5 J«15 
 
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 Movement Toward the Reorganization of 
 Secondary Education 
 
 Charles Hughes Johnston 
 
 Professor of Secondary Education, University of Illinois 
 
 T HERE is no single way to characterize adequately the 
 movements for reorganizing public secondary education. 
 Reorganization may refer to the matter of economy by the 
 elimination of a grade ; or it may refer to a change in methods 
 of teaching, discipline and internal school management ; or it 
 may refer to a reorganization of content of instruction within 
 the various courses ; or still again it may refer to a change in 
 administrative units within the twelve years of the public 
 school system, such as we commonly mean to describe by the 
 terms six-six plan or the six-three-three plan, etc. Generally 
 current discussions, ever since the N. E. A. Standing Com- 
 mittee Report in 1905 on “Six Years ’ Course of Study,’ ’ show 
 ^ confusion as to the precise and distinguishable issues in- 
 volved. 
 
 Omitting all consideration of the problems of the “junior- 
 college annex” to public high schools, we may speak only of 
 “reorganization” as it applies to the common twelve grades 
 of public education. Within these grades any modification of 
 the arrangement of eight grades of elementary and four of 
 high school education represents some form of rearrange- 
 ment, or “reorganization.” In 1912 the U. S. Bureau reports 
 nine types of segregated junior high schools — or combinations 
 of grades, 5th to 10th, inclusive — and reports six combinations 
 of higher grades representing senior high school arrange- 
 ments. These and other existing forms of reorganization are 
 indicative of unrest and experimentation. Likewise, theoretic- 
 ally different types of reorganization have been worked out in 
 detail for cities of different sizes. The causes doubtless are 
 more varied than the forms of reorganization, some of them 
 
 (165) 
 
166 
 
 Educational Administration and Supervision 
 
 involving educational principles, some indicating adjustments 
 for temporary convenience, some for economy merely, some 
 topographical in character, while some again are merely for- 
 tuitous. It may be that none of the present types of reorgani- 
 zation is permanently significant as a type. Some educators, 
 indeed, claim that they are all mere temporary makeshifts, 
 heralding some profound and revolutionary form of funda- 
 mental school reorganization which will come into existence 
 as we revise and refine our educational ideals. 
 
 The present extent of the movement for reorganization is 
 of interest. The U. S. Commissioner and the National Bureau 
 are publicly committed to this reorganization. The Com- 
 mittee on Economy of Time of the N. E. A. incorporate the 
 same plan as a fundamental feature of their report. The 
 National Association of State Universities has declared in 
 favor of the same type of reorganization. A committee of the 
 North Central Association last year presented a similar report 
 to that body. This was adopted. The same association en- 
 larged its committee and instructed them to present the details 
 of further procedure at the 1915 meeting. Ten subcommittees 
 of the N. E. A. Commission on Reorganization of Secondary 
 Education are likewise at work upon these details of further 
 developments in this direction. The State of New York as a 
 State, through its separate official curriculums for the first six 
 grades, the intermediate grades and the high school grades, 
 virtually declares for its adoption. Likewise the State of 
 California. Unanimous resolutions from the State Teachers ’ 
 Association of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana favor 
 specifically the six-six plan of school organization. The State 
 of Michigan, as well as did earlier the State of North Dakota, 
 is apparently launching a campaign for a similar State-wide 
 readjustment, and the State Superintendent has published a 
 pamphlet containing not only urgent advice and lists of rea- 
 sons for the change, hut, in addition, definitely- worked-out 
 plans for the reorganization of some of the courses. 
 
 Paralleling these official acts from State offices come the 
 Universities of Michigan and Chicago, with their methods of 
 accrediting and standards of entrance requirements read- 
 justed so as to recognize and to sanction this new type of 
 
Reorganization of Secondary Education 
 
 1G7 
 
 school organization. Add to these imposing actions of uni- 
 versity faculties the recommendations of the directors of the 
 School Surveys of New York City, of the State of Vermont, 
 of Portland, of Boise, of Springfield, 111., and of Butte, Mont., 
 and the movement assumes proportions which demand the 
 serious attention of students and administrators of educa- 
 tion. From the U. S. Commissioner’s Report, 1913, it should 
 also be noted that there is a movement in the parochial schools 
 which contemplates similar reorganization steps. Among 
 cities which have adopted some form of reorganization we 
 may note especially Palo Alto, Los Angeles and Berkeley, 
 Cal.; Detroit, Grand Rapids and Saginaw, Mich.; Columbus 
 and Dayton, Ohio; Portland, Ore.; Concord, N. H. ; Trenton, 
 N. J. ; Boston, Fitchburg and Newton, Mass.; Minneapolis 
 and Cokato, Minn.; Grafton, S. D. ; Ogden, Utah; Rochester 
 and New York, N. Y. ; Lewiston, Idaho ; Kansas City, Wichita, 
 Garden City, Neodosha, Hutchinson and Fredonia, Kan. ; 
 Richmond, Evansville and other cities in Indiana, and Spring- 
 field and Quincy, and, in modified form, East Aurora, Decatur 
 and Urbana, 111. 
 
 The writer has drawn from current literature on this sub- 
 ject the following reasons for the change as advanced by its 
 advocates, and has formulated as many reasons against this 
 reorganization, furnished by those who prefer the present ele- 
 mentary-high school arrangement. It is instructive to note in 
 the present stage of development that reorganization advo- 
 cates are more careful to champion some changes rather than 
 to tie themselves down to any particular rigid form of reor- 
 ganization, and that those who resist the proposals of reform 
 are chiefly attacking only the dangerous possibilities to which 
 it may lead, each shifting the burden of proof to the other 
 side. 
 
 SOME OF THE ARGUMENTS FOR A REARRANGEMENT OF THE SIX 
 UPPER GRADES IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM, 
 
 WITH THE FIRST SIX GRADES AN INDE- 
 PENDENT UNIT, are: 
 
 1. The scheme is fundamentally a plan for segregating the 
 preadolescents and providing the unique environment re- 
 quired with the consequent development of the simple forms 
 of student social activity. 
 
168 
 
 Educational Administration and Supervision 
 
 2. It provides a better organization for the grouping of 
 students with reference to their varying abilities and their 
 physical, mental, social and moral traits at the most critical 
 stage for this sort of diagnosis and treatment. Organized 
 vocational guidance and placement is to be begun at this time. 
 
 3. This scheme provides for an instructorial organization 
 with a better grade of women teachers and with more men in 
 instructional force. 
 
 4. The teachers themselves also in this particular environ- 
 ment will develop better the particular traits required for this 
 work. 
 
 5. It allows for a partial segregation of sexes with appro- 
 priate modification of teaching methods, of management and 
 of courses. 
 
 6. The natural pedagogy of some subjects, like modern lan- 
 guage, call for this readjustment. There is also need for an 
 earlier correlation of English language and grammar with the 
 foreign language and grammar, of arithmetic with elementary 
 algebra and demonstrational geometry, and of history and 
 geography. This beginning should be made in the segregated 
 7th grade, or 7th and 8th grades, or 7th, 8th and 9th grades. 
 
 7. It makes the whole school system more nearly a unit. 
 
 8. This would leave the elementary school of six grades 
 still freer to teach easily, without the imposition of any scho- 
 lastic standards the tool subjects as tools, as well as common 
 fundamental ideals, and at the same time have most of its time 
 and energy for the natural unrestrained and wholesome un- 
 restricted exercises of imagination, play, construction, emo- 
 tion, imitation, etc. 
 
 9. This would also leave the Senior High School proper 
 free to develop with more distinctiveness of function genuinely 
 differentiated curriculum s of college preparatory, commercial, 
 agricultural, manufacturing and the domestic science, sewing 
 and homemaking arts. 
 
 10. The six-three-three plan makes possible a richer va- 
 riety and greater number of courses for these children from 
 twelve to fifteen years of age; and with this larger number 
 of courses, most important of all, it allows at a better time 
 that the first year of high school for a partial differentiation 
 
Reorganization of Secondary Education 
 
 169 
 
 of curriculums. (See the Portland, New York, Springfield 
 and Bntte Surveys.) 
 
 11. The pupils will thus, by semi or wholly departmental 
 organization of instruction, be promoted by subject, get the 
 benefit of contact with a special junior- high-school type of 
 teacher, their individualities being thus better rounded out 
 and developed, preserved from narrowness and uniformity — 
 or conformity to one teacher’s moulding. 
 
 12. The reorganization will provide such vocational in- 
 sights and inducements that a larger per cent, will remain 
 in school an additional year. It also postpones for one year 
 the transportation difficulties of high school attendance, time, 
 carfare and other obstacles. 
 
 13. It is cheaper, on same basis as ordinary 7th and 8th 
 grade work (see Hanus’ New York Report and Bulletin by 
 Superintendent Rundlett of Concord, N. H.) ; or, if adequate, 
 it makes for a better adjustment of per capita costs. (See 
 E. H. Holland in Superintendent’s Report of Louisville, 1912, 
 and Francis, Portland Survey; Elementary, $40; Junior High 
 School, $60; Senior High School, $80.) A town can often eco- 
 nomically make over with proper equipment a grammar school 
 or old high school building. (See Francis, Portland Survey, 
 pp. 190-1.) 
 
 14. The reorganization provides for better and more con- 
 tinuous use of equipments for domestic science, manual train- 
 ing and vocational courses, with a better set of instructors 
 who can, when necessary, alternate with the different classes. 
 (Springfield Survey.) 
 
 15. It becomes possible for bright pupils to complete their 
 public school work beyond the sixth grade in five instead of 
 six years, whereas it is not often possible to do four years’ 
 work in three years under the present eight-four plan. 
 
 16. The “ cycle” arrangement in the secondary school sys-, 
 tern of France and a similar arrangement of work in German 
 secondary schools afford interesting analogies to the reorgani- 
 zation under discussion. 
 
170 
 
 Educational Administration and Supervision 
 
 SOME OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANY REARRANGEMENT OF 
 
 GRADES ARE : 
 
 1. In general, all the plans increase the difficulties of school 
 organization and administration. 
 
 2. The child of this age will be confused in adjusting him- 
 self to the individual peculiarities of so many teachers. 
 
 3. More difficulty in placing responsibility for poor teach- 
 ing, which will affect work in all subjects. 
 
 4. There will be much confusion incident to changing 
 rooms. 
 
 5. Teachers of one subject become narrowed. 
 
 6. We can’t make a thoroughgoing rearrangement and re- 
 organization with mediocre teachers. Such intermediate 
 teachers must have preparation of at least high school grade, 
 and are not procurable. 
 
 7. The scheme requires specially gifted and trained prin- 
 cipals who are not available. 
 
 8. The elementary school principals will object to taking 
 away the “ pride and inspiration of their schools.” See also 
 the high school principals, their numbers. 
 
 9. The upper-grade teachers who can’t be promoted to 
 this intermediate type of teaching, and who hence must be 
 demoted to lower grades, and probably lower salary, if re- 
 tained will strenuously oppose this “injustice” to them. 
 
 10. Inconvenienced parents will object. 
 
 11. It can’t be accomplished in the smaller towns and cities. 
 
 12. It is merely a different name for essentially the same 
 operation. There is no real change in educational principles ; 
 all good effects may be secured by improving the present 
 eight-four plan of organization. 
 
 13. There is grave danger of losing the essentially per- 
 sonal influence of the teacher in this proposed distribution of 
 personal responsibility among so many teachers. 
 
 14. There is equal danger that the many departmental 
 teachers, ignorant of the child’s all-day-round of school duties, 
 will overwork the pupils by the very natural, practically in- 
 evitable over-emphasis on particular subjects. 
 
 15. It may be well also that the child’s age advancement 
 accords with our present grade advancements. It is likely 
 
Reorganization of Secondary Education 
 
 171 
 
 that it is not desirable to save a year or to change the content 
 and method of work and discipline. An enforced rate of in- 
 tellectual progress and more complicated type of intellectual 
 exercise, which the intermediate or junior high school scheme 
 requires, may be against the fundamental law of the child’s 
 rate of maturing. The 7th and 8th grade stages may be sim- 
 ply plateau levels in the individual’s life, nodes, which cannot 
 he done away with nor transformed by pedagogic device or 
 administrative manipulation. 
 
 16. The proposed plan brings in the school lunch problem. 
 
 17. It tends to underestimate the necessary amount of drill 
 work and acquisition of common ideas which the present 8 
 grade organization and 8 grade course of study aim to secure, 
 secure. 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 As to evidence of success or failure of these experiments 
 with reorganization, we have as yet little that could be called 
 proof either way. Superintendent Bunker has carefully enu- 
 merated his initial obstacles encountered in Berkeley during 
 the first two years, and has told how they all were gradually 
 overcome. Superintendent Rundlett of Concord, N. H., has 
 demonstrated by comparative statistics how average marks 
 of whole classes were raised with the adoption and continua- 
 tion of the scheme; how something like 33 per cent, more 
 actual ground was covered during an identical period in such 
 subjects as Latin, history and mathematics, and how the 
 scheme proved to be considerably cheaper for Concord, N. H. 
 Superintendent Francis of Los Angeles has shown us just how 
 and how much it costs to transform an old grade building into 
 a model junior high school. Professor Hanus has, as Director 
 of the New York Survey, told that city how much cheaper the 
 junior high school organization will be to the city. Super- 
 intendent Study of Neodesha has reported figures showing 
 striking increase in enrollment and in promotion rates, de- 
 crease in elimination, and greater interest of the community 
 in the school work following the adoption of the junior-senior 
 high school arrangement. Superintendent Giles of Richmond, 
 Ind., reports the good effect on general marks in all subjects 
 of those boys who in junior high school were assigned to a 
 
172 Educational Administration and Supervision 
 
 partially differentiated curriculum. He reports also a system 
 of advice and guidance, through committees of junior high 
 school teachers, which seems to him to be typical of a sort of 
 individual work not so easily done under the old form of or- 
 ganization. A thirty-five piece orchestra is, he thinks, typical 
 of forms of junior high school activities which may be better 
 developed under such a system of segregating the 7th, 8th and 
 9th grades. 
 
 The writer has found no evidence that any of these school 
 experimenters would be willing to return to the old system. 
 While he has found no reliable and adequate proof with which 
 to convince those temperamentally inclined to doubt the prom- 
 ise in all these new plans of school administration, he has the 
 impression that demonstrations and proofs will be forth- 
 coming. 
 
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