LB I5S5 /r?-^ ^zy LB 1555 .N27 1895a » REPORT OF THE COMMIT- TEE OF FIFTEEN ^ BY W. T. HARRIS, LL. D., A. S. DRAPER, LL. D., AND H. S. TARBELL ^ READ AT THE CLEVELAND MEETING OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SU- PERINTENDENCE, FEBRU- ARY 19-21, 1895, WITH THE DEBATE A-A^«-l General History Oral, sixty minutes a week Physical Culture Sixty minutes a week Vocal Music Sixty minutes a week divided into 4 lessons Drawing. Sixty minutes a week Man'l Train. or Sewing-}- Cookery One- half day each week Number of Lessons 20+7 daily 20+7 daily 20+5 daily exer 24+S daily 27-f-S daily 27+5 daily 23+6 daily 23+6 daily exer. Total Hours of Recitat'ns I II I I 12 I 12 I 11% I 13 I 16% I 16K 17^ ^1% Length of Recitations 15 mm I 15 mm I 20 mm I 2omin | 25 mm 25 mm ' 30 min I 30 min •Begins in second half year. Committee of Fifteen. 69 In the fifth and sixth years the number of recitations increases to twenty-seven per week, owing to the addi- tion of formal grammar, and the total number of hours required for all is 16^ per week, or an average of 3^ per day. In the seventh and eighth years the number of les- sons decreases to twenty-three, history being added, penmanship and special lessons in spelling discon- tinued, the time devoted to geography reduced to three lessons a week. But the recitation is increased to thirty minutes in length. Manual training occupies a half-day, or 2)^ hours, each week. The total is 19 hours per week, or 3^ per day. The foregoing tabular exhibit shows all of these par- ticulars. IV. METHODS AND ORGANIZATION. Your Committee is agreed that the time devoted to the elementary school work should not be reduced from eight years, but they have recommended, as here- inbefore stated, that in the seventh and eighth years a modified form of algebra be introduced in place of advanced arithmetic, and that in the eighth year Eng- lish grammar yield place to Latin. This makes, in their opinion, a proper transition to the studies of the secondary school and is calculated to assist the pupil materially in his preparation for that work. Hitherto, the change from the work of the elementary school has been too abrupt, the pupil beginning three formal studies at once, namely, algebra, physical geography, and Latin. Your Committee has found it necessary to discuss the question of methods of teaching in numerous in- stances, while considering the question of educational values and programmes, because the value and time yo Committee of Fifteen. of beginning of the several branches depend so largely on the method of teaching. The following recommendations, however, remain for this part of their report : — They would recommend that the specialization of teachers' work should not be attempted before the seventh or eighth year of the elementary school and in not more than one'or two studies then. In the sec- ondary school it is expected that a teacher will teach one, or at most, two branches. In the elementary school, for at least six years, it is better, on the whole, to have each teacher instruct his pupils in all the branches that they study, for the reason that only in this way can he hold an even pressure on the require- ments of work, correlating it in such a manner that no one study absorbs undue attention. In this way the pupils prepare all their lessons under the direct super- vision of the same teacher^ and by their recitations show what defects of methods of study there have been in the preparation. The ethical training is much more successful under this plan, because the personal influence of a teacher is much greater when he or she knows minutely the entire scope of the school work. In the case of the special teacher the responsibility is divided and the opportunities of special acquaintance with character and habits diminished. With one teacher, who supervises the study and hears all the recitations, that there is a much better opportunity to cultivate the two kinds of attention. The teacher divides his pupils into two classes and hears one recite while the other class prepares for the next lesson. The pupils reciting are required to pay strict attention to the one of their number who is explaining the point assigned him by the teacher — they are to be on the alert to notice any mistakes of statement or omissions of Committee of Fifteen. 71 important data, they are at the same time to pay close attention to the remarks of the teacher. This is one kind of attention, which may be called associated crit- ical attention. The pupils engaged in the preparation of the next lesson are busy, each one by himself, study- ing the book and mastering its facts and ideas, and comparing them one with another, and making the effort to become oblivious of their fellow-pupils, the recitation going on, and the teacher. This is another kind of attention, which is not associated, but an in- dividual effort to master for one's self without aid a prescribed task and to resist all distracting influences. These two disciplines in attention are the best formal training that the school affords. Your Committee has already mentioned a species of faulty correlation wherein the attempt is made to study all branches in each, misapplying Jacotot's maxim, " all is in all " {tout est dans tout) A frequent error of this kind is the practice of mak- ing every recitation a language lesson, and interrupting the arithmetic, geography, history, literature, or what- ever it maybe, by calling the pupil's attention abruptly to something in his forms of expression, his pronuncia- tion, or to some faulty use of English; thus turning the entire system of school work into a series of grammar exercises and weakening the power of continuous thought on the objective contents of the several branches, by creating a pernicious habit of self-con- sciousness in the matter of verbal expression. While your Committee would not venture to say that there should not be some degree of attention to the verbal expression in all lessons, it is of the opinion that it should be limited to criticism of the recitation for its want of technical accuracy. The technical words in each branch should be discussed until the pupil is familiar with their full force. The faulty English should 72 Committee of Fifteen. be criticised as showiug confusion of thought or mem- ory, and should be corrected in this sense. But sole- cisms of speech should be silently noted by the teacher for discussion in the regular language lesson. The question of promotion of pupils has occupied from time to time very much attention. Your Com- mittee believes that in many systems of elementary schools there is injury done by too much formality in ascertaining whether the pupils of a given class have completed the work up to a given arbitrarily fixed point, and are ready to take up the next apportionment of the work. In the early days of city school systems, when the office of superintendent was first created, it was thought necessary to divide up the graded course of study into years of work, and to hold stated annual examinations to ascertain how many pupils could be promoted to the next grade or year's work. All that failed at this examination were set back at the begin- ning of the year's work to spend another vear in review- ing it. This was to meet the convenience of the superintendent, who, it was said, could not hold exam- inations to suit the wants of individuals or particular classes. From this arrangement there naturally resulted a great deal of what is called ''marking time." Pupils who had nearly completed the work of the year were placed with pupils who had been till now a year's inter- val below them. Discouragement and demoralization at the thought of taking up again a course of lessons learned once before caused many pupils to leave school prematurely. This evil has been remedied in nearly one-half of the cities by promoting pupils whenever they have completed the work of a grade. The constant tendency of classification to become imperfect by reason of the difference in rates of advancement of the several pupils owing to disparity in ages, degree of maturity, temper- Committee of Fifteen. 73 ament, and health, makes frequenter classification necessary. This is easily accomplished by promoting the few pupils who distance the majority of their class- mates into the next class above, separated as it is, or ought to be, by an inteival of less than half a year. The bright pupils thus promoted have to struggle to make up the ground covered in the interval between the two classes, but they are nearly always able to accomplish this, and generally will in two years' time need another promotion from class to class. The Procrustean character of the old city systems has been removed by this device. There remain for mention some other evils besides bad systems of promotion due to defects of organiza- tion. The school buildings are often with superstitious care kept apart exclusively for particular grades of pupils. The central building erected for high school purposes, though only half filled, is not made to relieve the neighboring grammar school, crowded to such a degree that it cannot receive the classes which ought to be promoted from the primary schools. It has hap pened in such cases that this superstition prevailed so far that the pupils in the primary school building were kept at work on studies already finished, because they could not be transferred to the grammar school. In all good school systems the pupils take up new work when they have completed the old, and the bright pupils are transferred to higher classes when they have so far distanced their fellows that the amount of work fixed for the average ability of the class does not give them enough to do. In conclusion, your Committee would state, by way of explanation, that it has been led into many digres- sions, in illustrating the details of its recommendations in this report, through its desire to make clear the grounds on which it has based its conclusions and 74 Committee of Fifteen. through the hope that such details will call out a still more thorough-going discussion of the educational values of branches proposed for elementary schools, and of the methods by which those branches may be successfully taught. With a view to increase the interest in this subject, your Committee recommends the publication of se- lected passages from the papers sent in by invited auxiliary committees and by volunteers, many of these containing valuable suggestions not mentioned in this report. Organization for City Scliool Systems. BY PRESIDENT ANDREW S. DRAPER. [This is the report of a sub-committee of the Fifteen, of which Fresl dent Draper of the UDiversity of Illinois is chairman. It is anderstood that the committee is to treat of city school systems, which are so large that persons chosen by the people to manage them, and serving without pay, can- not be expected to transact all the business of the system in person, nor to have personal knowledge of all business transactions, and which are so large that one person em- ployed to supervise the instruction cannot be assumed to personally manage or direct all of the details thereof, but must, in each case, act under plans of organization and administration established by law and through assistants or representatives. The end for which a school system exists is the instruc- tion of the children, attaching to the word instruction the meaning it attains in the mind of a well-educated person, if not in the mind of an educational expert. To secure this end, no plan of organization alone will suffice. Nothing can take the place of a sincere desire for good sclyols, of a fair knowledge of what good schools are, and what will make them, of a public spirit and a moral sense on the part of the people, which are spontaneous, or which can be appealed to with confi- dence. Fortunately, the interest which the people have in their own children is so large, and the anxiety of the community for public order and security is so great, that public sentiment may ordinarily be relied upon, or may 76 Committee of Fifteen, be aroused to action, to choose proper representatives and take proper measures for the administration of the schools. If, in any case, this is not so, there is little hope of efficient schools. Wherever it is so, it alone will not suffice, but proper organization may become the instru- ment of public sentiment, and develop schools which will be equal to the needs of all, and become the safeguards of citizenship Efficient schools can be secured only by pro- vidin;^ suitable buildings and appliances, and by keeping them in proper order on the one hand, and, on the other hand, by employing, organizing, aiding, and directing teachers, so that the instruction shall have life and power to accomplish the great end for which schools are maintained. The circumstances of the case naturally and quickly separate the duties of administration into two great de- partments, one which manages the business affairs, and the other which supervises the instruction. The business affairs of the school system may be transacted by any citizens of common honesty, correct purposes, and of good business experience and sagacity. The instruction will be ineffective and abnormally expensive unless put upon a scientific educational basis and supervised by com- petent educational experts. There will be a waste of money and effort and a lack of results, unless the authorities of these two departments are sympathetic with each other ; that is, unless, on the one hand, the business management is sound, is apprecia* tive of good teaching, looks upon it as a scientific and professional employment, and is alert to sustain it ; and unless, on the other hand, the instructors are competent and self-respecting, know what good business manage- ment is, are glad to uphold it, and are able to r aspect tho^e who are charged with responsibility for it. To secure efficiency in these departments, there must be adequate authority and quick public accountability. Committee of Fifteen, 77 The problem is not merely to secare some good school- houses, bat good schoolhouses wherever needed, and to avoid the nse of all houses which are not suitable for use ; it is not to get some good teaching, but to prevent all bad teaching, and to advance all the teaching to the highest possible point of special training, professional spirit, and of life-giving power. All of the business matters must be entrusted to competent business hands and managed upon sound business principles ; and all of the instruction must be put upon a professional basis. To insure this, there must be deliberation and wisdom in determining policy, and then the power to do what is determined upon must be present and capable of exercise, and the responsibility for the proper exercise of the power must, in each ease, be individual and immediate. It is imperative that we discriminate between the legis- lative and executive action in organizing and administer- ing the schools. The influences which enter into legisla- tive action, looking to the general organization and work of the schools, must necessarily and fundamentally flow directly from the people and be widely spread. The greater the number of people, in proportion to the entire population, who can be led to take a positive interest and an active part in securing good schools, the better will the schools be, provided the people can secure the com- plete execution of their purposes and plans. But experi- ence has clearly shown that many causes intervene to pre- vent the complete execution of such plans, that all the natural enemies of sound administration scent plenty of plunder and are especially active here, that good school administration requires much strength of character, much business experience, much technical knowledge, and can be only measurably satisfactory when the responsibility is adequate, and the penalties for maladministration are severe. Decentralization in making the plan and deter- mining what shall be done, and centralization in execut- 78 Committee of Fifteen, ing the plan and in doing what is to be done, are, perhaps, equally important. It should be remembered that the character of the school work of a city is not merely a matter of local interest^ and that the maintenance of the schools does not rest merely or mainly upon local authority. The people of the municipality, acting, and ordinarily glad to act, but, in any event, being obliged to act, under and pur- suant to the law which has been ordained by the sover- eign authority of the state, establish and maintain schools. They must have the taxing power which the state alone possesses in order to enable them to proceed at all. They must regard the directions which the state sees fit to give as to the essential character of the schools, when it exer- cises in their behalf, or when it delegates to them the power of taxation. The plan should be flexible for good, while inflexible for evil. Meeting essential requirements, the people of the municipality may well be empowered to proceed as much farther as they will in elaborating a system of schools. The higher the plane of average intelligence, and the more generally and the more directly the people act in deciding what shall be done, and the greater the facility and completeness with which the intelligence of the city is able to secure the proper execution of its plans by officers appointed for that purpose, the more elaborate and the more efficient will be the schools, and this should, of course, be provided for. It is idle to suggest that centering executive functions is unwisely taking power away from the people. The people cannot execute plans themselves. The authority to do it must necessarily be delegated. The question simply is, ^^ Shall it be given to a number of persons, and if so, to how many ? Or to only one ? " This question is to be decided by experience, and it is, of course, true that experience has not been uniform. But it is doubt- Committee of Fifteen. 79 less trne that the general experience of the communities of the conntry has shown that where purely executive functions are conferred upon a numher of persons jointly, they yield to antagonistic influences and shift the respon- sibility from one to another ; and that centering the re- sponsibility for the proper discharge of executive duties upon a single person, who gets the credit of good work and must bear the disgrace or penalty of bad work, and who can quickly be held accountable for misdeeds and in- efficiency, has secured the fullest execution of public plans and the largest results. To call this ^^centralization," with the meaning which commonly attaches to the word, is inaccurate. Instead of removing the power from the people, it is keeping the power closer to the people, and making it possible for the citizen in his individual capacity and for organized bodies of citizens to secure the execution of plans according to the purpose and in- tent with which those plans were made. Indeed, it is safe to say that experience has shown that this is th^ only way in which to prevent the frequent thwarting of the popular will and the defiance of individuals whose inter- ests &re ignored or whose rights are invaded. But all the people of a city whose population is num- bered by hundreds of thousands or millions cannot meet in a legislative assemblage to formulate plans. They cannot gather in mass meetings, and, if they could, mass meetings cannot deliberate. Even their legislative action must flow, not from a primary, but from a representative assembly. What shall such a representative legislative body be called ? How shall it be chosen ? Of how many mem- bers shall it be composed ? And what shall be its powers ? These and other similar questions are all important and must be determined by the lawmaking power of the state. The sentiments of the city, as expressed through the local organizations, and particularly the newspapers, must, of 8o Committee of Fifteen. coarse, have much weight with the legislature if there is anything like ananimity or any very strong preponder- ance of opinion in the city, for the plan for which a com- munity expresses a preference will surely be likely to operate most effectually in that community. But the local sentiment is not conclusive. When divided, it is no guide at all. The legislature is to take all the circum- stances into consideration, take the world's experience for its guide, and, acting under its responsibilities, it must ex- ercise its high powers in ways which will build up a sys- tem of schools in the city likely to articulate with the state educational system and become the effective instrument of developing the intelligence and training the character of the children of the city up to the ideals of the state. The name of the legislative branch of the school gov- ernment is not material, and the one to which the people are accustomed may well continue to be employed. There is no name more appropriate than the " Board of Edu- cation." The manner of selecting or appointing thw members of this legislative body may turn somewhat upon the cir- cumstances of the city. We are strongly of the opinion that in view of the well-known diffiiiulty about securing the attendance of the most interested and intelligent electors at school elections, as well as because of the apparent impossibility of freeing school elections from political or municipal issues, the better manner of elections is by appointment. If the members of the board are appointed, the mayor of the city is likely to be the official to whom the power of appointment may most safely be entrusted. The mayor is not suggested because his office should sustain any relation to the school system, but in spite of the fact that it does not and should not. The school system should be absolutely emancipated from partisan politics, and completely dissociated from mu- Committee of Fifteen, 8i nicipal business. Bat we think the appointments should be made by some one person, rather than by a board. The mayor is representative of the whole city and all its interests. While not chosen with any reference to the interests of the schools, he may be assumed to have infor- mation as to the fitness of citizens for particular respon- sibilities, and to be desiroas of promoting the educational interests of the people. If he is given the power of ap- pointment, he should be particularly enjoined by law to consider the fitness of individuals alone and pay no re- gard to party affiliations, unless it be to particularly see to it that no one political party has an overwhelming pre- ponderance in the board. The mayor very commonly feels constrained, under the pressure of party expediency, to make so many questionable appointments, that he is only too glad, and particularly so when enjoined by the law, to make very acceptable appintments of members of school boards, in order that he may gratify the better sentiment of the city. We are confident that the prob- lem of getting a representative board of education is not so difficult as many think, if the board is not permitted to make patronage of work and salaried positions at the dis- posal of the public-school system. Under such circum- stances, and more and more so as we have approached such circumstances, appointment in the way we suggest has produced the best school boards in the larger cities of the country. The members of school boards should be representative of the whole population and of all their common educa- tional interests, and should not be chosen to represent any ward or subdivision of the territory, or any party or ele- ment in the political, religious, or social life thereof. Where this principle is not enforced, the members will feel bound to gain what advantage they can for the dis- trict or interests they represent ; bitter contests will ensue, and the common interests will suffer. 82 Committee of Fifteen. Attempts to eliminate partisanship from school admin- istration, by arraying an equal number of partisans against each other in school boards, do not, at best, lead to an ideal organization. In some instances they have proved fairly successful ; in others, very mischievous. The true course is to insist that all who have any share in the management of the schools shall divest themselves of partisanship, whether political or religious, in such management, and give themselves wholly to the high in- terests entrusted to them. If it be said that this cannot be realized, it may be answered, without admitting it, that even if that were so, it would be no reason why the friends of the schools should not assert the sound principle and secure its enforcement as far as possible. We must certainly give no countenance to make-shifts, which expe- rience has shown to be misleading and expensive. The right must prevail in the end, and the earlier and more strongly it is contended for, the sooner it will prevail. Relatively small boards are preferable to large ones. In a city of less than a half-million of inhabitants, the number should not exceed nine, and might well not ex- ceed five. In the very largest cities it might be enlarged to fifteen. The term for which members are appointed should be a reasonably long one, say, five years. We think it an excellent plan to provide for two branches and sets of powers in the board of education ; the one to have the veto power, or, at least, to act as a check upon the acts of the other. This may be accom- plished by creating the office of school director and charg- ing the incumbent with executive duties on the business side of the administration, and by giving him the veto power over the acts of the other branch of the board, which may be called the " School Council." Beyond the care and conservation which is ensured by two sets of powers acting against each other, it has the advantage of Committee of Fifteen. S3 giving the chief executive officer of the system jost as high and good a title as that of memhers of the hoard, it is likely to secure a more representative man, and gives him larger prerogatives in the discharge of his executive duties and better standing among the people, particularly among the employees and teachers associated with the public-school system. If this plan is adopted, the school director should be required to give his entire time to the duties of his posi- tion, and be properly compensated therefor. He should be the custodian of all property and should appoint all assistants, janitors, and workmen, authorized by the board, for the care of the same. He should give bond, with sufficient sureties and penalties, for the faithful and proper discharge of all his duties. He should be author- ized by law to expend funds, within a fixed limit, for re- pairs, appliances, and help, without the action of the board. All contracts should be made by him, and should run in his name, and he should be charged with the respon- sibility of seeing that they are faithfully and completely executed. All contracts involving more than a limited and fixed sum of money should be let upon bids to be advertised for and opened in public. He should have a seat in the board of education ; should not vote, but should have the power to veto, either absolutely or conditionally, any of the acts of the board, through a written communi- cation. This officer and the school council should together constitute the board of education. The board of education should be vested with legisla- tive functions only, and be required to act wholly through formal and recorded resolutions. It should determine and direct the general policy of the school system. Within reasonable limits, as to amount, it should be given power, in its discretion, to levy whatever moneys may be needed for school purposes. It should control the expenditure of all moneys beyond a fixed and limited amount, which 84 Committee of Fifteen, may safely and advantageoasly be left to the discretion of the chief executive business officer. It should author- ize, by general resolutions, the appointment of necessary officers and employees in the business department, and the superintendent, assistants, and teachers in the depart- ment of instruction, but it should be allowed to make no appointments other than its own clerk. With this nec- essary exception, single officers should be charged with responsibility for all appointments. This plan, not in all, but in essential particulars, has been on trial in the city of Cleveland for nearly three years, and has worked with very general acceptability. If this plan is adopted, the chief executive officer of the system is already provided for and his duties have already been indicated. Otherwise it will be necessary for the board to appoint such an officer. In that event, the law should declare him independent, confer upon him ade- quate authority for the performance of executive duties, and charge him with responsibility. But we know of no statutory language capable of making an officer appointed by a board, and dependent upon the same board for sup- plies, independent in fact of the personal wishes of the members of that board. And right here is where the troubles rush in to discredit and damage the school system. We now come to the subject of paramount importance in making a plan for the school government in a great city, namely, the character of the teaching force and the quality of the instruction. A city school system may be able to withstand some abuses on the business side of its administration and continue to perform its functions with measurable success, but wrongs against the instruction must, in a little time, prove fatal. The strongest language is none too strong here. The safety of the republic, the security of American citizenship, are at stake. Govern- ment by the people has no moria dangerous pitfall in its Committee of Fifteen. S5 road than this, that in the mighty cities of the land the comfortable and intelligent masses, who are discriminat- ing more and more closely about the education of their children, shall become dissatisfied with the social status of the teachers and the quality of the teaching in the common schools. In that event they will educate their children at their own expense, and the public schools will become only good enough for those who can afPord no better. The only way to avert this is by maintaining the instruction upon a purely scientific and professional footing. This is entirely practicable, but it involves much care and expense in training teachers, the .absolute elimi- nation of favoritism from appointments, the security of the right to advancement after appointment, on the basis of merit, and a general leadership which is kindly, help- ful, and stimulating to individuals^ which can secure har- monious cooperation from all the members, and lends energy and inspiration to the whole body. This cannot be secured if there is any lack of authority, and experience amply proves that it will not be secured if there is any division of responsibility. The whole mat- ter of instruction must be placed in the hands of a super- intendent of instruction, with independent powers and adequate authority, who is charged with full responsibility. The danger of inconsiderate or improper action by on& vested with such powers is, of course, possible, but it is remote. Kegardless of the legal powers with which he may be individually vested, he is in fact and in law a part of a large system. He must act through others, and in the presence of multitudes. There is great publicity about all he does. When a single officer carries such responsibility, he is at the focus of all eyes. There are the strongest incentives to right action. He cannot act wrongfully without it is known, at least to many persons. If he is required to act under and pursuant to a plan, the details of which have been announced, and of which we 86 Committee of Fifteen, shall speak in a moment, a wrongful act will be known to the world, and he mast bear the responsibility of it, and the danger of maladministration is almost eliminated. Moreover, we mast consider the alternative. It is not in doabt. All who have had any contact with the sabject are familiar with it. It is administration by boards or committees, the members of which are not competent to manage professional matters and develop an expert teach- ing force. Thoagh necessarily inexperienced, they fre- quently assume the knowledge of the most experienced. They over-iide and degrade a superintendent, when they have the power to do so, until he becomes their mere factotum. For the sake of harmony and the continuance of his position, he concedes, surrenders, and acquiesces in their acts, while the continually increasing teaching force becomes weaker and weaker, and the work poorer and poorer. If he refuses to do this, they precipitate an open rupture, and turn him out of hid position. Then they cloud the issues and shift the responsibility from one to another. There are exceptions, of course, but they do not change the rule. It will be unprofitable to mince words about this all- important matter. If the course of study for the public schools of a great city is to be determined by laymen, it will not be suited to the needs of a community. If teachers are to be appointed by boards or committees, the members of which are particularly sensitive to the desires of people who have votes or influence, looseness of action is inevitable, and unworthy considerations will frequently prevail. If the action of a board or committee be con- ditioned upon the recommendation of a superintendent, the plan will not suffice. No one person is stronger than the system of which he is a part. Such a plan results in contests between the board and the superintendents, and such a contest is obviously an unequal one. There is little doubt of the outcome. In recommending for the ap' Committee of Fifteen. 87 pointment of teachers, the personal wishes of members of the board, in particular cases, will have to be acqaiesced in. If a teacher, no matter how unfit, cannot be dropped from the list without the approval of a board or com- mittee after they have heard from her friends and sympa- thizers, she will remain indefinitely in the service. This means a low tone in the teaching force and desolation in the work of the schools. If the superintendent accepts the situation, he becomes less and less capable of develop- ing a professional teaching service. If he refuses to ac- cept it, he is very likely to meet humiliation ; dismissal is practically inevitable. The superintendent of instruction should be charged with no duty save the supervision of the instruction, but should be charged with the responsibility of making that professional and scientific, and should be given the posi- tion and authority to accomplish that end. If the board of education is constituted upon the old plan, he must be chosen by the board. If it is consti- tuted upon the Cleveland plan, he may be appointed by the school director, with the approval of two -thirds or three-fourths of the council. The latter plan seems preferable, for it centralizes the main responsibility of this important appointment in a single individual. In either case, the law and the sentiment of the city should direct that the appointee shall be a person liberally edu- cated, professionally trained ; one who knows what good teaching is, but is also experienced in administration, in touch with public affairs, and in sympathy with popular feeling. The term of the superintendent of instruction should be from five to ten years, and until a successor is ap- pointed. In our judgment, it should be determinate, so that there may be a time of public examination, but it should be sufficiently long to enable one to lay founda- tions and show results, without being carried under by the 88 Committee of Fifteen. prejudices which always follow the first operation of effi- cient or drastic plans. The salary should be fixed by law, and not subject to change in the middle of a term or except by law. For reasons already suggested, the superintendent, once appointed, should have power to appoint, from an eligible list, all assistants and teachers authorized by the board, and unlimited authority to assign them to their respective positions, and reassign them or remove them from the force at his discretion. To secure a position upon the eligible list from which appointments may be made, a candidate, if without expe- rience, should be required to complete the full four years' course of the city high Echools, or its equivalent, and in addition thereto pass the examination of the board of examiners, and complete at least a year's course of professional training in a city normal training school under the direction of the superintendent. If the candi- date has had, say, three years of successful experience as a teacher, he should be eligible to appointment by passing an examination held by a general examining board. This board may be appointed by the board of education, but should examine none but graduates of the high school and training school, unless specially r^ quested so to do by the superintendent of instruction. The number admitted to the training schools should be limited, and the examina- tions should be gauged to the prospective needs of the elementary schools for new teachers. The supply of new teachers may well be largely, but should not be wholly, drawn from this local source. The force will gain fresh vitality by some appointments of good and experienced teachers from outside. The work of putting a large teaching force upon a professional basis, of making the teaching scientific and capable of arousing mind to action, is so difficult that a layman can scarcely appreciate it. It has hardly been Committee of Fifteen, 89 commenced, it has oaly beea made possible, wh^n the avenaes of approach to the service have been closed against the nnqaalified and unworthy* After that the supervision mast be close and general, as well as sympa- thetic and decisive. The snperintendent must have ex- pert assistants enough to learn the characteristics and measure the work of every member of the force. They must help and encourage, advise and direct, according to the circumstances of each case. The work must be re- duced to a system and the workers brought into harmo- nious relations. Each room must show neatness and life, and the whole force must show ardor and enthusiasm. By directing the reading, by encouraging an interchange of visits, by organizing clubs for self -improvement, by fre- quent class and grade and general meetings, the profes- sional spirit may be aroused and the work energized. Those who show teaching power, versatility, amiability, reliability, steadiness, and growth must be rewarded with the highest positions : those who lack fibre, who have no energy, who are incapable of enthusiasm, who will not work agreeably with their associates, must go upon the retired list. Directness and openness must be encour- aged. Attempts to invoke social, political, religious, or other outside influences to secure preferment must oper- ate to close the door to advancement. In general and in particular, bad teaching must be prevented. In every room a firm and kindly management must prevail and good teaching must be apparent. All must work along common lines which will ensure general and essential ends. Until a teacher can do this and can be relied upon to do it, she must be helped and directed : when it is manifest that she cannot or will not do it, she must be dismissed ; when she does show that she can do it and wants to do it, she must be left to exercise her own judg- ment and originality and do it in her own way. In the schoolroom the teacher must be secure against interfer- 90 Committee of Fifteen, ence. In all the affairs of the school her jadgment mast be trasted to the atmost limit of safety. Then jadgment will strengthen, and self-respect and public respect will grow. The qualities which develop in the teacher will develop in the school. To develop these qualities with any degree of uniformity, in a large teaching force, re- quires steady and uniform treatment throogh a long course of years under superintendence which is profes- sional, strong, just, and courageous, which has ample as- sistance and authority, which is worthy of public confi- dence, aod knows how to marshal facts, present argu- ments, and appeal to the intelligence and integrity of the community with success. It is the business of the plan of organization to secure such superintendence. It cannot be secured through an ordinary board of education operating on the old plan. It is well known what the ioflaences are which are every- where prevalent and must inevitably prevent it. It may be secured in the law, and it must be secured there, or it will not be secured at all. In concluding this portion of the report, the committee indicates briefly the principles which must necessarily be observed in framing a plan of organization and govern- ment in a large city school system. Fir&t — The affairs of the schools should not be mixed up with partisan contents or municipal business. Second — There should be a sharp distinction between legislative functions and executive duties. Third. — Legislative functions should be clearly fixed by statute and be exercised by a relatively small board, each member of which board is representative of the whole city. This board, within statutory limitations, should determine the policy of the system, levy taxes, and control the expenditures. It should make no appoint- ments. Every act should be by a recorded resolution. It is preferable that this board be created by appointment Committee of Fifteen. 91 rather than election, and that it be constituted of two branches acting against each other. Fourth. — Administration should be separated into two great independent departments, one of which manages the business interests and the other of which supervises the instruction. Each of these should be wholly directed by a single official, who is vested with ample authority and charged with full responsibility for sound administration. Fifth. — The chief executive officer on the business side should be charged with the care of all property, and with the duty of keeping it in suitable condition ; he should provide all necessary furnishings and appliances ; he should make all agreements and see that they are properly performed; he should appoint all assistants, janitors, and workmen. In a word, he should do all that the law contemplates, and all that the board authorizes, concerning the business affairs of the school system, and when anything goes wrong, he should answer for it. He may be appointed by the board, but we think it preferable that he be chosen in the same way the members of the board are chosen, and be given a veto upon the acts of the board. Sixth, — The chief executive officer of the department of instruction should be given a long term, and may be appointed by the board. If the board is constituted of two branches, he should be nominated by the business executive and confirmed by the legislative branch. Once appointed, he should be independent. He should appoint all authorized assistants and teachers from an eligible list, to be constituted as provided by law. He should assign to duties and discontinue services for cause at his discretion. He should determine all matters relating to instruction. He should be charged with the responsibility of developing a professional and enthusiastic teaching force and of making all the teaching scientific and force- ful. He must perfect the organization of his department, 92 Committee of Fifteen, and make and carry out plans to accomplish this. If he cannot do this in a reasonable time, he should be saper- seded by one who can. The government of a vast city school system comes to have an autonomy which is largely its own, and almost in- dependent of direction or restraint. The volume of busi- ness which this government transacts is represented only by millions of dollars ; it calls not only for the highest sagacity and the ripest experience, but also for much special information relating to school property and school affairs. Even more important than this is the fact that this government controls and determines the educational policy of the city and carries on the instruction of tens or hundreds of thousands of children, and this instruction is of little value, and perhaps vicious, unless i^ is profes- sional and scientific. This government is representative. All citizens are compelled to support it, and all have large interests which it is bound to promote. Every parent has rights which it is the duty of this school government to protect and enforce. When government exacts our support of public education, when it comes into our homes and takes our children into its custody and in- structs them according to its will, we acquire a right which is as exalted as any right of property, or of person, or of conscience can be, and that is the right to know that the environment is healthful, that the management is kindly and ennobling, and that the instruction is rational and scientific. It is needless to say to what extent these interests are impeded or blocked, or how commonly these rights of citizenship and of parentage are denied or defied, or how helpless the individual is who seeks their enforcement, under the system of school gov- ernment which has heretofore obtained in some of the great cities of the country. This is not surprising. It is only the logical result of the rapid growth of cities, of a marvelous advance in knowledge of what is needed in the Committee of Fifteen, 93 sebooIS) of the antagonism of selfish interests, by which all pablic administration, and particalarly school administra- tion, is encompassed, and of the lack of plan and system, the confusion of powers, the absence of individaal responsi- bility, in the government of a system of schools. By the census of 1890 there are seven cities in the United States each with a population greater than any one of sixteen states. The aggregate population of twelve cities ex- ceeds the aggregate population of twenty states. Gov- ernment for education certainly requires as strong and responsible an organization as government for any other purpose. These great centres of population, with their vast and complex educational problems, have passed the stage when government by the time-honored commission will suffice. No popular government ever determined the policy and administered the affairs of such large bodies of people successfully, ever transacted such a vast volume of business satisfactorily, ever promoted high and beneficent ends, ever afforded protection to the rights of each indi- vidual of the great multitude, unless in its plan of organi- zation there was an organic separation of executive, legislative, and judicial functions and powers. All the circumstances of the case and the uniform experience of the world forbid our expecting any substantial solution of the problem we are considering until it is well settled in the sentiments of the people that the school systems of the greatest cities are only a part of the school systems of the states of which these cities form a part, and are sub- ject to the legislative authority thereof ; until there is a plan of school government in each city which differenti- ates executive acts from legislative functions ; which emancipates the legislative branch of that government from the influence of pelf -seekers ; which fixes upon indi- viduals the responsibility for executive acts, either per- formed or omitted ; which gives to the intelligence of the community the power to influence legislation and exact 94 Committee of Fifteen. perfect and complete execntion ; which gives every citi- zen whose interests are ignored, or whose rights are in- vaded, a place for complaint and redress; and which puts the hasiness interests upon a business footing, the teaching upon an expert basis, and gives to the instruction that protection and encouragement which is vital to the development of all professional and scientific work. On the Training of Teachers. BY SUPERINTENDENT H. S. TARBELL, PROVIDENCE. [Keport of the Fifteen. Kead at the Cleyeland meeting of the Department of Superintendence, February 19, 1895.] This report treats of the training of elementary and secondary teachers, considering first that training which should precede teaching in elementary schools. By elementary schools are meant the primary and grammar departments of graded schools, and ungraded or rural schools. That teachers are " born, not made," has been so fully the world's thought until the present century that a study of subjects, without any study of prin- ciples or methods of teaching, has been deemed quite sufficient. Modern educational thought and modern practice, in all sections where excellent schools are found, confirm the belief that there is a profound philosophy on which educational methods are based, and that careful study of this philosophy and its ap- plication under expert guidance are essential to making fit the man born to teach. Conditions for projessional training — age and attainments. It is a widely prevalent doctrine, to which the cus- toms of our best schools conform, that teachers of elementary schools should have a secondary or high school education, and that teachers of high schools should have a collegiate education. Your committee 96 Committee of Fifteen, believe tliat these are tlie minimum acquirements that can generally be accepted, that the scholarship, culture, and power gained by four years of study in advance of the pupils are not too much to be rightfully demanded, and that as a rule no one ought to become a teacher who has not the age and attainments presupposed in the possessor of a high-school diploma. There are differences in high schools, it is true, and a high- school diploma is not a fixed standard of attainment ; but in these United States it is one of the most defi- nite and uniform standards that we possess, and varies less .than college degrees vary or than elementary schools and local standards of culture vary. It is, of course, implied in the foregoing remarks that the high school from which the candidate comes is known to be a reputable school, and that its diploma is proof of the completion of a good four-years' course in a creditable manner. If these conditions do not exist, careful examination is the only recourse. If this condition, high-school graduation or proof by examination of equivalent scholarship, be accepted, the questions of the age and attainment to be reached before entering upon professional study and training are already settled. But if a more definite statement be desired, then it may be said that the candidate for admission to a normal or training school should be eighteen years of age and should have studied English, mathematics, and science to the extent usually pur- sued in high schools, should be able to write readily, correctly, and methodically upon topics within the teacher's necessary range of thought and conversation, and should have studied, for two or more years, at least one language besides English. Skill in music and drawing is desirable, particularly ability to sketch readily and effectively. Committee of Fifteen. 9^ Training schools. The training of teachers may be done in normal schools, normal classes in academies and high schools, and in city training schools. To all these the general term " training schools " will be applied. Those in- structed in these schools will be called pupils while engaged in professional study, and pupil-teachers or teachers-in-training while in practice-teaching prepar- atory to graduation. Teachers whose work is to be observed by pupil-teachers will be called model- teachers ; teachers in charge of pupil-teachers during their practice work will be called critic-teachers. In some institutions model-teachers and critic-teachers are the same persons. The studies usually pursued in academies and high schools will be termed academic, and those post-academic studies to be pursued before or during practice-teaching as a preparation therefor will be termed professional. Academic studies. Whether academic studies have any legitimate place in a normal or training school is a question much debated. It cannot be supposed that your com- mittee can settle in a paragraph a question upon which many essays have been written, many speeches delivered, and over which much controversy has been waged. If training schools are to be distinguished from other secondary schools, they must do a work not done in other schools. So far as they teach common branches of study, they are doing what other schools are doing, and have small excuse for existence ; but it may be granted that methods can practically be taught only as to subjects, that the study done in pro- 98 Committee of Fifteen. fessional schools may so treat of the subjects of study, not as objects to be required, but as objects to be presented, that their treatment shall be wholly professional. O-ue who is to teach a subject needs to know it as a whole, made up of related and subordinate parts, and hence must study it by a method that will give this knowledge. It is not necessary to press the argument that many pupils enter normal and training schools with, such slight preparation as to require instruction in academic subjects. The college with a preparatory department is, as a rule, an institution of distinctly lower grade than one without such a department. Academic work in normal schools that is of the nature of preparation for professional work lowers the stan- dard and perhaps the usefulness of such a school ; but academic work done as a means of illustrating or en- forcing professional truth has its place in a profes- sional school as in effect a part of the professional work. Professional study differs widely from aca- demic study. In the one, a science is studied in its relation to the studying mind ; in the other, in refer- ence to its principles and applications. The aim of one kind of study is power to apply ; of the other, power to present. The tendency of the one is to bring the learner into sympathy with the natural world, of the other with the child world. How much broader becomes the teacher who takes both the aca- demic and the professional view ! He who learns that he may know and he who learns that he may teach are standing in quite different mental attitudes. One works for knowledge of subject-matter, the other that his knowledge may have due organization, that he may bring to consciousness the apperceiving ideas by means of which matter and method may be suitably conjoined. Committee of Fifteen, 99 How to study is knowledge indispensable to know- ing how to teach. The method of teaching can best be illustrated by teaching. The attitude of a pupil in a training school must be that of a learner whose mental stores are expanding, who faces the great world of knowledge with the purpose to survey a portion of it. If we insist upon a sufficient prepara- tion for admission, the question of what studies to pursue, and especially the controversy between pro- fessional and academic work, will be mainly settled. Professional work. Professional training comprises two parts : {a) The science of teaching, and {b) the art of teaching. In the science of teaching are included: (1) Psy- chology as a basis for principles and methods ; (2) Methodology as a guide to instruction ; (3) School economy, which adjusts the conditions of work ; and (4) History of education, which gives breadth of view. T\iQ art of teaching i^ best gained: (1) by observa- tion of good teaching ; (2) by practice-teaching under criticism. Relative time. The existence and importance of each of these ele- ments in the training of teachers are generally ac- knowledged. Their order and proportionate treat- ment give rise to differences of opinion. Some would omit the practice work entirely, launching the young teacher upon independent work directly from her pupilage in theory. Others, and much the greater number, advise some preparation in the form of guided experience before the training be considered complete. These vary greatly in their estimate of the proportionate time to be given to practice during loo Committee of Fifteen. training. The answers to the question "What pro- portion ? " which yonr committee has received range from one-sixteenth to two-thirds as the proportion of time to be given to practice. The greater number, however, advocate a division of time about equal be- tween theory and practice. The normal schools incline to the smallest propor- tion for practice-teaching, the city training-schools to the largest. It should be borne in mind, however, that city training-schools are a close continuation, usually, of high schools, and that the high-school courses give a more uniform and probably a more adequate preparation than the students entering nor- mal schools have usually had. Their facilities for practice-teaching are much greater than normal schools can secure, and for this reason also practice is made relatively more important. As to the relative merits of city training-schools and normal schools, your committee does not desire to express an opinion; the conditions of education demand the existence of both, and both are necessities of educational advance- ment. It is important to add, however, that in the judgment of your committee not less than half of the time spent under training by the apprentice-teacher should be given to observation and practice, and that this practice in its conditions should be as similar as possible to the work she will later be required to do independently. Science of teaching — psychology. The laws of apperception teach that one is ready ta apprehend new truth most readily when he has already established a considerable and well-arranged body of ideas thereon. Suggestion, observation, and reflection are each Committee of Fifteen. loi most fruitful when a foundation of antecedent knowl- edge has been provided. Hence your committee rec- ommends that early in their course of study teachers in training assume as true the well-known facts of psychology and the essential principles of education, and make their later study and practice in the light of these principles. These principles thus become the norm of educational thought, and their truth is continually demonstrated by subsequent experience. From this time theory and practice should proceed together in mutual aid and support. Most fundamental and important of the professional studies which ought to be pursued by one intending to teach is psychology. This study should be pur- sued at two periods of the training-school course, the beginning and the end, and its principles should be appealed to daily when not formally studied. The method of study should be both deductive and induc- tive. The terminology should be early learned from a suitable text-book, and significance given to the terms by introspection, observation, and analysis. Power of introspection should be gained, guidance in observation should be given, and confirmation of psychological principles should be sought on every hand. The habit of thinking analytically and psy- chologically should be formed by every teacher. At the close of the course a more profound and more completely inductive study of physiological psy- chology should be made. In this way, a tendency to investigate should be encouraged or created. Study of children. Modern educational thought emphasizes the opinion that the child, not the subject of study, is the guide to the teacher's efforts. To know the child is of para- I02 Committee of Fifteen. mount importance. How to know the child must be an important item of instruction to the teacher in training. The child must be studied as to his physi- cal, mental, and moral condition. Is he in good health ? Are his senses of sight and hearing normal, or in what degree abnormal ? What is his tempera- ment? Which of his faculties seem weak or dor- mant ? Is he eye-minded or ear-minded ? What are his powers of attention ? What are his likes and dis- likes ? How far is his moral nature developed, and what are its tendencies ? By what tests can the degree of difference between bright and dull children be estimated ? To study effectively and observingly these and similar questions respecting children is a high art. No common-sense power of discerning human nature is sufficient ; though common sense and sympathy go a long way in such study. Weighing, measuring, elaborate investigation requiring apparatus and lab- oratory methods, are for experts, not teachers in training. Above all, it must ever be remembered that the child is to be studied as a personality and not as an object to be weighed or analyzed. Methodology. A part of the work under this head must be a study of the mental and moral effects of different methods of teaching and examination, the relative value of individual and class instruction at different periods of school life and in the study of different branches. The art of questioning is to be studied in its founda- tion principles and by the illustration of the best examples. Some review of the branches which are to be taught may be made, making the teacher's knowl- edge of them ready and distinct as to the relations of Committee of Fifteen. 103 the several parts of the subject to one another and of the whole to kindred subjects. These and many such subjects should be discussed in the class in pedagogy, investigation should be begun, and the lines on which it can be followed should be distinctly laid down. The laws of psychology, or the capabilities and methods of mind-activity, are themselves the funda- mental laws of teaching, which is the act of exciting normal and profitable mind-action. Beyond these fundamental laws, the principles of education are to be derived inductively. These inductions when brought to test will be found to be rational inferences from psychological laws and thus founded upon and explained by them. School economy. School economy, though a factor of great impor- tance in the teacher's training, can be best studied by the teacher of some maturity and experience, and is of more value in the equipment of secondary than of elementary teachers. Only its outlines and funda- mental principles should be studied in the ordinary training-school. History of education. Breadth of mind consists in the power to view facts and opinions from the standpoints of others. It is this truth which makes the study of history in a full, appreciative way so influential in giving mental breadth. This general advantage the history of edu- cation has in still larger degree, because our interest in the views and experiences of those engaged like us in training the young enables us to enter more fully into their thoughts and purposes than we could into those of the warrior or ruler. From the efforts of the I04 Committee of Fifteen. man we imagine his surroundings, whicli we contrast with our own. To the abstract element of theoretical truth is added the warm human interest we feel in the hero, the generous partisan of truth. The history of education is particularly full of examples of noble purpose, advanced thought, and moral heroism. It is inspiring to fill our minds with these human ideals. We read in the success of the unpractical Pestalozzi the award made to self-sacrifice, sympathy, and enthu- siasm expended in giving application to a vital truth. But with enthusiasm for ideals history gives us caution, warns us against the moving of the pendu- lum, and gives us points of departure from which to measure progress. It gives us courage to attack diffi- cult problems. It shows which the abiding problems are — those that can be solved only by waiting, and not tossed aside by a supreme effort. It shows us the progress of the race, the changing ideals of the per- fect man, and the means by which men have sought to realize these ideals. We can from its study better answer the question, What is education, what may it accomplish, and how may its ideals be realized ? It gives the evolution of the present and explains anom- alies in our work. And yet the history of education is not a subject to be treated extensively in a training school. All but the outlines may better be reserved for later professional reading. Training in teaching. Training to teach requires (1) schools for observa- tion, and (2) schools for practice. Of necessity, these schools must be separate in pur- pose and in organization. A practice-school cannot be a model school. The pupil-teachers should have the opportunity to observe the best models of the Committee of Fifteen. 105 teaching art ; and the manner, methods, and devices of the model-teacher should be noted, discussed, and referred to the foundation principles on which they rest. Allowable modifications of this observed work may be suggested by the pupil-teacher and approved by the teacher in charge. There should be selected certain of the best teachers in regular school work, whom the pupil-teachers may be sent to observe. The j)^pil-teachers should take no part in the school work nor cause any change therein. They should, however, be told in advance by the teacher what purpose she seeks to accomplish. This excites expectation and brings into consciousness the apperceiving ideas by which the suggestions of the exercise, as they develop, may be seized and as- similated. At first these visits should be made in company with their teacher of methods, and the work of a single class in one subject should be first observed. After such visits the teacher of methods in the given subject should discuss with the pupil-teachers the work ob- served. The pupil-teachers should first describe the work they have seen and specify the excellences noted, and tell why these thing are commendable and upon what laws of teaching they are based. Next, the pupil-teachers should question the teacher of methods as to the cause, purpose, or influence of things noted, and matters of doubtful propriety — if there be such — should be considered. Then the teacher in turn should question her pupil-teachers as to matters that seem to have escaped their notice, as to the mo- tive of the model-teacher, as to the reason for the order of treatment, or form of question, wherein lay the merit of her method, the secret of her power. When pupil-teachers have made such observations several times, with several teachers, and in several io6 Committee of Fifteen. subjects, tlie broader investigation may be made as to the organization of one of the model rooms, its daily programme of recitations and of study, the methods of discipline, the relations between pupils and teacher, the " school spirit," the school movements, and class progress. This work should be done before teaching groups or classes of pupils is attempted, and should form an occasional exercise during the period of prac- tice-teaching as a matter of relief and inspiration. If an artist requires the suggestive help of a good ex- ample that stirs his own originality, why should not a teacher ? The practice-school. During the course in methodology certain steps preparatory to practice-teaching may be taken. 1. The pupil-teacher may analyze the topic to be taught, noting essentials and incidentals, seeking the connec- tions of the subject with the mental possessions of the pupils to be considered and the sequences from these points of contact to the knowledge to be gained under instruction. 2. Next, plans of lessons may be pre- pared and series of questions for teaching the given subjects. 3. Giving lessons to fellow pupil-teachers leads to familiarity with the mechanism of class work, such as calling, directing, and dismissing classes, gives the beginner ease and self-confidence, leads to careful preparation of lessons, gives skill in asking questions, and in the use of apparatus. The practice-teaching should be in another school, preferably in a different building, and should com- mence with group-teaching in a recitation-room apart from the schoolroom. Actual teaching of small groups of children gives opportunity for the study of the child-mind in its efforts at reception and assimilation of new ideas, and shows the modifications in lesson Committee of Fifteen, 10.7 plans that must be made to adapt the subject-mat- ter to the child's tastes and activities. But the inde- pendent charge for a considerable time of a school- room with, a full quota of pupils^ the pupil-teacher and the children being much, of the time the sole occupants of the room, — in short, the realization of ordinary school conditions, with the opportunity to go for ad- vice to a friendly critic, is the most valuable practice ; and no practice short of this can be considered of great value except as preparation for this chief form of preparatory practice. All this work should have its due proportion only, or evil may result. For example, lesson plans tend to formalism, to self-conceit, to work in few and narrow lines, to study of subjects rather than of pupils \ lessons to fellow-pupils make one self-conscious, hinder the growth ©f enthusiasm in work, and are entirely barren if carried beyond a very few exercises ; teaching groups of childrenfor consider- able time unfits the teacher for the double burden of discipline and instruction, to bear both of which simultaneously and easily is the teacher's greatest difficulty and most essential power. A critic-teacher should be appointed to the over- sight of two such pupil-teachers, each in charge of a schoolroom. The critic may also supervise one or more teachers practicing for brief periods daily with groups of children. The pupil-teachers are now to emphasize practice rather than theory, to work under the direction of one who regards the interests of the children quite as much as those of the teacher-in-training. The critic must admit the principles of education and general methods taught by the teacher of methodology, but she may have her own devices and even special meth- ods that need not be those of the teacher of method- ology. No harm will come to the teachers-in-training io8 Committee of Mfteeri. if they learn that principles must be assented to by all, but that methods may bear the stamp of the per- sonality of the teacher ; that all things must be con- sidered from the point of view of their effect upon the pupils ; the critic maintaining the claims of the chil- dren, the teacher of methods conforming to the laws of mind and the science of the subjects taught. The critics must teach for their pupil-teachers and show in action the justness of their suggestions. In this sense they are model-teachers as well as critics. The critic should, at the close of school, meet her pupil-teachers for a report of their experiences through the day : What they have attempted, how they have tried to do it, why they did so, and what success they gained. Advice as to overcoming difficulties, encour- agement under {rial, caution if need be, help for the work of to-morrow, occupy the hour. Above" all, the critic should be a true friend, a womanly and culti- vated woman, and an inspiring companion, whose presence is helpful to work and improving to per- sonality. Length of training-school course. There are three elements which determine the time to be spent in a training school — the time given to academic studies, the time given to professional studies, and the time given to practice. The sum of these periods will be the time required for the train- ing course. Taking these in the inverse order, let us consider how much time is required for practice work with puxDils. The time given to lesson outlines and practice with fellow pupil-teachers may be considered a part of the professional study rather than of prac- tice-teaching. The period of practice with pupils must not be too short, whether we consider the inter- ests of the pupils or of the teachers-in-training. An Committee of Fifteen. 109 effort is usually made to counteract the effect upon the children of a succession of crude efforts of teach- ers beginning practice by strengthening the teaching and supervision through the employment of a consid- erable number of model and supervisory teachers, and by dividing the pupils into small groups, so that much individual work can be done. These arrangements, while useful for their purpose, destroy to a consider- able degree the usual conditions under which school work is to be done, and tend to render the teachers- in-training formal and imitative. The practice room should be, as far as may be, the ordinary school, with the difficulties and responsibil- ities that will be met later. The responsibility for order, discipline, progress, records, reports, communi- cation with parents and school authorities, must fall fully upon the young teacher, who has a friendly assistant to whom she can go for advice in the person of a wise and experienced critic, not constantly at hand, but constantly within reach. Between the critic and the teacher-in-training there should exist the most cordial and familiar relations. These relations are based on the one hand upon an appreciation of wisdom and kindness, on the other, upon an appreciation of sincerity and effort. The growth of such relations, and the fruitage which fol- lows their growth, require time. A half-year is not too long to be allotted for them. During this half- year experience, self-confidence and growth in power have been gained ; but the pupil-teacher is still not ready to be set aside to work out her own destiny. At this point she is just ready for marked advance, which should be helped and guided. To remain longer with her critic friend may cause imitation rather than independence, may lead to contentment and cessation of growth. She should now be trans- no Committee of Fifteen. ferred to the care of a second critic of a different personality, but of equal merit. The new critic is bound by her duty and her ambition to see that the first half year's advancement is maintained in the second. The pupil-teacher finds that excellence is not all upon one model. The value of individuality impresses her. She gains a view of solid principles wrapped in diverse characteristics. Her own indi- viduality rises to new importance, and the elements of a growth not at once to be checked start up within her. For the care of the second critic a second half year must be allowed, which extends the practice work with pupils through an entire school year. For the theoretical work a year is by general experience proven sufiS.cient. The ideal training course is, then, one of two years' length. Provision for the extended practice which is here recommended can be made only by city training- schools and by normal schools having connection with the schools of a city. To set apart a building of sev- eral rooms as a school of practice will answer the pur- pose only when there are very few teachers in train- ing. In order to give each pupil-teacher a year of practice the number of practice rooms must equal the number of teachers to be graduated annually from the training-school, be the number ten, fifty, or five hun- dred. In any considerable city a school for practice will not suflB.ce ; many schools for practice must be secured. This can be done by selecting one excellent teacher in each of a sufficient number of school build- ings, and making her a critic-teacher, giving her charge of two schoolrooms, in each of which is placed a pupil-teacher for training. This insures that the training shall be done as nearly as may be under ordinary conditions, brings the pupil-teachers at once into the general body of Commit t €6 of Fifteen, 1 1 1 teachers, makes the corps of critics a leaven of zeal, and good teaching scattered among the schools. This body of critics will uplift the schools. More capable in the beginning than the average teacher, led to pro- fessional study, ambitious for the best things, they make greater progress than they otherwise would do, and are sufficient in themselves to inspire the general body of teachers. For the sake of the pupil-teachers, and the children, too, this plan is best. Its economy also will readily be apparent. This plan has been tried for several years in the schools of Providence, with results fully equal to those herein claimed. Tests of success. The tests of success in practice-teaching are in the main those to be applied to all teaching. Do her pupils grow more honest, industrious, polite ? Do they" admire their teacher ? Does she secure obedi- ence and industry only while demanding it, or has she influence that reaches beyond her presence ? Do her pupils think well and talk well ? As to the teacher herself : Has she sympathy and tact, self-reliance and originality, breadth and intensity ? Is she syste- matic, direct, and business-like ? Is she courteous, neat in person and in work ? Has she discernment of character and a just standard of requirement and attainment ? These are some of the questions one must answer before he pronounces any teacher a success or a failure. Admission to a training school assumes that the pupil has good health, good scholarship, good sense, good ability, and devotion to the work of teaching. If all these continue to be exhibited in satisfactory degree and the pupil goes through the prescribed 112 Committee of Fifteen. course of study and practice, the diploma of the school should naturally mark the completion of this work. If it appears on acquaintance that a serious mistake has been made in estimating any of these elements, then, so soon as the mistake is fairly appar- ent and is probably a permanent condition, the pupil should be requested to withdraw from the work. This is not a case where the wheat and the tares should grow together until the harvest at graduation day or the examination preceding it. With such a foundation continually maintained, it is the duty of the school to conquer success for each pupil. Teaching does not require genius. Indeed, genius, in the sense of erratic ability, is out of place in the teacher's chair. Most good teachers at this close of the nineteenth century are made, not born; made from good material well fashioned. There is, how- ever, a possibility that some idiosyncrasy of charac- ter, not readily discovered until the test is made, may rise between the prospective teacher and her pupils, making her influence over them small or harm- ful. Such a defect, if it exist, will appear duriDg the practice-teaching, and the critic will discover it. This defect, on its first discovery, should be plainly pointed out to the teacher-in-training and her efforts should be joined with those of the critic in its removal. If this effort be a failure and the defect be one likely to harm the pupils hereafter to be taught, then the teacher-in-training should be informed and re- quested to withdraw from the school. There should be no test at the close of the school course to deter- mine fitness for graduation. Graduation should find the teacher serious in view of her responsibilities, hopeful because she has learned how success is to be attained, inspired with the belief that growth in hei- Committee of Fifteen, 113 self and in her pupils is the great demand and the great reward. Training of teachers for secondary schools. Perhaps one-sixth of the great body of public school teachers in the United States are engaged in secondary work and in supervision. These are the leading teachers. They give educational tone to communities, as well as inspiration to the body of teachers. It is of great importance that they be imbued with the professional spirit springing from sound profes- sional culture. The very difficult and responsible positions that they fill demand ripe scholarship, more than ordinary ability, and an intimate knowl edge of the period of adolescence, which Eousseau so aptly styles the second birth. The elementary schools provide for the education of the masses. Our secondary schools educate our social and business leaders. The careers of our col- lege graduates, who mainly fill the important places in professional and political life, are determined largely by the years of secondary training. The col- lege or university gives expansion and finish, the secondary school gives character and direction. It should not beiorgotten that the superintendents of public schools are largely taken from the ranks of secondary teachers, and that the scholarship, quali- ties, and training required for the one class are nearly equivalent to that demanded for the other. Our high schools, too, are the source of supply for teachers in elementary schools. Hence the pedagogic influences exerted in the high school should lead to excellence in elementary teaching. The superintendent who with long foresight looks 114 ' Committee of Fifteen. to the improvement of his schools will labor earnestly to improve and especially to professionalize the teaching in his high school. The management which makes the high school an independent portion of the school system, merely attached and loftily superior, which limits the supervision and influence of the superintendent to the primary and grammar grades, is short-sighted and destructive. There ought also to be a place and a plan for the training of teachers for normal schools. The great body of normal and training schools in the United States are secondary schools. Those who are to teach in these schools need broad scholarship, thorough understanding of educational problems, and trained experience. To put into these schools teachers whose scholarship is that of the secondary school and whose training is that of the elementary is to narrow and depress, rather than broaden and elevate. If college graduates are put directly into teaching without special study and training, they will teach as they have been taught. The methods of college pro- fessors are not in all cases the best, and, if they were, high school pupils are not to be taught nor disci- plined as college students. are. High school teaching and discipline can be that neither of the grammar school nor of the college, but is sui generis. To recog- nize this truth and the special differences is vital to success. This recognition comes only from much ex- perience at great loss and partial failure, or by happy intuition not usually to be expected, or by defi- nite instruction and directed practice. Success in teaching depends upon conformity to principles, and these principles are not a part of the mental equip- ment of every educated person. These considerations and others are the occasion of a growing conviction, widespread in this land, that Committee of Fifteen. 115 secondary teachers should be trained for their work even more carefully than elementary teachers are trained. This conviction is manifested in the efforts to secure normal schools adapted to training teachers for secondary schools, notably in Massachusetts and New York, and in the numerous professorships of pedagogy established in rapidly increasing numbers in our colleges and universities. The training of teachers for secondary schools is in several essential respects the same as that for teach- ers of elementary schools. Both demand scholarship, theory, and practice. The degree of scholarship re- quired for secondary teachers is by common consent fixed at a collegiate education. Ko one — with rare exceptions — should be employed to teach in a high school who has not this fundamental preparation. It is not necessary to enter in detail into the work of theoretical instruction for secondary teachers. The able men at the head of institutions and departments designed for such work neither need nor desire advice upon this matter. And yet for the purposes of this report it may be allowable to point out a plan for the organization of a~secondary training school. Let it be supposed that two essentials have been found in one locality, (1) a college or university hav- ing a department of pedagogy and a department of post-graduate work; (2) a high school, academy, or preparatory school whose managers are willing to employ and pay a number of graduate students to teach under direction for a portion of each day. These two conditions being met, we will suppose that pedagogy is offered as an elective to the college seniors. Two years of instruction in the science and art of teaching are to be provided ; one, mostly theory with some practice, elective during the senior year ; the ii6 Committee of Fifteen. other, mostly practice with some theory, elective for one year as post-graduate work. During the senior year is to be studied : — The science of teaching. The elements of this science are : — I. Psychology in its physiological, apperceptive, and experimental features. The period of adoles- cence here assumes the prominence that childhood has in the psychological study preparatory to teaching in lower schools. This is the period of beginnings, the beginning of a more ambitious and generous life, a life having the future wrapped up in it; a transition period, of mental storm and stress, in which egoism gives way to altruism, romance has charm, and the social, moral, and religious feelings bud and bloom. To guide youth at this formative stage, in which an active fermentation occurs that may give wine or vine- gar according to conditions, requires a deep and sym- pathetic nature, and that knowledge of the changing life which supplies guidance wise and adequate. II. Methodology : A discussion of the principles of education and of the methods of teaching the studies of the secondary schools. III. School economy should be studied in a much wider and more thorough way than is required for elementary teachers. The school systems of Ger- many, France, England, and the leading systems of the United States should also be studied. ly. History of education, the tracing of modern doctrine back to its sources ; those streams of influ- ence now flowing and those that have disappeared in the sands of the centuries. V. The philosophy of education as a division of an all-involving philosophy of life and thought in which unity is found. Committee of Fifteen. 117 The art of teachhig. This includes observation and practice. The ob- servation should include the work of different grades and of different localities, with minute and searching comparison and reports upon special topics. How does excellent primary work differ from excellent grammar grade work ? How do the standards of ex- cellence differ between grammar grades and high school grades ? Between high school and college work ? What are the arguments for and against co- education in secondary schools, as determined by ex- perience ? What are the upper and lower limits of secondary education as determined by the nature of the pupil's efforts ? In the college class in pedagogy much more than in the elementary normal school can the class itself be made to afford a means of practice to its members. Quizzes may be conducted by students upon the chap- ters of the books read or the lectures of the profes- sors. These exercises may have for their object review, or improved statement, or enlarged inference and application, and they afford an ample opportunity to cultivate the art of questioning, skill in which is the teacher's most essential accomplishment. The head of the department of pedagogy will, of course, present the essential methods of teaching, and the heads of other departments may lecture on meth- ods pertaining to their subject of study; or secondary teachers of known success may still better present the methods now approved in the several departments of secondary work. Post-graduate year. To those graduates who have elected pedagogy in their senior year may be offered the opportunity of ii8 Committee of Fifteen. further study in this department, with, "such other post-graduate work as taste and opportunity permit. From those selecting advanced work in pedagogy the board in charge of the affiliated secondary school should elect as many teachers for its school as are needed, employing them for two-thirds time at one- half the usual pay for teachers without experience. Under the professor of pedagogy of the college, the principal, and the heads of departments of the school these student-teachers should do their work, receiving advice, criticism, and illustration as occasion requires. The time for which they are employed would provide for two hours of class work and about one hour of clerical work or study while in charge of a school- room. These student-teachers should be given abun- dant opportunity for the charge of pupils while recit- ing or studying, at recess and dismissals, and should have all the responsibilities of members of the faculty of this school. Their work should be inspected as frequently as may be b}^ the heads of the departments in which they teach, by the principal of the school, and by the professor of pedagogy. These appoint- ments would be virtually fellowships with an oppor- tunity for most profitable experience. In the afternoon of each day these students should attend to college work and especially to instruction from the professor in pedagogy, who could meet them occasionally with the heads of the departments under whose direction they are working. On Saturdays a seminary of two hours' duration might be held, conducted by the professor of pedagogy and attended by the student-teachers and the more ambitious teachers of experience in the vicinity. These seminaries would, doubtless, be of great profit to both classes of participants, and the greater to each because of the other. (Such a training school for Committee of Fifteen. 119 secondary teachers in connection with Brown Univer- sity and the Providence high school is contemplated for the coming year.) It will not be needful to specify further the advan- tages to the student-teachers. The arrangement like wise affords advantage to the aflQliated school, espec- ially in the breadth of view this work would afford to the heads of departments, the intense desire it would beget in them for professional skill, the num- ber of perplexing problems which it would force them to attempt the solution of. The visits of the professor of pedagogy, and the constant comparison he would make between actual and ideal conditions, would lead him to seek the im- provement, not only of the students in practice, but of the school as a whole. When several earnest and capable people unite in a mutual effort to improve themselves and their work, all the essential conditions of progress are present. Horace S. Tarbell, Chairman, Superintendent of Schools, Providence, R. I. Edward Brooks, Superintendent of Schools, Philadelphia, Pa. Thomas M. Balliet, Superintendent of Schools, Springfield, Mass. Newton C. Dougherty, Superintendent of Schools, Peoria, 111. Oscar H. Cooper, Superintendent of Schools, Galveston, Tex. Dissent from Dr. Harris' Report. BY JAMES M. GREENWOOD, OF KANSAS CITY. I dissent from the majority report of the Committee in regard to the following points : — Arithmetic 1. As TO FRACTIONS : In teaching arithmetic there does not exist any greater difficulty in getting small children to grasp the nature of the fraction as such than in getting them to grasp the idea of the simpler whole numbers. It is true that the fractions ^, ^, ^, etc., as symbols, are a little more complex than are the single digits ; but as to the real meaning, when once the fractional idea has been properly developed by the teacher and the significance of the idea apprehended by the pupil, it is as easily understood as any other simple truth. Children get the idea of half, third, or quarter of many things long before they enter school, and they will as readily learn to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions as they will whole numbers. In using fractions they will draw diagrams and pictures represent- ing the processes of work as quickly and easily as they illustrate similar work with integers. It is, of course, assumed that the teacher knows how to teach arithmetic to children, or rather, how to teach the children how to teach themselves. There is really no valid argument why children in the second, third, and fourth years in school should not master the fundamental oper- ations in fractions. Not only this, they will put the more com- mon fractions into the technique of percentage, and do this as well in the second and third grades as at any other time in their future progress. There is only one new idea involved in this operation, and that consists in giving an additional term — per cent. — to the fractional symbol. When one number is a part of another, it may be regarded as a fractional part or as such a per cent, of it. A great deal of percentage is thus learned by the pupils early in the course. Children are not hurt by learn^ ing. Standing still and lost motion kill, Committee of Fifteen. 121 Every recitation should reach the full swing of the learner's mind, including all his acquisitions on any given topic. But if the teaching of fractions be deferred, as it usually is in most schools, the time may be materially shortened by teaching addi- tion and subtraction of fractions together. This is simple enough if different fractions having common denominators are used at first, such as | -f | = ?, and | — | = ? Then the next step, after sufficient drill on this case, is to take two frac- tions (simple) of different units of value, as \-\' \=^ "^i and \ — \= ? Multiplication and division may be treated similarly. In decimals, the pupil is really confronted by a simpler form of fractions than the varied forms of common fractions. Devices and illustrations of a material kind are necessary to build up in the pupil's mind at the beginning a clear concept of a tenth, etc., etc., and then to show that one-tenth written as a decimal is only a shorthand way of writing ^V as a common fraction, and so on. He sees very soon that the decimal is only a shorthand common fraction, and this notion he must hold to. This is the vital point in decimals. The idea that they can be changed into common fractions and the reverse at will establishes the fact in the pupil's mind that they are com- mon fractions and not uncommon ones. Eixing the decimal point will, in a short time, take care of itself. In teaching arithmetic the steps are : (1) developing the sub- ject till each pupil gets a clear conception of it ; (2) necessary drill to fix the process ; (3) connecting the subject with all that has preceded it ; (4) its applications ; (5) the pupil's ability to sum up clearly and concisely what he has learned. 2. As TO ABRIDGMENT : Under this head, I hold that a course in arithmetic, including simple numbers, fractions, tables of weights and measures, percentage, and interest, and numerical operations in powers, does not fit a pupil to begin the study of algebra. That while he may carry the book under his arm to the schoolroom, he is too poorly equipped to make headway on this subject, and instead of finishing up algebra in a reasonable length of time, he is kept too long at it, with a strong probability of his becoming disgusted with it. There are subjects, however, in the common school arithmetic that may be dropped out with great advantage, to wit, all but the simplest exercises in compound interest, foreign exchange, all foreign moneys (except reference tables of values) , annui- ties, alligation, progression; and the entire subjects of percent- 122 Committee of Fifteen. age and interest should be condensed into about twenty pages. Cancellation, factoring, proportion, evolution, and involution should be retained. Cancellation and factoring should be strongly emphasized, owing to their immense value in shorten- ing work in arithmetic, algebra, and in more advanced subjects. Some drill in the Metric System should not be omitted. 3. As TO MENTAL ARITHMETIC : Till the end of the fourth year the pupil does not need a text-book of mental arithmetic. So far his work in arithmetic should be about equally divided between written and mental. At the beginning of the fifth year, in addition to his written arithmetic, he should begin a mental arithmetic and continue it three years, reciting at least four mental arithmetic lessons each week. The length of the recita- tion should be twenty minutes. A pupil well drilled in mental arithmetic at the end of the seventh year, if the school age begins at six, is far better prepared to study algebra than the one who has not had such a drill. There are a few problems in arithme- tic that can be solved more easily by algebra than by the ordi- nary processes of arithmetic, but there are many numerical problems in equations of the first degree that can be more easily handled by mental arithmetic than by algebra. To attack arith- metical problems by algebra is very much like using a tremen- dous lever to lift a feather. Those who have found a great stumbling-block in arithmetical '' conundrums " have, if the in- side facts were known, been looking in the wrong direction. A deficiency of " number-brain-cells " will afford an adequate explanation. 4. Rearrangement of subjects : There should be a rear- rangement of the topics in arithmetic so that one subject natu- rally leads up to the next. As an illustration, it is easily seen that whole numbers and fractions can be treated together, and that with U. S. money, when the dime is reached, is the proper time to begin decimals, and that when a " square " in surface measure first comes up, the next step is the square of a number as well as its square root, and that solid measure logically lands the learner among cubes and cube-roots. When he learns that 1728 cubic inches make one cubic foot he is prepared to find the edge of the cube. What is meant here is pointing the way to the next above. All depends upon the teacher's ability to lead the pupil to see conditions and relations. My contention is that truth, so far as one is capable of taking hold of it when it is properly presented, is always a simple affair. Committee of Fifteen. 123 5. As TO ALGEBRA : If algebra be commenced at the middle of the seventh year, let the pupil go at it in earnest, and keep at it till he has mastered it. Here the best opportunities will be afforded him to connect his algebraic knowledge to his arith- metical knowledge. He builds the one on top of the other. The skillful teacher always insists that the learner shall estab- lish and maintain this relationship between the two subjects. To switch around the other way appears to me to be the same as to omit certain exercises in the common algebra, because they are more brieJSy and elegantly treated in the calculus. It is admitted that a higher branch of mathematics often throws much light on the lower branches, but these side-lights should be employed for the purpose of leading the learner onward to broader generalizations. Unless one sees the lower clearly, the higher is obscure. Build solidly the foundation on arithmetic — written and mental — and the higher branches will be more easily mastered and time saved. History of the U^tited States. In teaching this branch in the public schools, there does not appear, so far as I can see, any substantial reason why the pupils should not study and recite the history of the Eebellion in the same manner that they do the Revolutionary War. The pupils discuss the late war and the causes that led to it with an impartiality of feeling that speaks more for their good sense and clear judgment than any other way by wliich their knowledge can be tested. They may not get hold of all the causes involved in that conflict, but they get enough to under- stand the motives which caused the armies to fight so heroic- ally, and why the people, both North and South, staked every- thing on the issue. Just as the men who faced each other for four years and met so often in a death grapple will sit down now and quietly talk over their trials, sufferings, and conflicts, so do their children talk over these same stirring scenes. They, too, so far as my experience extends, are singularly free from bitterness and prejudice. It is certainly a period of his- tory that they should study. The spelling-book. In addition to the "spelling-lists," I would supplement with a good spelling-book. So far, no "word-list," however well se- lected, has supplied the place of a spelling-book. All those schools 124 Committee of Fifteen. that threw out the spelling-book and undertook to teach spell- ing incidentally or by word-lists failed, and for the same reason that grammar, arithmetic, geography, and other branches can- not be taught incidentally as the pupil or the class reads Kobin- son Crusoe, or any similar work. It is an independent study and as such should be pursued. BY CHARLES B. GILBERT, OF ST. PAUL. While affixing my signature to the report of this Committee, as expressing substantial agreement with most of its leading propositions, I beg leave also to indicate my dissent from cer- tain of its recommendations and to suggest certain additions which, in my judgment, the report requires. 1. There are other forms of true correlation which should be included with the four mentioned in the first part of the report and which should be as clearly and fully treated as are these four. The first is that form of correlation which is popularly under- stood by the name, and which is also called by some writers concentration, co-ordination, unification, and alludes in general to a division of studies into content and form; by content meaning that upon which it is fitting that the mind of the child should dwell, and by form the means or modes of expression by which thoughts are communicated. Or, it may be thus ex- pressed : The true content of education is (1), philosophy or the knowledge of man as to his motives and hidden springs of action indicated in history and literature, and (2) science, the knowledge of nature, and its manifestations and laws. Its form is art, which is the deliberate, purposeful, and effective expression to others of that which has been produced within man by contact with other men and with nature, and is com- monly referred to as divided into various arts, such as reading, writing, drawing, making, and modeling. The relation of con- tent and form is that of principle and subordinate, the latter receiving its chief value from the former. In a true education they are so presented to the mind of the chUd that he instinct- ively and unconsciously grasps this relation and is thereby lifted into a higher plane of thinking and living than if the various arts are taught, as they too commonly ai:e, without reference to a noble content. This relation of form to con- tent is vgauely referred to in the report, but nowhere definitely Committee of Fifteen. 125 treated. It seems to me that it is a true form of correlation, and, as such, deserves special and definite treatment. More- over, it is at present much in the minds of the teachers of this country, often in forms that are misleading and harmful. The fact that it adds the important element of interest to the dry details of common school life makes it especially attractive to progressive and earnest teachers, and this Committee should recognize its importance and make such an utterance upon it as will guide the average teacher to a clear comprehension of its meaning and to a wise use of it in the schoolroom. Second, there is a still higher form of correlation which is definitely referred to later in the report as that ' ' of the several branches of human learning in the unity of the spiritual view furnished by religion to our civilization." This in the report is assigned absolutely to the province of higher education. While I do not wish to dissent wholly from this view, since it is doubtless true that this higher unity cannot be comprehen- sively stated for the use of a child, yet a wise teacher can so present subjects to even a young child that a sense of the unity of all knowledge will, to a certain degree, be unconsciously developed in his mind. In regard to certain of the great divis- ions of human knowledge, this relation is so evident that they cannot be properly presented at all unless the relation be made clear. Such studies are history and geography. 2. The recommendations upon the subject of language should be broadened to cover the production of good English by the child himself, with the suggestion of suitable topics and proper methods. This report confines itself to the absorptive side of education and ignores that development of power over nature, man, and self, which comes from free exercise of facul- ties and free expression of thought. The study of language as something for the child to use himself, the great means by which he is to assert his place in civilization, and exert his influence for good, is nowhere referred to except in the vaguets way. This statement in regard to language applies almost equally well to drawing, and here is made evident the impor- tance of the form of correlation to which I have just referred. The proper material for the training of the child in expression is that which is furnished by the study of man and nature. His mind being filled with high themes, he asserts his individu- ality, expresses himself in regard to them, and thereby gains at once both a closer and clearer comprehension of what he has 126 Committee of Fifteen. studied, and also the power by wMcli he may become a factor in his generation. 3. I would wish to omit the word " weekly " where it occurs in the discussion of the subjects of general history and science, unless it be understood to mean that an amount of time in the school year equivalent to sixty minutes weekly be given to each of these subjects. It is often better to condense these studies into certain portions of the year, giving more time to them each week, and using them as the basis, to a certain degree, of language work. I believe that, especially with young children, clearer concepts are produced by such con- nected study, pursued for fewer weeks, than by lessons seven days apart. 4. In my judgment manual training should not be limited to the seventh and eighth grades, but should begin in the kinder- garten with the simple study of form from objects and the reproduction in paper of the objects presented, and should ex- tend, in a series of carefully graded lessons, through all the grades, leaving, however, the heavier tools, such as the plane, for the seventh and eighth grades. By these means an interest is kept up in the various human industries, sympathy for all labor is created, and a certain degree of skill is developed; moreover, the interest of the pupils in their school is greatly en- hanced. Manual training has often proved the magnet by which boys at the restless age have been kept in school instead of leaving for some gainful occupation. 5. I desire to suggest that geometry may be so taught as to be a better mathematical study than algebra to succeed or accom- pany arithmetic in the seventh and eighth grades. I do not refer particularly to inventional geometry, to which the Com- mittee accords a slighting attention, but to constructive geom- etry and the simplest propositions in demonstrative geometry, thus involving the comprehension of the elementary geometric forms and their more obvious relations. This study may be made of special interest in connection with manual training and drawing, while it presents fewer difficulties to the immature mind than the abstractions of algebra, since it connects more directly with the concrete, by which its presentation may often be aided. 6. While agreeing fully with the majority of the Committee that the full scientific method should not be applied to the study of elementary science by young children, yet I am compelled to Committee of Fifteen. 127 favor more of experimentation and observation by the child, and less of telling by the teacher than the report would seem to favor. 7. I would go farther than the majority of the Committee, and insist that, except in rare cases, there should be no special- ization of the teaching force below the high school, and that even in the first years of the high school, so far as possible, specialization should be subordinated to a general care of the child's welfare and oversight of his methods of study, which are impossible when a corps of teachers give instruction, each in one subject, and see the student only during the hour of recitation. 8. While in the main I agree with the bald statements under the head '•'• Correlation by synthesis of studies," since reference is made to only a very artificial mode of synthesis not at all in vogue in this country, I must dissent emphatically from this portion of the report as by inference condemning a most im- portant department of correlation, to which I have referred earlier. The doctrine of concentration is not necessarily arti- ficial ; rather it refers to the higher unity, of which this Com- mittee has spoken in glowing terms as belonging to the prov- ince of higher education. It also includes the division of the school curriculum into content and form, which this Committee inferentially adopts in its treatment of language. I do not be- lieve, any more than do the majority of the Committee, that the entire course of study can be literally and exactly centred about a single subject, nor do I believe in any artificial correla- tion; but there is a natural relation of all knowledges, which this Committee admits in various places, and which is the basis of a proper synthesis of studies, according to the psychological principle of apperception. 9. If by the term " oral," as applied to lessons in biography and in natural science, the Committee means, as the word would imply, that the instruction is to be given in the form of lectures by the teacher, I cannot in full agree with the Commit- tee's conclusions. As I have already stated, in natural science the work should be largely that of observation, and in history and biography, while in the very lowest grades the teachers should tell the children stories, as soon as it is possible the desired information should be obtained by the student through reading. To this end the reading lesson in school should be properly correlated with his other studies, and he should be 12$ Committee of Fifteen. advised as to his home reading. The information thus obtained should be the subject of conversation in the class, and should furnish the material for much of the written language work of the children. 10. I must dissent emphatically and entirely from that por- tion of the report which recommends that a text-book in gram- mar be introduced into the fifth year of the child's school life. It is a question in my mind whether it would not be better if the text-book were not introduced into the grades below the high school at all. Certainly it should not appear before the sev- enth year. Such knowledge of grammar as will familiarize the child with the structure of the sentence, the basis of all lan- guage and as will enable him to use correctly forms of speech which the necessities of expression require, should be given orally by the teacher in connection with the child's written work, when needed ; but against the introduction of a text-book upon gram- mar, the most abstruse of all the subjects of the school curricu- lum, when the pupil is not more than ten years old, I must protest. Instead of that, the child should devote much time, some every day, to writing upon proper themes in the best English he can command, furnishing occasion to the teacher to correct such errors as he may make, and acquiring by use acquaintance with the correct forms of grammar. If, as will doubtless be the case in most cities, local conditions render the introduction of Latin into the eighth grade inadvisable, this study of grammar may be made in that grade somewhat more intensive. 11. If by a text-book in geography is meant that which is commonly understood by the term, and not simply geographical reading matter, in my judgment, it should not be introduced earlier than the fifth year. These suggestions and expressions of dissent, if approved by the Committee, would necessitate some change in the programme submitted, the mo^t important of which would be the making room for the production of English in the grades. This could be provided in the first and second grades by taking some of the time devoted to penmanship and doing the work partly in con- nection with the reading classes. In the third and fourth grades it should take some of the time devoted to penmanship and should be studied also in connection with geography and reading, and in the fifth and sixth grades it should take all of the time given to grammar. I regret to be compelled to express dissent upon so many Committee of Fifteen. 129 points, but as most of them appear to me vital and as the differ- ences appear to be not merely superficial but fundamental, affecting and affected by one's entire educational creed, I cannot do otherwise. To most of the report I most gladly give my assent andapproval. ■ BY L. H. JONES, OF CLEVELAND. 1 agree most heartily with the main features of the foregoing Teport of the sub-committee on correlation of studies. It is so admirable in its analysis of subjects and in its statement of comparative education values, and so suggestive in its practical applications to teaching, that I regret to find myself appearing in any way^to dissent from its conclusions. Indeed, my princi- pal objection is not against anything contained in the report (unless it be against a possible inference which might be drawn at one point), but it refers rather to what seems to me to be an omission. In addition to all the forms of correlation recommended in the report, it seems to me possible to make a correlation of subjects in a programme in such way that the selection of subject-matter may be to some extent from all fields of knowledge. These selections should be such as are related to one another so as to be mutually helpful in acquisition. They should be the main features of knowledge in the different departments. These different departments from which the chosen subjects should be taken must be fundamental ones and must be suflS- ciently numerous to represent universal culture. The report itself indicates conclusively what these are. Reference is made in the report to various attempts that have been made to correlate subjects of study. A very just criticism is made upon that attempt at correlation by the use of the story of Robinson Crusoe as a centre of correla- tion. It is distinctly pointed out in the report that the expe- riences of Robinson Crusoe are lacking in many of the elements of universal culture, and in many elements of education needed to adjust the individual properly to the civilization of our time and country. It is equally evident that the attempt to make this story the centre of correlation leads directly to trivial exer- cises in other subjects in order to make them "correlate" with Robinson Crusoe. It is also shown in the report that it natu- rally leads to fragmentary knowledge of many subjects very anuch inferior to that clear, logically connected knowledge of a 130 Committee of Fijteeii. subject which may be had by pursuing it without reference to- correlating it with all others. It is at this point that in my judgment a wrong inference is- permitted by the report. It does not, as it seems to me, follow that, because correlation^ based on Robinson Crusoe is a failure, all correlations having the same general purpose Avill necessarily prove failures. For my own part, I do notbelieve that correlation needs any •' centre,"^ outside the child and its natural activities. If, however, it seems wiser to give special prominence to any given field of acquisition, it should, in my judgment, be accorded to language and its closely related subjects — reading, spelling, writing, com- posing, study of literature, etc., etc. Indeed, language as a mode of expression is organically related to thinking, in all fields of knowledge, as form is related to content. A '' system" or ^' programme" of correlation on this basis would seek for fundamental ideas in all the leading branches and make them themes of thought and occasions of language exercises. The selections would omit all trivialities in all subjects, and would' not attempt to correlate for the mere sake of correlation : but would seek to correlate wherever by such correlation kindred themes may be made to illuminate one another. To illustrate, concrete problems in arithmetic would be sought that wouldi clearly develop and illustrate mathematical ideas and their appli- cation ; but in a secondary way these problems would be sought for in the various departments of concrete knowledge — geogra- phy, history, physics, chemistry, astronomy, meteorology, politi- cal, industrial, or domestic economy. But none of these themes would be so relied upon for problems as to compel one to choose unreasonable or trivial relations on which to base them. The problems themselves should represent true and important facts and relations of the other subjects as surely and rigidly as they^ should involve correct mathematical principles ; and all such exercises should be rightly related to the child's education in language. In like manner, when a child is engaged in nature study of any kind, some valuable problems in mathematics may be found rightly related both to the subject directly in hand and the child's natural progress in arithmetic. Also many of the lessons in nature study are directly related to some of the finest liter- ature ever produced, in which analogies of nature are made the means of expression for the finest and most delicate of the human. Cominittee of Fifteen. 131 experiences. When the child has mastered tlie physical facts on which the literary inspiration is based is the true time to give him the advantage of the study of such literature. These ideas are not only rightly related to one another, but to the mind itself. It is, so to speak, the nascent moment when the mind can easily and fully master what might else remain an impenetrable mys- tery ; and all because subjects and occasion have come into happy conjunction. This is not the place in which to attempt any elaboration of such a system of correlation. But I feel that its absence from the report may make many persons feel that the latter is so far incomplete. BY WILLIAM H. MAXWELL, OF BROOKLYN. With the main lines of thought in this report I find myself in agreement. With many of its details, however, I am not in accord. I regret to have to express my dissent from its conclu- sions in the following particulars : — 1. The report makes too little of the uses of grammar as sup- plying canons of criticism which enable the pupil to correct his own English, and as furnishing a key (grammatical analysis) that gives him the power to see the meaning of obscure or in- volved sentences. 2. For the study of literature, complete works are to be pre- ferred to the selections found in school readers. 3. That species of language exercise known as paraphrasing I regard as harmful. 4. The study of number should not be omitted from the first year in school. Practice in the primary operations of arith- metic should not be omitted from the seventh and eighth years. The quadratic equation should be reserved for the high school. 5. The foreign language introduced into the elementary school course should be a modern language — French or Ger- man. Latin should be reserved for those who have time and opportunity to master its literature. 6. In the general programme of studies, the school day is cut up into too many short periods. The tendency of such a programme as that in the text would be to destroy repose of mind and render reflection almost an impossibility. 7. I desire to express my agreement with the opinions stated in Sections 2, 3, 6, and 9 of Mr. Gilbert's dissenting opinion; and, in the main, with what Mr. Jones says on the correlation of studies. Dissent from Dr. Draper's Report. BY EDWIN P. SEAVER, BOSTON. I find myself in general accord with the doctrines of the report. There is only one feature of it from which I feel obliged to dissent, and that is an important though not neces- sarily a vital one. I refer to the office of school director. I see no need of such an officer elected by the people, and I do see the danger of his becoming a part of the political organiza- tion for the dispensation of patronage. All power and authority in school affairs should reside ulti- mately in the board of education, consisting of not more than eight persons appointed by the mayor of the city, to hold office four years, two members retiring annually and eligible for re- appointment once and no more. This board should appoint as its chief officer a superintendent of instruction, whose tenure should be during good behavior and efficiency, and whose pow- ers and duties should be to a large extent defined by statute law, and not wliolly or chiefly by the regulations of the board of education. The superintendent of instruction should have a seat and voice but not a vote in the board of education. The board of education should also appoint a business agent, and define his powers and duties in relation to all matters of build- ings, repairs, and supplies, substantially as set forth in the report in relation to the school director. All teachers should be appointed and annually reappointed or recommended by the superintendent of instruction, until after a sufficient probation they are appointed on a tenure dur- ing good behavior and efficiency. All matters relating to courses of study, text-books, and ex- aminations should be left to the superintendent and his assist- ants, constituting a body of professional experts who should be regarded as alone competent to deal with such matters, and should be held accountable therefor to the board of education only in a general way, and not in particular details. Committee of Fifteen. 133 BY ALBERT G. LANE, CHICAGO. I concur in the recommendations of the sub-committee on the Organization of City School Systems^as summarized in the concluding portion of the report, omitting in item third the words, ''And that it be constituted of two branches acting against each other." Omit fifth, " But we think^it preferable that he be chosen in the same way that members of the board are chosen and be given veto power upon^the acts of the board." I recommend that the veto power be given to the president of the board. Discussion on Report of Dr. Harris. FbaNK M. McMueey, Franklin School, Buffalo ; My remarks have no reference to the dissenting opinions, but will be oocfiaed to the correlation in the main body of the report. So far, we have listened to the definition of correlation ; my remarks refer to that, and to its inflaence on the course of stndy. The address by Miss Arnold last night referred to correlation. That lecture is not in accord with the report of fiye in regard to this subject. We have been using two synonyms for correlation — oooidination and concentration. Many persons have gotten their definition through their ideas of concentration. People have in mind, as I understand it, mainly the relation of studies to one an- other. Let mo give one or two samples in addition to last night's suggestions. Let me refer to Egypt. The geography will natur- ally take the Nile, the drawing will take up cardboard work, etc., the pupil will deal with the pyramid and the triangle in mathe- matics, and with language work in the whole subject. I give that as a simple illustration of concentration. I turn to the part of the report where they take up correlation by synthesis of studies; that, as I understand it, was the thought in the mind of Mies Arnold, and it is what is in my own mind. They take up the subj 9ct of Bobinson Crusoe. I think they should look into it fuither, but it is not my purpose to defend Bobinson Crusoe. They have taken the story of Bobinson Crusoe as a type and they have condemned that aa a type. We may think they aim mainly at the story of Bobinson Crusoe alone, but they say, '' Your committee would call attention in this connec- tion to the importance of the pedagogical principle of analy- sis and isolation as preceding synthesis and correlation. There should be rigid isolation of the elements of each branch for the purpose of getting a clear perception of what is individual and pe- culiar in a special province of learning." They warn us against having studies closely tied together. They do not realize, as it seems to me, that the chief fault of our present studies is that they do not support each other. The report is op- (posed from principle to this kind of correlation. They refer later Committee of Fifteen, 135 to this matter in these words : " Yonr oommittee has already men- ticmed a Bpeoiea of faulty correlation wherein the attempt is made to study all the hranohes in each, misapplying Jacotot'a maxim, ' all is in all.' '' Farther than that, they show a large lack of sympathy with this point. They have no allasion to the fact that the different sciences have a relationship with one another. By their omissions, as well as their positive statements, they show their opposing attitude toward correlation. They talk about having a proper sequence in the studies, — they do not insist upon it from principle. They say, *' The most prac- tical knowledge of all, it will be admitted, is a knowledge of human nature, — a knowledge that enables one to combine with his fellow-men and to share with them the physical and spiritual wealth of the race. Of this high character as humanizing or civil- izing are the favorite works of literature found in the school read- ers, about one hundred and fifty English and American writers being drawn upon for the material." In other words, they are in sympathy with the text-book readers. In enforcing that point further, " In the first three years the reading should be limited to pieces in the colloquial style, but selections from the classics of the language in prose and poetry shall be read to the pupil from time to time." " In the years from the fifth to the eighth there should be some reading of entire storiep, such as Gulliver's Travels, Rob- inson Crusoe," and so forth. As I understand it, we should have wholes in literature from the begn^niog. There are sixty pages in this report, only two of them refer to the subject of concentration, and they condemn that subject Irom principle. Thay show that they do not, from principle, favor 4he idea of connected thought. That is my first point — opposition to the whole matter. [Applause.] The next point is, What do they discuss ? [Laughter.] They have four points in their definition of correlation. The fourth point is the chief subject. " Your committee understands by correlation of studies the selection and arrangement in order of sequence of >sach objects of study as shall give the child an insight into the world that he lives in, and a command over his resources snob as is obtained by healthful ccoperation with one's fellows. In a word, the chief consideration to which all others are to be subordinated, in the opinion of your committee, is this rf qairement ef the civil- ization into which the child is born as determining what he shall fltndy in school." There is the old idea of study, in which, from the adult standpoint, we decide that wbat the child will use as a man shall constitute his course. We have had the three B's and 136 Committee of Fifteen. we have tended to kill the children. The new edaoation is barad OB obild stndy, appereeption, and interest. We have reached th& eonolusion that knowledge is not primarily for the sake of knowl- edge, but for use, and the only condition under which the idea» will be active is that they shall appeal to the child and shall fit his nature. Child study, interest, and apperception demand that the chief factor shall be the nature of the child — that is not the atti-^ tnde of this committee of five. " Your committee is of the opinion that psychology of both kinds, physiological and introspective, can hold only a subordinate place in the settlement of questions relat- ing to the correlation of studies. The branches to be studied and the extent to which they are studied will be determined mainly by the demands of one's civilization.'' Psychology, in a plain state- ment, " will largely determine the methods of instruction, th& order of taking up the several topics so as to adapt the school work to the growth of the pupil's capacity." In other words, the com- mittee have failed to be inflnenoed as to a course cf study by other considerations than the demands of civilization. They state plainly that psychology shall be a subordinate matter in determining enr° riculnm. The fact is to be seen in their course of study, Reading, nature study, and history are the principal subjects, but in the minds of the committee the principal subjects are reading, writing, etc., for the first three years. I do not believe it. In the first three years, readine pieces ; in other words, the first three years do not deal prima: ily in rich ideas. One objection to Robinson Crneoe — " It omits cities, governments, the world commerce, the inter- national process, the church, the newspaper, and book from view.'^ They are not in sympathy with the child. I would choose Robin- son Crusoe because it does not deal with subjects which are outside the child's interest. F. W. Pabkbr, Cook Ccunty Ncrmalj Chicago: When I moved,, two years ago, the appointment of this committee, I had in mind the careful study of the whole matter of correlation that teachers in this country ehould get from the highest sources the doctrine and the highest eriticiem, — that a report should be presented which should follow the greatest report upon education in this century, — the report of the Committee of Ten. I have not had time to study this report and can, therefore, say very little upon it.^ These subjects should be studied with the greatest care. It seems to me that there are some general criticisms which may be made in the brief time at my command. Committee of Fifteen. 13^ We oannot doubt that these gentlemen have made the moat care- ful study of the docti ns of Herbert and cf his dieciplee,— ZilW; Stoyj and Rein ; tbey have alao bad their eye upon the diatiDguished students of this dootriue in this ocuntry. The failure of this re- port is that they haven't even given cs the fnii(?aDoeDtal doctrine of Herbart. There is no docbt that the Hetbariian dootrine and all other doctrines of concentration are ignored in their fundamental essentials. That is what this committee has left out — it is the old story, the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out, or to put it a little more mildly, Hamlet kicked out. It seems that this doctrine is the only dootiine which furnishes a grand working h:;potheBiB to the teachers of the world. It Bhould be txamiced moet carefully^ and what oannot bear the closest criticism should be rejected. The five, with the dissent of the Western men, have not deemed it worthy of this attention and bave r«j«cted it in toto. Poor old Robinson Grnsoe bears the brunt, notwithstanding ous esteemed friends of the Normal University, who wif«h to interest the children in something. Sometimes we go into schools where thsre k not much interest, especially in spellirg acd grama ar. I laav@ the defense of Robinson Crusoe to Mr. McMurry. The other reference is to lacgusge. ''It is not wise to stop a child to correct his mistakes in grammar"! ** The development of language cannot be organically related to the development of thought"! It is one of the fundamental principles, if I under- stand it, that the development of thought should have as a neces- sity the evolution of language. This, says tbe report, oannot be done ; grammar must be developed by itself and language by itself. If I am incorrect, I beg to be excused. I can only refer to a few features of this report in tbe tabulated programme. A course of study is absolutely necessary, but it should be marked " for this day only." We take the subject of reading twice every day for the first two years, once a day for tbe next six years. Reading is think- ing, it should be educated thinking. We cannot do thinking with- out the subjects to be learned — as geography and ecience. Science, according to the programme, is to be taught by oral lessons. The world is round, but children cannot reason. WocH it not be well to go into the laboratory to see whether the children oannot reason f* The child, by force of hi^ nature, muat reason — must find oui: these things. I am quoting from John Dewey. But we are told in this reuort that the subject of science, at least a few things iiL these subjects, must be told him first. I never knew a case of the kind, but it may be. Now, I would say to this committee of fivcj have your reading^ 138 Committee of Fifteen. the best literature, — there shonld be nothing but literature. Shonld we not have literature from the beginning ? is the question we are asking. It seems to be the case that this report leaves very little to ask. The child spends all his time in reading — reading what ? Can the child learn to get thought in reading ? Some of us think he can. Is it not well to follow here the scientific method and find out whether the child osn learn to read beautifully and well ? The same of writing. I see the millions bowed down for years to the copy books. Is there no way out ? Is there no relief ? Is it pos- sible for the child to leatn to write as he learns to talk, or mnafc hz be bound to the desk ? fTime ] I would simply say that thi-i report should be entitled to the greatest respect. I shall go home and study it carefully and prayerfully. I move that a committee of fifteen be appointad to revise this report. [Great applause ] Peksident Chakles De Garmo, Swarthmore College^ Penn- ■syhania; Fellow teachers : Those who are to discuss this ques- tion this morning are placed under a great embarrassment. The report should have been distributed before this meeting. That it has not been, I learn is not the fault of the officers of the department. [Applause ] We might infer from what we have heard that the report is valueless. This is by no means the case. It is an eatimi^te of -educational values. Under the eubjeot of lattgnagp, I quote, " A survey of its educational value, sub j active and objective, usually produces the conviction that it is to retain the fist place." Under arithmetic, "Side by side with language study is the study of mathematics in the school, claiming the second place in impor- tance." Under geography, " The educational value of geography, ^8 it is and has been in elementary schools, is obviously very great. The edaciitional value of geography is even more apparent if we admit the claims of those who argue that the present epoch is the beginning of an era." As a oriiiqae of educational values the report is a very important one. I would like to call your attention to the correlation of the pupil to bis environment. That, I think, is an important matter. They have departed, at least in principle, irom that old formal discipline a^one ; this individual to be fitted ^or life must master bi) environment. The committee have ^examined the various studies as to their value, and that, I think, is a grand thing. I cannot see at all that it is a correlation of studies. It has been said in your hearing that the throwing of light by studies on each other was disregarded. The report presents a Committee of Fifteen. 139 ^eij difEerent idea of the correlation of studies. The seoond address of last evening — by Miss Arnold — has been referred to as an illustration of bringing the studies togeth^^r so that one ihrowB light upon another. I think the idea that there is no need 4>f reform will be reinforced by this report ; that the report will ^ave a reactionary effect upon those who think that way. The committee have denied that we need any reform, or have implied that we have the reform already. It seems that the name given "to this report should be taken off and the heading *' An essay on educational values '' substituted instead. It is true that this com- mittee have, at the beginning, laid down a principle that would make a correlation. The text is here, but tbe disouseion is lack- ing. So far as I have read, I have found but little in the report which shows what the sequence of studies should be. There is a hint in arithmetic where it says, ' ' Common fractions should come before decimals." Is this attempt at the correlation of studies anything mere than a series of tunnels through the educational ^elds with switch oonnectioup, so that if we start in at one end we are switched to this or that without any view of the whole journey ? We may light these tunnels with electricity, perhaps, but, after all, we are spending eight years underground, switching irom one tunnel to another. Now the other alternative is to go out into the world, out into the sunshine, and follow highways so clear that a child can examine all that is about them. It is possible to relate one sub j act to the other so that when it is dark the child, even if he has not the sun to lighten his eyes, can at ^ least have some stars of hope above him. Pbesident of the Department: From the course the discussion has taken, it has seemed to me that Dr. Harris should say a word at this point and read some sdditiondl parts of the report. W. T. Haebis, Commisiioner of Education : I must set myself right on Herbart. The report does not allude to Herbart any- 'where except in re^tpectfal terms. The criticism of the use of Rab- inson Crusoe does not attribute its mistakes to the Herbartians. Perhaps they would not recognize it as a true statement of their method. To make Hetbart of uee in pedagogy we must to some extent ignore his philosophy. His usefulness in education is pro- portioned to his uselessness as a philosopher. What can we do with a philosopher who omits the will from the three departments of the mind and retains only intellect and feeling ? Herbart was obliged to explain how man comes to act without the will. He ex- 140 Committee of Fifteen. plains that desire can be arcnged by interest in snoh a way that action will follow. With this great defect, however, Herbart is valuable in ednoation. His doctrine of apperception does not need any correction. His doctrine of interest, however, needs some lim- itation, beci^ase the idea of the will and the idea of dnty are omitted from his system. He mast maka up by the idea of desire and the idea of interest. I am snrpriaed that the claim is made here that the report does not treat the enlject assigned to it. Correlation of stadies is assamed to mean concentration of studies. There is no such dtfiaitioD to the word *' correlation'' in any dictionary; only fonr or five obscnre books in the English langnsge give the word correlation the meaning of concentration. I wa«i told of this sense of the word correlation, bat did not believe for a moment that it had been the intention of the department of saperintendents, in appoint- ing a committee on this sabject, to have a report on the Herbartian idea of concentration. CHA.BLES McMuBBY, 8taU Normal Universitt/ , Normal, III: In one of joar statements read : ** Yoar committee wonld call at- tention in this oonDection to the importance of the pedagogical principle of analysis and isolation as preceding synthesis and corre- lation." Now, as I understand it, this is what this committee has attempted to report. Now, he says that this precedes synthesis or oorrt^latioff. I would 1 kt to know if there is any dictionary or number of dictionaries to make correlation mean what this says — ' the analysis and isolation of subjacts of s*udy. I have been very much afraid that Dr. Harris would take refuge in the diteussion of the snlj^et of the will in which he distinguishes Herbart from others. The i^xoluBion of the will is htld as far as Herbart is oonosrned of moral education. Now I wish to say that Herbart has laid down more and better edncaiional principles than any other philosopher. The more dif&euit thing is not exactly the best thing lor the child in the firat and secoi d grades. There was an old theory among the LaHns that if the child could be made to go through the diffioulties of a La tion of the human son!, and second, in the facts that constitute the environment of men. I do not say which is below the other. I do say that a serious mistake will be made by that pedagogist who leaves out either of these or gives either a very inferior pcsition. A.8 to how either nresupposes the other, that ia a very important question, but I cannot discuss it at more length. Now as to the process of isolation — the first process of knowl- edge is to isolate things. We have certainly been taught that the first process of the mind ia not a synthetic, but an analytic prooeaa. Every person coming into this ball took a view of it as a whole^ and then began to isolate this thing from that, and then this proc- ess, after a time, ceased. Bat that there ia to be no synthesis ia a proposition which I do not understand to be in this report. When a child comes to school you may divide the subjects which occupy his attention into two groups. The first are the elementary school arts,— as the improving of apeech, the atudies of readings writing, drawing, and numerical caicnlationa, if he haa never en- tered npon these. They are not studies, they are the arts of the elementary school. We teach them, not for their own sake, bnt that they may be used as instruments. [Time called by the chair° man, and extended by vote of the house.] I wish, in the first instance, to express my sense of gratification. I felt that I was leaving the matter in a very imperfect form. Now, I had said all that I care to say about the arts in the ele« mentary sehcola. There are the atudiea, I mean the real studies, those we study for the purpose of getting out of them all that there is in them. Now, there is a discussion aa to the relation in which the two classes of studies shall stand at the beginning. Now, the old idea was, that some of the first time in school should be devoted to these arts, and the studies were permitted to fall into the back- ground, or perhaps fall clear cut. Now, if I underatand aome of the pedagogists, their idea is to put the beginner at the real thing, or per- haps I should say to keep him at the real thing, that the arta should be acquired during the atudies. Now, the question occurs to me, whether, in the elementary schools, theae arta can ever be suooeaa- fully taught when we are pretending to teach aomething else ? I Committee of Fifteen. 143 mnat aay that if the object were to have a papil advance the great° est distance for the first three months or six months, yon had better say nothing about the arts at all* Bat we pat him at the arts, knowing that when we pat these gifts into his hands we are givlns^ him an instrnment of power that he will be able to ase throaghont his whole life. [A.pplaase.] Now, the qaestion of concentration, so-called, is involved in this matter. I want to aek the qaestion, and I woald discaas it if X had a qaarter of an hour, — I want to aek the qaestion, how far ife is possible to do two things in an intense manner at the same time. When I was anperintendent of schools, a gentleman picked cff the table a so-called physiological reader, and, lookiog at the title page, said, ''For one, I conld never teach physiology as a snbjact and reading as an art at the same time. The physiology is not and it cannot be made a proper material for a school reading book ; a proper school reading book cannot be made a good physiology." Yet I believe in concentration, if it means letting one sabjsot assist and enforce another. I hope none of the brethren will become ho enthasiastic as to assame that the whole round of information can be brought under the teaching of one subject. [Applause.] Db. E. E. White, Columbus, O. : I have a little hesitation in speaking on this question, where I am only a learner. I am anxious to know what my young friends mean. I hope I shall get the oor-> relation of their ideas in time. [Laughter. ] As it seems to me, correlation, as a distinctive method, assumes to do more than it is possible for a method to accomplish. In my judgment, there is no one method of education, whether it be Her- bartian or otherwise. To assume that a human soul is to be ex* clusively educated by the Herbartian method is a great assumption. I do not believe that we are to supplement and supplant now all that has been known in the education of the young based on the psychology which the defenders of this method are willing to dis- card. There are many of its methods we are willing to accept, but the Herbartian pedagogy is based on the Herbartian psychology^ and if you discard that, you have no system of pedagogy, but you have many elements which you can utilize. Now, we make a mis- take when we assume that there is only one method by which the young man in colUge and the children canlbe educated. The lady who spoke last night, Miss Arnold, had not such an idea. Now there is a blending in the primary grades which is not possible ia the upper grades. That is emphasized completely in what we call the special courses in colleges. That blending may be on mer» «44 Committee of Fifteen. 'flurfaee relations which will be discarded as soon as we pass above the primary grades. While we maj concede that this is possible in one exercise, it is not possible in higher instrnotion. 0«z ^methods change, so let us not be too sweeping, too confident in oar terms. Farther, I think that Dr. Harris ia entirely right in the position he has taken as to the meanir g of coordination or correlation. He n^ea the term oorreladun, not ooi:^ in its ecientifio, bat in its recognized pedagogic sebbe. Cuncentration is a dffarent process, &nd should receive separate consideration. May I add that the views I recently presented cnder what ia called concentration seem to make class iastraction impossible. They lead clearly to the one ^oQolasion, that eve^y child should be taught as an individual, by himself, and this means that all class instruction ia to be given up. Individual instruction can alone meet the conditions assumed to be essential by concentration, as explained. What does this involve? There have been many scholars since the Fload, — scholars who have honored learning and widened its domaia. How were they produced ? Not by any one method, and certainly not by " con- centration." These hoets of scholars canoot be accounted for on any such assumption, for they were produced under very unlike systems of elementary training. The history of school education shows that we are not shut up to a dist of pedagogic hash on the one hand, or one of baked beans on the other. There ia clearly no one universal method or process in educati >n by which alone a baman soul ia to be brought to power. Db. Nicholas Murea.y Butler, Columbia CdUge, New York : This is an interesting and exciting fiald of battle ; it has not been a Ball Run, and it ia manifestly not an Appomattox. Bat let ua be fair, and let ua diacuea the queation that is presented by this report. I shall spend no time in eulogizing this report. I do say that such a report, presented at this time, dealing with this specifiis topic in these words, is little leas than a misrepresentation. Such a document as thia, presented at this particular time in the history of our educational development, and supposed to deal with the practical problem of the correlation of studies, is extremely unfortunate. This discussion has made it plain that there is among Qt a difEerenoe of opinion as to what the term '* correlation of studies" means. This report interprets it to mean the correlation between the studies of the school curriculum, and the intellectual environment of the pupil. Certainly that is not what the term is taken to mean in our current educational literature and in oar our* :f ent educational discussions. It has been claimed on thia platform Committee of Fifteen. 145 that those who nse the phzaae " correlatioa of Btadies," in refer- enoe to the interdependenoe of school anbjecta one with another, are making a strained and improper use of the word. This eriti- ciam is not oorraet. The highest authority that we have, the " Centary Dictionary," gives as a definition of correlation, *Hhe aot of bringing into orderly oonneetion or reciprocal relation." It recites a passage from the great work of Grove, who first made this term familiar in Eaglish scientific literature, in illastration of the meaning of correlation. This is precisely the sense in which the word is nsed by Dr. MoMarry and others, and it is precisely the sense in which we expect to find it ased in this report. There- fore, I say I am disappointed, and grievonsly disappointed, that we have in these passes only a passing reference to the real problem of correlation or concentration as it is before American teachers at the present moment. I can find no fault with the use of the word selected by the Com- mittee, but I do complain that they have not treated the problem, whatever name they chooae to give to it, that we aaked tbem to solve. Instead of that, they have given us a splendid and learned diicuBsion of educational values, an analysis of the history of th» school curriculum, and an elaborate defence of the itatui quo. It is apparent to me, therefore, that this report faces backward and forward. I say this despite the fact that it suggests and argues for more than one important innovation in the curriculum. For one hundred years, ever since the time of Festalozzi, we have been trying to extract the cnrriculam from a philosophical discussion of this sort, bat we have not succeeded in satisfying our- ■elves wholly. We have made great advance, and for that advance we in America are indebti^d more largely to Dr. Harris than to any other single person, living or dead. He has taught us to un- derstand why certain specific branches of knowledge are selected for a place in the curriculum, and now we ask him to tell us how they are to be correlated, or coordinated, or concentrated, in prac- tice, to meet the new demcinds that are made upon the school, and we get no answer in this report. The curriculum that this report recommends to us, and the methods that it outlines, are arrived by an analysis made from the adult point of view. Are we, then, to understand that child study is to be given no hearing ? Are we shut up to formal analysis as the sole method in evolving a practical school plan ? The newer education answers this question directly in the negative. It is putting the child in the place of honor and asking him to tell as what his nature demands and in what order it demands it. Dr. S46 Committee of Fifteen. White has said that the legitimate result of this newer moTement is Individ aaliam in teaching. I agree with him ahaolately. We hope that the time will eome when the individuality o£ every ehild will 1)6 respected. We want to reaoae each child from the thraldom to which the formalism of the schoolroom has subjected him. For the sake of system we sire redneini; fifty; sixty, or seventy individ- ual children in a schoolroom to a common denominator. It is true that there is no universal educational method, and that the Her- bsrtians are as little likely as the Hegelians to provide us with a %nle that shall know no exception. Bat in the point of view that they take, based upon the doctrine of apperception and upon the doctrine of interest, they Are absolutely right, and it is not what we expected from a committee of this kind to find this entire move- ment turned out of court without a hearing. Personally I am a slavish adherent of no school of thought and wear the badge of none, but I do say that we should not be prevented from giving to this great Herbartian movement prolonged and sympathetic exam- ination. Why is it that we find th§^ question of the correla- tion or the C3ne9nt;ration of studies forced upon us at all ? Cer- tainly the normal child-mind sees the world about it as a correlated and concentrated whole. It is the adults and philosophers who liave made the analysis that has reaulted in separating what to the «hild is connected; so that, after all, the advocates of oorrslatiou are simply endeavoring to put the subjects of study back where they found them^ and to treat the curriculum from the child's point of view. The adult is able to distinguish a physical fact from a chemical fact, a geographical fact from an historical fact, «n arithmetical fact from an algebraical fact, but the child is not. He views them all simply as facta, and originally they are all on the same pUne with regard to his intelligence. We must, therefore, aaek the real unity that underlies the curriculum, and not proceed by making first an artificial separation of studies, and then a doubly artificial synthesis of them. A preceding speaker has sharply criticised the psychology of Herbart. It is undoubtedly true that we cannot accept Herbart's psychology as a satiefaotory explanation of mental life. But it is aot necessary that we should do so in order to seonre the benefit of the edacational theory and the educational practice that bears Herbart's name. SuPERlNTEPrDEBrT S. T. DuTTON, BrookUm^ Mas$. : About all lias been said that needs to be said now. It seems to me that the question takes this form — the same God that made the child made Committee of Fifteett. 147 the woild about him. The puTpose of those who mean to work out laomethiog better is to fiad hov the child shoald be taaght. My iriends, we do not recognize the valae of thia report. Dr. Harris said very distinctly that the course of study in point should include the whole round of human koowlsdge. Now, there are two things that have helped me in this matter. My view ia singularly difEer- €nt from Dr. Whitens. If correlation makes the kindergartsn what it is, it seems to me that it should go on. It eeema to me that, in a certain way, this is true ia the first year, in the second, etc. This cro3s section brings in so many things we fiad imposed upon the schools that certain confusion and certain difficulties have been found in working out the Hecbartian plan. The only way is the working out of these prinoiplea. If that is not done, we shall haye reaction. I am not afraid that this wock shall be retarded because of thia report. Every teacher ought to understand this disouieion of educational values. It ought to help us ; it will help us. If this report is not complete, it will be complsted in the good works of teachers in all thia country. [ The chair here announced that Colonel Parker and Dr. Harris would be asked to oloae the debate.] Colonel Fabkeb: Shall we study this que&tion with open and unprejudiced minds ? I am not a Herbartian. I simply ask the most careful study of all these questions and sjstsms. There was a time when method seemed to bs incarcated. Now, in regard to this report and the eminent philosopher who wrote it, I would not say one word escepfc of the most profound respect. I am never going even to make a pun before a teachers' mteting hereafter. When Df . Harris says I do not believe in grammar, he should say that I do not believe in certain methods. I respect butterflies and grubs, but I respect language. When Dr. White says that certain thingtf are plain by coQCsntration, he says what I know nothing about. Herbart said of Featalozzl that his great merit did not consist in his method and his means, but in hie sublime zeal. He who faces this question of education faces infinity. I protest against unfair statemant as to discipleship, following leader, and so forth. I acknowledge that I make such statements myself, but I hope to do better. When Df. White speaks of the great giants, we have but to look at him and know it is true. But do we ever question what has bsen lost ? We are facing the great problems of the twentieth oantury, and the present methods of teaching are not equal to their solution. Under God, let na find the truth and follow it. Let us have the means of knowing what each teacher and each superintendent is doing for the child. Let us not lay iniiiit' 0 019 760 006 8 148 Committee of Fifteen. down a great edaoational dootrina and say, that it ia sufficient* The Sermon on th^ Mount is snffioient for nineteen oentnries ; but what we want is an application of Hegel, of Herbart, and of th& wisdom of all other philosophers to the problems of the fntnre» All hail the f atare ! Db, W. T. Habbis : I wish to add one remark as to the mean- ing of correlation. I would call attention to its etymology, which makes it a bringing into relation of what is oc ordinate. I knew of the Herbartian idea of concentration of studies, but I was not familiar with the use of the word " correlation " in the same sense as concentration. I have given an example in discussing the methods of teaching geography of the application of the deeper doctrine of concentration. I have shown that we should start with the child and proceed in two directions, one towards the elements of difference in order to explain the obstacles which man has to overcome. On the other side, we should go towards the subjects of human industry, invention, and commerce, and learn the method by which man overcomes the " elements of difference." Geog- raphy for the child should begin in the centre and move outward towards these extremes, including at every step a human side and a natural side. This is not a philosophical study of correlation, Hegelian or otherwise, although it has been called so in this de- bate, bat a scientific study of the educational value of the branches of the course of study. I began it in 1870. Now, in a scientific study one does not allow his feelings of attraction or repulsion to cloud his reason. He assumes an unprejudiced attitude towards the object that he studies. Child study, as it is pursued by Dr. Stanley Hall, is pursued with this true scientific spirit. But child study is not the only thing in education, nor can education be founded on child study alone. The child is here to be correlated with the world. The educator must study the world and study the child, and correlate the one to the other. That is to say, he must bring the child into a knowledge of the world and a mastery of its appliances. The report, of course, assumes the value of child study, and in all the numerous places where attention is called to the danger of producing arrested development the results of child study are drawn upon; but, on the other hand, if yon have a knowledge of the child, and do not have a knowledge of the sig- nificance of the branches of study and the way in which they un- lock the world of reality, yon cannot correlate the child with the world.