advancing the intellectual status of the schools. No one who dispassionately passes in review our schools, our pupils, and our teachers, will for a mo- ment believe that in this country we are likely to suffer from an intellectual proletariat, the presence of which has disturbed some of the thinkers of Germany and France.^ The character of this instruction and the methods of discipline are naturally undergoing modifica- tion in each succeeding generation, but it is the part of unwisdom to introduce changes for change's sake. " One of the penalties of reform," says David Eugene Smith{Sc/wol Science and Mathematics, IX, pp. 629-631), " is a tendency to inefficiency " ; hence no reform should be introduced unless we can present with it sound, approved methods of procedure. A favorite plea of re- formers in educational matters is to claim for each in- novation that, more than the practice that it is intended to supplant, it is founded upon a truly philosophic con- cept ; is there not too frequent reference in such discus- sions to " the philosophic foundations of pedagogy " .'' Do not candor and caution rather urge us to an appre- ciation of Rudolf Lehmann's words : ^ "In our present 1 Lagardelle, " Les Intellectuels devant le Socialisme," in Sadler, Unrest in Secondary Education, English Special Reports, IX, p. 30. London, 1902. 2 Monatschrift fur h'ohere Scktilen, IV, p. 83. H 98 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL state of knowledge we must admit that scientific investi- gation has not determined these philosophic foundations ; former ages believed that they had attained to this knowledge " ? A comparison with the prevailing secondary school systems of Germany and France will indicate certain fundamental differences, and may lead to the clearer recognition of our pecuUar difficulties. In all of these countries the secondary school is not a sequel to an eight-year course in the public elementary school, as with us; France, according to the official scheme pre- pared by the Superior Council of Public Instruction in 1902, builds its secondary course upon a four-years' course of primary study ; the two courses, however, are not organically articulated ; they are not strictly speak- ing successive phases in the same educational procedure, ^ and the French secondary school is paralleling in ele- mentary schools of its own those of the actual primary school. In these classes it uses the same subject matter as the primary school ; there are, however, sHght differences in treatment owing largely to the character and preparation of the teaching corps. Hence the primary work in these preparatory classes of the sec- ondary school is distinctly coordinated with the regular secondary studies ; it is arranged to fit directly into the 1 Farrington, French Secondary Schools^ pp. 86 and 126. Longmans, Green & Co., 1910. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 99 secondary school, and may be said to be of the secondary type. A similar parallelism exists in Germany; for the first three years of the elementary school the German secondary school has its Vorschule ( preparatory classes) covering these three years. But the German school authorities are engaged in modifying the work of their elementary schools, so that the first three years of the course shall be a satisfactory substratum for the sec- ondary schools. It is their avowed purpose to do away eventually with the Vorschule of the secondary school;^ whether they will succeed or not remains to be seen. They may prohibit the creation of new Vorschulen, but it will be difficult to abolish those actually in existence. In each of these countries a much longer period is deemed necessary to accomplish the ends of secondary education than in the United States. Four years in France, three in Germany, seem to the educational ex- perts sufficient forthe fundamental acquisition of the tools of information, — reading, writing, some simple arith- metic in the elementary school, or its equivalent. Upon this foundation is built in France a secondary school system covering seven years, in Germany one of nine years; the authorities of both countries have mapped 1 Rein, Tendencies in the Educational Systems of Germany (Special Re- ports on Educational Subjects, London, 1898, vol. 3, 452-457. Cf. Spe- cial Reports, London, 1902, vol. 9, 87). lOO THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL out schemes of instruction appropriate to the attainment of their respective aims.^ In Germany this aim finds official expression in Lexis Das Unterrichtswesen itn Deutschen Reich, 1904, vol. II, 40: "It is the function of the secondary school to transmit to the pupils accord- ing to the stage of their mental advancement the general culture of the nation and of the age in which they live"; it assumes that in so doing the school will take cogni- zance of the changing currents in the intellectual life of the nation, — will adjust itself to new social needs. The work of the secondary school aims then to give a liberal education ; and to secure the intellectual efficiency of its students, it arranges that the teachers intrusted with this mission shall have ample time to develop the capacity of their pupils from the very foundations in the cultural subjects which they themselves lay, to a very advanced stage of attainment, such a stage as nine years (seven in France) of consecutive and coordinated teaching under the same guidance insure. The school is founded on the assumption that the gradual transition from childhood to adolescence, from the stage of mere recep- tiveness of elementary information to the first awaken- ings of reflective power, the indication of a nascent mental adolescence is made more efficient, if directed 1 Couyba in Burstall, English High Schools, p. 218 : " La haute cul- ture qui peut-Stre un luxe pour I'individu, n'est pas un luxe pour la nation." PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL lOI by those who will continue to supervise its fuller ex- pansion. Whatever other features of the German and French school systems have at various times been open to criti- cism, no serious exception has been taken to the age of beginning the secondary school work. It goes without saying that the art of teaching must be at its best to make the foundation work both ample and sound.^ The quality of the teaching is the determining factor in the secondary school ; it is this that makes for a high level of average attainment ; the excellence of the teach- ing method is to secure effective reaction from every member of the class. Subjects and combinations of sub- jects will vary with the varying outlook of the several types of secondary school which are sharply differen- tiated and fixed in their educational policy, but through- out, the demands of quality are supreme ; that is, guar- anteed by the careful system of training of the teacher which precedes his first effort in the management of classes. Quality in teaching measures the character of the impulse, establishes the intellectual rebound.^ 1 The official manual, Lehrplane imd Lehraufgaben, issued by the Prus- sian Ministry of Education for the guidance of teachers, reveals every- where the emphasis that attaches to the early stages of the work. Cf. Lehrplane tind Lehraufgaben for 1901, p. 21, on the method of teaching the vernacular. ^Special Reports on Educational Subjects, vol. 3, 88 (Sadler) : — " Comparatively recent changes in the conditions of life have tended to make the more precise and highly differentiated results of systematic 102 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL The logical consummation of this preeminence assigned to quality has been reached in Prussia in the imperial decree of November 26, 1900, which recognizes as " equivalent for general culture the intellectual training afforded by the three types of secondary schools, the Gymnasium, the Realgymnasium, and the Oberreal- schule," and adds, " by the fundamental recognition of this equivalence there is afforded the opportunity to emphasize more completely the characteristics of each of these types. It is in substance a recognition of the fact that a new definition of the cultured man is in order," ^ that a given intellectual standard may be reached along different lines of approach, that the quality of the intel- lectual reaction is paramount to the actual information acquired. Such a recognition presupposes, of course, parity in the quality of instruction in the various subjects ; the enthusiastic efforts of the science and modern lan- guage teachers have been directed for several decades school and academic training apparently more valuable, and certainly more indispensable, elements in national welfare. The vigoi'ous but usually imperfect results of self-education are finding themselves over- matched by the competition of highly specialized aptitudes skillfully combined with one another, subordinated into a single whole and ap- plied with the utmost economy in the expenditure of effort and material. It is really, in another form, the struggle between robust individualism and the collective effort of a disciplined multiude." 1 President Eliot, " The New Definition of the Cultured Man." Presi- dential address before the N. E. A., 1903, reprinted in Science, July 17, 1903, p. 77 ff. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL I03 to the demonstration of this equivalence in teaching methods. A similar result was reached in the reform program of the French Secondary Schools, based upon a comprehensive parliamentary inquiry in 1 899 ; ^ the courses in mathematics, in science, and the modern lan- guages are now recognized as equivalent in culture effi- ciency to the classical course. The French adhere wisely, no doubt, from the point of view of their ideals, to the humanistic ideal, and give a humanistic trend even to their science teaching.^ No more cardinal distinction exists between our sys- tem of gradation and that of the European schools, than in this initial point of difference. Our elementary school, with its course of eight years, is materially pro- longed beyond the period of acquisition of the rudiments ; we profess to embody in our grammar school work the foundations of general liberal knowledge, some history, some geography, some elementary science, but we pre- sent them to our pupils largely through the drill methods of the elementary school in which we persevere for too protracted a period. Insistence on formal repe- tition and drill with the specific textbook as the meas- 1 Enquete sur I'enseignement secondaire, known generally as M. Ribot's commission. Cf. Compayre's report, Educational Review, 25, 130-145. 2Farrington, French Secondary Schools, p. 124, quotes from Couyba, Rapport du Budget general, 1907, p. 73 : " Scientific humanism has won the right of sitting side by side with literary humanism." 104 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL ure of accuracy is appropriate to the very first years of school work ; it certainly is not in itself an incentive to initiative ; it neither encourages nor creates the capacity of generalization, of individual interpretation. We ought, in fact, to have two entirely different types of instruction in our elementary schools, for the first and the second four years ; only thus might the advanced studies of the grammar school lead over without break of continuity into the specific curricula of our high schools. We adhere too long to one and the same method, whereas the transition to a new mode of study could more readily be carried out when the mental habits of the child are still flexible; the ingrained habits of the elementary school, maintained into the fourteenth year and beyond, are with difficulty modified at so late a stage. We dwell rather too insistently on continuity, on our success in preventing school courses and school systems from overlapping. But there are two kinds of continuity, a superficial and a spiritual one ; the superficial one is attained all too easily by a mechanical adjustment in which the second- ary school follows upon the completion of the elemen- tary school; what I should call spiritual continuity involves a natural, almost unconscious transition from the mental experiences of the upper grammar school grades to those of the high school, undertaken under the guidance of the same type of mind that is to lead this PEESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL I05 new faculty to a fuller development. This kind of con- tinuity, which would assure real economy of intellectual effort, we have not secured ; there exists a gap which no one has yet succeeded in bridging. With an abruptness and a rigor that is often disastrous the methods of the elementary school are brushed aside as worthless for the new experiences, and the secondary school is the sufferer, because in addition to a copious program of subject mat- ter, it is compelled to undertake the creation of a new method of study. The causes of this painful situation are to be found in the creation of the public high school at a later date, when the elementary school had already passed through a prolonged and independent develop- ment, and had attempted to appropriate a phase of intellectual insight that more properly belongs to the secondary school period. There does exist, then, an overlapping of the two phases of acquisition that is not beneficial to either. The difficulties encountered at the beginning of the secondary courses are frankly recognized as factors vital in their effect on the success of the secondary school work ; the pupils are expected to grapple with the content of the liberal subjects by a method totally different from that pursued in the elementary school. Initiation into the new method of approach requires patient and skillful guidance, for which, in the limited time allotment of our present secondary school no Io6 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL provision is made. It is absurd to assume that the adolescent pupil is as ready and competent to transform his method of study as to don a new suit of clothes. Two modes of remedying this difficulty have been advocated: one, the utilization of the seventh and eighth grades as a transitional stage toward the new experiences ; the other, the transference of the more capable students of these two grades into the high school, thus making the high school course one of six years instead of the traditional four. A closer consider- ation of the issues involved shows that these two meth- ods are not equivalent alternatives ; the former, though it has appealed to many because of its advocacy of " an enrichment of the elementary scheme," does not com- mend itself as the proper solution for a variety of reasons. Our elementary teachers do not as a result of their training and experience possess the ability to introduce properly the high school subjects; a satisfactory presen- tation of these subjects in their beginnings calls for a complete grasp of them along the whole line of secondary school development, and diluted or attenuated introductory courses that have been attempted, with the aid of similarly attenuated textbook guides, are distinctly detrimental. We should therefore need for such seventh and eighth grades, teachers of secondary school caliber who were ready to be debarred from the other privileges of secondary school work, content to contribute the PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 107 foundation work without opportunity to participate in its later development. In point of fact, the departmental system inaugurated for this purpose in the upper grades of the elementary school, or in intermediate schools, as these classes have been designated in some large cities, breaks with the system of the elementary school, and yet belongs to it. It rarely serves the purpose of introducing the subject matter of the secondary school ; it contents itself with the introduction of high school study methods, not of high school subject matter. To a certain degree it mitigates our present difficulties, though it fails in that it does not test the powers of youth by new lines of thought, and it does not contribute to the relief of the congestion in the high school program. Nor is it in fact desirable to abandon completely the seventh and eighth grades of our elementary schools. For pupils who cannot or will not enter upon high school work, these grades may become specially service- able, partly through the traditional reviews which even now fill so large a part of their scheme, partly through the opportunity afforded to relate the elementary sub- jects to vocational needs. In this arrangement there is neither an undue advocacy of the interests of the brighter pupils nor a slight to those intellectually infe- rior ; the latter will be benefited by an arrangement that will relieve them from being constantly yoked to I08 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL those of intenser mettle ; the sympathetic teacher who adapts his pace to their capacity for progress will often find them finally successful in their allotted work.^ As far back as 1871 and 1873, in the St. Louis School Reports, Dr. William T. Harris criticized in much of the prevail- ing theory of school management " a wholesale slaughter of the time and opportunity of well-disposed youth " ; ^ and the criticism does not appear obsolete to-day. At the close of the sixth grade the capable, ambitious American child is certainly as ready to take up some of the secondary subjects as European children do one or two years earlier, and it is distinctly not antagonistic to the democratic ideal to open the avenue into new lines of endeavor to those prepared to utilize them. A six- year high school course, linked to a six-year elementary course, is inevitable. The readjustment will, and should, involve a marked increase in public expenditure ; the apparent increase in burden of taxation will be more than offset by growth in school efficiency. Our present four-year high school, with its elaborate equipment for a rapidly diminishing body of students, is more extravagant than the average taxpayer realizes. Furthermore, a six- 1 H. Thiselton Mark, Individuality in American Education, 1901, Longmans, p. 35 ff. * For an interesting contribution to the study of the interests of the bright pupils cf. Petzoldt, Sonderschulen fUr hervorragend Befdhigte, Teubner, 1905 ; unfeasible in practice, it is extremely suggestive in point- ing out the moral danger to the inadequately occupied bright pupil. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL lOQ year high school course admits of partition into an up- per and lower high school (a junior or a senior high school) of three years each, so that commonwealths un- willing or unable to provide for the lengthened course may restrict themselves to provision for the lower high school. Incidentally this change would prove a means of decreasing the excessive number of inadequate high schools which try to carry a four years' schedule on in- sufficient financial support, with flagrant shortage in the numbers, salaries, and capacities of teachers.^ The contrast between the professions of performance, made for and by the great majority of the high schools, and their actual performance, may be gathered from the number of students they contribute to the entering college classes. The question of correlation between the high school and the colleges is not involved at this point ; the majority of high schools boldly assert their ability to equip their students for college entrance, but fail lamentably, owing to weak teaching. The principle of concentration, which has been so effective in the elementary school system of the country, and has substituted strong central schools for weak dis- trict schools in rural communities, might well be extended to the high schools ; a well organized two- or three-year high school is always preferable to a pretence of a four- 1 Thorndike, E. L., " A Neglected Aspect of the American High School," Educational Review, March, 1907, 245-256. no THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL year high school. It were often wise to temper vague ambitions, to rest content with what we are capable of doing ; legislation bearing on the creation of school organizations is often construed as mandatory where it is intended to be merely permissive. The object of the extended six-year high school course is to do effectively what has hitherto been accomplished inadequately and at a ruthless sacrifice of fair material. Two elements should dominate such a reorganization; the initiation into the new style of study should be made gradually, and the whole process of instruction should be at once thorough and rational ; for both requirements ample time is required. It cannot therefore be too emphatically urged that the purpose of the six-year high school is not to carry the instruction in subject matter at any point farther than the goal of the present high school, but to realize completely and satisfactorily what we have hitherto failed to accomplish. The new scheme should be a powerful incentive to the development of standards of thoroughness, of which we stand in sore need ; we might then insist on our pupils' real mastery of given subjects, rather than accept mere approximation to mastery. The student body in our colleges and pro- fessional schools would soon disclose an increased de- gree of efficiency, and one of the most marked criticisms of our educational scheme ought to disappear. To our teachers, the good as well as the mediocre, the PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL III increase in available time should prove a great gain ; there could be offered every inducement to develop the teach- ing faculty in the teacher, the power of thinking and rea- soning in the pupil. It should, in fact, lead to a complete remodeling of the method of teaching. It need hardly be said that the purpose of such an expansion would be defeated, if it led to a sluggishness of pace in our sec- ondary school work, not too rare under our present day conditions, or to a decline in the intensity of application of the student body. On the contrary, the change is advocated in the interest of intellectual vigor ; the ad- ditional time is not more than adequate to substitute precision, definiteness of attainment for hazy concepts that are prone to flourish under the influence of con- gested programs, and it is this that the advocates of the expanded course demand. " A vigorous system," says Harris (St. Louis School Reports, 1873, p. 135), "transmutes the pulpy sub- stance of impulse and inclination — the undisciplined will — into a self-controlled will, a directive intelligence, that can reenforce the moments by the hours, and accomplish something in the world. Most persons that I have known brought up under the laissez /aire system have seemed to lapse away in after life and recede from the promise that their school life gave, while the strong characters have emanated from the throng of those who were held to a strict responsi- 112 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL bility in their school life." Compare with this the state- ment of President Pritchett (5th Annual Report Car- negie Foundation, 1910, p, 64) : " The real struggle in the American higher school is between that influence which makes toward thoroughness and that which makes to- ward superficiality ; and if the high school is to become the true training place of the people, the ideal of thor- oughness must supplant the ideal of superficiality." Fatal of course to the introduction of the six-year high school scheme would be the assumption that with this increase in the number of high school years the high school could blithely undertake the functions of the first two college years ; we cannot protest too ener- getically against such an endeavor, for it would again stimulate the substitution of superficiality for thorough- ness. If once it could be established that the work of the high school stage were being done too well, then there might be a pretext for this fatuous clamor.^ A detailed program for such an expanded six-year high school course it should not be difficult to elaborate ; the scheme would in the main involve the expansion of each two years of the high school course into a three years' course in the interest of thoroughness and sys- 1 Sachs, J., " The Elimination of the First Two College Years : A Pro- test," Educational Re-view, Dec. 1905, 48 ff. Salmon, L. M., " The En- croachment of the Secondary Schools on the College Curriculum," Proceedings of 20th Annual Convention of Association of Colleges and preparatory schools of Middle States and Maryland, 1906, 56-63. PRESENT STATUS OP THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL II3 tematic progress ; within the range of work hitherto undertaken it would allow for a normal attainment of fundamental knowledge in each new subject, for pre- cision and accuracy of basic information; this would enable the pupils in the higher stages to experience, because of the definite power acquired, some intellec- tual pleasure in the advanced studies, which the pres- ent unremitting stress of the congested program can hardly promote. A tentative six-year program from this point of view was formulated in the report of a committee, known as the Pettee Committee, in 1902 ; ^ the sponsors of this pro- gram claimed no more for it than that it was a crude blocking out of the current studies along new lines of distribution ; from many of its details one might justly dissent, but it was of great significance, for it incorpo- rated certain vital assumptions that American teachers would do well to weigh. It was especially suggestive in the proposed rearrangement of the mathematical work, and this part of the plan has been carried out successfully, even where the six-year scheme as a whole was not possible. From a careful study of this plan in conjunction with the programs of typical German and French secondary schools (the last two years of which would have to be omitted, as they parallel our 1 Reprinted in article of Professor Hanus, Educational Review, May, 1903, 457-461. I 114 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL first two college years) several workable six-year pro- grams could be established. The ideal of a six-year high school course is not within proximate realization throughout the country ; a protracted campaign of education will be necessary to establish its value, a campaign that must first secure the cooperation and energetic advocacy of school superin- tendents and principals before it will gain recognition by school boards and tax-paying citizens. Meanwhile our four-year high school courses of varied types and aims are with us ; an analysis of their conditions ought to show wherein their strength and their weakness lies, and prompt to suggestions for their improvement. The vagueness of aspiration, the indefiniteness of pur- pose, which has marked the work in our high schools in the past is in striking contrast to the definiteness of aim in the various types of the German and French secondary schools. This was drastically revealed in the preliminary investigations of the Committee of Ten ; they reported the presence of nearly forty subjects in the courses of different high schools,^ many of them useless because of the brevity of time allotted to them, others inappropriate to the age and the stage of development of the pupils. A number of these subjects have been generally eliminated, and the present-day curricula show a great diminution in variety of secondary subjects ; neverthe- 1 Report Committee of Ten, p. 5. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL II5 less, the schools have not yet completely overcome the tendency to introduce an apparent enrichment of their courses at the cost of thoroughness. Many a course is offered that falls below the minimum of what the Committee of Ten designated as a sub- stantial course, occupying for one school year an average of four recitations per week, and the options suggested are often attractive in semblance rather than genuinely valuable. But there has grown, within the last fifteen years, in communities that accept the guid- ance of thoughtful educational leaders, the conviction that there must be agreement as to lines of study essential as a nucleus of secondary school work. It is now well understood that there are six lines of study, no one of which can be ignored (Butler, Hanus, Harris), English, one foreign language, history, mathe- matics, science, manual arts. The language and history group should be in the foreground of our interests ; it should be the definite backbone of the secondary course, the fundamental attainment of the adolescent. In favor of the studies of this group we will do well to accept the opinion of Paulsen, the historian of the German higher school system, that the past records of the life of mankind are better calculated to influence the souls of the young than the inflexible laws of nature.-^ The iJn an interesting recent document {Aiifgabe und Gestaltung der hohersn Schulen, Drei Vortrdge, Munich, 1910) prominent represen- Il6 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL information a pupil acquires he must be able to utilize in his relations to his fellow-beings, therefore he must express in appropriate words what he has acquired, I. Power in expression comes through language study, the power to appreciate what has been said and done by our predecessors; to express simply and directly in our vernacular what we know and what we think, is a preliminary to effectiveness in other branches; even the exceptional grasp of the thinking process involved in mathematics, and in the observational field of scien- tific inquiry, is impaired by the absence of the power of expression.^ It has become a recognized common- place that it is unsafe, unwise to expect this power to develop intuitively; it requires systematic cultivation. Even those nations that have a fairly homogeneous population, like France and Germany, have concen- trated their attention upon the acquisition of flexibility tatives of technical, scientific, and linguistic education agree that in the future development of the secondary schools the historico-linguis- tic branches must receive their merited recognition ('«/5r gutes Recht bekaupten '). 1 The series of symposia at the University of Michigan in which leaders of science, law, medicine, the engineering branches and public affairs bear testimony to the specific value of the classics in the prosecution of their studies is a significant index of the opinions of thoughtful men ; the papers form a valuable contribution to the sub- ject in the face of much irrelevant criticism ; cf. Kelsey, Latin and Greek in American Education with Symposia on the value of humanistic studies, Macmillan, 1911, 83-396. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL II7 in the employment of the vernacular ; in France a well established teaching tradition has produced through the schools, elementary and secondary, a mastery of the common speech and that felicitous use of it which we designate as literary style, and the cultivation of this faculty, modestly begun, but persistently enlarged, is promoted by a series of educational devices (sug- gested in the official Plan d'etudes) that are unique in their completeness and effectiveness ; ^ Germany, which like England and America, formerly leaned toward a laissez-aller policy in the matter of instruction in the vernacular, on the assumption that it was an un- conscious acquisition which called for no systematic guidance, has completely reversed its policy within the last twenty years, and makes it the core of its en- tire educational scheme. "The instruction in German is, like the instruction in history and rehgion, educationally the most impor- tant, and the task assigned to it most difficult;" the aim is thus expressed "to develop gradually in the pupil the power of reproducing in a simple and suitable fashion in tree oral utterance sound knowl- edge, and clear views. All teachers must take full 1 " French secondary education cultivates and transmits a great tra- dition of literary style." Sadler, Unrest in Secondary Education, Eng- lish Special Reports, IX, 115 ; cf. Hartog, Teaching of the Mother Tongue in France, Educational Review, April, 1908, 335. Il8 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL advantage of every means that may stimulate the power of expression in speech and writing." ^ It is the present tendency of the school to remove the reproach of cumbersome and involved utterance that formerly attached to German literary expression ; all recent observers agree in recognizing the intelligence and persistency of these efforts for clearness of state- ment. Lucidity in the use of the vernacular is empha- sized as one of the by-products of instruction in the classics ; Dettweiler {Lateinischer Unterricht, 2d ed., Mu- nich, 1906, 55) says, "Correct translation requires, in addition to the most thorough understanding of the Latin, an almost boundless insight into the divergent character of the two languages, and a far-reaching grasp of the modern tongue." To advance the faculty of expression should be the aim of our English courses ; a rationally directed study of literary expression, both of its best present usage and of its eminent models in prose and poetry, reveals to the student how thought is made intelligible in form, and should lead him to develop (not by imitation merely ) a natural and effective vehicle for his thoughts, 1 Among the innumerable contributions to the method of teaching the German vernacular the most valuable are : A. Matthias, Praktische Pddagogik, 3d ed., Munich, 1908, 35, 41. Lehmann, Der deutsche Un- terricht. R. Hildebrand, Vom deutscken Sprachunterricht in der Schule, 4th ed., 1890. Reform des hdheren Sckulwesens, Halle, 1902, pp. 177- 190 (Rudolf Lehmann). PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL II9 for in his native speech he employs a medium that affords him relatively the slightest obstacles. Interpretation of literary masterpieces, formal analy- sis, grasp of rhetorical devices, all these are constituent parts of the English teacher's work, but they are only parts ; he, above all others, should be both the thought- master and the expression-master of the school, — the one to direct and guide the nexus between the thought and its formulation in definite expression. The mere literary specialist is out of place here; it is the best- informed teacher we should have for the teacher of Eng- lish, — the person of broadest intellectual sympathies, interested in as many as possible of the student's studies, appreciative of all intellectual effort of the student, and focussing it toward expression. Each nation must re- gard its vernacular as the universal tool of intercourse ; it is the clear, unaffected use of our native speech, orally or in writing, that best conveys our thoughts to our fellow-men of the same tongue. Our secondary school masters have not, as a rule, realized the full significance of oral expression, and our school exercises reflect seriously the consequences. There is abounding evidence of the oral helplessness of our pupils ; we all know the halting utterance, the dis- connected and fragmentary ejaculation that is usually the apology for a clear statement, the reluctance to enunciate in distinct and natural flow of speech the con- I20 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL tent of thought. It has been customary to excuse and explain this lamentable defect by referring to adolescent shyness and reticence. But whilst this characteristic of adolescent youth may be freely acknowledged, it does not palliate the extreme remissness of the school in ac- cepting it as a matter of course. The school must con- centrate its powers, its skill, on combating this tendency by daily, hourly efforts, by unremitting endeavor. Our growing youth are not more self-conscious than those of other nations, and if elsewhere insistence on con- nected, intelligible statements triumphs over these same difficulties and secures distinctness in continuous utter- ance, we can accomplish the same results. It is a gen- erally recognized blemish in much high school work that the same teacher who accepts fragmentary, often meaningless, answers, and pieces them out with his own statements, does the major part of the talking in the class, a more convenient, but educationally not a valu- able, procedure. II. The study of at least one foreign language, whether ancient or modern, should be pursued by every high school student. High schools and high school courses that exclude altogether the study of a foreign language deliberately sacrifice an important educational agency without gaining an equivalent in increased abil- ity in the vernacular; their English curricula are usually identical with those pursued by the students who master PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 121 one or more foreign tongues. If the sacrifice is sup- posed to insure the opportunity for greater efficiency in other subjects, it is unnecessary; a curriculum, planned on sensible lines, will meet all needs. The consensus of educational thinkers is agreed on the value of foreign language study as "indispensable keys to culture." Not that the foreign language is essential to the proper grasp of the vernacular, but because unquestionably the analogies, both of similarity and contrast, which com- parison suggests, bring into distinct prominence the characteristics of the vernacular ; they serve to confirm and control usage. Besides, when properly taught, the study of a foreign tongue is a stimulus and corrective to intellectual sympathies; through the literary docu- ments, and above all else through the revelation of the foreign community's interests and aspirations, it widens the outlook that the study of native speech is likely to furnish. The choice between Latin and Greek on the one hand, or French or German, must depend upon whether we prefer to hark back to the origins, out of which modern peoples and literatures have grown, or whether we are more attracted to a study of the diver- sity in contemporary communities that thrives under fairly parallel conditions of growth. A direct outcome of this point of view is, then, that in the study of a modern language the knowledge of the present-day spoken language and of the social and intellectual conditions 122 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL prevailing among the people who employ it should pre- cede the study of its literary development. III. The power to understand and interpret present- day problems and issues is aided by knowledge of the course and relation of events in the past, in our own and other countries. Intelligent appreciation of political and social questions is conditioned upon the conception of what the past history of the race reveals ; the under- standing of man to-day depends upon understanding him in the past. A continuous study of history throughout the years of the secondary school is in importance sec- ond only to power of expression in the vernacular, and it should be presented so that the progress of human endeavor is revealed in the various stages of the study, in the tendencies and the dominating principles of succes- sive periods. A combination of cultural and social with political history is necessary if we are to understand and advance our own institutions. Of such a conception of historical teaching the acquaintance with the great liter- ary development in the various nations is an integral part. IV. In contrast to these three groups of humanistic subjects, the mathematical course of the secondary school calls for a new type of intellectual insight, the ability to apply elementary deductive reasoning; it is, par excellence, a training in logic.^ It introduces the 1 David E. Smith, Teaching of Elementary Matketnatics, Macmillan, 1902, p. 167. PRESENT STATUS OE THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 1 23 pupil through algebra to a generalization of number re- lations, and through geometry to an initial conception of space relations and to the demonstration of these relations by abstract proof ; its value to the student lies in the fact that the methods of the syllogism are developed by and for the student through concrete space relations. Logical thinking could of course be established along the line of other subjects of the course, but in no other way as directly and as obviously as through the successive stages of geometrical doctrine. It is of first importance that in the teaching of geometry the physical conception of the space relations and the logical processes of demon- strating their inevitable truth shall constantly and dis- tinctly be differentiated ; the training in logical reasoning is the particular educational contribution of mathematics to the experiences of the high school pupil. To the order in which the mathematical topics should be introduced, reference may be made hereafter ; the question of pre- senting the concrete side of geometry, which includes mensuration, superposition, etc., at a considerably earlier stage than the purely demonstrational, logical geometry, is attracting the serious attention of progressive teachers. V. An attempt to understand some of the phenomena of the physical universe that surround him should be un- dertaken by every high school pupil; and the observa- tional faculties that are involved in recognizing and combining the manifestations of the organic or inorganic 124 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL world around him lead through the application of the inductive process to the establishment of the general truths which we call scientific. The instruction should be both observational and informational, combining laboratory work, the teacher's lecture, as well as the textbook, with frequent summaries or quizzes. It is of far less consequence that the high school pupil should be initiated into the fundamental facts of a number of sciences than that in any one he shall gain acquaintance with the results that observation and comparison of indi- vidual observation furnish ; it is the method of approach in the study of science that is of real significance, and therefore the attempt to cover a number of science-sub- jects in the successive high school years is less likely to bring about a scientific attitude than the prolonged and detailed study of one or two related sciences.^ * Dr. Georg Kerschensteiner of Munich, whose thoroughly modern point of view on questions of educational procedure has become fa- miliar to all interested in vocational training and the continuation-school, offers a striking statement on this point in Aufgabe und Gestaltung der hoheren Schiden, cited above. On page 52 he says : " Frankly speaking, the newer types of schools will never equal in effectiveness the older type, the classical gymnasium, unless they are ready to forego quantitatively half of the mass of infor- mation they undertake to convey ; quantity is to be replaced by depth of insight, by training of the observational faculties, and of practical scien- tific ability ; the value of science-teaching in the schools lies in the method of work, in the correct formulation of inquiry, in the securing of correct answers with the aid of experimentation." In Germany, as with us, there lurks the danger in the science-teach- ing of the secondary schools to convey multa, rather than multum. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 1 25 VI. And finally, some phase of instruction in the mminal arts should be offered to every high school student. The cultivation of manual skill may be se- cured through drawing, or modeling, through designing or what is known as the more specific manual training, the development of skill in the crafts, in manipulating tools and in producing typical objects from woods, met- als, or fibers. This larger conception of experience in the manual arts seems likely to replace the demand for the activities of the workshop, which does not make its appeal to all students. We have thus cursorily considered the subjects we deem the essentials of the secondary course ; with these as the substantial core of the work there seems little need of modification to meet local conditions. At all events it seems undesirable to reduce the emphasis upon the language-history group ; their contribution to the mental efficiency of the adolescent pupil is so important that we must protest against a lessening of the time-allotment accorded to them. The secondary school stage is, above all others, the period for the acquisition of the power of expression, and it cannot be deferred. It is a funda- mental point on which the secondary school must take its stand ; the preponderance of linguistic training to- gether with history which prevails in all types of second- ary schools abroad is not, as some iconoclasts claim, a relic of past traditions ; the leaders of thought in science 126 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL and mathematics are in agreement on the supreme value of this attainment in professional and practical life. Assuming always the presentation of the several sub- jects by efficient and conscientious teachers, the essen- tials, as just outlined, can be covered satisfactorily in the following allotment of time : — English : four recitations per week throughout course. History : three recitations per week throughout course. Foreign language : five recitations per week throughout course. If the choice falls upon modern languages, the first language might be reduced in 3d and 4th year to two periods per week to allow three periods per week for a second language. Science : four recitations per week throughout course. Mathematics : four recitations per week throughout course. Manual arts : four recitations per week throughout course. As the work in manual arts requires no home prep- aration, this scheme involves twenty periods of prepared work. Two features of this scheme call for detailed exposi- tion. (a) The departure from the current doctrine of five weekly recitations per week in each subject, and (d) the question of the total number of recitations per week. (a) Until 1 892, and even to the present day, the pre- vailing distribution of studies in many high schools was such that four subjects, to each of which five periods per week were assigned, constituted the weekly program. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 1 27 The investigations of the Committee of Ten disclosed the fact that such mechanical assignment made it im- possible to incorporate the desirable and necessary sub- jects (usually five in number) in high school courses : it involved an illogical and disjointed arrangement of sub- ject matter in successive years. In many programs history was offered in two years, often separated by one or two years' interval, science likewise in two years, frequently in the first and fourth years, mathematics rarely covered more than three years ; foreign languages were either entirely ignored or carried through only two or three years ; English was the only subject accorded a full four years' course. It was claimed that five recitations per week in a sub- ject were necessary to create an intensive interest in it. As in many other features of our system >an arrange- ment was proclaimed a logical necessity which had in its favor the merit of a certain convenience. It simplified unquestionably the problem of program con- struction and of distribution of teaching forces ; a more elaborate program requires greater skill on the part of the principal, greater flexibility in the teaching force. The doctrine, if it is worthy of the name, has been disproved in every other country ; interest in a subject is secured not by mechanical continuity of daily recita- tion, but by the skill in presentation on the part of the teacher. Furthermore, certain subjects are more 128 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL thoroughly mastered when the advance in the subject moves more gradually in fewer recitations per week, and time is available for mental digestion; thus, as between three terms of mathematics, with five periods a week, and five terms of three recitations a week, the latter scheme is distinctly more favorable to a proper grasp of the subject ; the growing difficulties of the subject are more satisfactorily mastered when spread over a longer period of time. For the advance from absolute ignorance in a subject like geometry, to the genuine control of the later stages of plane geometry, is more than the average pupil mind can master in the usual allotted time ; as a result, memorizing takes the place of complete understanding. The best educational opinion of the country has approved of this change, and the best of the tenta- tive programs drawn up by the Committee of Ten awards to no subject more than four periods per week. In a subject like history three recitations per week for four years is infinitely preferable to two and a half years with five recitations a week. The doctrine of so intensi- fying the pursuit of a subject as to complete it within one or two years is a relic of certain inevitable tenden- cies in the old-time academy, when students attended ir- regularly for a year or two at a time, and felt the need of completing ^ (!) a number of subjects within that time. 1 What do we mean by the completion of a subject like algebra? Is it not better for a pupil to have mastered in a year certain topics in PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 1 29 The necessities of frontier and pioneer life naturally weighed heavily against rational educational procedure ; we may understand and condone the unavoidable short- comings of the earlier program, but should not proclaim them at this day an educational benefit to the student. With the better organization of our school system such considerations should disappear. Much of the waste in our higher educational work is due to the still current tendency to rush through a subject, and then drop all thought of it; it is a fre- quent experience of students that when they have dropped all consideration of a subject like mathematics for one or two years, they are unable to take up an advanced course in the same subject without exten- sive restudy of fundamentals. The unfortunate, or rather let us say, the pernicious, system of allowing students to offer in successive instalments (3, 4, 5 and even more are not unknown) the various subjects required for college entrance is distinctly detrimental to sound educational progress ; the teachers of college freshmen find themselves often unable to build upon definite attainments ; they must rehearse what has been lost by a part of the student body. Continuity in the pursuit of a subject, even with a mod- algebra so thoroughly that he has acquired the power and insight to advance without aid, if necessary ? Is not the question of the power of absorption, of the intellectual digestion, the vital one ? K 130 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL erate time-allotment per week of two or three recitations, is for the adolescent stage distinctly preferable to an in- tensive and congested pursuit, followed by its premature elimination. Nor is there any reason to fear dissipation of intellectual interest from the prosecution in a given year of five instead of four studies ; it is entirely a matter of the stimulating influence by an accomplished and enthusiastic teacher. Intellectual torpor is quite as prevalent where but four studies fill the student's program. There dwells a natural desire in youth to satisfy intellectual curiosity ; this can be so directed by the skillful teacher that no danger of confused impres- sions need exist. The responsibility for awakening genuine interest in studies rests primarily with the teacher. {b) The number of recitations per week is so intimately linked with the character of the teaching, the conception of the recitation, and the extent of home preparation, that these points must be discussed in common. It is still the prevailing doctrine that twenty recitations per week is the maximum of effort attainable from high school pupils, especially since twenty class-recitations involve unaided home preparation for as many lessons. And because of this assumption the programs of a number of schools, especially of certain academies and prepara- tory schools, call for even less than twenty recitations per week. Under such an arrangement it is natural PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 131 that even the constants of a secondary course cannot be properly offered. It is impossible to characterize this arrangement otherwise than as educational folly ; it is inconceivable that head masters of such schools actually believe that no greater number of class recitations can be safely undertaken with young Americans in the adolescent stage, when all over Europe the number of weekly recitations in secondary schools ranges between twenty-five and thirty-four periods. If it means that the preparation for sixteen or eighteen recitations involves as much effort as it is desirable for the adolescent to make, then we may fairly question the whole doctrine of the class recitation and the preparation it requires. What is this doctrine.? That the recitation is primarily intended to determine the ability of the secondary school pupil to render a coherent and satis- factory account of the mastery of a given topic which he has acquired in home study ; and it is considered by many teachers fundamental that he should have acquired this mastery, unaided by previous guidance in class work, from the textbook that is at his disposal as his guide. It makes the textbook the main and immedi- ate source of information, and assigns to it the central educative influence in the intellectual growth of the pupil. This doctrine, urged by so eminent a scholar as Dr. Harris and others, attained general recognition when 132 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL definite knowledge of subject matter by the individual teacher was inadequate, and in consequence the state- ments of the text were substantially the safest guides to facts. But even textbooks are of all possible degrees of accuracy, excellence, and clearness of statement, according to the literary and pedagogical ability of their authors ; some are diffuse and wordy, lacking in precision, others obscure from over-condensation in state- ment. If, furthermore, we remember that the publica- tion of textbooks is often not due to the pressure of educational needs, that inherent merit does not always prompt the advocacy of certain texts, that a spirit of commercialism is not unknown even in school boards, there is abundant reason for a subordination of the text- book to the presentation by the well-informed teacher. Our classroom exercises are often little more than uninspired reproductions, with numerous and often justifiable misunderstandings, of the language of a text- book, and the teacher simply verifies the correct or in- correct interpretation of the te,xt. That this process gives little additional stimulus to pupils who have mastered the text, that it exasperates bright pupils to listen to helpless and confused efforts at reproduction of the text- book content,, needs no proof. Whilst many of our best teachers are combating this listless method in their per- sonal handling of their classes, the tendency to glorify the textbook is still in the ascendant ; as a false and PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL I33 pernicious doctrine it must be removed from our school work. If it is true that the majority of our teachers are still dependent on the textbook, and cannot safely be trusted to emancipate themselves from it, the fact explains the ineffectiveness of much of our work, the lack of inspiration in many of our classes. Not that the text- book is to be discarded or superseded ; it is one means of presenting subject matter. The mastery of the subject by the teacher must be such that the textbook is simply one of several tools at his disposal ; in knowl- edge of subject matter he ought to be as nearly as possible the peer of the author, drawing upon as varied sources of information as the author has considered. The only special merit of the textbook lies in its disposition, adjustment, and proportioning of subject matter. The majority of our teachers, we are constantly told, are incapable of the independent performance suggested above; the advice offered to them in the average textbook reveals the fact of their helplessness, their dilettanteism.^ Such inadequate teaching, a mere semblance of what is needed, accounts for unsatisfactory results. For the recitations, as they prevail through the length and breadth of the land, the pupils make preparation at 1 Betts, The Recitation, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1911, 90 ff. Hender- son, Education and the Larger Life, p. 224. 134 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL home, and it is the character and extent of the prepara- tion that is appealed to, when an increase in the number of weekly recitation periods beyond twenty is dreaded. Not the recitation periods, but the preparation for them, burden the lives of the pupils. It is alleged that to make adequate preparation requires at least as many hours of home work as the school exercises involve ; in some sub- jects, as in mathematics, we all know that the time required for preparation is often to the recitation period as two to one. What the pupil has or has not evolved in regard to the new subject matter by his individual unguided effort at home, under conditions that are frequently most unfavorable to concentrated effort,^ he is then to disclose to the critical ear of the teacher; the teacher hears and judges the recitation. "In former days" (they are happily of the past for Germany), says a leading German authority on pedagogy ,2 " when lessons served mainly as a means of controlling the home industry of the pupil, 1 An exhaustive study of the conditions that surround home study, and of the value of such preparation in a number of typical studies, has never been undertaken, at all events has never been reported, in this country. To prove of real service to teachers, it should enlist for a given class the unremitting observation of a teacher for a full school year, and the records obtained should be subjected to the closest scrutiny. A real contribution to this subject is the study recorded in Meumann, Abhandlungen zur psychologischen P'ddagogik, I, part 3, and undertaken by Friedrich Schmidt, JSxperitnentelle Untersuchungen iiber die Hausaufgaben des Schulkindes, Leipzig, W. Engelmann, 1904. 2 W. Miinch, Geist des Lehramts, Berlin, 1903, 359. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 135 then the veriest botcher could be a teacher ; it was the reign of educational inefficiency." Coupled, then, with ineffective teaching goes the mistaken notion that there is some value to the stu- dent in his unaided attempt to surmount difficulties. It means a needless waste of undirected effort, which might be replaced by much admirable and effective work ; there is not a single redeeming feature in a method that demands of the pupil what it should be the proper function of the teacher to carry out. Think of the hours fruitlessly spent in mathematics because of the pupil's false point of view ; of the memory work in geometry that replaces exercise of the reasoning faculty. We teachers ought to know from experience how often a mere hint, a single question, as to the pivotal point of a demonstration, will make a proposition in geometry clear. These hints, these di- rections, it should be the privilege of the teacher to suggest in the regular class work that should precede home preparation. In an essay on science teaching, Professor Armstrong of London says : ** An even greater reform will be the abolition of much of the lesson learn- ing and lesson hearing which disgrace our present system. Instead of calling on children to execute tasks in school under skillful and watchful, but so far as pos- sible, limited, guidance, much of the time is devoted to hearing lessons learnt under hnproper conditions. A 136 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL great part of a boy's or girl's school time is wasted in looking on while the work of others is corrected." ^ The question is pertinent ; what is the mission of teachers, if they throw the intellectual burden on the pupil? Many an attempt has been made to throw around this grave pedagogic defect the glamour of a pro- found system ; ^ we stimulate, it is alleged, in the young, through the sheer necessity of the home assignment, the power for creative insight. Granting that we do in one case out of a hundred, we are reminded of those cases of exceptional men that have developed into great engineers, great physicians and lawyers without the usual cultural training.^ We pay the penalty of this insistence on unaided home preparation ; compared with actual, tangible bene- fits to the pupils, the major part of our results is unsat- isfactory. Of the pupils, a few are at once capable and conscientious, a larger portion conscientious, but un- certain in their work ; these are the ones most seriously affected ; they grope along in vague misconceptions and 1 Armstrong in National Education (London, Murray, 1901), essay on Science in Education, p. 120. 2 W. T. Harris in Butler's Education in the United States, I, 87. » Canfield, " Adequate Preparation for the Study of Law," Columbia Quarterly, IV, 133. " Such a path to successful service is exceedingly difficult ; where one treads' it successfully thousands have been beaten back — discouraged and disheartened, with serious loss of what might otherwise have been positive productive power." PRESENT STATUS OE THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL I37 are keenly discouraged when the results of many hours of effort prove unsatisfactory. By far the greatest por- tion of our students develop, if they are not from the outset unreliable, a lack of conscientiousness ; if they are not totally indifferent to the outcome, they resort to every imaginable device, illegitimate assistance or ficti- tious performance in their desire to simulate some kind of satisfactory result. The injury to the morals of the individual and the class is but too obvious, and the sub- sequent recitation is largely devoted to a clearing up of difficulties to which the class ought never have been subjected. This rejection of the unaided home preparation does not by any means propose to substitute a state of passive acceptance on the part of the pupil for active effort. By no means does it favor a process of spontaneous absorption in which the teacher gives all, and the pupil contributes nothing but the faculty and the desire to accept. Cooperative effort of teacher and pupils in the classroom is to be the substitute for the un- desirable division of studies that is now in vogue. Such cooperation will effect one change in our school life that will in itself be an index of the vitalizing force of good teaching: our classrooms will resound with life. The recitation fashion as a test of a pupil's home preparation breeds protracted periods of monotony, of dullness, when a dull pupil is under recitation ; substitute for it 138 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL the method of developing and fixing knowledge in the class, and the very helplessness of a dull pupil will stimulate the cooperation of teacher and fellow-pupils, and may afford the most clarifying results of a lesson. There are occasions when a connected, undisturbed presentation of a topic of recitation by a pupil is neces- sary and valuable, but these occasions should be the exception, not the rule.^ Under the eye of the teacher, and aided by his di- recting questions, goes on the process of comprehension of a new topic. False assumptions, false methods of procedure, are corrected on the spot; erroneous notions are not allowed to fasten themselves upon the minds of the pupils, but are at once revised ; there is no virtue, as some would maintain, in wading through error to an ultimate view of a truth. We know too well how many false views permanently ingraft themselves on the child's mind, and are overlooked by the teacher who has a multitude of misconceptions to remove. In the usual recitation performance of our classrooms, especially in prolonged translations from one language to another, fully one half of the errors (errors of fact, or of taste) remain uncorrected ; even the best teacher is unequal to the impossible task of dwelling upon all the blemishes that a protracted recitation of an individual pupil dis- 1 Henderson, Education and the Larger Life, Houghton Mifflin Com- pany, 1903, pp. 225-226. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 139 closes, and the main result is often lost sight of in the mass of faulty detail. Teachers err therefore who refrain from interruption of a pupil's performance to secure what they call an undisturbed recitation; no statement should be allowed to pass which calls for correction; the interruption that points out the source of error is valuable. As the net product of all previous discussion we may demand a recapitulating statement which should be smooth, incisive, and discriminating. The prevalent method of conducting a recitation is then incompatible with satisfactory class work; when shall we be in a position to substitute for it the idea of class work? In and with the class we are to work over the topics that are to engage its attention ; those previously dis- cussed and acquired should be summarized in some form of review that insures knowledge of previously attained facts and grasp of relationship; thus we assure ourselves of the basis for further work. The new material is then to be developed, partly from pre- vious experiences of the pupils, partly by intelligent analysis. We inspire confidence that leads to the mas- tery of the new by skillfully utilizing what the pupil in one or the other direction has made his own. It appears that there is much less mystery, much less difficulty in the new than the pupil has surmised; much of it is within his reach ; but the use to be made of actual pre- I40 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOI. vious knowledge needs guidance, i.e. the discreet ques- tioning of the teacher.^ The art of teaching involves a minimizing of diffi- culties, a revelation of sequence and relationship. Con- creteness in language and in illustration, if the teacher is an adept in both directions, substitutes that which is familiar for the remote, the tangible for the abstract.^ The prevailing belief that concreteness in instruction calls primarily for the use of objects or of pictures is not well founded. It can quite as frequently be attained by the use of striking word illustrations ; it is in fact of particu- lar value and significance in the teaching of language and literature. The Germans distinguish very clearly be- tween Anschauungsunterricht and AnschauHchkeit im Unterricht ; the latter is the broader conception, appli- cable even where objects or pictures for purposes of il- lustration are not available. Freedom in the progress of each class exercise will naturally result from such artistic handling as the com- petent teacher brings to his task; the set order of a recitation which in many class exercises is supposed to be inexorable, must yield to a more flexible process 1 Valuable suggestions how the pupil's available fund of information can be utilized, Willmann gives in his P'ddagogische Vortr'dge. Leipzig 1896, especially in chap. IV, " Instruction and the Personal Experience of the Pupil.' 2 De Garmo, Interest and Attention, Macmillan, 1908, chap. IX. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL I4I in the interests of the class and of the topic. When a review is desirable to connect the new field of inquiry with the old, it may take on a variety of forms ; why may we not substitute for the formal review a brief oral summary of the last lesson, or on occasion reach back farther to embrace in a general sweep a comprehen- sive survey of a week's or a month's work ? Why not eliminate the formal review on a given occasion alto- gether, and yet glean its results, as we advance into the new territory? The interest of a class exercise is dependent, more than most teachers imagine, upon an occasional departure from routine. We do not sufficiently realize the effect on our pupils of recitations that seem to follow a fixed formula, — that introduce no variation in the question types, and invite an almost mechanical sequence of formal statements. A study of our educational literature points to the fact that the art of questioning as an educational factor has received but little attention.^ How many teachers bear in mind this fundamental fact that the question in teaching differs completely in intent from the question in ordinary life ? The teacher is not supposed to ask for 1 Some guidance is afforded in De Garmo, Interest and Education, chap. 14, " The Art of Questioning " ; in its analytical portion this chap- ter coincides substantially with an admirable little German treatise by Reinstein, Die Frage im Unterrickt. Leipzig, 1886. See also Betts, The Recitation, Houghton Mifflin Company, 53-78. 142 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL personal enlightenment; he knows, he is not sure whether the pupil knows. The educative question tests the state of mind of the pupil, and it aims to lead him (educo) to a correct grasp of his topic. It seems to be assumed that, given the content of a lesson, it is only necessary to use the question formulas ("what," "how," " when," " why ") and the object of questioning will be attained. This is far from the truth ; we have in the question, in the different types of the question, one of the most valu- able instruments in teaching. And an exhaustive study of the range of questioning, of its application under vary- ing forms for varying purposes, is desirable both for the possibilities and the limitations it reveals. With the question is involved the answer as part of the educational process ; the other half of the dialogue between teacher and pupil. In our acceptance of the answer we must regard its form as well as its content ; precision in form at the earlier stage may later on yield to freedom in form. The answer unfolds to the teacher the influence of his question, often helps him to realize whether his query has been indirect, con- fusing, misleading, redundant, incomplete, or the re- verse, whether it has been apposite or too vague, too comprehensive, whether it marks a proper step in a series of sequences, etc. That the student's bent of mind must direct the progress of our questioning, we are too apt to forget. PRESENT STATUS OE THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 143 To definite practice in the art of questioning the German seminaries devote constant attention; no part of the teacher's training is subjected to closer scrutiny, and the questioning ability of the expert teacher is a strangely interesting revelation of method, separated by a far remove from the catechetical method of former times.^ The ideal character of all questioning, Frick, one of the great masters of German pedagogy, has summarized in vol. 16 of Lehrproben und Lehrgdnge, Halle, p. 39 : "A properly devised questioning process must lead systematically from a definite body of connected infor- mation through a definitely connected chain of thought to a definite conclusion. The starting point must be assured, clear of misunderstandings ; the progress must be logical, without break of continuity or treacherous overlapping of statements ; the pupils' cohclusion must be precise, must grow of necessity out of the data off- ered, must not permit of alternative results." A recent study of this important subject by Miss Romiett Stevens,^ offered as a doctor's dissertation at Columbia University, is worthy of the closest attention; on the basis of an historical survey it investigates the whole subject most satisfactorily, and points the way to 1 Matthias, Praktische Padagogik, 3d ed. Munich, 1908 j cf. the section on Die Fragekunst, pp. 104-114. 2 Romiett Stevens, " The Question as a Measure of Efficiency in Instruction " : A critical study in classroom practice. Teachers College Contributions to Education, 1912. 144 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL exercises in normal and training schools that ought in time remove the stigma of mechanical performance from one of the leading tools in the teaching process. It is not too much to say that no part of the teacher's work requires finer powers of discrimination ; no other form of instruction compels the teacher in like degree to investigate a topic thoroughly, to grasp the intellectual needs and capabilities of his pupils, to be free from any delusions as to his successive efforts. The attempt to elicit clearness out of hazy, indefinite premises defeats itself every time ; it is like a definition in terms that are themselves not clearly comprehended. And the neces- sity of restraint, the compactness of expression which is an ideal of the questioning method, affords one of the highest tests of pedagogic ability. We realize how even adults grow restive under the monotony of sermons and addresses that reveal too clearly a set form of subdivisions and captions; how much more destructive of genuine interest must such adherence to an inflexible type of questioning be to the pupil, subjected to it year in, year out! The unex- pected, the element of surprise in the conduct of a reci- tation, the air of expectancy that is engendered by a teacher who approaches his subject from any one of a number of points of view, whose active mind sees rela- tionships that are not patent to the average observer, these are very distinct means of counteracting the dead PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 1 45 level of routine performance. More effective than a correlation that is deliberately sought, and too often overworked, is the natural correlation that suggests it- self to a richly informed mind ; that finds points of contact and comparison in seemingly distinct lines of experience. Flexibility in the conduct of class exercise must, however, go hand in hand with definiteness of aim ; in much higher degree than where the subdivisions of a textbook, the number of pages or chapters allotted, mark the tale of the daily performance, must the teacher in advance have mapped out his plan for the class ex- ercise. Just so much he proposes to undertake, so much is to be accomplished before the hour is concluded; he must realize the peculiar difficulties inherent in his subject matter, the degree of responsiveness of his pupils ; he will modify, as occasion demands, the rate of advance, the proportion of repetition and drill required to secure definite control of the new material, he will in- volve in the progress of the work every member of his class by the subtle alternation of the expository and the question-and-answer method. The current complaint of pupils in many of our classes : " I have not been called upon to recite to-day," should become obsolete ; in a properly conducted class exercise there should prevail the feeling that all pupils are under recitation all the time, i.e. there ought to be no moment when any pupil should 146 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL not be ready to demonstrate his participation in the given exercise. It rests with the teacher to create and maintain this relation of all pupils to the topic in hand. The conduct of this type of class exercise is far removed from the accepted form of our recitations. It means a much greater demand on the mental activity of each teacher, on his didactic skill ; but it is the only form of teaching worthy of the name, the only form that will in- sure substantial intellectual results. If our candidate teachers are reluctant to face such demands, then they have mistaken their calling, and we must steadily main- tain our demand until we secure the new type of teacher, adequate to face the new requirement. The improve- ment of our work will never issue from improved text- books or more scientific arrangement of courses ; it is bound up in the abihty and active performance of the teacher. The abandonment of the antiquated conception of the recitation is a fundamental factor in the improve- ment of our teaching. The transition to the new type of class exercise will at first prove strange to our pupils; the call for concentrated attention means some readjust- ment of their intellectual habits, but the obvious gain in definite attainment, in active guidance as contrasted with their former aimless groping, will make its appeal to them in a new light. They, as well as their parents, will appreciate the marked economy in effort for which PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 147 the new conception of the class exercise stands. This will be particularly manifest in the modified r61e that will be assigned to home work ; it is not to be discarded altogether, but its object is primarily to verify the grasp on new information the pupil has attained, through the joint labors of teacher and pupil in the class. It will bring to the teacher evidence that his class efforts have been successful, that the pupil has acquired an in- sight which perseveres and which he can without diffi- culty apply. It does not preclude in the higher stages efforts that call for original work, original problems in mathematics, interpretation of selections in foreign lan- guages, essays, etc., but the cardinal principle obtains that the classroom and class exposition are the proper centers for the acquisition of power, and only when such power has been definitely secured will the pupil be called upon to give evidence of it in unassisted work. Oui doctrine of unguided home work is curiously con- tradictory of Dr. Butler's and John Fiske's insistence on the value to the human race of the lengthening period of infancy ; we seem at the very beginning of adolescence inclined to remove suddenly the props that should guide our young people, and instead of continu- ing our wiser guidance, we compel them to shift for themselves ; what discomfiture this method has brought to the majority of our secondary school pupils, teachers themselves are best able to judge. 148 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL A change of emphasis then in the relations between home preparation and class exercise will remove the main obstacle to an increase in the number of class periods for purposes of instruction. It will require no further proof that twenty-five periods of class work under this changed method will mean less hardship to the pupil than twenty periods under present con- ditions. We may dismiss as unworthy of attention the pretence that pupils of the high school stage cannot well compass a more arduous school day than one of four solid teaching hours of sixty minutes each. By what reasoning could we justify the assumption that a diminution in the hours of daily school attendance from the requirements of the elementary school is desirable for the high school pupil .'' As in the case of the five reci- tations in each subject per week which were once deemed essential, we have attached to an accident of conven- ience the significance of a principle. In a number of high schools throughout the country, particularly in the Middle West, the claim that longer attendance in daily session is undesirable or injurious has been disproved in actual practice, and under improved methods of teaching there is no reason why the system, now operative in a limited number of schools, should not be generally adopted. The scheme of the Indianapolis Manual Training School, and of similar high schools, for a full high school day (a morning session, followed, PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL I49 after a liberal noon recess, by an afternoon session of two to two and one half hours, devoted to various forms of instruction in the manual arts, to designing, pat- terning, shop work, and to physical exercise), evidently appeals to communities that look upon the period of the high school as one of serious preparation for the exigencies of professional and business life. It is important to emphasize this point of view. An amiable spirit of dilettantism has tended to weaken the intellectual and moral fiber of our adolescents; it has undermined the significance of genuine secondary school work by attaching to extraneous activities that are either useless or injurious, at all events alien to intellectual interests, an importance to which they are not entitled. In the life of the school, as in the larger life of the community, the ^^ recall" maybe necessary as a means of escape from our own shortsightedness. Our educational aims are seriously hampered by the weakness of family life in the community, by the lack of positiveness, the excessive indulgence or the indiffer- ence of parents ; and the social philosopher who sug- gests the abdication of control in favor of the "self realization" of the young, which often amounts to hardly more than waywardness and insubordination, may do well to consider the words of warning of men like Sadler,^ 1 Sadler, " Impressions of American Education," Educational Review, March, 1903, 221. 150 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Faunce,^ and Wheeler.^ Has the plea to "respect the individuality of the child "^ (which within sane limits no sensible teacher loses sight of) not been responsible for the nurturing of that "undeveloped morality" to which Jane Addams {Tweiity Years in Hull House) ascribes much of our municipal corrup- tion ? A consideration of the distracting and deterrent influences that operate against effectiveness in the secondary school makes plain the duty of the teacher if he realizes the importance of his mission ; he above all others should speak unequivocally on this point. If the function we assign to the secondary school as a formative influence for later life is that of effectively developing and disciplining the intellect of the pupil, then it cannot be met by a half-hearted, easygoing process; it is uncompromisingly a serious task, and as such must be realized by teachers, pupils, and par- ents. And the realization of the seriousness of the task cannot be attained too early. The adoption of a solid twenty-five-period program for the entire high school course, coupled with the 1 Faunce, " Moral Education in the Public Schools," Educational Review, April, 1903, 340. 2 Benjamin Ide Wheeler, " Things Human," Atlantic Monthly, Nov., 1902, 641. 3 " Often an equivalent for permitting the pupil to do what he pleases." H. Thiselton Mark, Individuality atid the Moral Aim in American Education. Longmans, 1901, 155 ff. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 151 requirement of illuminating teaching by the teacher, and the substitution of a qualitative for a merely quantitative measure of attainment, would at one stroke enable the high school to substitute for the congested status of the present-day curriculum a generous and rational growth in the subjects selected for presentation. Two other considerations deserve a word of comment : I. The question of the number of periods of teaching that may be normally assigned to the teacher. With the change in the character of the teaching here ad- vocated, we cannot expect an excessive number of teach- ing hours of the masters. The type of teaching involved makes far more strenuous demands on the physical and mental energies of the teacher ; on the other hand, some of the energy that has gone out into disciplinary activity will be available for intellectual effort when the class exercise is suffused with vitality and vigor, and listless- ness, which is the product of poor teaching methods, no longer tempts to mischief. A capable, vigorous ] teacher may be expected to teach a maximum of twenty , periods per week; with the supplementary work inci- / dental to his conduct of the classes, such as preparation of experiments, correction of papers, outlining of paral- lel readings, and the work of an administrative character which forms part of every teacher's duties, this limit should not be exceeded ; it is slightly below the average called for in European schools. In a twenty-five-period 152 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL school program, then, there will have to be an increase in the teaching force, and this increase, though apparently an additional financial burden on the community, is required in the interests of real economy, of the best results for a given outlay. 2. The study periods as part of the secondary school day should be abolished ; they are largely wasteful and ineffective; they have been introduced primarily to conceal inadequacies in the available teaching force ; at times, three or four sections, each of which ought to be under the instruction of a teacher, are grouped in an assembly room under one teacher who is exercising monitorial function, and who is unable frequently, from the nature of his own studies, to aid the students in their difficulties. In coeducational classes these study tdc- riods give rise to distractions of an undesirable nature ; the segregation of the two sexes in the Cleveland high schools during study periods is an attempt to obviate one of the most patent disadvantages.^ From the standpoint of justice to theneeds of the pupils, the system of the study period is at its worst when in the same classroom a part of the pupils are under reci- tation, the rest assigned to study. Both divisions are then the sufferers; the sections under recitation do not secure the undivided attention of their teacher, and are 1 On Segregation in Study Periods, cf. Report Coram. Education, 1909, I, p. 180. PRESENT STATUS OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 1 53 often distracted by the behavior and performance of non-participants, the others spend time more or less aimlessly, and the net result of their undirected work is out of all relation to the time occupied. ^ We lament that our school days are congested, and yet we deliber- ately reduce the time available for teaching by these stop-gaps. In truth the entire school session should be devoted to teaching ; in every period a responsible teacher should be conducting a class exercise in which all students in the room should participate. The system of the study period is practically an admission that we are giving part time instruction ; the hue and cry against part time instruction in our large cities, where it is due to the inability of the school authorities to provide seating accommodations for the rapidly increasing school popu- lation, might be reechoed in every country high school where there is a shortage in the teaching staff. As usual in such cases, the tendency to temporize and palliate has given rise to the claim of certain wonderful educational advantages in a makeshift that is without qualification injurious to the efficiency of the school. Our children need to be trained how to study, but such training is not afforded in the study periods of our high schools. 1 The difficulty is frankly recognized by Bagley, Classroom Manage- ment, chap. XIII, but he battles uselessly with the attempt to suggest an elimination of the waste ; the remedy must be a radical one, — elimi- nation of the study period. CHAPTER II The Private Secondary School In contrast with the public high school whose instruc- tion is free to all entering students and Vhose cost is met from the public funds of the community, all schools that are supported by the payment of tuition fees for instruction offered, may be grouped together as private schools. In relatively few cases, as in a few academies, endowment funds of remote or more recent creation as- sure a certain financial stability, and enable the school to assume in material equipment and in teachers' salaries an outlay beyond that warranted by tuition fees ; with few exceptions, however, the income from such endow- ments represents but a small fractional part of the total income and is furthermore often designed by the nature of the gifts to assist deserving students who are unable to meet the expenses of private-school instruction. The private school depends in the main for its support on the approval of its methods by its patrons. The parents of all pupils at a private secondary school are at the same time taxpayers and contributors to the maintenance of the public high school. If, therefore, they incur this 154 THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 55 additional expense, which is at times very heavy, they must be prompted to their choice of a private school by considerations that ought to be reflected in its character. The private school is in their eyes a better or a more desirable one than the public high school — better, if it has a well-established reputation for excellence of its teaching faculty, for definiteness and continuity in educational method, for intelligent conception of the individual student's needs, for abiding influence on the character of its students by a prestige that has become to successive classes a tradition — more desirable, if it assures a certain social atmosphere in teachers and students that many parents consider a more important factor than educational excellence. It may at once be said that the craving for a private school as a socially desirable grouping of students introduces an element fraught with danger to the school, and alien to the vitalizing force which inheres in a broadly democratic conception of society. The ability or the readiness of parents to meet the financial requirements of such a school furnishes no evidence that they or their children are socially or morally desirable. It is unpardonable, certainly unprofessional, to find schools pandering to these unworthy grounds of preference ; it accounts for the prejudice and hostility against the private schools that is found in many parts of our country. The judgment and freedom in choice and retention of 156 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL pupils that a strong administrative head of such a school exercises is the main guarantee of a sound standard of desirability, and the free use of this discriminating judgment is at once one of the most important and delicate prerogatives of the principal. He will, if he is wise, relegate this factor of desirability to the secondary place it deserves, and make the standing of his school dependent on the positive elements of excellence which stamp his school as the better one. As already stated, the value of a private school should be gauged by its teachers, by its educational policy in which the convictions of its leader should find expression, and by its vital response to the inter- ests of those entrusted to its care. By its excellence in all these respects a private school must be judged, must stand or fall; it has no reason for existence unless it has in all these directions something to offer that is unattainable in the public high school. It is such a school that Dr. Harris considered a necessary element in our educational scheme;^ by what it con- tributes positively to the educational possibilities of the country, it should be measured. A private school, then, that is primarily a commercial venture, may be of benefit to its enterprising head; the community derives no advantage from it. To make it of 1 Wm. T. Harris, " Education in the United States," in Shaler's The United States of America; cf. English Special Reports, VII, 355. THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 57 positive value, its head should at the very outset appreciate from close, personal study the merits and difficulties of the public high school, and offer to his paying patrons a scheme that compasses the excellencies and obviates the disadvantages inherent in the larger and often unwieldy undertaking; he should assume on the strength of per- sonal conviction and initiative the final responsibility for the educational belief that finds expression in his undertaking. With a mind receptive to modifications in educational procedure, and critical in their valuation, he can experiment where experimentation on a larger scale, in a public educational system, might be premature ; personally directing and observing an innovation, he can develop its fullest possibilities, or can without serious impairment alter a policy that does not work out well in practice. The privileges and responsibility of a private school principal center in his attitude toward educational thought ; he realizes that he must face the brunt of the issue; a mistake in educational judgment may react upon him. The issues involved are not merely matters of theoretic, abstract correctness; he must realize the needs of his community ; if his scheme of school work adequately answers this need, it deserves to be success- ful. It is clear that the greater flexibility attaching to the smaller numbers of the private school permits and invites experiments. The history of educational move- 158 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL ment with us, as in other countries, bears witness to the value of personal enthusiasm in the furtherance of new methods ; the element of personal responsibility is a reasonable safeguard against foolhardy, ill-considered in- novations. The readiness of private school principals to test departures from current methods is worthy of special commendation, seeing that it is undoubtedly easier and safer to move along conventional lines. Exception must be taken, however, to Dr. Harris's further inferences ; he would have the administrators of the public school educational system wait for the results of experimentation in the private schools. Why should not the public school superintendents, if convinced of the pedagogic value of a new thought, test them di- rectly.' Some of our best superintendents are actively engaged in such experimentation ; they carry it on in a few selected schools before they embody the results in the whole of the school system. Mere mechanical expertness then is not a sufficient vindication for the private school enterprise ; as the pub- lic schools grow in efficiency, the private school must, if it would keep pace, not only maintain its special advan- tages, but increase them. At present the most obvious difficulties of the private school lie in the direction of equipment; without endowment, without the great num- bers that make adequate financial return possible, it is not easy to provide the facilities in laboratory equip- THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 59 ment, in libraries, in illustrative material that are recog- nized as essential. The main advantage of the private school must cen- ter in the selection of its teaching staff. In the esti- mation of its patrons the conduct of the individual teacher is of the greatest significance, and in each case the choice should be made not only on the basis of efficiency, but also of character. Whatever may be said in favor of the competitive system of examina- tion in the public school system to insure definiteness of intellectual attainment, it furnishes neither a char- acter test nor an assurance of teaching ability. The principal of a private school, with an accurate knowledge of his constituency and of his peculiar problems, and with the keen eye that personal responsibility is apt to train, is likely to probe more minutely than the larger public system is capable of doing ; he will fix his own standards of measuring the attainments of prospective teachers, for the competitive system affords only a relative meas- urement; he knows, furthermore, that a teacher with an excellent record elsewhere may not be as successful in new surroundings, and his engagements of teachers are frankly contingent upon acceptability that can only be revealed in actual class management, A private school is not obliged to carry for a length of time on its staff, as the public system so often does, teachers who are temperamentally disqualified. The opportunity of l6o THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL the private school to rid itself promptly of the incubus of incapacity or incompatibility is a distinct advantage. It is, however, far from the interests of a good private school to create a feeling of insecurity of tenure among its teachers ; the more individual tendency for which it stands, requires permanence and a certain continuity of its effective teachers. From its nature the private secondary school incurs another type of difficulties with which the public high school is not compelled to cope ; it may to some extent be itself responsible for the perplexity of the situation. With its attractive offering of smaller classes, of the conse- I quent increase in attention to the individual student, 1 and of carefully selected teachers, it has seemed able '{ to accompUsh what the public high school cannot fully j realize — not merely to instruct, but to educate, i.e. I to assist the pupil through the information he has ac- quired to a proper adaptation of himself to his larger environment in the social body. The special mission of the private school has been, however, misconceived and abused by a portion of the community that is altogether too ready to divest itself of its own proper responsibil- ities, and to thrust them upon those who are capable to in- cur them. The school is first and last an integral part of the social fabric; to make it an unrelated gathering of individuals, each one of whom is to be treated as though his particular growth and progress were, for the time THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL l6l being, the sole issue, is to defeat its purpose ; the pupil is not to be set off by himself, and no experiment that segre- gates him or his interests by any artificial process deserves to be considered educative. And, above all, the school is not, should not be, an educative factor merely ; it edu- cates in and through the instruction which is its special business. When it consents to take the place of the home, to do what parents have neglected to do, when it devotes itself too exclusively to the building up of character, it dissipates its forces ; the exhausting demand of duties which parents are prone to delegate in con- scienceless fashion to the teacher, works to the detri- ment of the best teaching power in our schools. It is frankly admitted in some of our best boarding academies that instruction cannot reach the high plane, otherwise attainable, because of the prejudicial effect of morally and socially untrained pupils; but the bur- den is also felt in private day schools, to which many parents turn over their children with the expressed de- mand that the school shall do all that is to be done for the pupil intellectually, morally, and socially, — the par- ents meanwhile pursuing their own duties and pleasures, among which the supervision of their children's welfare does not figure. Against this tendency of the remiss parent it is the duty of the school to protest ; to acquiesce in such proposals, to condone such flagrant neglect, will involve the school to an extent that must prove hurtful 1 62 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL to its essential obligations, the development of sound educational processes. Is it not unreasonable to expect that which is a burden to parents to be performed more effectively by one who is vicariously acting for them, who cannot realize the various conditions that have been contributing within the family to a child's devel- opment ? The respective functions of home and school are clearly discriminated by a leading German thinker : ^ " In addition to the fundamental habits of life and simple concepts of relation to the world at large, the family is to guard and promote the life of the soul, the emotions ; according to its measure of refinement it will develop in the child the standards of gentle breeding, of tactful in- tercourse with others, and will foster any specific inter- ests, the presence of which it recognizes (music, painting, manual skill), seeing that they are particularly effective as a pleasurable avocation. It is the function of the home to define and control the relaxations, the amuse- ments that serve to supplement and stimulate the intel- lectual life of the child. To the school is to be assigned the duty of making the child a willing and useful mem- ber of a corporate body, of training him to strict order, to acceptance of authority; it is to lead to definite exercise of the child's intelligence and will, to concentrated appli- cation; it is to transmit what is desirable of the fund of available knowledge, is to train in thought, in precise 1 W. Miinch, Geist des Lehramts, p. 266. THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 63 and effective use of language, is to promote by diverse exercises mental alertness, and through all these dis- ciplinary arts is to create definite ideals of conduct, for which the part that the home has contributed is to form the concrete basis." That this absence of cooperation and of some exer- cise of authority in the home is one of the most vulner- able points in our national life cannot be gainsaid : the school must emphasize the plea for family influence against an individualism that runs riot, that sets at defiance the experience and the coercive moderation born of experience. How these social shortcomings influence the institution created to counteract their tendencies, is but too apparent; they often nullify the effort to establish in place of ingrained selfishness, which is usually the result of poor home training, a spirit of communal interest, of consideration for one's fellow beings, of acceptance of service, of willing obedi- ence. We need not wonder that in the face of this supreme necessity of counteracting the moral obliquity which parental indifference or indulgence has allowed to thrive, the headmaster of a private school finds little room for the consideration of ideals in education. Under these abnormal conditions the majority of our private schools cannot attain a standard which should be the justification for their existence ; they cannot be the valuable testing ground for broader edu- 164 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL cational efforts. It is significant that many sincere headmasters, helpless because of the false position in which they find themselves, and realizing the funda- mental necessity of character building, sacrifice to this need the other standards of scholarship and intellectual vigor. But they abdicate their specific functions if they do not insistently maintain as their aim character plus scholarship ; it is a distinct misfortune that the intellect and thoughtfulness of such men is spent in a direction which prevents them from contributing as they might to the reconstruction or readjustment of the scheme of instruction. In the smaller size of its classes, in the quality of its teaching personnel, and in the opportunity for spe- cific and detailed control in method are embodied the distinguishing features of the private school. It ought, therefore, to be in a position to obviate many of the disadvantages of the public high school, notably that of incomplete correlation in the work of successive stages. The difficulties of transition from one type of school to another, from an elementary to a secondary type, should not exist; a genuine continuity in edu- cational growth ought to be its dominant feature, and a marked gain in educational economy should be the inevitable result. It might be urged as an objection to the continuance of the pupil in one and the same school that a change THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 65 in methods of instruction is desirable during so pro- tracted a period as a ten-year course, that adolescents require a different method of instruction than pupils of elementary grade, that there is a danger in perpetu- ating into the highest classes methods of teaching and of discipline necessary and appropriate for the lower classes. The criticism is a fair one, and it has been pointed out that in the German secondary schools the lack of sufficient differentiation creates a feeling of irksomeness in the two highest classes, whose pupils are adults; but it should be said in justice to the Ger- man system that this difficulty has been recognized, and that the present tendency is to minimize it by a kind of elective system in the work of these classes. ^ The all-important point is that the need of marked differentiation be recognized by those in authority, that the teachers adapt their teaching and their dis- ciplinary methods to the changes that manifest them- 1 Friedrich Paulsen in Monatschrift fiir hohere Schulen, IV, 65-73, and Steinbart, Monatschrift fur hohere Schulen, V, 18-22. Paulsen urges : 1. The development of a system of compensations (equivalents) in which weaker performances in one branch may be compensated for by preeminent attainments in another branch. 2. An independent original essay by the student in a topic of his own choice. 3. The in- stitution of free study days, in which competent students are permitted to substitute private home preparation for attendance in class (a su- preme mark of confidence bestowed on serious students), and finally the creation of student clubs for discussion of scientific and literary topics. l66 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL selves in the growing adolescent. To triumph over the limitations inherent in each stage of the pupil's school life is the essence of good teaching ; it height- ens, for instance, the effectiveness of good history teaching in the upper classes of the secondary school if the same teacher to whom is intrusted this advanced work has awakened younger pupils to the first in- terest in his subject in a connected, picturesque form of narrative. Such a teacher is more valuable in the initial stages of the subject than one who has not the larger scholarly resources to draw upon, and the same advantage holds for the teaching of literature, of science. Is it then not altogether strange that this vital ad- vantage is lost sight of .'' The majority of our private schools are four-year private high schools, content to rear their educational scheme upon previous completion of the public elementary school, or even to devote a portion of their first year to the proper acquisition of what should have been attained in the elementary school ; it is this prevailing type of school that receives its entering students at the age of fourteen or fifteen, an age when they might have been carrying on for some years studies of the secondary school, and is in consequence embarrassed, like the public high school, by an overcrowded curriculum, for which four years do not suffice. THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 167 By contrast, a properly organized private school under efficient educational management that commands the confidence and cooperation of the parents ought accomplish, can accomplish, in distinctly less time, a scheme of study for which the present public school system, because of unavoidable friction at the points of juncture, requires in its elementary and high school twelve years. That ten years are quite sufficient for the completion of this work, has been demonstrated by a number of private schools ; they have, in fact, found it easily possible to expand their educational efforts beyond the minimum acquirements of the normal twelve- year course, and embrace in their schedule topics of study, not absolutely required, but distinctly desirable. 'There is no difficulty in compassing within the allotted time not only the subjects stated on page 126 of chapter I, but in adding to them the proper acquisition of several foreign languages (one ancient and two mod- ern, or two ancient and one modern). The economy of such a logically devised course mani- fests itself furthermore in this respect, that it gains ample time for the broader, more generous aspects of teaching as against the frequent and anxious application of exami- nation tests. The best teaching can dispense to a large degree with the formal test; it tests constantly, as it unfolds new aspects of the subject, and relates them to previous experiences of the pupil. Furthermore, with l68 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL its continuous course of ten years, it is in a favorable position to apply various departures from our prevalent practice, such as the early introduction of a foreign language, the gradual advance through a given subject in preference to a condensed and ill-digested presenta- tion, the interweaving of several phases of the same subject, as in the case of elementary mathematics (con- structional geometry to be related to arithmetic, and to precede by several years the beginnings of demonstrative geometry), substantially then to put into practice edu- cational theory that has met with acceptance elsewhere. Nor is a private school expected to meet the needs of completely divergent groups of students such as the public school embraces in its constituency. The parent who with the opportunity for free tuition of his child in the public school, elects to pay for his instruction, ex- pects to give him the opportunity for the completion of his course, and he desires such course to be unified, to lead by successive and related stages to the goal which the school has fixed as its aim. There is little demand for an arrangement of the course of study which, when- ever interrupted, shall afford an immediate and effective transition into some phase of practical life. In this respect the principal of a private school enjoys a dis- tinct advantage ; he can regard his succession of school years as a whole ; what he conceives as the proper dis- tribution and utiHzation of time and subject matter he THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 69 combines into his program of studies. The construc- tive problem is in consequence relatively simple ; the complications of our public high school problems are largely due to the variety of interests among those who attend and to the expectation that all of these inter- ests shall be recognized in the development of the school program. It involves a radical difference in pro- cedure whether a subject is taught as an element in a larger scheme, to be amplified and strengthened as the course proceeds, or whether our present teaching of it is the only consideration the subject is to receive in the course. Thus an introductory course in physics, con- ceived as preliminary to a later and ampler treatment, must differ fundamentally from one that is to represent all the knowledge the school is to offer on this subject. The completion of the ordinary elementary and secondary program within ten years presupposes a pupil in normal health, and a body of capable, enthusi- astic teachers under competent direction. It should be added with all possible emphasis that the carrying out of such a program imposes no hardship whatever on the pupil; it leaves ample opportunity for all legitimate forms of physical exercise ; it does mean concentration on a distinct purpose, directness, skill, and intense de- votion to duty on the part of the teacher, and the capacity to stimulate to honest intellectual effort. It also presupposes cordial acceptance of the principal's 170 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL intentions on the part of parents. It is found in prac- tice that a strong principal, sure of his aims, wins vacillating parents to his point of view; his own per- sonality and that of his loyal teachers will gain the good will and interest of his pupils without much difficulty. When President Eliot, in his Educational Reform^ pp. 151-176, points out regretfully the vast discrepancy in mental efficiency between our pupils and German and French pupils at a given age, the explanation is found in the uncertainty of aim, the ineffectiveness of our teachers, and the hesitation to postulate seriousness of application as a legitimate demand upon our adolescent youth. It is this seriousness of purpose, this insistence on specific performance which we must make the dominant note of our school system, if as a nation we do not wish to be eliminated from a position which is within our reach ; as against the doctrine that we must at all hazards ease the paths of our young people on the plane of least effort, we must proclaim the doctrine that substantial attainment cannot be realized without substantial application ; in the professions and in the world of affairs the path to success is a thorny one, and it is an injustice to our youth to conceal from their minds the severity of the struggle.^ 1 F. Ware, Educational Foundations of Trade and Industry. London, 1901, p. 98 ff. ; also Sadler, Unrest in Secondary Education, Eng- lish Special Reports, vol. 9, 39 ff. THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 171 They are enemies to the well-being of the growing generation who urge the substitution for a robust and invigorating discipline, of an easy, almost unconscious acquisition of information. A vigorous nation needs a vigorous progeny ; intellectual flabbiness invites discom- fiture, defeat. It is a common experience of the students in our professional schools, that until they enter them, they hardly realize what intense and concentrated application means; they are confronted with demands for which their previous dilettantism in study has not properly prepared them. It is well for the private schools of every type to weigh with caution the effect on their standing as secondary schools of the multifarious duties they have been assuming in loco parentis. Valuable as are these duties, shall they encroach upon the position their schools have always claimed as educational factors in the community? It has been argued recently and in various quarters that the private day and boarding school and the incorporated academy, despite their distinctive opportunities, are not developing in their best students as high qualifications on the intellectual side as the public high school does ; the attainments of their respective graduates in their college careers seem to confirm this criticism. Harvard College has been gathering for its own guidance some very significant statistics in this respect. 172 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Its entering classes are largely recruited from the pri- vate preparatory schools and academies (Exeter, An- dover, Groton, St. Mark, etc.), schools whose professed object is to equip their students effectively for college entrance. From the public high schools of the country whose curricula do not closely articulate with its require- ments, it receives but a relatively small percentage of its students. But of distinctions attained during the col- lege course, the small body of public high school students carry off an unusually large proportion. The startling discrepancy is not explained by the fact that the public school graduates who have won entrance are a picked body who have encountered and success- fully overcome obstacles on their path into college, who appreciate the value of intense application more than the graduates from the private schools ; it is inter- preted by Harvard College to mean that because of the distractions inherent in the present arrangements of the private schools, these are not as likely to foster scholarly tastes and powers as they might do. Hence Harvard has concluded to extend its opportunities by a new system of combined examination test and control of school records to as many high schools as possible, in order to secure what a college needs above all, — a large body of earnest, intellectually incHned students. There has not been in recent years a more specific arraignment of our private schools and academies; it THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 73 confirms our suspicion that the majority of the schools have slighted the scholarly impulses in their efforts for the upbuilding of character. It is a misconception to substitute one for the other ; they represent totally dif- ferent methods of educational procedure, and need not in any way conflict in time or tendency. Any secondary school, public or private, should presuppose the active desire of its attending students to exert themselves intellectually ; it cannot descend to become the dispenser of needful information to a recalcitrant student body without nullifying the reason for its existence. Between the private and the public high school there is no occasion for antagonism ; ^ their aims are avowedly similar; the public will eventually judge which is produc- tive of the better results. If the smaller classes of the private school, the educational convictions of the teachers, and the relative freedom in procedure, result in attainments that the large public school, with its other compensating advantages, does not realize, the superintendents of the public system will not fail to suggest the changes that will remove the difficulties, and the taxpayers will have to indicate their willingness or reluctance to cooperate. 1 The antagonism against the public high schools which finds ex- pression in the utterances of English headmasters who conduct private school enterprises is unknown in this country ; we have an open com- petition, with a generous recognition of the distinctive merits of each party ; he who deserves to win, let him win ! 174 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL In a number of directions the greater flexibility of the private school could influence fruitfully the public school system ; it has been responsible for the more discreet application of administrative measures, for reforms in methods of promotion and in a wiser adjustment to indi- vidual requirements. From a financial point of view, too, the private high school contributes lessons that the public school system cannot afford to ignore ; they bear upon the effectiveness of both systems as educational agents. It may be assumed that the well-to-do support- ers of private schools who are already taxpayers are not overanxious to squander their resources ; they expect a full equivalent for their outlay, and whilst they approve of a fair profit to the managers of private school enterprises in return for the exercise of their talents and for the risks incurred, they feel warranted in demanding superior provision in teachers and teaching equipment. An interesting tabulation has recently been made by the head of one of the largest private day schools in the country, based upon confidential information from heads of similar schools;^ the object was to determine the percentage of expenditure devoted to the teaching corps, but its data may furnish suggestions of the actual 1 These statistics have been further developed by the author ; the generous response to his inquiries, furnished by the principals of many private day schools, has proved exceedingly helpful. THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 75 cost of instruction of the individual pupil, in which must be included the pro rata expense of general school maintenance (this would involve heat, light, janitorial attendance, and either rent on building or interest on capitalization and contribution to the sinking fund). In no case did the entire outlay for salaries and general maintenance fall below eighty per cent of the tuition fees received ; in several cases it amounted to eighty-five per cent. We may omit from consideration the cases of several religious or semi-religious school organizations in which the school income stands in no specific relation to the salary list, special appropriations being available to meet all deficits. The maximum of profits to the head of the school was twenty per cent, in most cases below that figure. The average income from tuition fees per pupil was a little above 1^150 per annum, of which, therefore, at least eighty per cent was spent to meet cost of instruction. The tabulation, furthermore, shows that the actual expenditure on teachers' salaries represents from thirty-eight to eighty-eight per cent of the tuition fee. The reports come from fourteen prominent day schools, whose charges of tuition range from $100 to $400 per annum ; none of the higher priced schools charging above $400 were included : — Of its income School A spends 38 per cent on teachers' salaries- School B 40 per cent School C 41 per cent School D 40 per cent 176 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Of its income School E spends 50 per cent on teachers' salaries. School F 56 per cent School G 59 per cent School H 68 per cent School I 68 per cent School J 71 per cent School K 73 per cent School L 79 per cent School M 83I per cent School N 88 per cent In schools A to K the heavy charges for general maintenance (rent, etc.) absorb much of each school's income ; in schools L to N an original endowment removes the item of rent and reduces the cost of maintenance. An investigation of the number of pupils in attendance at most of these schools and of the number of teachers employed showed that there is one teacher to twelve pupils (an average that approximates closely to President Eliot's statement in More Money for the Public Schools, p. 17, that "private schools not infrequently provide a teacher for every eight or ten pupils." School B, with a large income and the highest average of tuition fees of all the schools under consideration, forms a marked exception ; its low percentage of outlay for teachers' salaries is partially due to the fact that its classes are too large. A closer study of this confidential information reveals the further fact that the private school does not tend, like the public high school, to a disproportionate outlay for buildings and outfit and a modest expenditure for teachers' salaries ; the tendency is rather the reverse, except where specific gifts have been made to a school for the erection of specific buildings. As between the THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 77 two tendencies, that of the private school is distinctly the sounder one ; we may approve of the feeling of communal pride that regards the high school building as a civic center ; brick and mortar, however, assembly halls and laboratories are but external manifestations of a civic spirit whose real import should be disclosed in the quality of the men and women employed to direct the functions of the schools. Our communities must be trained to recognize that the erection of a stately building furnishes an empty shell merely ; it is in the increasing effectiveness of what is offered within its walls that its permanent value abides. The most luxu- rious transatlantic steamer is a dismal failure unless it is officered by men of the greatest efficiency. The very existence of the private schools acts as a ferment in the development of public opinion. The whole question of the cost of public high school educa- tion must be subjected to revision ; the extravagant ex- penditure of moneys for buildings and the subsequent parsimony in salaries, which is most striking in smaller communities, is a notable example of the wastefulness in our public life.^ It may be assumed that the admin- istrators of private schools are not recklessly extrava- gant ; they incur the greater outlay in teachers' salaries because they consider it wise and necessary. 1 Eliot, More Money for the Public Schools, N.Y., 1904. Button and Snedden, Administration of Public Education, p. 171, Macmillan Co., 1908. N 1 78 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL The private school is not only compelled in its own behalf to provide a larger number of teachers for the same number of pupils, but a more expensive kind of teacher ; in boys' schools male teachers predominate as a matter of course, in mixed private schools the teach- ers are almost evenly divided as to sex, and even in girls' private schools the male teacher is not unknown. How, then, are we to interpret the existing conditions in the public high schools ? Are we to assume that for the instruction of the large classes women are more de- sirable than men ? It is hardly likely that any one would make this claim. A survey of the situation leads to this conclusion, that under the existing conditions of meager salaries, uncertain tenure, lack of appreciation of professional growth, it is easier to secure women than men as teachers.^ The aim of the school boards being to make their salary budget as low as possible, competent, energetic young men seek avenues of activ- ity in which positions of responsibility are not awarded to the lowest bidder. The fact that women are avail- able for high school positions at lower figures deter- mines their preponderance in the school system ; this, and no other consideration, prevails with school boards, however strenuously they maintain the contrary .^ iThe whole question of salaries, tenure and pension of public school teachers has been treated in the Report of a Committee on these subjects, made July, 1905, to the National Educational Association. * The Germans, prompted by the same motives of economy that THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 79 It is significant that whenever the need of radical im- prove ment in a school system is recognized, there is a call for a material increase of the school budget, so that addi- tional male teachers of abihty may be drawn into the system. It may be freely admitted that for the same low salary a better woman than male teacher may be secured ; the deliberate indifference of school boards to economic conditions, especially to the increased cost of family maintenance, which affects the workman and the teacher alike, has driven promising young men into other fields of activity. Without disparagement of the excellent qualities of many women teachers, it cannot be said too emphati- cally that, if our high school system is to be of real value to the community, we cannot dispense with the male teacher in our schools. We need a large number of capable young men as permanent members of the profession, and the community must be educated to a point where it will make their positions attractive by prevail elsewhere, have lately been considering the appointment of larger numbers of women teachers ; they are, however, questioning the economical advantage in the face of their statistics on regularity of attendance. According to the Pddagogische Zeitung of Berlin, Dec. 9, 1909 (in Report Comm. of Education, for 1910, 1, 471), the percentage of teachers on sick leave ran thus : men teachers, 26.94, women teachers, 52.11, special women teachers, 42.97. In Magdeburg, similarly, the per cent of absence on account of sickness among the men was 26.9, among the women, 41.3. l8o THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL liberal salaries and prospects of permanent appointment. It cannot be repeated too frequently that the contraction or abandonment of a high school is better than its con- tinuance under conditions of hopeless incompetency. In this matter of the predominance of the woman teacher in our school system we are face to face with a situation, the seriousness of which cannot be overesti- mated. If existing conditions are allowed to continue, and no adequate remuneration is offered to increase the number of male teachers, we shall presently have a generation of high school pupils who have not known the influence of male teachers. Excepting in the large cities, our high school teachers are women ; and even the male principal who has been in charge of the arrangement of studies in the curriculum, is in many communities being replaced by a female head. The consequences of this lack of balance have been clearly recognized by expert observers from other coun- tries ; ^ they are reflected in the want of incisiveness in 1 Professor H. E. Armstrong (Rep. of Mosely Comm., p. 13, 1903) is particularly strong in expressions of disapproval. Sarah A. Burstall, English High Schools for Girls (Longmans, p. 60, 1907) : " It should be frankly recognized that women cannot do as much work as men, a fact which is some justification for paying them at a lower rate, and that they need more allowance in the matter of absence due to illness." Contrast with this statement the utterances in English Special Reports, X, 410 ff. THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL l8l our high school work. It is a fatal lack of insight to close our eyes to our defective educational policy ; we are steadily undermining the opportunities in which we profess to excel. Our school courses do not appeal to our pupils, because they do not serve the ends antici- pated. If the high school teacher were only the mediator between the receptive youthful mind and the sub- ject that is to be grasped, it might matter but little whether the mediator were a man or a woman, but more is involved, the shaping of character, the evolution of preferences as to a study, often the choice of voca- tion. The relation of a boy to a female teacher may be one of instinctive courtesy, he may accept her criti- cism of his scholastic attainments, may even submit ostensibly to her disciplinary authority, but he does not seek her advice in the difficulties incidental to adoles- cence. He wants at times the judgment, the experience, of one of his own sex ; the daily bearing, the outlook upon life of the man, gives direction to the boy's prefer- ences ; the woman teacher will never be consulted by him as a guide in the practical conduct of life. On this point the most sensible women teachers may be accepted as witnesses ; they know that their control of older boys is at its best limited to the performances of the class- room, and they avoid, as a rule, all morahzing with the boys, because they are conscious of its futility. A l82 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL special educational commission in Chicago, reporting in 1898, recommended the appointment of a larger number of male teachers in the higher grades of the elementary schools, even at the cost of higher salaries ; they explic- itly attributed the ominous fact of the small number of boys in the secondary schools to the predominance of women teachers in the elementary schools. Studies and life are separated by a great gulf if the school furnishes no one to establish the connection between the two. Even mothers who have the firmest hold upon the affections of their boys realize that at the age of fifteen or sixteen a certain reticence sets in, and that at this period the influence of the father as the counselor, the confidential friend, of his son must reveal itself. The success of the best type of private school rests upon the recognition of these conditions ; it is for the men teachers to win the confidence of their boy pupils; in their lives the teachers are expected to embody certain fundamental principles of conduct which serve as guides in the crises of adolescent life; their judg- ment, knowledge, and sympathy may contribute to a happy issue. Contact with a virile spirit is needed by the healthy, turbulent boy ; sturdiness and vigor develop from contemplation of similar qualities ; and the with- drawal of boys from our high schools is due in limited degree only to the attractions of business ; their appar- ent incapacity to measure up to the required standard THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 83 results quite frequently from unreadiness to continue under feminine control. The value of our women teachers inheres in their essential womanliness ; if their teaching is to reflect a sexless conception of their duties, the major part of its merit disappears. We all concede that in the earlier stages of the elementary school a woman's characteristic endowment makes her a particularly efficient teacher. She combines patience with capacity for detail, but it is preposterous to expect the whole adolescent school population, male and female, to attain to an efficient maturity under a system of education largely feminine. For both boys and girls the influence of a number of competent male instructors is of the greatest impor- tance. This view of the whole question is vital, as the great majority of our schools are coeducational. Experience has shown that girls relish thoroughly the instruction by male teachers ; they have the feeling that if they meet the demands of the male teacher as well as the boys do, they demonstrate their capacity more obviously than if taught by one of their own sex. But even in schools exclusively devoted to the education of girls, it would be well to have a certain quota of male teachers in the middle and upper classes; aside from the influence on the girls, the interweaving of the mas- culine and feminine point of view is of advantage to the 184 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL teaching body itself, assuming, of course, that the teachers of each sex are representative, the men not weak types of the profession, the women not aggres- sively masculine. However the pronounced partisans may object to the term feminization in education, this undesirable tendency exists, and the country at large is reaping the reward of its shortsightedness, its mistaken parsimony. Feminiza- tion in education reveals itself not merely in the preva- lence of the female teacher; the weak and colorless male teacher who continues in this vocation despite inadequate salary, contributes no virile counter-influence. It is in defiance of all the dictates of common sense to accept as inevitable the gradual elimination of the com- petent, vigorous male teacher, because, forsooth, an approximate equivalent can be obtained at a lower rate. Our educational literature furnishes an index to our present-day trend; consult educational textbooks, read educational addresses ; you will find advice, remonstrance, professional guidance, addressed as a matter of course to the woman teacher ; it has become a national habit to think thus, and our lecturers and writers seem not to feel the incongruity of the situation. Ours is actually a nation, ninety per cent of whose adolescents at least have come to regard knowledge and culture as an essentially feminine accomplishment, be- cause strong men do not seem available or inclined to THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 85 propagate it.^ The major part of the instruction is in the hands of women, the attendance in the public high schools shows a higher percentage of girls than boys, energetic male teachers are few ; under these circum- stances is it likely that the characteristic note of the high school will be absorbing energy, enlisting to the utmost the participation of all concerned, or will it be attuned to the measure of its prevailing constituency ? ^ This influence is palpably reflected in our high schools, in the character of their work, the discipline of the school, the attitude of the student body; it would be obviously an injustice to urge an insistence on a mascu- line type, where teacher and taught are dominantly feminine, and it is not surprising that the minority acquiesce in standards of gentler procedure. And the logic of our system moves one step farther ; with the coeducational school as the dominant public school type, its measure of performance has fixed the standard. " The methods of the recitation have under- gone an unconscious evolution to adapt them to the girl type."^ Can the boys' high school undertake to prove 1 De Garmo, Interest and Edtication, p. 99, Macmillan, 1908. 2 HoUister, High School Administration, chap. VIII, " Adolescence and Coeducation." Nightingale, A. F., " The Ratio of Men to Women in the High Schools of the United States," School Review, 4, 86. But- ton and Snedden, Administration of Public Education in United States, pp. 369-371, and bibliography, p. 384. 3 J. E. Armstrong, School Review, 1910, p. 339 1 86 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL that in the given time and under more potent teaching more positive attainments might be secured ? That would overthrow the generally admitted value of the coeducational scheme, whose ideals seem to satisfy the demands of the community, and so the boys' high school accepts the line of lesser resistance, and ambles along at the gentle gait of its associates, whilst the students fritter away in " idleness of a most engrossing kind " energies that at this adolescent stage should be directed, stim- ulated to the full. The failure to rouse our young men to their actual capacity for sustained effort constitutes the severest indictment of our high school system. Ed- ucation of the community to a definite realization of this fact is a duty that devolves upon our educational experts ; if once the economy of effectiveness is demonstrated, they will iind the public ready to cooperate, to make the larger sacrifice. The force of example and of uncompromising convic- tion counts above all else with the American public ; let it be clearly recognized that efficient teaching is impos- sible unless we offer inducements that will prolong the continuance of the teachers in the teaching field and bring to the service of the school the results of their intel- lectual progress and their growth in technique, and we shall have taken a long step toward greater efficiency. ^ 1 A sad picture of the demoralization that has affected bodies of teachers is disclosed by Jane Addams in her Twenty Years in Hull House. THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 87 The advocates of coeducation are at the present moment the most serious foes of educational progress. Those who recognize the need of educational advance must be prepared to accept the obloquy that arises from unreasoning partisanship ; among them are to be found, fortunately, a number of admirable college-bred women, who realize that studies appropriate to young men may not necessarily prove best for young women. ^ No one denies the practical value in the past of the adoption of the coeducational scheme in our schools. Sparsely settled communities throughout the land offered such educational opportunities as their slender resources permitted to both sexes alike ; ^ it was not the question whether this was most beneficial to each of the sexes ; the financial stress determined the alternative — this or nothing. Economic considerations, and only these, ini- tiated the coeducational school. The argumentation Referring to her experiences as a member of the Chicago School Board, she records the objections of the teachers to examinations in- tended to test their intellectual growth ; technique, and not increasing culture attainment, they claimed, was to determine promotion, as though intellectual stagnation could be counteracted by routine dexterity. 1 Sachs, J., " Coeducation in the United States," Educational Review, 33, 298. Sachs, J., " Intellectual Reactions of Coeducation," Ediiational Re- view, 35, 466. 2 Brown, E. E., " The Making of our Middle Schools," vide Index under Coeducation, 527. Smith, Anna T., " Coeducation in the Schools and Colleges of the United States." Report Commissioner of Education, 1903, 1, 1047 ; 1910, 1, 126-136. 1 88 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL that what was of necessity done, was also the ideal thing to do, was an afterthought ; it is not the only occasion in the history of peoples when the exigencies of a situa- tion have been invested with the dignity of a leading principle. We are all prepared to admit that the co- educational idea has been on the whole successful in the elementary school; in the high school it has not been conducive to the best results, and its substantial value to both sexes in the coeducational college is open to grave doubts for a variety of reasons that have not yet received impartial consideration. To the high school age in particular applies Professor J. F. Brown's statement {The American High School, p. 387) : " Belief in the wisdom of coeducation is not nearly so universal as its prevalence." Equal opportunity has become an established fact in the American high school ; there can be no retrograde movement in this respect. Are we not ready for the consideration of the next step in advance.'' Does equality of opportunity involve identity of procedure .'' ^ That there is a certain crudity in the requirement of identical pursuit and identical rate of advance, is clear from the divergent remedies that have been tried in various important centers. Compare 1 Sir Philip Magnus, Educational Aims and Efforts, Longmans, 1910, 42-47, and p. 180 : " The true theory of women's education must be founded on the belief that each sex is both inferior and superior to the other, but in different respects." THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 89 the scheme of partial segregation in the recitation periods of the Englewood High SchooP (where the coeducational scheme formerly prevailed) with the Cleveland plan of segregating the two sexes, for valid reasons evidently, during the study periods (Report Commissioner of Education, 1910, p. 120); both schemes encountered at the outset serious opposition from the adherents of the traditional arrangement, but both have conquered their way to recognition. Is it in one or both directions that progress lies ? A recent experiment, re- corded in School Science and Mathematics, January, 191 1, p. I, on the "Teaching of Physics in Segregated Classes," is but one of numerous evidences that, if the financial stress disappears, the school can concentrate it- self for each sex advantageously upon those lines of thought that appeal naturally and effectively to it. Just what effect the introduction of vocational train- ing into the high schools will have upon this question, remains to be seen ; but it is to be presumed that the creation of separate schools or separate departments will suggest a complete reconsideration of the method of subject presentation in the light of life interests. In the discussion of the specific province in which the rnale and female teacher respectively are likely to excel, sweeping generalizations are undesirable; it is 1 Armstrong, " Limited Segregation," in School Review, 14, 726 and 18, 339 ff. 190 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL injudicious to predicate for the women teachers in high school work special ability on the literary side, in the teaching of English and foreign languages, and to re- serve for them these subjects, whilst we make the teaching of history and civics, of mathematics, of natu- ral science, the peculiar domain of men. Superintendents and principals can point out many individual instances in which women have shown them- selves exceptionally good teachers of mathematics, specially strong in establishing correct fundamental concepts of science; on the other hand, the cultural phases that may be suggested in the teaching of lit- erature and language make a strong appeal to many men, and it would simply emphasize existing prejudices to establish an arbitrary line of demarcation in the assignment of subjects. The decision must be based in every case on the teacher's special gifts ; it is clear that something more than book learning must determine his proficiency. To attempt the teaching of history and civics as a collection of facts, a mere record, is of course to deprive the subject of its vitalizing force, of its signifi- cance to the future citizen of the world; the teacher, whatever may have been contributed by personal expe- rience, must himself be a "political being." In like manner there are other than aesthetic and emotional appreciations to be won from the teaching of the vernacular and other literatures, and it is unwise THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL I91 to eliminate the masculine point of view ; the genius of each race, and it is this that is revealed to us in its literary documents, includes a wide range of human interests, that make their spiritual appeal to men and women alike. The dominant interest, the capacity to interpret to the young, should determine the assign- ment of a subject to a teacher, regardless of sex. CHAPTER III The Educational Policy of the Secondary School Of the two purposes which Lord Kelvin ^ claims for the higher education — first, to enable the student to earn a livelihood, and second, to make life worth living — the former relates studies to their practical bearing, the latter represents the ideal aim, and concerns itself less with the direct application of studies to successful aptitudes than with the acquisition of intellectual and spiritual power — the special distinction of the educated man. The contrast and the relationship are happily expressed by Mr. C. E. Rugh in his prize essay, " Moral Training in the Public Schools," Ginn & Co., 1907, p. 23: "Making a living is one of the means of living a life. The sin of the age has been in making the means an end, and thus losing both." It is the avowed intention of our secondary schools to compass both ends ; but we are not agreed which of the two purposes shall receive the greater visible em- phasis. Shape your teaching, say some, so that the utilitarian goal is not for a moment lost sight of ; how to secure the practical availability of all information 1 DeGarmo, Interest and Education, The Macmillan Co., 1908, p. 48. 192 EDUCATIONAL POLICY OP THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 93 must determine your methods; teacher and pupil alike should have in mind the relation of each subject to its later application. Others, and theirs are not the least earnest minds, would completely reverse the relation; be sure that your presentation of subject matter is such that it rouses your pupils to correct methods of thinking, and the utilitarian or vocational application will eo ipso suggest itself. Between these two points of view our American schools are oscillating; they sway incontinently from one scheme to another, and their educational structure is rendered correspondingly unsound. The European schools are not distracted by the same conflict ; their educational experts have reached the rank of advisers through prolonged acquaintance with actual teaching; they are positive as to the value of accuracy in fundamental attainments, and they are agreed that a definite system of grouping studies is best calculated to pave the way for the several types of activity, profes- sional, technical, or commercial, to which the secondary school student tends. Having concluded from prolonged reflection and experience that a certain group of studies best equips students, not for a specific vocation, but for efficiency that can be turned to satisfactory account in any one of a number of vocational endeavors, they pre- scribe definitely this group of studies ; and the public at large accepts the conclusions which expert opinion 194 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL has reached; it reposes confidence in the broad, philo- sophic attitude of the expert as against the well-mean- ing, but hasty inferences of the amateur. There is nothing undemocratic in accepting expert opinion rather than dilettantism. When we allow a de- cisive voice in the councils of our educational boards to untrained opinion that is swayed by the obtrusive influ- ences of the moment over against the calm, reasoned con- victions of the trained expert, we invite the educational anarchy which prevails. An accidental combination of popular preferences may lead to-day to the acceptance of a policy of educational advance ; a few months hence, and without reason or warrant, the same amateur legisla- tion will, without adequate trial of merit, cancel the re- forms it has initiated. The story of our educational endeavor is rich in such movements within a vicious circle ; we scarcely dare wel- come the new thought, because we have so often seen its undeserving eclipse. It is not surprising that experi- ments, zealously undertaken in one section of the coun- try, are forgotten when they have been abandoned by their originators, and are taken up anew elsewhere, as though they had not previously been considered. An influential body of educational experts, representa- tive of a certain type of educational attainment and in- sight, would naturally record the nature and progress of each experiment ; they would eliminate it completely EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 195 if, and when, found untenable, they would retain and advance its meritorious features for the greatest com- mon good. The group system of studies, then, as the expression of expert opinion has this in its favor against a policy of free election in courses and subjects: it challenges criticism on the score of mature, unbiased reflection against ill-considered, incompetent preference ; it guards against unfounded prejudice, that is as wasteful in pre- mature adoption as in premature abandonment of lines of study. We are all agreed that the entire range of studies embraced in the secondary school curriculum cannot be compassed in their respective maximum of offerings by one and the same pupil ; choice must be made, but it must be choice under wise and firm direction, dictated by professional knowledge and experience, not by pa- rental whim nor by the dictates of chaotic popular senti- ment, least of all by the moods of the immature pupil. It is significant how radically different is the conception of electives here and elsewhere. Germany has intro- duced electives in the last two years of its gymnasial courses ; they are options in studies in which the stu- dents have displayed more than average ability and in- terest ; they are granted on the recommendation of the faculty, and they are counted as electives (Kompensa- tion), provided the pupil justifies the liberty of choice 196 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL accorded him by performance far above the average. {Monatschrift fiir h'dhere Schulen, V, 18-22, and X, 577-583, the latter a treatment on the basis of Pesta- lozzian doctrine.) The wisdom of such control of out- right election is made further manifest in the small number of students who register for elective courses; the responsibility attached to the option seems to reduce promptly the insistence on special aptitudes. What would be the effect on our elective courses in schools and colleges if similar standards were en- forced ? ^ In the question of the teacher's attitude toward elective courses of study and the election of individual studies the warning utterances of those who are in a position to measure the consequences cannot go unheeded. What Browning records in grateful terms of his exceptional father, " Who knew better than turn straight Learning's full flare on weak-eyed ignorance," is what it is the function of the sympathetic teacher to regulate.^ In his School, College, and Character, President LeBaron Briggs, formerly Dean of Harvard Univer- 1 For an ardent advocacy of the elective system, vide Charles W. Eliot, Educational Reform, p. 132, and William T. Foster, Administration of the College Curriculum, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911, chaps. IV- VII. 2 President Hadley in Educational Review, Nov., 1904, pp. 331, 333. EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 97 sity, says in an essay, " Some Old-Fashioned Doubts about New-Fashioned Education": "No persons lay themselves open more recklessly to reductio ad absuv- dum than advocates of the elective system. Everybody believes in the elective system at some stage of educa- tion; the question is where to begin; yet extension after extension is advocated on general grounds of lib- erty (such liberty, by the way, as nobody has in active life), and propositions are brought forward which, if we accept them, give the elective system no logical end. Down it goes, through college, high school, and gram- mar school, till not even the alphabet can stop it" (P- 37)- " For any responsible work we want men of charac- ter — not men who from childhood up have been per- sonally conducted and have had their education warped to the indolence of their minds " (p. 46). " Training (p. 61) is the discipline that teaches a man to develop the less promising parts of his mind as well as the more promising: to make five talents ten, and two, five ; to see that in his specialty he shall work bet- ter and enjoy more for knowing something outside of his specialty ; to recognize the connection between pres- ent toil and future attainment, so that the hope of future attainment creates pleasure in present toil; to under- stand that nothing can be mastered without drudgery, and that drudgery in preparation for service is not only 198 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL respectable, but beautiful; to be interested in every study, no matter how forbidding." ^ Incidentally he quotes with approval Dr. Martineau's words : " I warn you that this enervated mood (of choosing only agreeable studies) is the canker of manly thought and action." To advocate for the pupils in the schools the unbridled license of free election, is particu- larly deprecated by Dean Briggs : for intelligent choice at the college stage, pupils should be prepared by vigor- ous training that creates and develops a full sense of responsibility. More than individual instances it is the tendency that has worked, and will work, harm. It leads insensibly to what a brilliant teacher of scholarly parts (Caskie Harrison) designated the elective attitude of mind, the elective mode of study. His illustrations can be duplicated from the experience of every teacher. " In English composition the boy may elect to do what is easy, but simply to neglect the requirements of practice and revision, because he does not intend to be a writer ; perhaps he has examples at home of success without even epistolary correctness. When to an elective sys- tem of study we add the insidious perils of an elective 1 Briggs, School, College, and Character, p. 123, quotation from Cardi- nal Newman. On the superficiality of exclusive specialization, vide Bascom, " Changes in College Life," Atlantic Monthly, June, 1903, p. 750, " The specialist, even in his own department, is frequently unable to give a collective view of truth." EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 1 99 mode of study and an elective attitude of mind, teachers find themselves trying to live and manufacture in a vacuum." The disintegration resulting from uncontrolled and unrelated choice militates directly against unifying effort in the secondary school work. The unconscious influence of logical sequence in work the late William T. Harris, in the St. Louis School Reports, 1872 (p. 64), dis- cussed thus : "What the mind acquires in its early stages will be rudimentary, but will furnish a rich native store for future thought when the period of reflection sets in stronger. The roots of the sciences and literature and history should go down deep into the earliest years, so that the unconscious influence derived thence shall assist in molding the taste, will, and intellect, during the most plastic period of growth. Without this unconscious molding of one's views of the world, later scientific and literary studies are likely to be barren." One need not consider the group system the final solution of our present-day school problem and its con- gested curriculum, but it points the way to a satisfac- tory result. It is the product of fallible human intelligence, but it represents at least a distinct guiding principle; it safeguards against incoherence and lack of continuity ; for irresponsibility in judgment, for the vagaries of untrained faculties, it substitutes the reason- ing of trained insight. 200 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Our contention here is for the fundamental fact that that is no election at all which without knowledge of their content or their service to the thinking efficiency, chooses some subjects and discards others ; it is license, and produces the usual results of thoughtless action — disappointment, discouragement, waste of opportunity. In every sphere of activity, and why not in educa- tion ? all reasonable men concede that expert opinion should dominate and direct; the layman forbears to solve the engineer's problems, to suggest therapeutic procedure to the physician, or methods of legal tech- nique to the lawyer ; his interference would call forth the sharpest reprimand ; why should it be otherwise in questions educational ? Doctrine and experience should afford a basis of professional judgment, capable of vindicating educational processes against amateur predi- lections ; if the teacher follows in the practice of his art certain methods whose raison d'etre he cannot justify, he in just so far falls short of professional equipment. The plea for due recognition of professional authority can be sustained only if those in charge of educational interests are able to demonstrate in argument and con- ference their complete command of the issues involved. It is a question of administration of schools rather than of inner organization that differentiates the German secondary schools with their three types of study com- binations (the classical Gymnasium, the Realgymnasium EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 201 with its Latin-scientific course, and the Oberrealschule with its science and modern language course) from our high schools. We harbor under one roof and one ad- ministration as many parallel courses as we can offer with the available teaching corps. We carry this par- allelism of courses so far that it persists even in high schools whose designation would seem to indicate that they are devoted to one special type of educational effort, as for instance, in the Commercial High School of New Yorkj in the Manual Training High Schools of New York and Brooklyn ; one cannot even say that the course indicated in the special title is invariably the dominant one.^ The system of the parallel courses within the same high school is not founded upon any educational conviction; like the coeducational plan, it is the outcome of the financial needs of the community.'^ It has been regarded as distinctly more economical to arrange for a community of moderate size one high school, and, if need be, parallel courses within its walls, than to organize two or three distinct high schools, each limited to one type of secondary instruction. When the entire high school attendance in a given town lies be- tween sixty and one hundred and fifty students (and this represents a great proportion of our high schools), 1 Sadler's reasons for advocating differentiation of types in second- ary schools, English Special Reports, IX, 153. 2 E. E. Brown, The Making of our Middle Schools, p. 405. 202 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL it is obvious that not more than one high school can be provided from public funds ; in such cases it would be disastrous if a single course without any opportunity for parallelism or option were insisted on. Germany, with its strict maintenance of sharply dif- ferentiated school types, has suffered certain disadvan- tages which it is now engaged in remedying ; a study of the educational map of Prussia,^ e.g. on which are registered the location and type of each secondary school in the kingdom, shows that within a radius of many hundred square miles the secondary pupils often find only one type of school available, usually the classical gymnasium, and must forego the opportunities of the scientific or modern school type. The remedy adopted has been an instructive one ; no new classical gymnasia are being installed anywhere in the rural dis- tricts, and a number of those in existence in small towns are being transformed into Realgymnasia or Oberreal- schulen, especially in the industrial sections. Our most serious difficulties in shaping the educa- tional policy of our secondary schools lie in the fact that we have failed in too many cases to make clear to ourselves how we can secure for the various subjects the best educational results in view of the pupils' actual attainments; we have been told by the next higher 1 Karte deroffentUchen hoheren Lehranstalten im Konigreich Preussen, von M. Killmann herausgegeben (Berlin, Reimer). EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 203 group of institutions, the colleges and the technical schools, in fairly definite terms, what knowledge they demand of the pupils for entrance ; to give them this knowledge, this power, has seemed to most high schools the ultimate goal to strive for, and as the attainment of this knowledge has proved a serious tax upon the energies and capacities of the teachers and, in consequence, of the pupils, no room is left for the consideration of these subjects as parts of a larger educational scheme. What the college authorities have announced as their requirements is a minimum ; that nothing short of this would suffice should be the natural assumption ; and therefore in the interest of the pupil's later welfare and of the standing of the school that sends him forth one might reasonably expect that something very much more comprehensive than this minimum would be striven for by the school, so that the fulfillment of the minimum requirement would be but an incident in a richer program. For various reasons this has not been the case ; the minimum requirement has become in fact a maximum of desirable attainment; the colleges have interpreted their own minimum standards in very elastic fashion, have accepted offerings far below their nominal stand- ards, and weak and ineffective schools have all too gladly recognized in this temporizing attitude of the 204 ^HE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL colleges their privilege to do superficial and unsatis- factory work. The conditioning of students at college entrance which has undermined the efficiency of college work in the first year, if not beyond ^ (Pritchett, 4th Annual Report Carnegie Foundation for the Advance- ment of Teaching, p. 141), has in like fashion sapped the efficiency of many secondary schools ; the possibil- ities of evading the consequences of inaccurate and indifferent work seem too numerous. If it were made clear (i.) that the minimum stipu- lated would be upheld with relentless persistence, and (2) that this minimum of attainment measured mainly in terms of intellectual power could not be safely realized except as incidental to a very much broader course, the degrading spectacle of time spent in gauging the minimum of effort required for a passing mark would disappear. Intellectual power is a rather intangible thing to measure, and the only safeguard of school and pupil should lie in comprehensive work, within which the more specific test would naturally fall. The familiar standards of West Point and Annapolis illus- trate the aim we have in view ; entering students who 1 " The moment there is introduced into a college class a consider- able proportion of ill-prepared students, the difficulties of instruction are enormously increased, and the general good of the body which the college most directly seeks to serve is sacrificed to give a chance to an entirely different class." EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 20^ have met the minimum requirements, but have not developed a much more comprehensive background of intellectual capacity, fail frequently to cope with the exigencies of the course. A marked advance, making for more rational stand- ards of admission, for the encouragement of independ- ent programs by secondary schools, and for the abolition of the disgraceful subterfuge of the conditioning system, is indicated in the new system of Harvard entering ex- aminations^ {^School Review, June, 1911, pp. 412-413). It has been the fashion for the secondary school to throw the odium for its own ill-balanced courses of instruc- tion on the college requirements ; there has been much foolish talk about the dictatorial attitude of the colleges on questions in which they lack practical acquaintance. If the colleges have added to their statements of require- ments rather specific indications of a desirable procedure within the sphere of secondary schools, it has been due to an absence of agreement, a lack of definite educational policy, among secondary teachers, that is entitled to serious recognition as the expression of a great body of educational experts in the secondary field. As long as each city's secondary schools reflect merely the individual views of the officer temporarily at their head, whose unstable tenure of office operates 1 Report of president of Harvard College for 1909-1910, 254 £f. 206 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL directly against the initiation of far-reaching policies, and as long as our preference for individualism en- courages differentiation in school organization rather than the frank adoption of general governing principles, to which minor individual idiosyncracies may well be sacrificed, our progress toward homogeneousness in school effort will be disheartening. We do not plead for the centralizing activity of the experts in the Prussian educational ministry, though their plans and modifications of plans are actuated solely by their convictions on educational efficiency, nor for the formal classifying tendency of the French gov- ernmental schools. Our teachers cannot brook, we often hear, bureaucratic control in the elaboration of educational schemes; but we ought to have an agree- ment in policy, reached by conferences of the leading secondary school experts of the country. Local con- ditions, local preferences are insignificant in the con- sideration of such questions, as "How shall physics and chemistry be taught in the high school ? " " In what sequence and with what distribution of time shall the mathematical subjects occur .?" " How many years, and periods in each year, shall be devoted to history? " "What consitutes a sound secondary history course, and by what methods of instruction shall the teacher secure his results.?" "What is to be the aim of our English work ? By the use of what lines EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 207 of work, and the omission of what considerations, can we make it genuinely valuable ? " " How are modern languages to be taught? for what reasons? What is the needful equipment of the teacher for the task ? " Imagine that by a series of conferences initiated by a score of cities, an authoritative body of school experts reached definite conclusions, as did the Committee of Ten in 1892, and that a larger number of city school administrations expressed their willingness to adopt for a period of ten years such a report as the basis of a rearrangement of curricula ; that a frank determination to give these convictions and suggestions the fullest trial were reached ; it is safe to say that the impetus of such a concerted movement would mark an advance that would be reflected in more effective teaching throughout the whole country. Nowhere is the force of concerted example more potent. Then it would matter little whether this or that superintendent hap- pened to be in control in a city in a given year. Why should that which is recognized as good teaching, as rational arrangement of subject matter in Indianapolis and in San Francisco not be as valid for Buffalo and New York ? Is it not absurd, on the contrary, to assume that there are special educational panaceas for each community? Would not the very existence of such a conference make for the adoption of larger educational views and 208 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL eliminate narrow sectional prejudices ? This suggestion does not involve absolute uniformity. There would be ample room for differentiation within certain great lines of agreement. The experience of the sub-committees that con- tributed to the report of the Committee of Ten is a valuable one for all similar efforts. It had been expected that radical divergences of opinion and theory- would be disclosed that would make unanimous recom- mendations impossible. On the contrary, in the prog- ress of discussion the differences proved to be of negligible importance, the points of agreement numer- ous ; it was a question of definite formulation of belief. The very effort at reaching an understanding leads to a sifting of essentials from non-essentials, gives emphasis to a broader educational conception than is likely to be reached by any separate community. It is our way of advancing, and it is a very good one, this fashion of abiding by the judgment of those we trust. No indi- vidual city superintendent, no local body of associate superintendents, can take rank in this widest sense as educational experts; admirably informed, excellently intentioned, they cannot but be local educational experts, until in such conferences they emancipate themselves from the consideration of local problems, and breathe the freer air of a larger educational legislation. The educational expert, who would stand outside of EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 209 any single city school system, but who combined with thorough study and philosophic grasp of the large educational questions a knowledge of the social and economic situation of each community, who would be ready to stake his professional reputation on the sound- ness of his suggestions, such an educational expert, for instance, as England possesses in Sir Michael Sadler, might seem to some a more effective agent of reorgani- zation than the larger body of conferees suggested above, but what city superintendent in the United States would be prepared to subordinate his views to those of even so acknowledged an authority, what local community would invite the diagnosis of such a man and adopt outright his remedial suggestions ? ^ In an addition to this chapter an effort has been made to point out the value of Sadler's expert judgment in its suggestions of improvement of the secondary school situ- ation in England. It is generally admitted that the problem of the sec- ondary school course that leads to the doors of the col- lege or scientific school affords relatively the least difficulties ; with the goal definitely in view, and the re- 1 The bit of contemporary history connected with the publication of the Report of the Commission on the Baltimore Schools (United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin No. 4, 1911) and the action of the munici- pal authorities {Educational Reviezu, Nov. and Dec, 1911) may serve to confirm the statements in the text. 2IO THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL quirements stated in fairly comprehensible terms, it be- comes primarily a question of adjustment to accomplish the ends sought in the time available, and to approximate as well as possible to the satisfactory attainment of these ends. Accommodation to a definite prescription, espe- cially when successive generations of teachers are con- fronted with the same task, is not impossible, and the preparatory course represents altogether a fairly reason- able arrangement of the secondary studies. But what shall be the scheme for those who do not intend, cannot afford to complete the preparatory sec- ondary school course ? And what shall be its relation- ship to the college preparatory course .-' The genius of the educational expert, it would seem, might well be ex- pended upon a study of these relations.^ Here we are at the parting of the ways, and we must reach a definite standpoint to determine in which direc- tion the studies for the great mass of secondary pupils shall tend. Here is our crucial problem, and the com- plete subordination of the interests of this majority to the needs of the future college and scientific school student is responsible for the revulsion of sentiment in the community that finds expression in the cry for voca- tional training. There is no doubt that the high school can lead by modification of method in a number of studies 1 C. O. Davis, " Reorganization of Secondary Education," Educa- tional Review, Oct., 1911, 270-301. EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 211 more directly to vocational efficiency, but its central purpose would be eliminated if it became entirely, or in one of its departments, a vocational school; at that moment the fundamental thought, out of which second- ary instruction developed, the creation of intellectual initiative, would be replaced by a new aim, that of directing effort upon the acquisition of earning capacity. The adoption of the new name, vocational school, can- not obscure the fact that what its advocates call for is a trade school, a school whose training for a definite occu- pation renders the pupil at its close capable to perform remunerative work. Commissioner Snedden of Massa- chusetts has distinguished once for all between liberal and vocational education.^ "Vocational schools have their place in the educational efforts of the community, collateral with our secondary schools in the age to which they minister, but entirely different in aim ; they frankly specialize to one distinct purpose, that of leading by the most immediate path to productive work." Several facts, as we see the situation, stand out prominently ; there is a distinct danger that in striving for the acquisition of vocational efficiency, we uproot the general aims of our secondary schools, i. Vocational schools will be of little service, unless the courses of in- 1 Cf. Snedden, David S., " The Problem of Vocational Education " {Riverside Educational Monographs, Houghton Mifflin Company), pp. 71-81. 212 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL struction are shaped uncompromisingly to the develop- ment of skill and intelligence in a specific vocation ; they must frankly abandon the pretense to combine with their aims those of a liberal, cultural course, otherwise we shall again develop a hybrid institution that is neither successfully vocational, nor genuinely liberalizing. 2. In any community, even though its interests be predominantly of one type, say the shoe or the weaving industry, a single type of vocational school that prepares for a single industry only, is unsatisfactory ; it would re- strict vocational training to the prevailing interest, and make no adequate provision for the numerous subsidiary or supplemental industries, in each one of which equally adequate training should be afforded. How many of our communities appreciate the significance of this fact ? Munich with its forty-six different kinds of trade schools affords a case in point ; it is still organizing ; it does not pretend to have covered every possibility ; for every new industrial demand it is prepared to open up a special school of vocational training. In our communities in particular, with their mobile population, it is unwise, unprofitable to restrict the vocational outlook of our young people even by the pre- vailing industrial tendency of the town. How often have economic conditions that are beyond local control completely effaced the dominant industries ! An un- foreseen combination of circumstances may initiate new EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 213 industries with their new demands, for which the pre- vious vocational trend of the schools affords no technical equipment. This danger is a very vital one, far more imminent in our newer civilization than in the more conservative communities of Europe. And finally, the current belief that such vocational schools are easily manned, that competent teachers of vocational subjects are readily secured and are less expensive than teachers of advanced cultural sub- jects, is without foundation. All over Europe the ques- tion of the supply of teachers and of their special training for their difficult task is one of the greatest prob- lems of the vocational school. (Report Commissioner of Education, 1910, 322-323.) The combination of a high order of technical proficiency with pedagogic skill in presentation is a very unusual one, difficult to secure, more difficult to retain; the vocational school can tolerate, less than the average cultural secondary school, teachers of mediocre attainments.^ There is no escape from the exacting demands of the shop or the factory; a vocational school that does not properly qualify for a given vocation is self-condemned. And yet we all know of courses in the manual arts whose teachers fail either as adepts in craftsmanship or in the 1 The account of the various efforts made in Berlin, Munich, Diisseldorf, and elsewhere to develop the artistic as well as the peda- gogic capacity of these teachers merits detailed consideration. 214 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL art of imparting, of commercial courses whose teachers lack completely the intellectual grasp that is needed to vitalize the larger concept of commerce. Is this type of teacher likely to initiate satisfactorily the new type of vocational school ? What then are we to regard as the policy of wisdom in our school system ? A vocational school cannot by its very nature be a secondary school; if we retain our belief in the value of a prolonged course of school work that shall disclose the variety of intellectual interests inherent in a broader outlook upon life, then we must adhere to the initial conception, out of which our second- ary schools have grown ; they have been supposed to encourage intellectual efficiency, and sympathy with cultural ideals ; they may retain this prerogative, and yet combine with it the worthy aim to prepare for the economic efficiency of their pupils. But they cannot subvert the relations and make economic efficiency the sole determining measure, with the intellectual product merely incidental to it. There is nothing discreditable, if individual or community prefer this new relationship ; in a certain blind, groping fashion many have probably sanctioned the secondary school in the expectation of just such a relationship. They have mistaken its pur- pose ; perhaps we have far more secondary schools than we need. Eliminate them, where their functioning makes no appeal to the communities that have supported EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 21$ them, and transform them unhesitatingly into vocational or trade schools ; but let the secondary school, as we conceive its mission, not fall between two stools, ineffec- tive to serve either end. There must be a clear understanding as to the distri- bution of emphasis in our secondary school work. The utilitarian trend is in every way meritorious ; what we object to is to have the mere standard of the market accentuated and made paramount over the broadening, developing opportunity of the secondary school.^ With Dr. Snedden {The Problem of Vocational Education) we admit that " some of the studies which contribute to liberal education may be so handled as to give a basis, or approach, or means of approach to subsequent liberal education," but with him we insist that "vocational education is a supplemental form of liberal education " ; the secondary school is not to give vocational education, but to shape the training of the pupil in such a fashion as to prepare him for vocational efficiency. In an optimistic survey of American educational effort (" The Unrest in Secondary Education in Germany and Elsewhere," in English Special Reports, IX, 155) Sir Michael Sadler asserts that " the leaders of American education show a united front against any narrowly commercial spirit in the secondary schools ; the business atmosphere 1 F. G. Bonser, Fundamental Values in Industrial Education {^Q3iCh.QXS College Bulletin, 3d Series, No. 6). 2l6 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL in America is already so tense that it is the duty of the secondary school rather to provide a counteracting influence than to intensify the interest in commercial matters." It is the bread-and-butter idea he has in mind, and the clamor for purely vocational ends (in the indus- tries as well as in commerce) is just now an imminent danger to the deliberate unfolding which is inseparable from the proper prosecution of secondary studies. There is nothing more narrowing than the insistent demand " What is the tangible usefulness of this subject, of this or that phase of the subject ? " There is something quite beyond the weighable and measurable efficacy of each educational step ; the development of power, the attainment of power, cannot be expressed in so many units, and yet it gives larger and more satisfactory results than manipulative skill in any one vocation. Better than theory in estimating the value of educational procedure is the record of results. Germany knows that in view of the numerous voca- tions the probability of correctly determining at the outset of the secondary school on just what vocational work the ultimate activity of a pupil had best be con- centrated is most remote; it realizes that it would restrict educational opportunity if the process of vo- cational specialization were begun too early ; its Real- schulen have laid the foundation for its phenomenal advance in commerce, industry, and the arts, without EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 217 the slightest concession to immediate vocational ends. Their Realschulen prepare for vocational efficiency without training in vocation (Ware, Educational Founda- tions of Trade and Industry, Appleton, 1901, p. 100) ; they are not narrowly utilitarian; they initiate into a consideration of the real issues of life by methods that are scientific. The Germans contend that, in as far as their instruction is liberalizing, it contributes to practical efficiency ; their stress is laid upon the train- ing of the faculties, upon securing a basis of accurate, interrelated information ; upon ability to arrive at sound conclusions. They keep the gross conception of utility in the background, but develop capacity all the more effectively. Those who advocate the subordination of every other educational consideration to the test of utility will do well to consider the outcome of Germany's educational methods. The enlightened opinion of England has ac- cepted the doctrine of Germany as the true solution of present-day requirements, and is planning a reconstruc- tion of its secondary schools on the same lines. A phase of this reconstruction which is extremely significant comes to us with the authority of Mr. Sad- ler, who has probably devoted more thought to the problem than any living Englishman. He realizes that many boys and girls need guidance beyond the usual limits of the elementary school; they cannot continue 2l8 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL school studies beyond the age of fifteen or sixteen, when they are to enter upon some remunerative pursuit. To give them fragments of studies which bear their fruit only when pursued to completion at the age of eighteen or nineteen, involves loss of time to the pupil and the school; the more generous outlook of the secondary studies, planned for a long succession of years, does not admit of proper presentation in proportional segments of information. A differentiation in aim and method is considered imperative ; it has led to the recommendation of a new type of intermediate schools, the Higher Elementary Schools, the scheme of which embraces a widening cultural tendency within the limits of a three years' course; in such schools the trend toward vocational interests is recognized, though it is not allowed to dom- inate. To a certain degree these schools correspond to the successful higher grade schools of Scotland.^ An outline of the first two years of this three-year course^ combines with such subjects as geography, nature study, drawing, practical physics, elementary mathematics, handicraft exercises, etc., the demand for strong teach- * Sadler, Report on Secojtdary and Higher Education in Derbyshire, 1905, pp. 13-23 ; Report on Secondary and Higher Education in Hampshire, 1904, p. 40. 2 Sadler, Report on Secondary and Higher Education in Newcastle, 1905, p. 36. EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 219 ing in the mother tongue, for the cultivation of a taste for good literature, the development of a sense of civic duty, and for all pupils the curriculum should include French as an optional subject; the latter would give the pupils a better understanding of their own language, and would widen their intellectual outlook and sym- pathies by helping them to appreciate the national life and ideals of a great foreign people. The Higher Elementary School marks a great con- structive advance upon the content of the elementary school, furnishing a body of information and a basis of intellectual interests that will justify a prolongation by several years of school life ; this information, it is expected, will prove practically serviceable, but the narrow utilitarian standpoint is distinctly kept out of sight; anything like premature specialization is strongly deprecated.^ It is significant that such a course is supposed to make its popular appeal to the English mind by the use of the term " Higher Elementary Schools" ; parents and pupils are mor^e likely to be attracted to it by the fact that it is designated as an enlargement, an expansion of the previous scope of the elementary school, and the re- sponsibility of public provision for it will thus encounter the least opposition. 1 Sadler, Report on Secondary and Higher Education in Essex, 1906, pp. 66-67. 220 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL With us in the United States, though we approved of the scheme and the subjects embraced in it, the very name would be fatal to its popularity ; neither pupils nor the general public would sanction a classification that would not seem to advance pupils into an insti- tution of an entirely new character; whether even the name "Junior High School," if reserved for such a type of school, would not be received with some resentment, it is difficult to foretell. It is not to be expected that the average citizen will at once realize the advantages of a course that does not obtrusively lead into practical utilities; it requires a more philosophic survey of the situation to anticipate the more substantial advantage that will accrue from a wisely elaborated scheme. It is, therefore, the duty of our educational leaders to plant themselves firmly on this doctrine and prove its value to the uninitiated. From them, above all, must come the detailed plan of educational reform ; a surrender of the doctrine of a liberalizing education in deference to the momentary tendency of utilitarianism would end, as similar extreme movements have resulted, in disappointment and disaster. The remedy for the betterment of educational condi- tions is not found in upheaval, but in careful adjust- ment; previous experiences have established the fact that the revolutionary spirit passes but too readily into the reactionary, when its anticipations are not realized. EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 221 In his admirable treatise, The Teaching of Geometry, (Ginn & Co., 1911) Professor David Eugene Smith says of geometry teaching what may well be applied to the whole secondary curriculum in view of the vocational demand : " Continually to destroy, continually to follow strange gods, always to decry the best of the old, and to have no well-considered aim in the teaching of a subject — this is to join the forces of reaction, to waste our time, to be recreant to our trust, to blind ourselves to the failures of the past, and to confess our weakness as teachers." " The only possible basis for a successful system of higher education (be it commercial, technical, or profes- sional) is to be found in an intellectually thorough, readily accessible, and morally vigorous, system of sec- ondary education." (Sadler, " Recent Developments in Higher Commercial Education in Germany," English Special Reports, IX, 525.) In this view many of our most thoughtful educators concur ; they have observed with great apprehension the wave of unreflecting popular enthusiasm in favor of vocational work in our secondary schools ; they fear its effects upon the cause of sound educational advance, which depends on evolution from within rather than on unmatured substitution of a new tendency. They ap- preciate the desirability of advancing industrial effi- ciency, but it is to be coupled with the ideal of a liberal 222 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL education ; to weaken the standards of intellectual dis- cipline which is acknowledged the distinguishing mark of the secondary school, is to prepare the way for its ultimate extinction. The function of the secondary school with its length- ening educational opportunities is to prepare for life (as the phrase goes) ; for college, the technical school, the professions. It is not expected to turn out a finished product for the higher schools, neither should it under- take to turn out a finished vocational expert in any prac- tical occupation; it prepares for one as for the other by giving the intellectual basis through intellectual disciphne. Adhering to this conception, we may remove from consideration every scheme that would subordinate .mental progress to manual dexterity. Let us afford op- portunity for the acquisition of mechanical proficiency, but it must be directed by intelligence ; otherwise we sacrifice the fundamental characteristic of the second- ary school, the training of the reasoning faculties, the awakening of a genuine desire for knowledge per se. The idea of the shop, it seems to me, should not enter into the plan of the secondary school ; lay the foundation, if you will, for intellectual efficiency and skill in the shop ; the manual arts furnish the basis for such skill, but the differentiation which it is the privi- lege of the secondary school course to create, rests upon EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 223 the connection established between manual dexterity and an intellectual organization of the work in which the scientific attitude plays a vital r61e. It seems undesirable from the viewpoint of the present author for the secondary school to divest itself of its cultural socializing tendency ; the frankly voca- tional aim should be met in communities that need it, that worship it, by the organization of separate voca- tional schools. Definiteness in aim is what our school systems need; vacillation, uncertainty in educational policy, deprives our work of its compelling force. We can maintain a definite aim, and exercise withal consid- erable latitude in its application, but on the main issue we must stand firm ; in the enlargement of the mental horizon, the stimulation of intellectual preferences and moral responsiveness, the privilege of the secondary school lies; this is its object — all other results to be attained while this central aim is before our vision, are incidental to it — the successful entrance into college, or into immediate vocational activity. To revert once more to Lord Kelvin's statement of the purpose of higher education, it is safe to say that juxtaposition does not imply equality; "to make life worth living" constitutes the mission of higher education, but to its complete realization it is necessary that man shall have wherewith to live, i.e. be enabled by his education to earn a livelihood. 224 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Assuming, then, that a broadening of intellectual rela- tions is fundamental to secondary school work, we are confronted with the question, Will any and every sub- ject indiscriminately and in equal degree answer this need ? The natural answer to this query would be, cer- tainly not. The majority report of the Committee of Ten, by the weight of its authority, has given currency to a contrary opinion. It says (p. 33): "On the theory that all the subjects are to be considered equivalent in educational rank for the purposes of admission to col- lege, it would make no difference which subjects he had chosen from the program — he would have had four years of strong and effective mental training." It is apparent from this statement that the evaluation of the subjects in the curriculum is reduced to a mechanical formula; its percentage of value in the educational scheme is supposed to correspond to the percentage of time devoted to it in the course. A pro-' test against this point of view by a minority of the committee (President Baker) was recorded at the time, but produced little or no impression. (Report Com- mittee of Ten, pp. 56-58) " I cannot indorse expressions that appear to sanction the idea that the choice of sub- jects may be a matter of comparative indifference. . . . All such statements are based upon the theory that, for purposes of general education, one study is as good as another — a theory which makes education formal and EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 225 does not consider the nature and value of the con- tent," etc. The contention of the majority represents a first, but extremely crude, plan of standardizing the contents of the curriculum ; if it had been announced as merely tentative, it might have gained ^acceptance as a measure ad interim until further consideration had led to a sounder basis of evaluation. Proclaimed, however, as a definite guiding principle, it is false, subversive of sound educational creed. Let us examine the logic of this doctrine. If five periods per week through four years are devoted to Latin, and one year of five periods to physics, is Latin to be rated at four times the educational value of physics .'' But assume that physics is undertaken in the last year of the course, how much of the first three years' intellectual gain from the Latin, in method of acquirement and general maturity, helps to make the content of the physics course an experience of rel- atively high value, though it has been pursued for but a single year } Or again, if the last of three years in Greek opens to the mind of the student the first real taste of Greek literary spirit in the revelation of the Homeric world (which even a dry-as-dust could not completely rob of its charm), does this year really measure just one third of the educational value of ele- mentary Greek 1 Or is it not rather true that all Q 226 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL numerical valuation is at fault, that the gain to the student in this last year, though it cannot be secured without the previous foundation work, is out of all pro- portion to the previous attainment? Suppose once more that the high school course is so constituted that but two of five periods per week can be assigned to history : will the educational value of this subject be identical, whether these two years are grouped at the beginning or at the end of the high school course ? An adjustment by percentages of time allotment omits furthermore from consideration the individuality of the teacher : a subject which is not ordinarily accepted as of vital interest may transcend, because of the stimulus of an enthusiastic teacher, other subjects that are ordinarily presumed to be of greater value, and may by a process of reflex interest prove the only means of awak- ening appreciation for the general aims of the second- ary school. The cases are not infrequent in which a teacher of distinctly original mind transfuses a subject that has been considered dull and unattractive in its earlier stages, and transforms into ardent workers those who seemed hopelessly apathetic ; the magic touch of a teacher's personality has frequently aroused linguistic or mathematical tastes, where the pupil's native apti- tudes have not been sufficiently marked as a moving impulse. The elusive factor of individuality can, of course, not guide us in determining the significance we EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 227 are to attach to certain subjects in the curriculum, for we must shape our calculations by average, not excep- tional, teaching faculty ; by standards, not by the for- tuitous presence of a teaching genius. It would be as unwise to adopt the purely mechanical standard of time relation as to substitute for it the vague standard of personal interest ; to make that the central subject of a school's interest which is best taught in it, is to banish system. It will be well, then, to abandon every attempt to express in specific terms of percentage the value of the several subjects. Does, or does not, a subject contribute in its presentation to an enlargement of intellectual out- look .-' On the answer to that question hinges its educa- tional value. It would mean the exclusion of subjects that contribute nothing to intellectual breadth, that are valuable only as technique. To this category we should unhesitatingly assign stenography and typewriting ; it is not because they lead to immediate pecuniary advan- tage that we would exclude them, but because they fur- nish little or no intellectual stimulus. There are other subjects of the secondary curriculum in behalf of which emphasis is laid upon their practical utility, the subjects in the domestic science and art departments, bookkeep- ing, commercial law, drawing, manual arts, but each one of them can and should be vitalized beyond the rule-of- thumb application by the series of intellectual concepts 228 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL that underlie. Such concepts may disappear momen- tarily in practice, but once evolved they may be appealed to at any moment toward the reconstruction of prin- ciples. Herein seems to lie a safe criterion for the subjects in the secondary school curriculum, and a directive for the spirit in which their presentation should be con- ceived; we may train the capacity to utilize them, we must make them the means of enlarging intellectual sympathies ; Latin or English mechanically taught are in this aspect as sterile in educational value as the ma- nipulations of the shop that are purely digital perform- ances. If our high school teaching of Latin or French or mathematics [were to create merely manipulators of the materials furnished in those subjects, of vocabularies, grammatical forms, of accurately memorized definitions and theorems, there would be little to be said in favor of these subjects as fosterers of expanding intellectual interests; if it does not succeed in arousing distinct pleasure, the joy of the enlarged vision, the new mental experience, and the growing capacity to incorporate new groups of interest with previous acquisition, it fails in creating educational values.^ Of the existence of these values in the subjects that have been previously named as constants, no sensible man entertains a doubt ; 1 D. E. Smith, Teaching of Geometry, p. 26. EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 229 in making them educationally potent, must be mani- fested the power of the teacher. The pages of Shakespeare, Homer, Moliere, Euclid, may be but dead repositories of the unparalleled achievements of the world's great intellects, and the pupil may garner no thought from the printed page that reproduces their contributions to the light of the world ; it is the teacher whose own insight interprets their significance, whose living response to their influence is kindled to enthusiasm in the ambition to arouse a kindred response in his pupils. At times a rare soul among adolescents may feel this inspiration without the mediation of a teacher, but that would always be an exception, and it is the province and privilege of the teacher to create the atmosphere in which knowledge and appreciation grow and thrive ; even the open page of nature, in the organic and inorganic world, discloses the secret of its complex- ities most readily under the furthering guidance of the teacher ; his living interest enlivens by personal experi- ence the formalism of the textbook. The school, the secondary school above all, calls for the personal touch of the teacher ; the awakening of the adolescent soul needs the live teacher, with the textbook as an humble sub- sidiary. EXCURSUS I The Continuation School It is worth our while carefully to examine successful systems of vocational schools, before we commit our- selves to a transformation of our secondary schools into this new type of schools. The continuation schools of Germany, and especially those of Munich,^ that have attracted general attention by definiteness of organiza- tion, represent schools of the vocational type ; they aim to promote the efficiency of apprentices in the various crafts and occupations that are practiced in Munich ; between forty and fifty different types of industrial effort are provided for, each by one or several schools specially equipped in teachers and mechanical outfit to serve its specific ends. The professed purpose of each one of these schools is to furnish skilled labor and intelligent direction in a particular industry or trade, with a fixed course of study appropriate to its special needs. The name mono-technical schools, sometimes applied to them, indicates their very specific character. These schools are independent of the general school system, and serve 1 Kerschensteiner, in Bulletin No. 14. of National Association for the Promotion of Industrial Educatioti. 230 THE CONTINUATION SCHOOL 23 1 entirely different ends ; to their pupils who have already chosen a vocation or trade they give an opportunity by the creation of intelligent interest to rise from unfavor- able economic conditions to the more remunerative rewards that attend upon skill and technical initiative. They are reared upon the substructure of the elemen- tary school, some of whose subjects they find themselves compelled to repeat and modify, but they are differentiated sharply from the usual type of secondary instruction, in that the relation of all instruction to the requirements of industrial life is exclusively kept in view. This totally different character between the vocational and the normal secondary school cannot be more impressively illustrated than by this one fact, the assignment of con- trol of the two types of schools to entirely different administrative bodies; thus, in Prussia {vide Report Commissioner of Education, 1910, I, 301-343) the con- tinuation schools are under the direction of the ministry of commerce and industry, and not under the control of the ministry of education, and it has become neces- sary to organize within the department of commerce and industry an educational department sui generis. In recent discussions on changes in the secondary curriculum there has been evident a tendency to conceive of the high school with a vocational trend as a continu- ation school. It may not be out of place, therefore, to show at this point why no existing or contemplated form 232 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL of continuation school should be classed as a secondary school.^ The ages of the young people whom it is intended to benefit are usually those of pupils in attendance at the secondary schools, but they have either failed to com- plete the elementary school at the age when they are permitted by the law to turn to a vocation, or else, hav- ing completed it, have at the moment no desire or no capacity to carry on studies of a more advanced character except in so far as they stand in direct relation to their vocational careers. In both cases the intellectual equip- ment they have acquired is insufificient, unless it is augmented, to prevent the majority from sinking to the level of the untrained laborer whose chances of growth and advancement are of the slightest. The commonwealth that recognizes the economic needs of these young people cannot rest content with the edu- cational opportunities they have hitherto enjoyed; the prospect of its own economic welfare must impel to renewed effort to promote the vocational efficiency of its youth. A new standpoint is reached when the boy or girl realizes that increasing remuneration is directly contingent on intellectual power or vocational ability, and a new impulse toward the acquisition of knowledge arises; a modified scheme of instruction must utilize this impulse for the good of the community and the 1 English special Reports, I, 479-510, 585 ff. THE CONTINUATION SCHOOL 233 individual. This kind of instruction must frankly ad- just itself to the recognized wants of the adolescent ; the new type of school can only make its influence felt by giving him what he recognizes as his need, rather than by upholding an inflexible standard and sequence in subject matter; in a word, the continuation school must come to the pupil, rather than the pupil to the con- tinuation school. We have been slower to recognize this change in obligation than other civilized countries, and must now strive to recover ground. We have been so im- pressed with the great boon of our free educational offer in elementary and secondary schools, apparently so much more extensive than is offered elsewhere, that we have stopped short. "Here is your great opportu- nity," we say ; " avail yourselves of it, as we offer it; if you cannot attend the secondary day school, because of economic pressure, we extend to you identical courses in the evening high school ; if you fail to seize upon the opportunity, that is your fault, not ours, and our obliga- tion has come to an end." Not so — our moral obligation extends further; our public evening schools, in so far as they are substan- tially duplications of our day schools, diluted often by the enfeebled activity of tired day-school teachers, have proved more or less failures ; we have not realized that as their problems are much more complex, so their oppor- 234 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL tunities for the moral and intellectual uplift of great masses are unique. We have left it to private and semi-private enterprises, like the Y.M.C.A., to enter the field in which the public schools have been inade- quate. In an article in the Educational Review, 23, 281-303, President Pritchett, then of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pointed out the remissness of our great American cities in this matter, " The signifi- cant feature of the contrast (between Boston and Ber- lin) is the fact that the one city presents a system of public education founded upon no effort to study the conditions which are to be met and to meet them, while in the other there is presented a plan which is at least consistent, which rests upon an intelligent study of the whole question of education of the people, and which aims to meet in a rational way the varying wants of all classes " (p. 295). Obviously we have but faintly grasped the signifi- cance of the problem, and in consequence our efforts at remedy have been halting. It is not likely that we shall ever be enabled to enforce by legislative enact- ment compulsory attendance in the continuation schools, as Germany has done it for young people to the age of eighteen ; we cannot penalize parents, children, and em- ployers who fail to comply with the law. Nor is it de- sirable. On the value of compulsory attendance there is even in Germany a difference of opinion ; Dr. Bert- THE CONTINUATION SCHOOL 235 ram, the great organizer of the continuation schools of Berlin, says: (English Special Reports, 9, 452): "In cases where it is not possible to introduce the real con- tinuation school the obligatory continuation school must be accepted as a makeshift. But it is not the ideal of the continuation school. ... A lasting effort towards further development can only be secured through in- creasing knowledge, through a growing independent exertion of the will, through the oft-repeated experience that knowledge and the ability to use it profit a man inwardly and materially." He further intimates that the secret of their success must center in their obvious utility to the adolescent student. " Fortunately the continuation schools have maintained till now such flexibility that curriculum and standard of instruction are not determined by State regulation, but by the needs of the students attending the classes," and " Each school has a governing body, consisting of men of very different callings, whose spe- cial office it is to see that the instruction is well adapted to the needs of the pupils, and supported by good equipment." Our appeal must be made on other grounds, on those of self -advancement, self-interest ; the adolescent may come to realize how necessary for greater efficiency is an appreciation of the reasons for doing thus and not otherwise, of what new significance it is to his effective- 236 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL ness as a member of the social organism to recapitulate, reenforce, and utilize the knowledge of the common school. The cause of the continuation school has found no more intelligent allies than in the employers — both in- dividuals and corporations; they have often proved more farsighted, more helpful, than the municipal authorities, in promoting the life interests of the young citizen. It is due to their intelUgent cooperation that two dis- tinct types of continuation schools have been initiated with us as in European countries, ( i ) that of the gen- eral continuation school which with its repetition of elementary school subjects combines applications of them to practical work, without, however, direct rela- tion to any particular trade (General Continuation Schools), and (2) that of the specialized vocational school adapted to the promotion of efficiency in the occupa- tion or trade in which the adolescent is already engaged. The many possibilities of these general continuation schools deserve special notice. Whatever his future calling may be, there are many general qualifications in which the youth should excel and for which the regular school affords him no help ; to compose business letters properly, to draw up contracts, to advertise effectively, to utilize drawing as a means of setting forth one's structural intentions (by sketch or draft), to understand industrial appliances and products, their relation to THE CONTINUATION SCHOOL 237 crude material, to machinery, their transportation ; these may all be furthered by lessons on the general nature of business occupations and industries. It is in these nontechnical courses particularly that one may combat successfully the narrowness of specialized factory work ; the general intelligence and interest they arouse may serve more than even manual dexterity in any one chosen field to develop personality; the light thrown upon these general topics by a survey of history, ge- ography, and science gives to these subjects in turn a meaning that is usually not patent to the student in the elementary school. Incidental to instruction in both types of continuation schools is the further opportunity to develop the civic training of our young people; they all require an awakening to civic efficiency, whether their school life terminates with the elementary school, or is continued into the high school. And it should be understood that appreciation of civic obligations requires a degree of mental maturity which the student in the elementary school does not possess. The civics course of the elementary school has little substantial value; knowl- edge of civic organization, as conveyed by the textbook, contributes but little to an arousing of civic responsi- bilities. This phase of the continuation school has been as- signed great weight in the Munich Continuation System ; 238 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Dr. Kerschensteiner 1 insists on grouping even with the strictly vocational teaching a type of instruction in the vernacular and in history and civics which creates and strengthens a strong national feeling. "By giving one hour per week for three or four years to this in- struction, we manage to get most of our pupils to under- stand the functions of our economic, social, and political institutions. . . . They . . . learn the truth of the maxim that the meaning of life is not to rule, but to render service, . . . service to one's native country, ser- vice to truth and justice." It is the great privilege of the continuation schools that they can make their appeal on a new and most effective basis, that of personal advantage. The value of usable information, of technical efficiency, has become apparent to these young people ; what though no higher motive than self-interest prompts at first to the desire to know and to do ? We know that the purely utilitarian conception will unconsciously expand beyond its im- mediate narrowing outlook, that the limited initiation into theory which is necessary both as discipline and training for the realization of practical results, opens up new vistas to minds previously impervious to such in- fluences. * Kerschensteiner, " The Trade Continuation Schools of Munich," Bulletin No. 14, of National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, p. 15. THE CONTINUATION SCHOOL 239 To arouse thought in the worker is the professed aim of the continuation school ; it will be by different methods of approach than the more deliberate advance of the sec- ondary school sanctions; in a sense, however, the con- tinuation school, with its specific opportunities, makes for a liberaHzing of the purely vocational pursuits of the large adolescent community. There is another phase of the continuation school that merits more attention than it has hitherto received. We have developed our school systems on the assump- tion that successful advance is based on the direct prog- ress from one stage to the other. The elementary pupil must move directly on to the secondary school ; if he leaves school to take up a vocation, the system of contin- uation school provides, or should provide, for an im- mediate continuance (by recapitulation or modified course) in some kind of mental effort. Continuity in intellectual effort has much in its favor ; it is therefore made compulsory in states like Germany, for the young people from fourteen to eighteen years of age. But is it not conceivable that an arrest in mental interest and capacity, a kind of intellectual torpor, may set in at a given stage, and that after a number of years there may be a reawakening, a craving for intellectual opportu- nity, for which no systematized provision exists in our educational scheme 1 Individual cases of this kind are familiar to all, familiar, too, the greatness of personal 240 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL sacrifice that is made by some adults to secure belated educational opportunities. Whether with us such cases exist in sufficient num- bers to give rise to an appreciable educational problem, let the reader judge. Denmark certainly has recognized its existence and has met it by a very characteristic edu- cational advice (the Folkehojskoler, or Peasant High Schools). After the completion of the primary studies, peasant boy and girl turn to manual labor, their minds unable or reluctant to accept immediately further in- struction in the voluntary evening continuation schools. After a number of years spent in manual labor the genuine desire to acquire information reappears, and like a field that has been improved by lying fallow, the young people manifest the ability to digest and fully appropriate the knowledge that they desire to gain ; accustomed to hard physical work, their minds show unusual vigor and freshness. The recognition of this fact by some ideal Danish teachers has led to the establishment of some eighty adult boarding schools. A minimum of outlay is involved that is within the reach of all, as stipends exist for those who have not secured the means by their own labor. The young people are, during a short six months' course, under the influence, mental and moral, of an exceptional body of teachers ; their studies, besides agricultural pur- suits and manual training, embrace attainments in their vernacular, history which is of a cultural rather than THE CONTINUATION SCHOOL 24 1 political kind, intended to strengthen the national feel- ing; some natural science, elementary mathematics, a modern language (Enghsh), and folk singing. The students return after the temporary withdrawal from lucrative work to their occupations with a new view of life ; they infuse new energy, new understanding into their work ; beyond the industrial betterment that these schools stand for and that has revolutionized the agri- cultural prosperity of Denmark, their influence has been felt in the spiritual uplift of the whole country, and their methods have been adopted in other Scandinavian centers, even in America. Similar in some respects to university extension courses, these courses attain their results without the familiar expedients of control that we associate with teaching courses, e.g. examinations; the stimulus to attainment inheres in the desire and ambition of the individual student^ The educational effort in behalf of the adult may re- pay the commonwealth at least as well as our current scheme of continuous educational advance ; modest be- ginnings in farmers' courses at our agricultural colleges point the way to further developments. 1 J. S. Thornton, Eitglish Special Reports, I, 585-612, and vol. 17, pp. 105-129. Cf. Sadler, Continuation Schools in England and Elsewhere, Manchester, 1907 (with bibliography), pp. 483-512. EXCURSUS II The Function of the Educational Expert, with AN Analysis of Sadler's Reports on the Sec- ondary School Systems of Liverpool, Sheffield, Birkenhead, Newcastle, Derbyshire, Essex, Exeter, Hampshire. 1903-1906 The remarkable series of reports enumerated above bears evidence to the awakening of intelligent public sentiment in England on the status and needs of second- ary school education. These communities appealed between the years 1903 and 1906 to Sir Michael Sadler, asking him, first, to study and criticize their existing provisions for secondary education, and second, to offer remedial suggestions for their improvement. The Re- ports are in a sense the fruitage of his prolonged critical study as Director of Special Inquiries on educational processes in England and its colonies, on the European continent, and in the United States. Starting out from unbiased and discerning observation of educational tendencies in the several countries, and of the social and political environments that stimulate, constrain, or direct their various educative agencies, ^ he formulated 1 English Special Repoiis, I-XI. 242 FUNCTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 243 in 1901 in the essay (English Special Reports, IX, 1-192) "The unrest in secondary education in Germany and elsewhere " in a comparative study a philosophical sum- mary of the present situation, pointed out essential simi- larity in outwardly dissimilar phenomena, and on the basis of inevitable changes, industrial and social, in the dominant intellectual nations, forecast the current of educational movements in each of them. The political changes in England that severed shortly afterwards Sadler's connection with the English Board of Education, found him prepared for the con- structive educational statesmanship of the following years, for the transference into practical suggestions of the accumulated thought that had been ripening through years of observation and analysis. He had emphasized the fact that the day of isolated tendencies in education has passed, that every nation is affected by movements whose origins may be traced among alien peoples ; that not only the shadowy past, but contemporaneous strivings, contribute to the history of all progress ; that whilst individualism has its merits, its defects are perilous if they prompt us to ignore the strivings and the conclusions of our neighbors and to remain obdurate in our own convictions, until the overwhelming evidence of wasted and misdirected effort compels us to remodel opinion which but for our willful blindness might at an earlier day have been recast. 244 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL His contentions, at once temperate and incisive, aroused one municipality after the other to institute a domiciliary investigation of its educational facilities in the secondary field ; he was invited to make an exhaustive investigation as professional expert of its condition, and report on it. The resolution of Exeter (p. i) ^ is a good type of the procedure out of which these inquiries grew. If readiness to know our shortcomings, to accept gra- ciously a truthful exposure of our conditions, to submit to an unsparing professional estimate of our necessities, to publish these criticisms, whether appreciative or admoni- tory, for our own benefit and that of our fellows, be the nec- essary forerunner of reforms, then these communities have by their actions set a notable example of loyalty to the higher interests of their commonwealths. Valuable are these reports, but greater still and particularly instructive to us Americans is the communal spirit that has called them into being ; the publication of each report, authorized and paid for by the municipal councils, is a warrant of the civic responsiveness that is beyond petty 1 " That in order to insure a complete system of education in the City of Exeter, it is desirable that a return should now be obtained of all those institutions and schools, whether public or private, which are giving Secondary Education, and that an expert opinion should be obtained as to the best manner of coordinating and developing the work of both Primary and Secondary schools, so as to avoid waste of effort, money, etc., and of supplying such further educational facilities as the City may be considered to require." FUNCTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 245 conceit, beyond so-called local pride, that is intent on learning the truth, however painful, that is submissive to the crucial analysis of the trained observer, and is convinced that in great educational problems the vagaries of the well-intentioned amateur must make way for the balanced judgment of the expert ; if the amateurish spirit still holds in England, those who have authorized these investigations cannot be charged with it. It is of unusual significance, furthermore, that in each municipality (or county) all educational enterprises, public and private, have voluntarily cooperated to make the inquiry a complete one ; they have submitted their institutions as to organization, financial basis, and actual performance to the probe of the investigator. Does this not point to an honesty of endeavor, a conviction of reasonable effort, even within limited and inadequate con- ditions, that promises well for the regenerative process ? We may, of course, say that self-interest dictated this frank acceptance of criticism, for England has been rudely awakened to a realization of its educational short- comings ; yet we cannot but admire the manly response which does not try to befog, to belie itself. And how commendable, how soundly conservative, is the method pursued ! When the great gap in the educational system is realized, these communities do not clamor tumultuously for change that may mean discomfiture ; they invite a searching inquiry from one who never overthrows what 246 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL is worth preserving, but who centers attention upon the mode of evolving the new ideals, through existing oppor- tunities, if possible, through the creation of new institu- tions, if the demands of progress can be met in no other way. To an American student of educational problems this attitude of the commonwealth and of the teaching community is so striking that it cannot be overempha- sized. That the influence of these reports does not termi- nate with the investigation proper and the dissemination of the results through publication may be taken for granted. A commonwealth that has applied for reme- dies has practically indicated its willingness to utilize them ; municipalities cannot, however, in a day, and by decree, bring into realization changes of a far-reaching nature. Reforms work most effectively when they are deliberately initiated ; we shall witness the effect of these reports in the internal reorganization of the English secondary schools that is now under way. There was realized by the communities that invited Sadler's aid, a principle, previously referred to. Clear- ness of vision on the part of the investigator is con- ditioned upon his disinterestedness, upon his remote- ness from merely local issues; the critic, the expert, must stand outside of the seething conditions that con- trol local preferences and prejudices. No one in an edu- cational system can be as dispassionate a judge as the FUNCTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 247 one who stands outside and above the individual system, who surveys from the tableland of a wide generalization the needs and the advantages of an individual community. Superficially there are certain discrepancies between the several reports in the order of presentation of facts, these are, however, questions of literary arrangement rather than indications of a varying sequence in procedure. In a few instances the reports (Derbyshire p. 11) for- mulate at once the general recommendations, and give the detailed study of existing conditions of which they are the product, later on ; in the majority of cases this constructive part is presented at the close of the report as the final outcome. The order of inquiry, we may be sure, has been the same in each case ; (i) a dispassionate investigation of all the educational institutions in each community, of their effectiveness, their equipment in teachers and material, their relation to each other, discloses the facilities available. It is followed (2) by a study of the needs of the community, of the relation that the second- ary school system should bear to its environment, to the social and industrial fabric of the city or county, — an inquiry this in educational philosophy in which the deduc- tions from an extensive and varied observational experi- ence guide and warn ; and finally,(3)a series of practical suggestions in which the theoretical requirements are reconciled to the financial exigencies and capacities of the community. 248 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Attention should be called to the fact that the whole- some conservatism of Sadler manifests itself nowhere more conspicuously than in his mastery of the economic features of the situation ; theoretical reforms are likely to prove barren suggestions, if they disregard the financial limitations of a community. Changes in schools and school systems always mean additional out- lay, but they must not be prohibitive, and their advocate must be able to present convincing evidence of their ultimate economy. The lucidity of Sadler's budgets appeals strongly to the lay mind. The diverse quali- fications that must be united in the one expert are obvious from this brief analysis; calm and temperate critical observation, equally removed from indulgent ac- ceptance of weak effort and from unsympathetic fault- finding, but unshrinking in the utterance of truth ; a clear and definite attitude with respect to the aim at issue and the means of compassing it, such attitude the combined outcome of thought and wide experience; and finally, with a strenuous advocacy of necessary reforms, an appreciation of material limitations. Of the three phases of inquiry the first and third naturally show the more individual traits, as community after community is examined ; the second as the philo- sophic conviction of the investigator will have a certain homogeneousness in the enunciation of principles ; but it is characteristic of these reports that though destined FUNCTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 249 to interpret local problems, there are interwoven into all parts of their arguments, views of the broadest edu- cational insight, suggesting application to general issues, to which even we Americans are not strangers. The student of these reports would be guilty of a fatal error if he turned too hastily to the constructive part of the scheme in the Suggestions and Recommendations for Improvement ; the genius of the author, his educational creed, is quite as manifest in the chapters that contain a survey of existing institutions, and in those that deal with the causes of weakness that his probe has reached. There is something inspiring in the manner in which well-bred courtesy duly recognizes meritorious effort, but never hesitates to point with relentless logic to the needed improvement. Thus, in the summary of the Liverpool Report p. iii, he says : " Struck by the fruitful variety of Liverpool's traditions, and by the self-sacrificing generosity of . . . individual workers, I cannot disguise from the committee the grave concern with which, at the close of my inquiry, I regard the present state of much of the secondary edu- cation of Liverpool. Its defects are very serious. They seem to me to threaten some of the vital interests of the city. They allow a large part of its intellectual resources to run to waste. They impair the efficiency of every other part of the educational organization ; " and again, p. 36, " Secondary education has been its Cinderella, left 250 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL too long in comparative neglect." Sheffield p. 18, " While some of the educational institutions of Sheffield are on a high plane of efficiency . . . secondary education for boys is the weak place in the educational arrangements of Sheffield ; " " the various types of curricula are often blended or combined ; but efficiency in school work flourishes when the intellectual aims are clear " (p. 9). In Newcastle, with all the native excellence of the material on which the schools have to work, and the abundant individuality of effort, he notes a lack of link- age, a half contempt for all but the so-called practical and profitable subjects ; demonstrating by diagrams the irregularity of school life during the normal period of secondary education, he says, " These diagrams, showing in how many cases the secondary school life of the pupil begins too late and ends too soon, reveal a grave flaw in the intellectual efficiency of secondary education in New- castle" (p. 10). As to individual schools, we come upon statements like this one (Derbyshire, p. 46) referring to a coeduca- tional secondary school at Bakewell in Derbyshire: "A strong staff of teachers, admirably equipped for their work, is needed at Bakewell far more than great ex- penditure upon brick and mortar." A more striking example of Mr. Sadler's admirable method is furnished in his Exeter Report p. 19 ff.; speaking of the Episcopal Middle School for Girls, he FUNCTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 25 1 points out the inadequacy in classrooms, its evil effect upon the teaching, the lack of funds which hinders educa- tional success ; it impairs the efficient staffing of the school with properly qualified teachers and substi- tutes that inbreeding process, — the introduction of its own graduates, — of whose serious consequence more than one American city could tell a tale. Giving credit where it properly belongs, to the head mistress who is working in the teeth of great difficulties, he passes upon the merits and demerits of the instruction in various subjects: "the French teaching needs to be organized on a plan that will have regard both to the capabilities of the staff and the needs of the children," p. 24, and without obscuring various shortcomings, there is a voice of encouragement in his final statement, p. 25, " Heavily handicapped as the school is by want of funds, its pos- sibilities cannot be judged by its actual achievements." Again and again throughout these reports there are enunciated general educational propositions that are in effect the utterances of educational truths ; pieced together they might be labeled his educational creed ; with a recognition of the characteristic merits of the English system, with a patriot's belief in the desirability of their retention, he aspires to incorporate or adapt into the system the best results of foreign experiences. The freedom from a narrow insularity inspires confidence in the value of his educational judgments. 252 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL The range of his observations, indicated in the ac- companying summary, may serve to direct American teachers to a detailed study of this great storehouse of observations and suggestions. On the TRANSITION from the elementary to the second- ary school, Sheffield p. 26, " Some of the most skillful teaching in the school should be focused at the point at which the scholars would enter from the public ele- mentary schools." Liverpool p. 18, " It is essential that the courses of study should be so arranged as to facili- tate the admission of boys from the public elementary schools at twelve years of age. This can be effected by a better correlation of the subjects taught in the elemen- tary and secondary schools." Expert investigation. Liverpool p. I. " It has been my duty to think of the educational system as a whole instead of concentrating attention upon one department of it to the exclusion of the rest ; to examine the links which connect its various parts ; to consider the kind of service which, if adequately maintained, each group of schools may fairly be expected to render to the civic life and to the commercial interests of the city ; and to measure the efficiency of the educational equipment of Liverpool, more particularly as regards its secondary education with that of some other great commercial cities in other lands." ^ I Cf. Exeter pp. 35, 41, 63, 66. FUNCTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 253 Sheffield p. 43, " The City Education Committee should encourage conferences among the teachers engaged in different types of schools in the city with a view to the strengthening of educational unity among various insti- tutions, to the diffusion of knowledge of new educational methods, and to the adjustment of the curricula of differ- ent schools in such a way as to remove any unnecessary obstacles to the passage of children from one grade of education to another." To the value of inspection, its aim, method, its con- tinuity and its range, frequent references occur, e.g. Birkenhead p. 51. " Inspection by competent and inde- pendent authorities is now admitted to be the only satis- factory method of finding out whether a school is efficient or not. Inspection is costly." He suggests, therefore, that the Education Committee of the city undertake to arrange for the inspection of both public and private schools. With frequent inspection of the curriculum, part by part, " there would be much more opportunity for discussion between teachers and inspectors, and the suggestions which might be made for improve- ment would stand a better chance of being put into practice." Sheffield p. 42, " I think that all private schools should be invited to place themselves under annual inspection and examination so that their intellectual efficiency may be guaranteed; I found that all the private school 254 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL masters and mistresses whom I saw would be prepared for such inspection." " Success in passing a few pupils through external examinations should not be regarded as in itself a suffi- cient test of the educational efficiency of the whole work of a school." See Essex pp. 30, 39; Exeter p. 56; Liverpool p. 26 ; Derbyshire p. 134. That external examinations, if frequent, are a source of weakness, is emphasized, Birkenhead p. 40. Under such examinations " the real problem, namely, the intel- lectual need of the individual child, is often overlooked." " Examinations might be made good servants, but when the teacher's energies are absorbed in preparing for them, when little time is left for the questions of what course of study and what methods of teaching will have the best influence in the long run upon the pupils' in- tellectual interest and powers, then the examinations have become bad masters." Liverpool p. 71. Education, Sheffield p. 13, "Education is something far deeper and more searching than mere book learn- ing. It is a discipline of body, of mind, and of heart. Whatever agencies are at work in refining and purify- ing the life and the tastes of the people, as well as in strengthening its intellectual power, are justly regarded as part of the system of education." Cf. Sheffield p. 3 ; Birkenhead p. 35; Liverpool pp. 62 ff., and 73. On the vagueness in the use of the term " Secondary FUNCTION or THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 255 Education," cf. Essex pp. 14, 16, 30; Derbyshire pp. 6, 8; Liverpool pp. 4, 36, 21, 22. "We can combine, if we so will, variety of individual effort with the helpful support of public subsidy, and the watchful superintend- ence of expert care. We can unite that vigor of per- sonal initiative which has been the glory and the strength of certain sides of our national life with the power of the State, with the resources of the community, and with the steady pursuit of a well considered national plan of educational improvement." Birkenhead p. 22. References to the aims of secondary education are to be found in Essex pp. 24, 32, 33. "To hold the balance true between the two extremes in secondary education — between the extreme development and the undue neglect of intellectual interests — is the great task now before the administrators of English schools." Cf. Sheffield, p. 9 ; Birkenhead pp. 46, 49 ; Derbyshire p. 99. Essex p. 5, " It would be injurious to the collective interest to allow unfettered individualism to destroy our chances of national organization." Liverpool p. 12, " It would be a real misfortune for a commercial city to make commercial knowledge the dominant aim of its secondary education. The more likely that a boy's future life work is to absorb him in questions which necessarily have some sordid sides, the more need is there to insist that throughout his education 256 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL there shall be a strong vein of idealism which shall keep his aims fresh and high throughout his after life. In no direction is it more necessary than in the direc- tion of a commercial community to give large place to the vivid and real teaching of the humanities. Pre- mature preparation for private schooling would be deadly to the best interests of Liverpool and also certain to defeat its own object. The best education is slow, it needs time for its work, it cannot be hurried." Cf. also Liverpool pp. 8, 11, 13, 15, 17, 36. Striking diagrams of the length of school life, and the relation of various parts of the school system, including even private schools, are presented and dis- cussed in Essex pp. 13, 29, Appendix B; Newcastle PP- 8, 9, 39; Birkenhead pp. 89 ff; Derbyshire pp. 10, 16; Liverpool p. 74. Various questions of educational policy, together with educational opportunities, in which the value of an educational director is included, are touched upon in Essex pp. 2, 3, 7, 72-74; Birkenhead pp. 41, 42, 46, 102; Newcastle pp. 58, 64; Sheffield pp. 4, 43, 45; Derbyshire pp. 98-100; 133-136. A full discussion from the economic point of view of a district in Der- byshire is exceedingly suggestive ; the social and eco- nomic structure of the district as an example of collectivist democracy is treated at some length ; its cooperative store, its musical societies, its free church FUNCTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 257 organizations, the demand for the lace trade " that calls for the exercise of artistic taste and a quick sense of color and form. This condition as a psychological back- ground to the economic prosperity of the district, should be kept steadily in mind in the educational plans framed for the community." A recognition of the special needs of the district, which, however, does not ignore the other needs of the region, underlies the suggested modification of the school system. Similar to this picture of special conditions is the treatment of the economic conditions of Essex (Essex p. 3) ; cf. Sheffield p. 33 ; Newcastle p. 3 (with special insistence on the need of an industrial museum, New- castle p. 65); Derbyshire pp. 9, 11, 25 ; Liverpool p. 14. A noteworthy adaptation of a curriculum to what Sad- ler considers the special needs of a community like Liv- erpool, namely, emphasis upon the humanities and the study of the mother tongue, is given in his recommenda- tions, Liverpool pp. 135, 141 ; cf. also Newcastle pp. 4, 37; Sheffield p. 21; Exeter p. 37; Birkenhead p. 23, which emphasizes the fact that undue specialization in the direction of natural science is unfavorable to the general culture of the mental powers, allowing too little time for Enghsh subjects and other linguistic training. Apparently suitable to some types of mind, " it was apt in most cases to stunt the powers of expression and those studies which as a rule prove most efficacious in 258 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL developing wide interests and in stimulating and refining the imagination, were thrust into a corner." That QUALITY OF INSTRUCTION rather than quantity should be emphasized, the Liverpool Report pp. 133, 134, develops. Good, efficient teachers, good equipment, a general strengthening of the teaching staff, is argued for at length, Liverpool pp. 137-140. "The real efficiency and influence of a school depend upon the talent, the energy, the experienced skill and the talent of its teachers, and therefore no part of the expenditure is more remunerative than that devoted to the maintenance of a very highly qualified set of masters." Birkenhead p. 47, " It is quality not quantity that tells in the long run. A prudent course is to have a few thoroughly good secondary schools, not a great many indifferent ones, but a really efficient secondary school is a costly thing to maintain;" cf. Birkenhead p. 38. " One teacher might take the English and French, being regularly sent abroad once a year to a holiday course, or for private residence iii a French family " (Derby- shire p. 43). Against the expediency of the inbreeding of teachers Sadler protests in Liverpool p. 96. "Teachers, even more than other people, need the broadening influence of a wide experience. They learn much from getting outside their own local associations, and from meeting others whose lives have had a background different FUNCTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 259 from their own. The interchange of ideas and expe- riences make for width of view and for greater fresh- ness of thought" The point of view of economy, of avoidance of un- necessary expenditure, is prominent in these reports. Sheffield p. 7 ; Birkenhead p. 8 : " To devise a plan which would meet the pressing needs of all sections of the community with the utmost economy consistent with real educational efficiency." " Gradual changes, cautious experiments because of the changes that are taking place in the spirit and aims of secondary education," are frequently emphasized ; cf. Derbyshire p. 23. Educational methods and traditions have always to adjust themselves to those profound changes in character and ideas which come about through great extensions of human knowledge. " Much that was formerly taken for granted in educational procedure is now being subjected to distinct criticism. We may feel that many of the modern educational movements have set in a dangerous direction. We may suspect that in course of time much that at present looks at- tractive and liberating will be followed by disillusion- ment and reaction, but we are bound to act . . . etc." " At present we are compelled to retain every educa- tional instrument of tested value." " The more prudent course will be to concentrate effort on getting a suffi- cient number of secondary schools into a high state of 26o THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL efficiency and encouraging their teachers to make vari- ous experiments in curricula and in method of teach- ing." Of certain vital features in secondary education courses Sadler speaks in Sheffield p. 8. " That those destined to receive a secondary education be transferred not later than at the age of twelve to the secondary school, that there should be three main types of secondary school, each with its variant for boys or girls respectively, first, that in which mathematics and physical science pre- dominate ; second, that in which (with due provision for mathematical teaching) the linguistic discipline predomi- nates, living languages being taken as the chief vehicles of instruction ; and third, the type in which Latin and Greek are dominant, with some regard to one modern foreign language as well as to mathematics." To a blending of these various types he objects. " Effi- ciency in school work flourishes when the intellectual aims are clear." Sheffield p. 9. In Sheffield pp. 31 and 32, and in many other reports, he emphasizes strongly the need "of sustaining and developing as far as time allows the pupils' interest in history and good literature." An interesting contribution to the value or absence of value of certain subjects that find frequent advocacy among our secondary school teachers is a reference, Birkenhead p. 67, to what he calls " a devotion to short- FUNCTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 261 hand'a.TxA bookkeeping, which almost amounts to a mania." The educative value of such subjects as business rou- tine or commercial correspondence is small. " Commer- cial instruction, to be of any worth, must be recognized for what it is, a branch of technical education which should come after a reasonable standard of general edu- cation has been attained. At present we are making it a cheap substitute for a course of general instruction." Against a course narrowly utilitarian, or one that is a mere torso of a curriculum, Sadler frequently pro- tests.^ " The virtue of secondary instruction lies in large measure in its duration, in its slow influence upon the intellect. The best teachers need the help of time if they wish to act upon intellectual habit, and to ac- complish the education of the mind which is truly the essential aim of secondary education." Birkenhead p. 49. Again and again he emphasizes that teachers must receive such remuneration that they can without anxiety devote themselves to the work before them. Birkenhead p. 23 : " The scale of annual grants still falls far short of what the state might fairly be expected to contribute in aid of so costly and naturally indispensable a thing as an efficient secondary education." ^ Cf . Derby- shire pp. 42, 43, 61, 65 ; Essex pp. 8, 42, 90, and partic- ularly Liverpool pp. 137 £f. Besides the normal scheme 1 Newcastle p. 35, Exeter pp. 39-41. 2 Sheffield p. 28. 262 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL of advancing salaries, Sadler advocates as applicable to cases of special excellence and ability the adoption of a higher scale of salary on the headmaster's recommenda- tion " when it was thought expedient to secure or to retain the services of a teacher with specially high quali- fications for the work of the school." Liverpool p. 138. Again, " it is through the experience of its older teachers that a good school derives many of the elements which are of special value in forming an inspiring tradition of intellectual thoroughness and of devotion to duty. And how can we reasonably expect to succeed in maintaining a high standard of intellectual preparation and of profes- sional training for the calling of a teacher in a secondary school if we allow the economic prospects of the profes- sion to remain in a state which gives to those who think of devoting themselves to its duties no prospect of a fair return in middle life for the cost and labor of ade- quately preparing themselves for their difficult work.^ No one would wish, even if such a course were possible, to see our secondary schools staffed by young teachers only. Such a state of things would gravely injure the intellectual standards of the schools, and rob them of the wisdom of mature experience." Liverpool p. 152. On the PRINCIPLES that are to prevail in different courses, the reports furnish many an interesting com- ment; thus, Sheffield p. 8 : " No one boy can attempt to do everything ; smattering is mischievous ; better do a few FUNCTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 263 things well than much badly, and the aptitudes of dif- ferent children differ as greatly as do the practical needs of different occupations." With a number of the most progressive continental educators, he favors the post- ponement of Latin until pupils are twelve years of age (Liverpool p. 185), and urges that French undertaken intensively shall precede Latin. Liverpool p. 135 : "In order that the boys may get a feeling of power in their use of it (French), it should be taught according to the best modern methods, and with due regard both to skill in speaking and reading it, and to grammatical accuracy in composition." A special memorandum by Mr. Cloudesley Brereton, forming Appendix I of the Liver- pool Report, discusses in detail suggested methods in the teaching of modern languages. This paper is worthy of the closest study. Cf . also Newcastle p. 36, Exeter pp. 13, 14, 46, 47. We encounter a frank criticism of demerits in the various schools in Derbyshire p. 82, where there are pointed out as objections the late age at which pupils enter the secondary school, the lack of a good reference library, and the absence of connection between the sec- ondary and elementary schools. Cf. Derbyshire' p. 91 : " It would be inexpedient to place here (mentioning a certain small town) a secondary school of the classical type. The pupils needing this kind of education can get it without serious difficulty in neighboring towns. If such 264 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL a school were established and made thoroughly efficient, much of its work would be unsuitable to the real needs of the bulk of the inhabitants. If, on the other hand, it were left inadequately staffed and intellectually inefficient, it would be no good to anybody." Cf. Liverpool pp. 133, 146, 148, 149, 152; Newcastle p. 59; Essex p. 31; Sheffield p. 20 : " It is no kindness to a child to push him up educationally into a false position. We need in England to neglect neither the average pupil nor the gifted one." Cf. also Newcastle p. 10. To the ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS of the teacher and his training, Sadler, who has been a close observer of German and French methods, reverts frequently. Thus, Essex p. 81 : "It is much to be desired that a larger proportion even of those intending to teach in the ele- mentary schools of the county shall have the advantage of a college training." He quotes with approval, Birk- enhead p. 57, "A good system of school organization will do something, the introduction of rational methods and textbooks will do more. But we need look for no permanent improvement in our schools until they are filled by a new race of teachers, better paid, better trained for their work, and above all, more highly educated." It is interesting to note his objections to the nar- rowly TRAINED SPECIALIST. Speaking of the teacher in applied mathematics and science, he says, Sheffield FUNCTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 265 p, 21, "Applied science is exerting an ever growing influence on social problems and on the intellectual movements of our times. It affects the moral and human side of things as well as their material and mechanical side. It is expedient, therefore, that our trained technologist should have made some acquaint- ance with those questions of human history and develop- ment which are treated in the philosophical, the historical, the literary and the economic courses at a university. A divorce between technology and culture would be sterilizing to both sides." This reference to technological education is one of a series of topics frequently treated. How to strengthen technical education is discussed, Essex pp. 75-78, Der- byshire p. 154: " Experience has shown that a liberal secondary education is the only sound basis upon which a system of higher technical education can rest. The experience of Germany is conclusive on this point." To us Americans the discussion of the attitude of pro- gressive employers toward a problem of technical educa- tion is supremely valuable. Sheffield pp. 15-17 pre- sents a plan very similar to that in operation in the en- gineering department of the University of Cincinnati. Cf. Birkenhead pp. 74-78, " Profitable specialization is impossible save for a mind founded upon a basis of general education," Irregular attendance and lack of logical connection in the evening classes is criticized. 266 THE AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL Birkenhead pp. 65, 79 ; Essex p. 3. A general criti- cism of the evening school system is afforded, Liver- pool pp. 125-130. Comparing with the vigorous peoples' high schools and their influence on the national life of Denmark, and the continuation schools of Germany, Sadler, Liverpool p. 130 says, "A self- governing nation needs good evening schools because they provide what is really a form of secondary edu- cation for the masses of the people." And he adds, p. 132, "Compulsory attendance at evening classes in suitable subjects on two nights a week during the winter months in each of the two years immediately following the day school course, seems to me an expedient and necessary development of our educational system. Nothing short of state action can secure the adjustment of hours of employment to the needs of those who ought to be attending continuation classes. . . . And after some temporary inconvenience and much indignant opposition, the new order of things would, I am per- suaded, approve itself to the judgment of the nation at large." In connection with the general subject of the continuation schools, and the features that in them make for efficiency, cf. Birkenhead pp. 68-78. The problem of providing for the pupils who cannot profit by a complete secondary course, engages Mr. Sadler's attention in every one of the reports. He intro- duces as a new and intermediate type of school the FUNCTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERT 267 HIGHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, references to which in its various types occur in Birkenhead pp. 41-45 and 89; Derbyshire pp. 12, 13, 92, 116-120, 156-174; New- castle pp. 35-40, and elsewhere. The detailed elabora- tion of curricula for this type of school appears in Derbyshire pp. 42-66 ; and the special needs accord- ing to locality and character of the population are made prominent. Derbyshire pp. 173-174; Newcastle pp. 35, 36; Birkenhead pp. 43-45- It is impossible to exhaust in this rapid survey the educational significance of these reports. If the char- acter of the topics selected invites to a detailed study of a number of the reports, the excursus has served its purpose. APPENDIX OUTLINES FOR THE TEACHING OF CER- TAIN SUBJECT GROUPS IN THE SEC- ONDARY SCHOOL COURSE I. ENGLISH A. History of the Teaching of English in Secondary Schools before and after 1876. The necessity for the teaching of English ; influence of changed conditions in population : why the school finds here one of its most serious duties. English as the unifying subject of the high school course. Influence of this theory on the general construction of school programs. Comparative allotment of time to the subject. English in preparatory schools, academies, and high schools ; demands of the colleges ; character of the work they suggest. Recognition of the present necessity ; the present state of knowl- edge with respect to English. References : ' Carpenter, Baker, and Scott, The Teaching of English, pp. 37-51 ; also 186. Chubb, Percival, The Teaching of English. Colby, J- R-, Literature and Life in School. Neilson, Wm., What May Colleges Expect f School Review, Feb., 1908 ; see also School Review, Dec, 1908, 646 if. Alton, Geo. B., The Purpose of English in the High School, School Review, 1897, pp. 148-170. 269 270 APPENDIX B. Theory of the Teaching of the Mother Tongue in England, Germany, and France. Moral importance assigned to the subject in Germany and France. The study of the mother tongue considered as an organic unit ; its component parts definitely organized — its place as the central subject in all secondary courses — value of this policy. Special features of teaching the mother tongue in France. Definiteness of organization of work in the vernacular in Ger- man and French schools ; unity of purpose, how effected. A study of various textbooks, how they are graduated. Governmental su- pervision of manuals and courses of instruction ; aims as to enun- ciation, oral and written speech, style, acquaintance with literary masterpieces. Training of teachers, preparation and criticism of textbooks and texts. References : Carpenter, Baker, and Scott, pp. 26-36 ; 52-66. Dale, F. H., English Special Reports on Educational Subjects, I, 533-576. Russell, James E., Gertnan Higher Schools, chap. 12. Hartog, P. J., Teaching the Mother Tongue in France, Educational Review, April, 1908, pp. 331-351- Revised Curricula, etc., for High Schools in Prussia, abstract '*''' from Ordinances of Prussian Ministry of Education in 1901 ; compare for study of mother tongue vol. 9 of English Special Reports, p. 194, with statements in vol. 3 of same reports, pp. 268-271, and p. 316. Chesterton, The Defendant, pp. 1 24-131, On Neglect of Study of English in England. Voss (Norwegian), Die padagogische Vorbildung zum hoheren Lehramt in Preussen, p. 55 on instruction in the mother tongue. Lehmann, Rud., Der Deutsche Unterricht (2d edition), 1897, pp. 438-453- APPENDIX 271 Smith, Jessie F., English in Secondary Schools of England, etc., Educational Review, Oct., 1910, 266. C. Relation of English Work in the Elementary School TO THAT OF THE HiGH SCHOOL. Possibilities and limitations in elementary school ; capacities of teachers ; material available ; method employed, aim. Difficulties of the task ; paraphrasing and its dangers. The reading-series in elementary and secondary courses ; its history ; criticism ; its present unpopularity ; the substitute offered. The ideal of a reading series ; kind of materials to be selected. The disciplinary feature ; development of vocabulary, of thought experiences. Ballad poetry. Model lessons for elementary teachers. Danger of over-interpretation and of illegitimate correlation. Factors of good elementary work. Character of grammar work in elementary school. References : Reeder, R. R., The Historical Development of School Readers and Method in Teaching Reading., Columbia Univ. Press, 1900. Ballad poetry: Atlantic Educational Journal, Dec, 1908, pp. i6ir. MacClintock, P. L., Literature in the Elementary School (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1908). Wolfe, L. E., Reading in the Elementary Schools, Educational Review, Oct., 1908, pp. 262-272. Haliburton and Smith, Poetry in the Grades, Riverside Educa- tional monographs. School (London), Sept., 1907, pp. 70 ff. on selection of books for children in Germany ; aims and method pursued. O'Shea, Linguistic Development, chap. X. Hinsdale, B. A., Teaching the Language Arts, chaps. 8-19. 272 APPENDIX D. Knowledge and Appreciation the Keynote of High School Work. How to strip it of the character of a task. What features are subsidiary to central objects ? Unity of the work develops power of reproduction. Influence on character. Relations of composition, rhetoric, and literature. Consonance in method of advance. With what literary productions shall the school make the pupil acquainted, in what order, and how ? Development of a rational four-year course. Mechanical methods of distribution of reading matter. Principles to be observed ; the concentric idea. Reading for enjoyment and for study. Necessity of combating slovenly enunciation and expression ; elocution. First year's work of supreme importance ; why ? The short story — its character — various types. Various purposes in study of selections. The annotated textbook. What is appreciation ? Appreciation versus criticism. Attitude of teacher toward critical estimate ; wise and unwise stimulation ; the historical method. Varieties of literary expression. Scope of work, guiding hand of teacher, nature of his own attain- ments and interest ; width of collateral information. Special interests of teacher prevent monotony. References : Ashmun, Prose Literature for Secondary Schools, Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1910. Brown, G. P., On the Teaching of English in the High School, in Fifth Yearbook National Society for Scientific Study of Education, pp. 44-60. APPENDIX 273 Coblentz, H. C, School Review, April, 1909, p. 283. Lambert, L., The Study of English, in Education, Feb., 1909, pp. 351-359- Report of Conference Committee on High School English, School Review, Feb., 1909, pp. 85-88. On Treatment of Poetry, Monatschrift fur hbhere Schulen, III, Oct., 1904, pp. 481-486. Ellis, Havelock, On Learning to Write, Atlantic Monthly, Nov., 1908, pp. 626-632. Erskine, English in the High School, Educational Review, Nov., 1910. Chubb, P., Menace of Pedantry, School Review, Jan., 191 2, pp. 34 ff. The Temporary Decay of the Short Story, in Fortnightly Review, Oct., 1908, pp. 631-642. Canby, Henry, The Short Story (Yale Studies in English), Holt and Co. Albright, E. M., The Short Story (The Macmillan Company). Criticism on Albright, School Review, Jan., 1908, pp. 61 fF. Matthews, Brander, Philosophy of the Short Story (Longmans). Lipsky, Rhythms of Prose Style (Archives of Psychology, Columbia Univ.). Fitch, J. G., Lectures on Teaching, pp. 275-278. Faunce, Wm. G., The Humanizing of Study, School Review, Oct., 1908, pp. 489 ff. Mahy, ^Esthetic Appreciation, School Review, XV, pp. 731 fF. E. Balance between Poetry and Prose; how to Treat Poetry in the Classroom. Experience of foreign schools. Balance between everyday and literary language. Position of English teacher among his colleagues. Influence of entrance requirements and entrance examinations, and accrediting system ; how to meet this influence. Changes in requirements — present tendencies. History of entrance requirements. Harvard entrance requirements in English. 274 APPENDIX References : H. Paul, The Teaching of Lyric Poetry^ Bulletin of Illinois Association Teachers of English, IV, Nos. 2 and 3. Buehler, Training of the Imagination in the Study of Literature, School Review, Dec, 1898. Report of English Conference (sub-committee) in Report of Committee of Ten, pp. 86-96 (U.S. Bureau of Education, publication No. 205). Report of National Educational Association of Teachers of English on Entrance Requirements, School Review, Dec, 1908, pp. 646-659. Scott, F., What the West Wants in Preparatory English, School Review, Jan., 1909, pp. 10 fF. F. No Intrusion of Foreign Purpose into Primary Needs OF English Course. Teaching the method of interpretation. Develop a regular method of conducting class work with freedom in modifications. Division of work to be both practical and scientific. Distinction between reading and study tests. Technical difficulties. Literature as Knowledge, as Science, as Art. Technical grammar : Present attitude toward study of grammar. Use of excellent translations from the classics for content. What place shall be assigned to a study of history of English literature in the high school ? English applied to work in other subjects, e.g. history, science, mathematics. References : On Translation of Classics, Classical Weekly, March 27, 1909, pp. 161 fF. Lehman, Rud. Methods of Interpretation, Monatschrift fiir hohere Schulen, VI, 1907, pp. 656 ff. Chubb, P., Teaching of English, pp. 322 fF. Jespersen, Modern English Grammar, School Review, Oct., 1910. APPENDIX 275 G. Composition. Literary topics or everyday subjects ? Conflict of tendencies. How can its place be maintained in the curriculum ? Statement of composition topics. Work of correction, of discussion. Influence of school on imagination. Mechanical precision. Devices of clever teachers. Concentric idea in composition as against consecutive order of narrative, descriptive, argumentative writing. Relation between oral and written speech. Is a special vocabulary called for in written composition ? Composition method in German schools ; is it correct or repre- hensible ? Present attitude of German teachers. References : Mead, Conflicting ideals in Teaching English, Educational Re- view, March, 1903. Chubb, P., Teachiftg of English, pp. 322 fF. Colvin and Meyer, Imaginative Elements in the Work of School children. Pedagogical Seminary, vol. 33, 1906, pp. 84-93. Denney, J- V., Contributions to Rhetorical Theory (two problems of composition teaching) . Thurber, Saml., Five Axioms of Composition Teaching, School Review, 1897, pp. 7-17. Preliminary Report on English Composition Teaching, Bulletin of Illinois Association of Teachers of English, III, No. 7. II. HISTORY A. History of History Teaching. Former neglect of history in the schools ; its probable causes. What do the curricula show ? 276 APPENDIX Appreciation of its educational value in America and in Europe. History and literature together the core of a high school course. History report in Report of Committee of Ten. Report of History Committee of Seven. The attitude of the American Historical Association. Result of detailed investigations of history-teaching. References : Bourne, Teaching of History and Civics. Adams, H. B., History of Teaching of History in U.S., Bureau of Education, Washington, 1887. White, Andrew D., Autobiography, Vol. I. Hall, G. Stanley, and others, Methods of Teaching History (Heath & Co.). Cheyney, What is History f in History Teachers' Magazine, Dec, 1910, pp. 75 ff. Langlois and Seignobos, Introduction to Study of History. Salmon, Lucy M., Principles in Teaching History, First Year- Book, National Society for Scientific Study of Education, 1902. Droysen, Outlines of Principles of History, translated by E. B. Andrews, 1897. McMurry, F., Concentration, in First Herbart Yearbook, pp. 61, 64. A History Syllabus for Secondary Schools (D. C. Heath & Co.), a [practical elaboration of Report of Committee of Seven. Are Modifications of the Report of Committee of Seven desirable .'' N. E. History Teachers' Assn., April, 1908. Influence of Report of Cojnmittee of Seven, Educational Review, April, 1909, pp. 331-341- Proceedings of North Central History Teachers' Assn., 1908, paper by Prof. West, pp. 12-20. B. What Knowledge of History should Precede the High School Period ? The varieties of history teaching in the elementary schools. The problem of history in the elementary schools. APPENDIX 277 The concentric scheme ; the part of the history teacher. The value of a uniform course. Three stages ; recognition of facts, interpretation, compre- hension. References : Johnson, Henry, History in the Elementary School, Teachers College Record, Nov., 1908. McMurry, Chas. A., Special Method in History. Doub, W. C, Topical Discussion of American History, Teachers Manual (Whitaker, San Francisco) . Atkinson, i^lice M., European Beginnings of American History, Ginn & Co., 1912. The Study of History in the Elementary Schools, Report of Com- mittee of Eight to the American Historical Assn. Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1909. Mace, W. H., Method i7i History, chaps, on the " Elementary Phases of History Teaching," pp. 255-311. Report of History Committee of Seven, Appendix by Miss Salmon, pp. 159 fF. C. The Place of History in the Secondary Curricula. The proper aim of history teaching in secondary schools ; its scope and the methods to be applied. A preliminary course in primitive history. Substance and form ; principles of selection in history teaching. What are to be considered the essentials and the nonessentials ? Institutions, constitutional problems. References : Robinson, James H. Mediaeval and Modern History in the High School, Fifth Herbart Yearbook, pp. 42 fF. American Historical Review, vol. 7, p. 426. Hall, G. Stanley, The Pedagogy of History, in Pedagogical Seminary, XII, pp. 339 IF. Burstall, Sarah, Impressions of American Education, 1908, chapter on Method. 278 APPENDIX D. Specialization or Breadth of Information in the High School Stage. The source-method, the intensive study of a period ; how to apply them. Effect on the mind of the student. Patriotism and prejudice. Sequence in study, and distribution as to time (number of years and of recitations per week) . Facts versus motives and inferences ; memorizing. Textbooks — their relation to class work. Brief or elaborate textbooks ? Supplementary reading. The teacher — his preparation, his qualifications ; the art of narration in history. The German teacher of history. Recent changes in the methods of tlie French schools. How to study and teach history. Methods of conducting class exercises in history. Correlation of history with geography and literature. Aids to historical study, visual and imaginative ; documents, collections, etc. General library facilities. References : Bourne, Teaching of History, chap. 2 (on source material). Historical Reprints, Univ. of Penn. Seignobos, Ch., DHistoire dans Venseignement secondaire, Armand Colin, Paris, 1906. De Garmo, Interest and Education, pp. 1 50 ff. Freeman, Historical Geography. Bingham, Geographical Influences in American History. Semple, American History and its Geographic Conditions. Spencer, Herbert, Descriptive Sociology, Part I, English History, by James Collier (D. Appleton & Co). Robinson, J. H., Introduction to the History of Western Europe, with 2 vols, of readings. Matthias, Praktische Padagogik, pp. 39 and 45 (ist edition). APPENDIX 279 Smith, Goldwin, Is History a Science? Amer. Historical Review, April, 1905. Illustrative Material for Greek and Roman History, Teachers Bulletin, Univ. of Cincinnati, Dec, 1905. Salmon, Lucy, The Historical Museum, Educational Review, Feb., 1911. For History in German and French Schools, see Bibliography in Bourne, chap. 3. Lloyd, J. E., History in Spencer, ^z>«i' and Practice of Teach- ing (Cambridge, 1903), pp. 141-155. Numerous articles in History Teachers' Magazine, Germantown, Pa., 1910, 1911, and 1912. E. Effect of College Entrance Examinations on His- tory Teaching. Types of examination questions, sound and unsound. The topical method of study ; its value ; written exposition. Large topics ; summaries; comparative reviews. A needed modification of the recommendations of Committee of Seven. Distribution of material through high school course ; the value of a continuous history course. Modifications of present courses. References : On comprehensive topics ; Lehrproben und Lehrgange, Heft. 98, (1909), pp. 70-78. Possible Modifications of the Secondary School Courses in Sixth Annual Convention of History Teachers of the Middle States and Maryland, 1908. 28o APPENDIX III. THE CLASSICS — LATIN AND GREEK A. The General Function of Language Teaching. Application to Latin. The prevailing estimate ot the humanities (England, Germany, France, America) — opinions of humanists and scientists. Mastery of the vernacular influenced by knowledge of foreign tongue. Latin versus modern languages. The various types of the cultivated man. References : Bennett and Bristol, T^e Teaching of Latin and Greek, pp. 1-49 and bibliography to individual chapters. Dettweiler, P., Didaktik und Methodik des Lateinischen UnterricMs, Munich, 2d edit. 1906, pp. 10-19. Asquith, Right Hon. H. H., On Classical Culture, in Classical Weekly, Dec. 19, 1908, pp. 74-77. Bennett, Chas. E., An Ancient Schoolmaster"^ s Message, Classical Journal, vol. IV, Feb., 1909, pp. 149-164. Kelsey, F. W., Latin and Greek in American Education, The Macmillan Company, 191 1; besides Prof. Kelsey's papers those of Prof. Wenley, The Classics and the Elective System, pp. 283-302 and especially of Prof. Paul Shorey, The Case for the Classics, pp. 303-343 (reprinted in School Review, vol. 18, Nov., 1910, p. 585). Symposium on the value of Humanistic, particularly classical studies, School Review, vol. 14, pp. 389-414 ; 15, pp. 409-434 ; 16, pp. 370-390- Fitch, Lectures on Teaching, pp. 226 ff. Conradi, F., Latin in the High School, Pedagogical Seminary, 1905, p. I. Bentley, Latin in Secondary Schools (in opposition) Pedagogical Seminary, 1901, pp. 395-411. Leygues, M., quoted in Gabriel Compayrd, Reform in Secondary Education in France, Educational Review, Feb., 1903, p. 142. Schopenhauer, A., Art of Literature, pp. 43-46. APPENDIX 281 Ramsay, Efficiency in Education. Sadler, Sir Michael, The Unrest in Secondary Education^ in English Special Reports, vol. 9, p. 93. B. The Prevailing Length of the Latin Course. EfTorts to extend its duration. What facts do the secondary school statistics prove in regard to the popularity of Latin ? The course in the classics in European schools of various types ; views of Paulsen and others. The usual distribution of the Latin work in the high school course. What should be the aim of Latin teaching in the high school ? Recent tendencies and reforms in Germany. Shall Latin be retained as a characteristic of all high school work? What value attaches to one year of Latin, especially for English- speaking pupils ? Present time allotment for Latin with relation to the amount of work undertaken ; criticism. References : Smalley, Frank, Status of Classical Studies in Secondary Schools, Classical Journal, L, pp. 111-119. Report of Committee of Ten of the National Educational Association, 1903, p. 45, and pp. 60-75. Report of Committee of Twelve of the American Philological Assn., etc., 1899 (see Bennett, pp. 125-130). Reinhardt, K., Der altsprachliche Unterricht in dem Gymnasium nach detn Frankfurter Lehrplan. (Cf. for the Reform Move- ment the 2d edition of Dettweiler, pp. 256-266.) Waldeck, A., Praktische Anleitung zum. Unterricht in der lateinischen Grammatik nach den neuen Lehrplanen, Halle, 1902. C. First-year Work in a Four-year Scheme of Latin. Prevalent methods ; textbooks. Aims and attainment. 282 APPENDIX Character of class instruction. Desirable qualifications of teacher. Correlation of various stages of the work. Class preparation and home preparation. Acquisition of vocabulary ; theories. Proportion of oral and written work. A Ceesar vocabulary or a wider vocabulary ? Difficulties of first years study ; results ; skill in method ; train- ing in the art of study. Formal discipline versus content. Serviceable teaching devices. Significance of pronunciation, of Latin quantities, of concrete material. Introduction to tradition, thought, and life of the Roman people through the subject matter presented. Comparative study of elementary textbooks. Accuracy in forms is fiindamental need. Relative importance of translation from Latin and translation into Latin. Place of syntax in first year's work. One or several grammars ? The transition to connected reading. References : Bennett, The Teaching of Latin and Greek, pp. 50-110; 202- 212. Monatschrift fiir hbhere Schulen, III, pp. 364 and 395 fF. Gurlitt, Lud., Lateinische Fib el fiir Seocta, Berlin, 1897. Thring, Thinking in Shape, see National Education, a SympO' sium, London, 1 901, pp. 115, 116. D'Ooge, Benj., First Year Latin, in School Review, Sept., 1902, pp. 532-548. Munch, Wilhelm, Geist des Lehramts, pp. 453 flf. (ist edit.). Lehrproben und Lehrgdnge (Halle) No. 75, p. 8, and No. 91, p. I. APPENDIX 283 D. The Second Year of Latin. The general arrangement in most high schools concentrates work on Caesar. Description of its character and its results. Is it possible to interpose some other Latin text before Cassar ? How would such an arrangement affect the work in Cassar ? Record of various attempts in modification of existing practice. The actual teaching of Caesar versus the ideal attainable. The aim in translation, in appreciation of content ; suggestions of practical aids to teaching ; the value of summaries, of class-prepara- tion of advance work. Extent of lesson : rate of advance. The use of illustrative material. Various editions and their distinguishing features. Value in the second year of translation into Latin. Our methods in Latin composition. Limitations ; oral and written work. Retroversion. Beginnings of sight reading. What does sight reading involve, how is it to be developed ? Its relation to class work. References : Kirtland, Recotistruction of the Latin Course, Educational Review, Dec, 1910, pp. 440 ff. Oral Work : Rouse, Classical Weekly, Oct. 31, 1908, p. 37. Modern Side Latin, School (London), Nov., 1906, p. 123. Carroll, M., The New Classical Philology, in Classical Weekly, March 20, 1909. Harwood, Aids in Teaching CcBsar, Classical Weekly, Jan. 23, 1909. Allison, Preparation iti Class, Classical Journal (Chicago), Jan., 1911, pp. 171 ff. Barss, John E., The Teaching of Latin Prose Composition, in Latin Leaflet, Dec. 3, 1906, pp. 1-5. 284 APPENDIX Howard, F. H., Ccesar as a Textbook, in School Review, 1897, pp. 561-587. Consult Bennett, pp. 150-151. Lodge, in Proceedings of the N. E. A., 1910, 493 ; cf. also p. 499. E. Sequence in Third and Fourth Year Work. Various theories and various practices. The effect of quantitative prescription on the school. Character of the examination test. What does the college expect of its entering students in Latin ? The cultural influences of the classics, how are they to be secured ? Points to be emphasized in the study of Cicero, Ovid, and Vergil. Reading versus translating. Effect of the departmental system on the teaching of the classics. The teaching of ancient history in its relation to the classics. The Realia (objects of ancient life, etc). References : Harris, Wm. T., Report of St. Louis Schools, 1872, on discussion of subject matter in classical study. The Saalburg Collection, vide Classical Weekly, Jan. 23, 1909. White, E. L., Classroom Comprehension of Cicero, Classical Weekly, November 9 and 16, 1907. On Translation tests, see Report of Committee on English in Report of Committee of Ten, section 7, on page 94. Sisson, Reading versus Translating, School Review, XV, pp. 508 ff., XVI, 664 ff. For the aesthetics of translation, see examples in Lane's Latin Grammar, and Shorey, Paul, Discipline versus Dissipation, School Review, 1896, 217 ff. F. Greek. Influence of college action on Greek in the schools. Varying points of view with respect to time allotment. Distribution of work ; methods of procedure ; some interesting recent experiments in the teaching of Greek in Germany. APPENDIX 285 Emphasis in Greek work. Technical Equipment of the Teacher. General relation of Latin and Greek instruction to the teaching of English. {a) for classical students. (Ji) for nonclassical students. References : Bristol, Geo. P., The Teaching of Greek in the Schools (in volume : Bennett and Bristol, The Teaching of Latin and Greek) ; fundamental and complete for English-speaking students. Burgess, I. B., Bibliography, in School Review, V, pp. 625-635. German books of reference: Dettweiler, P., Didaktik und Me- thodik des lateinischen und griechischen Unterrichts, part IV, pp. 1-93. Wilamowitz-Mollendorff, U. von., Der Unterricht im Grie- chischen, in Lexis, Die Reform des hoheren Schulwesens in Preussen, 1902, pp. 157-176. Programm zur Erinnerung an H. L. Ahrens, Hannover, 1882 (beginning study of Greek with Homer). Agahd, Griechisches Elementarbuch aus Homer (Gottingen, 1904). Przygode und Engelmann, Griechischer Anfan^sunterricht im Anschluss an Xenophons Anabasis (Berlin, 1904), I and IL Lehrproben und Lehrgdnge, Halle, 36 : 14. Waldeck, A., Die griechische Grammatik nach den neuen Lehr- pldnen. Bruhn, E., Hilfsbuch fiir den Griechischen Unterricht nach dem Frankfurter Lehrplan (Berlin, 1903). Numerous articles in Monatschrift fur hohere Schulen. vols. I toX. IV. MODERN LANGUAGES — GERMAN AND FRENCH A. Various Purposes of Modern Language Teaching. Its place in the high school. Shall it be introduced into our elementary schools? 286 APPENDIX Shall one or two modern languages be studied by high school pupils ? Character of prevailing modern language work in our high schools ; influence of colleges. Discussions on values. What lessons in regard to language teaching may European ex- perience of the last thirty years teach? References : English Special Reports on Educational Subjects, vol. i, pp. 397- 400 ; vol. 2, pp. 648-679 ; vol. 3, papers by Ware, Brebner, Hausknecht ; vol 9, pp. 232-234. Spencer, F., Aims and Practice in Teaching, Cambridge, 1903, chap. Ill on French and German. Russell, James E., German Higher Schools, chap. 14, pp. 266- 290. Colbeck, C, On the Teaching of Modern Languages in Theory and Practice, 1887 (Pitt Press). Vietor, W., Quousque tandem f Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren (2d edition), Marburg, 1886. Storr, F., The Teaching of Modern Languages, in Barnett, Teaching and Organization, 1897, pp. 261-280. Hall, G. Stanley, Modern Languages, their Culture Value, Peda- gogical Seminary, XV, pp. 370-379. See Educational Review, Feb., 1905. Methods of Teaching Modern Languages, D. C. Heath & Co., 1893. Rambeau, A., The Teaching of Modern Languages in the Ameri- can High School, Die Neueren Sprachen, vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 193 ff. Altschul, A., Die Neueren Sprachen, vol. 14, pp. 405-418. B. Account of Present Tendencies in German and French Schools. The Reform Method ; the history of its struggles and its suc- cesses ; the leaders of the movement. APPEISTDIX 287 The present status of modern language teaching in European schools. References : Compayrd, G., Reform in Secondary Education in France, Educa- tional Review, vol. 25, p. 139. Br^al, M., De Venseignement des langues vivantes, Paris, 1892. Sallwurk, E. v., Fiinf Kapitel vom Erlernen fremder Sprachen, Berlin, 1898. Lacombe, Paul, Esquisse d'^un Enseignement bast sur la Psy- chologie, Paris, A. Colin, 1899. Schiller, H., Handbuch der Padagogik (2d edition), Leipzig, 1890, pp. 505-535. MUnch, W., Didaktik und Methodik des franzosischen Unter- richts (2d edition), Munich, 1902. Glauning, Fr., Didaktik und Methodik des englischen Unterrichts^ (2nd edition), Munich, 1903. Mangold, W., Der Unterricht im Franzosischen und Englischen, pp. 191-226 of Lexis, Die Reform des hoheren Schulivesens in Preussen, Halle, 1902. Victor's " Neuere Sprach en," a journal devoted to modern language teaching, vols. I to XIV, passim. Lehrproben und Lehrgdnge, Halle, Heft. 98, pp. 86-96, and numerous articles in its several issues, as well as in Monat- schrift fur hohere Schulen, vols. I-VIII. Sachs, J., The German Reform Method and its adaptability to American conditions. Publications of New England Modern Language Association, I, 30 (Ginn & Co). C. How DOES Modern Language Teaching Differ in Aims AND Methods from the Teaching of the Classics? Its relation to the teaching of the vernacular. Phonetics. Pronunciation ; acquisition of vocabulary ; idiomatic ability ; oral and written expression. Speaking exercises and the system of developing them. The question of translation from and into the foreign language. 288 APPENDIX References : Jespersen, Otto, How to Teach a Foreign Language, Macmillan, 1904. Breul, Karl, The Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages and the Training of Teachers, Cambridge, 1906. Widgery, W. H., The Teaching of Languages in Schools, 2d edition, London, 1903. Grandgent, C . , /$■ Modern Language Teaching a Failure f School Review, XV, pp. 513 ff. Walter, Max, Aneignung und Verarbeitung des Wortschatzes im Neusprachlichen Unterricht, in Die Neueren Sprachen, Jan., 1907, pp. 513-537- Walter, Max, Englisch nach dem Frankfurter Reform-plan- Paulsen, Fr., Humanistic against Realistic Education, Educational Review, Jan., 1907. Skinner, M. M., Some Practical Hints for Teaching Students how to read German, School Review, Oct., 1909, 529-541. D. The Object Lesson as an Aid to Modern Language Teaching. Material aids to teaching. Grammars. Textbooks : the principles of selection (length, ease or difficulty, appropriateness) ; the question of editing, of annotation. The relation between literary material and the life of the foreign people. References : Brebner, M., The Method of Teaching Modern Languages in Germany, London, 1898. Passy, v.. La Methode directe dans Venseignement des langues vivantes, Paris, 1899. Roden, A. v.. Die Verwendung von Bildern zu franzosischen und englischen Sprechubungen, Marburg, 1898. Bagster-Collins, German in Secondary Schools, pp. 77-80. Konversations-Unterricht nach HolzeVs Bildertafeln (German, French, English, etc.), Giessen, Erail Roth. APPENDIX 289 Rippmann, W., German Picture Vocabulary, London, Dent, 1906. See various articles by Rippmann and others in The School- World, 1899. Collard, F., Methodologie de Venseignement moyejt, Bruxelles, 1903, Part II, chap. 4, pp. 342-381. Schweitzer-Simmonot, Methode directe pour Venseignement de Vallemand (Paris, A. Colin) . Starr, W. Cutting, The Teaching of German Literature in High Schools and Academies, School Review, April, 1911, 217 fF. E. The Native and the Foreign Teacher ; Prerequisites of Success. Preparation and attainments. Study of conditions in America and abroad. Relation of college and university to the preparation of the teacher. The possibilities of a teaching career in modern language work. The pedagogy of modern language teaching in its relation to general pedagogy. References : Breul, Karl, The Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages and the Training of Teachers, pp. 78-101. Handbuch fur Lehrer hoherer Schulen, Teubner, 1906, pp. 323-394- Waetzoldt, S., Die Aufgabe des neusprachlichen Unterrichts und die Vorbildung der Lehrer, Berlin, 1892. English Special Reports on Educational Subjects, vol. 3, No. 10 (Fabian Ware), pp. SI9-553. Babbitt, E. H., Preparation of Modern Language Teachers for American Institutions, Transactions of the Modern Language Assn., Baltimore, New series. Vol. I. Gouin, F., The Art of Teaching and Studying Languages, 3d edition, 1892 (Scribner's). Langlois, V., La preparation professionelle h Venseignement secondaire. Paris, 1902. INDEX Academic TRAmiNG, 5, 264. Academies, endowed, 172. Addams, Jane, 150, 186. Adjustment in the stages of work, 28. Adjustment of educational conditions, 220. Administrative duties, 151. Adolescence, 147, 181. Aim, definite, in class exercise, 50. Answer, nature and form of, 142. Antagonism, between school types in England, 173. Armstrong, J. E., 185, 189. Armstrong, Professor, 135 S., 180. Arrest in mental interest, 239. Art of teaching, 140. Assignment to introductory work, 26. Atkinson, F., 4. Attendance, hours of daily school, 148. Attention, concentrated, 146. Attention, divided, 68. Bagley, 153. Bascom, 10, 198. Baumann, J., 7, 8, Benson, A. C, 71. Betts, 133, 141. Bremen teachers, 83. Briggs, Le Baron, 197. Brinkmann, 67. Brown, E. E., 85, 187, 201. Brown, J. F., 5, 22, 40, 85, 188. Burstall, S., 63, 100, 180. Butler, N. M., 6, 77, 96, 136, 147. Caufornia, s. Canfield, 136. Carnegie Foimdation, 43, 90. Chabot, Ch., 42. Character building, 161. Character plus scholarship, 164. Civic efficiency, 237. Class book in German schools, 29. Class exercise as an ideal, 144, 147. Class Management, 59. Class periods, number per week, 148. Classroom exercises, 132, 145. Cleveland plan of segregation, 189. Coeducational school, the dominating type, 183, 186 fit. College, a training school for teachers, 4,6. College preparatory course, 86, 209. College requirements, 205. College sections for teachers, 7. College standards, 6. Colvin, Stephen S., 66, Compayre, 103. Completing a subject, 128. Concentration and intensity, 171. Concentration of schools, 109. Concreteness in instruction, 140. Conditioned students, 204. Conference of superintendents, 207. Congenial and uncongenial tasks, 62. Continuation schools, 230-241. Continuity, 104, 129, 239. Cooperation in classroom, 137. Cooperation of teachers, 27. Correlation in private schools, 158. Correlation, natural and artificial, 145. Couyba, 100, 103. Criticism, 4T, 54 ff., 263. Croiset, 74. Cultural aim of schools in Germany, etc., 102. Cultural tendency, 223. Cultured man, definition, 102. 291 292 INDEX Danish peasant high schools, 240. Davis, C. O., 210. Deahl, J., 77. Definiteness and indefiniteness of aim in school systems, 114. De Garmo, 141, 185, 192. Departmental system, 107. Dettweiler, 118. Dewey, John, 68. Didactic skill, 146. Differentiation in method of instruc- tion, 165. Dilettantism in school policy, 194. Dilettantism in study, 149, 171. Disciplinary power in different sub- jects, 197. Discipline and instruction, 96, 197. Discipline, direct and indirect, 62, 65. Distribution of studies, 126 ff. Dutton and Snedden, 177, 185. Economy of effectiveness, 146, 167. Economy in time feasible in private schools, 167 ff. Education, influence on conduct, 161, 254- Educational expert, function, 242 ff. Educational experts, 194, 207 ff. EflSciency, mental comparison, 170. Effort, undirected, 135. Electives, 195 ff. Eliot, 170, 177, 196. Endowment funds, 154. Englewood, 189. English Special Reports, 180, 232, 235, 241. Enlargement of intellectual sjmipathy, 227. Enrichment of elementary scheme, 106. Essentials of secondary school pro- gram, 126, 260. Ethics, practical, 74. Evaluation of subjects, 224 ff. Evening schools, 233. Examination by instalment, 129. Examinations, 254. Exchange teachers, 42. Expenditures for buildings, 176. Experimentation in schools, 194, 259. Expression, 116, 125. Extraneous activities, 149. Extravagance of four-year high school, 108. Family life, weakness of, 149. Farrington, 74, 98. Faunce, 79, 150. Feminization of schools, 184. Financial aspect of high school ques- tion, public and private, 174 ff. Findlay, 57. First-year work, importance, 23 ff. Fiske, John, 147. Flexibility, 145. Flexibility of private schools, 157, 174. Foreign language study, 120. Foster, William T., 196. France, moral instruction, 73. France, public instruction, 98, 206. Frick, 38, 143. Fries, 35, 38, 40. Gansberg, F., 83. General continuation schools, 236. German gjTnnasial seminary, 20, 35 ff. German secondary schools, 165, 200, 216 ff. German teacher, 60. Germany, assignment of teachers, 26. Girls' schools, teachers, 183. Gilbert, 78. Goethe, 11. Grouping of subjects, 12, 193. Group system, 195, 199. Growth in knowledge, 14. Guidance by experienced teacher, 19, 21, 135. Hadley, 196. Halle, 37. Hanus, 113. Harris, William T., iii, 136, 158, 199. Harrison, Caskie, 198. Hartog, 117. Harvard, new requirements, 89, 172, 205. Henderson, 133, 138. INDEX 293 High school, length of daily session, 148. High school, parallel courses, 201. Higher elementary school (England), 218. Hildebrand, R., iiS. History, place in curriculum, 122. Hollister, H. A., 80, 185. Home, absence of authority, 163. Home and school, 72, i6o S. Home preparation, 131, 134, 136. Home work, 147. Humanistic ideal, France and Ger- many, 103. Idleness, engrossing, 186. Inbreeding of teachers, 258. Individuality, 108, 150, 160. IneflBciency, 97, 150, 171, 180. Inspection, 253. Intellectual growth, 48, 186. Intellectual stimulus, 227 ff. Intensive interest in a subject, due to what? 127. Interpretation, 119. Investigation, expert, 252. James, William, 77. Judgment, discriminating, 67. Junior and senior high schools, 109, Kelsey, 116. Kelvin, Lord, 192. Kerschensteiner, G., 124, 230. Lagakdelle, 97. Langlois, 35, 42. Language study, preponderance, 125. Laurie, S. S., 24. Lehman, Rud., 97, 118. Lehrplane und Lehraufgaben, 82, 10 1. Lehrproben imd Lehrgange, 30, 143. Length of school life, 256. Lesson hearing, 135. Lexis, 37, 100. Liberal education, 100. Logic in Mathematics, 123. Logical sequence, 199. Loos, 65. Luckey, 19. Magnus, Sir Philip, 188. Male teachers, 178, 190. Manual arts, 125, 213. Mark, H. T., 77, 108, 150. Martineau, Dr., 198. Mathematical course, 122 ff. Mathematical teaching, 47, 113. Matthias, A., 118, 143. McCrea, 8. McMurry, 30. Method, discussion of, 52. Methods of study, change, 105, 107, III, 164. Meumann, 134. Minimum requirements of admission, 203. Mobility in classroom, 60. Model lessons, 29 ff. Model school, 54. Modern language teaching, 47, 121. Monatschrift fiir hohere Schulen, 20, 97. 16s, 196. Moral education, 79 ff., 192. Moral instruction, 73 ff. Moral qualifications of teachers, 70 ff. Morality undeveloped, 150. Miinch, 134, 162. Munich continuation system, 237 ff. Myers, 76. Narrowing tendencies, 10. Needs, special, of a community, 257, Neff, 35- Nightingale, A. F., 85. Non-collegiate interests, 87, 210. Normal schools, 2, 3. Nucleus of secondary school work, 115, Observation of teaching, 51 ff- Oral expression, 119. Palmer, George H., 77. Parallel courses, 201. Parental neglect of duty, 161. Parents' attitude toward private schools, 160 ff. 294 INDEX Part-time instruction, 153. Paulsen, 42, 165. "Pedagogy, philosophic foundations of," 97. Periods, number per week allotted to one subject, 128. Perry, John, 47. Pettee, 113. Petzoldt, 108. Physical equipment of teacher, 60, 6r. Popular demands vague, 92. Practice teaching, 55, 57 ff. Preparation, daily, 44. Preparation for life, 92, 215, 222. Principal, breadth of view, 13, 159. Pritchett, 4, 43, 90, 112, 204, 234. Private school, basis of success, 182. Private schools, criticism, 156 ff., 163, 173- Private schools, educational standards, 156 ff., 163, 168. Private schools, relation to parents, 157, 162, 168. Private schools, socially desirable, 155. Private schools, value of continuity, 159, 164, 167, 169. Professional recognition, 17. Professional spirit, 16. Professional training of teachers, 17, 34. ^ Program, weekly, 127, 150. Proletariat, intellectual, 97. Providence, R.I., 19. Prussia, 20, 202, 206, 231. Public high school, pupils, 172. Public high schools, teaching force, 178 ff. Quality of teaching, 101 ff., 258. Quality rather than quantity, 151, 258. Questioning, art of, 141. Questioning, ideal character, 143. Range of teaching interests, ii ff . Readjustment of school course, 108. Realschulen of Germany, 201. Recitation, antiquated type, 146. Recitation, character, 131, 133, 137 ff. Recitation, conduct of a, 144 ff. Recitations, number per week, 130 ff. Reflection and trial, 39. Rein, 65, 99. Reinstein, 141. Relation of salaries to school income, 175. Religious instruction, Germany, 82 ff. Remissness of parents, 161. Report Boston School Commission, 86. Report Commissioner Education, 24, 86, 152, 179, 231. Report Committee of Fifteen, 49. Report Committee of Ten, 89, 114, 224 ff. Reviews, 141. Routine, 46. Rugh, C. E., 192. Rule and exception, 32. Russel, J. E., 14. Sachs, J., 187. Sadler, Sir Michael, 10, 92, 94, 97, loi, 117, 149, 170, 201, 215, 218, 221, 241, 242-267. Salaries of teachers, 177, 261. Salmon, Lucy, 112. Schiller, Hermann, 38. Schmidt, F., 134. Scholastic attainment, 6, 164. School boards and their aims, 178. Schuyler, R. I., 17. Science teaching, method, 124. Secondary school autonomy, 88 ff., 91, 205. Secondary school, historical develop- ment, 85. Secondary schools of Germany and France, 98 ff. Secondary teacher in Germany, 11. Segregation, partial or complete, 152. Self -consciousness in adolescents, 120. Self-government, 63 ff. Self-realization, 149. Shortage, 109. Six-year high school course, 106, 108 ff., 113- Skill in presentation, 127. Smith, Anna T., 187. Smith, D. A., 47, 97, 122, 221, 228. INDEX 295 Snedden, D. S., 211, 215. Social atmosphere of private schools, Solidarity of first-year work, 24. Specialization in secondary schools, 9, 265. Specialized vocational school, 236. Standards of scholarship, 41, 172, 185. Steinbart, 165. Stenography, 93, 227. Stevens, 143. Study periods, 152, Subjects of high school courses, 114 £f. Suggestions and recommendations for improvement, 249. Teacher — a learner, 14, 15, 43 ff. Teachers — effect of inexperience, 23. Teacher's individuality, 49, 226. Teacher's standard, 44, 146, 264 ff. Teachers' colleges and the schools, 18. Teachers for vocational schools, 213. Teachers' meetings, 15. Teaching, maximum number of periods, 151- Teaching staS, 41, 178. Tenure of oflSce, superintendents, 205. Tenure of office, teachers, 178. Textbook, its place, xii, 33, 131 £f. Thorndike, E. L., 109. Thoroughness v. superficiality, no ff. Trades-union type of teacher, 17. Training, 197. Training college (England), 3. Training to judgment, 64, 95. Transition, elementary to secondary schools, 104, 106, 252. Types, different, of German secondary schools, 201. Types, differing, of instruction in ele- mentary and secondary schools, 104. Utilitarian tendencies, 192, 215 ff., 261. Variety of subjects, 114. Vernacular, teaching of, 116 ff. Virility of teacher, 63, iii, 182. Vocational efficiency of high school, 214. Vocational specialization, danger, 212. Vocational training, 189. Vocational v. liberal education, 211, 223. Voss, 35. Ware, 170, 217. Wheeler, B. I., 150. Women teachers and adolescence, 181. Women teachers in high schools, 178 ff., 190. Women teachers, their value, 183. Woodhull, J. F., 10. Young, J. W., 47. 'T^HE following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books on kindred subjects. THE TEACHERS' PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY Under the General Editorship of Nicholas Murray Butler, Presi- dent of Columbia University. The contributors to this series are leading teachers and students of education in Europe as well as in the United States. Each volume applies the results of the latest scholarship and the widest experience to some phase of educational thought or activity. Each subject is treated in untechnical language, and the series is intended to form a practical reference library of text-books in professional study, the price of which is within every one's reach. 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