a at Mm fax bse 2 ree se _— as ba tk ee See TY Ae ae Re ES: Pan = wt] oe : 7 3 A ef OO eee a ee a we a ae Proceedings of the Fighteenth Annual Meeting of the Department of Secondary-School Principals of the National Education Association) + at CLEVELAND, OHIO on February 26, 27 and 28, 1934 Edited by H. V. CHURCH Executive Secretary of the Department Published by the Department, 1954 . CONTENTS PAGE Officers of the Department.................----2222----.-2---22--eeeeeeeeee vii Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting................ 1 GENERAL SESSION “The Place of the Technical High School in Modern Edu- caton,” DeWitt S. Morgan, Arsenal Technical Schools, Indianapolis, Indiana..............................-...------ 2 “New Standards for Secondary Schools,” Charles H. Judd, Create Ol Ce naan cscc ciscncicesensococessecsces -1 “What Constitutes a Good Secondary School and by What Standards Shall It Be Evaluated?” Thomas H. Briggs, Teachers College, Columbia University.......... 15 “What Constitutes a Good Secondary School?” Walter L. Bissell, Central High School, Cleveland........................ 22 “What Constitutes a Good Secondary School and by What Standards Should It Be Evaluated?” Francis L. Ba- con, Evanston Township High School, Evanston, Tiltnois ............... PA ATNe SOT LEME E ENE NE Be ET 24 “The Standards Study Committee,” George E. Carroth- ers, School of Education, University of Michigan...... 30 “Technical High-School Textbooks,” Benjamin F. Com- fort, Cass Technical High School, Detroit, Michigan 33 “The Place of the Junior High School in the Present Or- ganization,” William J. Bogan, Superintendent of Schools, Chicago, Illimois..........2..0.0.0200022222222.eeeeeeeeeeeeee-ee 35 “The Social Significance of the Junior High School,” Harrison H. VanCott, State Supervisor of Junior High Schools, New York........................-:c:cccccssseesesseeeeee “Articulation in Louisville Secondary Schools,” H. E. Bin- ford, Assistant Superintendent in Charge of Secon- dary Schools, Louisville, Ky............................cscceeeeeeees “A Tradition-Free Curriculum for the Junior High School,” Dr. Will French, Associate Superintendent, a ID, id cnsnisisnitiassins ntaceindaeeniesbieeminasamlaaa “The Teacher, the Solution of Our Problem,” R. L. Moore, President of Mars Hill Junior College, Mars Hill, Porte GOON ha ccscacce ice insecccisenecedensodccsinscbacesesasiteieuwensd “Some Problems Confronting the Junior-College Move- ment,” J. J. Oppenheimer, University of Louisville... “The Course of Study in Secondary-School English,” Dr. J. Paul Leonard, College of William and Mary, Wil- IG iiiscccedencsscitisnisscncadesteebticatiabsascpetnaaaaiaadagiacelle “The Traditional Curriculum of the High School Is Chal- lenged by the Activity Curriculum of the Elementary School,” Junius L. Meriam, University of California a eRe Re ae nS ARE “What Can Be Done for the Small Secondary School?” Frank W. Cyr, Teachers College, Columbia Uni- WO iirc cnckistinntinnteeieuma en sei liiaimesiadtilipiamaiaintas i “The Teacher’s Part in the Guidance Program of the Small High School,” Mark Godman, Public School Supervisor, State Department of Education, Frank- OGG, TI ncvissicsastisincsihtattseninpigtiiitindatebimritiantasshidlataes “Class Size in American Secondary Schools,” Verna A. Carley, Associate Professor of Education, Fordham University, and Harold C. Hand, Assistant Professor of Education, Stanford University.........000000000200000..... “The Administration of Attendance in Large High Schools,” Harrison G. Lyseth, State Supervisor of Secondary Education of Maine..............000.....0002..22-------- PAGE 48 ol or 107 134 PAGE “Measuring the Teaching Load,” Harl R. Douglass, Pro- fessor of Secondary Education, University of Minne- ODIs csxinsccisesincnssceiiinsritesecsianieieapaaitiiaaisliaa hialiiainiantiasiaaiiaicaalaa iii 152 “The School Situation in North Carolina and Its Effects Upon Secondary Schools,” W. F. Warren, Durham, FOC CIN i acctecciieccsneilictscrcsccinscatcassenendaiabiiacidaaiat acti 160 “Report of Commission on the Relation of Secondary School and College,” Wilford M. Aikin, Director John Burroughs School, St. Louis, Mo.............000.0.0..... 174 BN IIT cscs des icedaibteaibiadihitaiintaiciedcemsctbepadbeensunanlinn 185 Constitution of the Department of Secondary-School Principals of the National Education Association...... 187 Report of Treasurer, Department of Secondary-School Principals of the National Education Association...... 190 “Our Educational Imperatives,” Dr. Wm. J. Hutchins, President of Berea College, Kentucky.......................... 193 “Second Annual Report of the Committee on the Orienta- tion of Secondary Education,” Thomas H. Briggs, Chairman, Teachers College, Columbia University.... 202 “Meeting Student Welfare Needs,” Paul E. Elicker, Prin- cipal, Newton High School, Newtonville, Mass......... 208 “Legitimate Economies in the High-School Program,” H. T. Steeper, Principal of North High School, Des pe Coe Nc: a ee + SMES SN Ty 216 “The Educational Program of the Civilian Conservation Corps,” C. S. Marsh, Educational Director, Civilian Conservation Corps, Washington, D. C...........000.0....... 219 “Reorganizing the Social Studies in the University High ee Cit, a ici civicsccchacekshabtveiabiemaniicee 229 “Aptitude Testing as Undertaken by the Round Table of Southeastern Michigan,” Edgar G. Johnston, Prin- cipal, University High School, Ann Arbor, Mich..... 238 National Honor Society, Meeting of the National Council 253 Constitution of the Department of Secondary-School Prin- THE OFFICERS OF THE DEPARTMENT President: CHAS. F. ALLEN Principal of West Side Junior High School, Little Rock, Ark. First Vice President: HARRISON C. LYSETH State Supervisor, Secondary Education, Augusta, Maine Second Vice President: WILLARD N. VAN SLYCK Principal Topeka High School, Topeka, Kansas EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ROBERT CLEM Principal Shawnee High School, Louisville, Ky. MERTON C. HILL Chaffey Junior College, Ontario, Calif. W. L. NEWTON Principal Home Free Academy, Rome, N. Y. EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION of the | Department of Secondary-School | Principals of the NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION The eighteenth annual meeting of the Department of Sec- ondary-School Principals met in Cleveland, Ohio, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, February 26, 27 and 28, 1934. THE GENERAL SESSION The first session of the eighteenth annual meeting of the Department of Secondary-School Principals was opened by the Choral Club of the John Adams High School of Cleveland, under the direction of Thomas Roberts, singing: Come Again, Sweet Love.....2....0002...22222220.2---- Dowland IE csicisccnpicirssrneninstetiiessttitiiiailiaaiil Palestrina Matoma, Lovely Maiden....................222.2.....---+--+- Lassus Oft in the Stilly Night........00002 2 Brahms Glory to God, the Father........................ Rachmaninoff At 1:55 P. M. Professor G. W. Rosenlof, president of the National Association of High School Inspectors and Super- visors, introduced Robert B. Clem, president of the Depart- ment of Secondary-School Principals, and Principal Ernest D. Lewis of Childs High School of New York City. ry Principal DeWitt S. Morgan of Arsenal Technical High School of Indianapolis read his paper. DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS THE PLACE OF THE TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL IN MODERN EDUCATION DEWITT S. MORGAN Principal, Arsenal Technical Schools Indianapolis, Indiana A technical high school is a secondary school whose cur- riculum organization and practices exhibit its major purposes to be to prepare pupils in the arts and sciences, in the under- lying practices in some trades, and to help (with emphasis on help) qualify them to engage in a trade or some branch of productive industry. With this statement in mind as to the character and pur- poses of the technical high school, may I cite a statement of a committee of the Department of Superintendence as reported in the Sixth Yearbook. The committee said, “Education in a democracy, both within and without the school, should develop in each individual the knowledge, interests, ideals, habits, and powers whereby he will find his place and use that place to shape both himself and society towards our nobler ends.” There must be some highly important implications for education in the social facts which we face if we really believe that education should be definitely helpful to pupils in finding a place for themselves. We hear much about the new popula- tion in the secondary school. What is it that is new about the new population? Perhaps first in order of mention is the fact that they have come to the high school in increasingly larger proportion from parental and home background where inter- ests are in mechanical and technical processes. The recent bulletin of the National Survey of Education, The Secondary- School Population, makes a comparative study of occupational background of pupils of the school population of Seattle, Washington, in 1920 and 1930, based upon the study of Dr. George S. Counts in 1930. Now this bulletin does not necessarily imply that these pupils from these occupational groups will find their liveli- ma & ee e 4 fe iwte Aac te Me FM lOUuClCOURR COe ml — — PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 3 hood in these groups. But we do know that native interest, native aptitude, and social contact which carries with it op- portunity, will draw them in the same general occupational direction. Furthermore, we know even more surely that oc- cupational opportunity is largest in these fields. In the United States as a whole in 1930, 40% of all gainfully employed workers were in manufacturing and mechanical industries and trades. In these east North Central states, 53% of all gainfully employed workers were in those occupational classes. With family heritage of interest in mechanical fields, with occupational opportunity most likely there, it does not seem unreasonable that educational interest can best be caught with activities related to these fields of work. The most pressing problem of secondary-school admin- istration is to find the kind of education which will effectually serve, not alone the 25 who may have opportunity for fur- ther training, but at the same time equally serve the 75 for whom the high school is the last contact with education. The Commission on the Survey of Higher and Secondary Education in California in 1932, under the direction of the late Dr. Suzzalo, reads, “After some years of common school- ing, a considerable portion of students in compulsory attend- ance show a lapse of interest. The fact that such persons dis- play limited ability-in liberal studies may indicate that their chief powers lie in other directions than the purely literary or mathematical studies. Here arises the necessity for provid- ing vocational courses of a quality and value equal to, and co- 6rdinate with, those of an academic nature. This situation involves growing numbers of cases as larger and larger groups of the population move through the school system to- ward the upper levels of common schooling. New intellec- tual opportunities and new opportunities for specialized voca- tional training are then plainly indicated, the more so be- cause little by little the school has been forced to assume re- sponsibilities that the home and industry cannot or will not longer perform.” But it is in place to inquire whether there really is a kind of preparation in the arts and sciences, in the underlying 4 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS practices in some trades, which is effectual both for the edu- cational growth of those in the high schools and which will actually help them to find their place according to the condi- tions which they actually face. The problem of finding a place in society promises to be critical enough even for the college- trained for years to come. Certainly it can be no less acute for the larger multitude who will leave school at the end of, or within, the secondary-school period. It seems increasingly clear that the future economic welfare of large numbers of our pupils will depend in large measure upon their ability to “light on their feet” through a series of enforced occupational tryouts in the form of unemployment and re-employment. For many who have these personal attributes which will bring ad- vancement, the rub comes in getting a start. For those who do not possess these personal attributes, it is necessary for them to get many starts. In either case, the offerings which are now common to the technical high schools as we know them are such that certain elementary skills may be developed which will help pupils, especially in the lower occupational groups, gain that all-important thing—an initial foothold—in the industrial order. This factor of getting initial employment dare not be for- gotten in thinking of the kind of training which will help the larger number of our pupils to find a place for themselves. We make a mistake if we do not think about the practical vocational training which will help our pupils get a start on a job. There must be training which will contribute to adjust- ment to changing conditions as well as for enlarging oppor- tunity. To meet this dual problem, it seems that the tehnical high school is or can be especially adapted, and in this it has a unique opportunity. It can offer a broad industrial training in basic and underlying practices in a range of industrial areas. But at the same time, for those whose interests and personal conditions demand, it can narrow its training early. For others, it can defer such specialized training until a PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 5 sound industrial and accompanying academic foundation has been laid. But we are coming to know that our occupational scheme is not a mere hodge-podge of disconnected and isolated proc- esses despite the fact that extreme specialization and division of labor made it appear to be such. There is a training in arts and sciences of general application which will contribute to occupational adjustment for new manufacturing processes. There are basic underlying practices. These persist though new devices come with invention and progress. The turning of woods and the turning of metals, processes of planing, shaping and drilling are basic fundamental practices. The most modern electric-driven, high-geared, infinitely powerful but infinitely accurate lathe is but a refinement of the simple lathes of earlier days. These modern machines are faster, easier to operate, sometimes automatic, but they are for the most part but new adaptations and refinements of a simple machine to do a basic process. There are basic knowledges of practices and principles without knowledge of which a youth in this modern day finds himself in a daze in modern industry. There are fundamentals upon which we can build a broad technical training. We can make our pupils more able to meet the demands of a machine age, keep them somewhat abreast of modern refinements of basic processes, and at the same time, as ability and maturity will permit, develop a specific skill which in normal times will be in reasonable demand. Nor does the training of the technical high school need to close the door to further educational opportunity for any pupil. The tendency of many of our colleges to liberalize en- trance requirements makes it possible for many pupils whose future is uncertain, who may need to earn their way, to secure technical training and at the same time meet college re- quirements. This is all possible provided the technical school curriculum is flexible enough to modify the program of each pupil to meet his own individual ability and need. Many of our high schools to-day are graduating pupils who have de- veloped a high skill in commercial art and at the same time 6 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS have completed courses which fully meet entrance require- ments of colleges and universities. For many of our girls, training in bake shop or in office practice, accompanied by courses required for college entrance, seems to be the solution of the problem of training for those of high ability, high aims, but without money. We should not and we need not make this training for a mechanical age close the road to higher training for any pupil who can profit thereby. We be- lieve that for many the technical high school can solve an edu- cational dilemma. Many now prepare definitely for earning a living and by proper subject election they prepare for higher training if the opportunity ever comes. - Nor is it true that a program of opportunity for tech- nical training will in any way minimize, for those who need it, individual opportunity for cultural and civic training. Very wisely the California commission warns in its recognition of need for definite training as quoted above that “the trade or industrial teacher has the responsibility of socializing or civ- ilizing the student through connecting to the fullest possible extent his vocational activity with the rest of civilized life.” We do not believe that the inclusion of technical training in education of our pupils limits in any way opportunity for their socialization ; in fact, we believe it is an agency to aid in this. The processes of socialization and civilization are not mere reading books about coéperation and the duties of a citizen. Civilizing of our pupils (as the California commis- sion speaks of it) is not mere getting pupils into discussion groups for an academic discussion of the responsibilities of the individual in an interdependent society. The English schoolmaster has long had as great faith in the civilizing in- fluence of the playfield as he has had in a program of civic teaching through the precepts of the classroom. Very prop- erly can we trust the effectiveness of the projects of our school shops in teaching, but suggestion, the potency of codperation and we can do this under conditions similar to those under which many of our pupils will work. And apart from con- cepts and attitudes so important for socialization and civiliza- tion (and which come more from suggestion than from pre- PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 7 cept after all) we do not forget that the important thing to make of a boy a good citizen is to make it possible for him to make his services sufficiently valuable that society will pay him for what he does; that he can earn an honest living, pay his bills when they come due, live honorably and wholesomely, confident that he and his children can rely on the clarity of his mind, the strength of his body, and the skill of his hands to get food and clothing and shelter. Such is, after all, the foundation of good citizenship. We believe that the phrase “We live in a machine age” has more than an academic significance for education. It im- plies need for an adaptation of education to which we hope the technical high school will contribute. Our pupils will live morning, noon, and night with and by machines. In finding their place they are going to meet the need for knowledge of technical processes on every hand. Some will only be able to learn a little, others much; some will need to know but little to perform their humble duties, others will need to know much in positions of great responsibility. But in the age in which we now live and our children will live, a knowledge of the arts and sciences and their applications to the underlying practices of industry will be for the larger majority a basic factor in their success in finding their places in society. We only hope that we may plan and work with sufficient vision and intelligence that we can give them the kind of schools they deserve to have. Dean Charles H. Judd of the School of Education of the University of Chicago read his manuscript. NEW STANDARDS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS CHARLES H. JUDD University of Chicago When the North Central Association of Colleges and Sec- ondary Schools was organized in 1895, one of the first ques- tions which the Association attempted to answer was the same 8 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS as that which we are assembled to discuss at this meeting. After due consideration the Association formulated a defini- tion of a well-organized high school. The items which entered into this definition came later to be called standards. The list of standards has in the course of time been greatly enlarged. Agencies such as the Carnegie Foundation and numerou: re- gional associations have contributed new standards and many so-called interpretations have been agreed upon until now a formidable array of requirements confronts any secondary school which asks to be recognized as worthy of approval. While the North Central Association and other regional standardizing bodies have been active in developing lists of approved schools, state universities, state departments of pub- lic instruction and, in some instances, individual institutions of higher education have found it necessary to extend the scope of their approval so as to include secondary schools which do not conform to all of the requirements of the general regional standardizing associations. There are as a result a number of different kinds of approved schools. In fact, one may say that classification of schools depends on the classifier to such a degree that one is forced to question the justification for the use of the word “standard” in describing the bases of the different kinds of approval. The disposition to be critical of standards is further rein- forced by such well-known facts as the following. Graduates of secondary schools which cannot meet the standards of any of the regional associations not infrequently succeed in college quite as well as do graduates of approved schools. It also hap- pens in a distressingly large number of cases that graduates of approved schools fall by the way when they attempt to carry college work. Furthermore, reports regarding graduates is- sued by two secondary schools which conform fully to the most rigid standards are often of such different degrees of re- liability that one finds it impossible to believe that standard- ization has achieved the result hoped for when the system was inaugurated. It is a generally accepted view that the time has come when a reconsideration of the standardizing movement will PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 9 have to be undertaken. The North Central Association has been working for several years on the problem of reconstruct- ing its system of approval of colleges and has arrived at some very interesting conclusions with regard to the inadequacy of its old standards for colleges. The Commission on Secondary Schools of that Association, following the example of the Com- mission on Institutions of Higher Education, is preparing to make a thorough study of its standards. The United States Commissioner of Education, who was largely influential‘ in initiating the studies of college standards in the North Cen- tral Association, has organized a national co-operating com- mittee to deal with the problem of devising new methods of approving secondary schools. The dean of a school of education who is called on to state his views as to the direction in which any movement to- ward a new plan of standardization should trend will, of course, be largely influenced by his desire to see the secondary schools of the country organize their activities in accordance with the results of scientific study of education. One broad, general] statement which can be made as clearly indica’ ng the point of view of a dean of a school of education is that nothing can be justified in a secondary school merely on the ground that it is now there. Tradition is a natural guide but very frequently a wholly unsafe guide. That secondary school which complaisantly continues year after year to follow the same curriculum, to proceed in its classrooms by the same methods, to regulate the conduct of its pupils by the same rules of discipline is not a good school. In order to make the import of the foregoing statements clear by means of a definite, concrete recommendation, I may say that if I were compelled to judge secondary schools on the basis of a single standard I should set up that standard in somewhat the following form: From the principal of each sec- ondary school applying for approval is required a report indi- cating some particular in which experimental modification has been undertaken during the past year in the curriculum, class organization, methods of dealing with the public or the pupils, 10 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS or in some other phase of school work. This report shall in- clude a clear description of the plan of the experiment under- taken and an evaluation of the results obtained by the experi- ment. In case a principal reported that no experiment had been undertaken in his school during the past year, I should have no slightest hesitation in putting the school on probation. If a similar condition of stagnation were reported a second time, I should have no hesitation in removing the school from the approved list. It has been one of the most disastrous conse- quences of the standardizing practices of the past that they have tolerated stagnation. They have allowed schools to re- gard themselves as good in comparison with a series of mini- mum requirements derived from the average of a group. They have not compelled schools to compare themselves with them- selves and to show progress as an essential evidence of ap- provable vitality. The second standard which I should stress would be a standard relating to personnel work with pupils. Concretely, the standard would be as follows: Report six cases in which pupils showing signs of maladjustment in their courses or in their general social relations were fully readjusted through special attention given them by the school staff. Describe the way in which these cases were discovered, the way in which they were treated, and present the evidence that the treat- ment was successful. The reason why the foregoing standard calls for six cases only is that this number is sufficient to provide a sample of what the school is doing. If each efficient principal of a sec- ondary school described six cases of effective readjustment of pupils each year, educational literature would be enriched to the point where it would become really stimulating. The third standard would be as follows: The principal of the school shall cause to be transmitted to the inspector one or more statements from committees of the faculty with re- gard to plans which they have matured during the year for the cultivation in the pupils of the school habits of reading or PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 11 independent effort wholly outside the assignments of any course. Lists of books read or of constructive activities un- dertaken or of excursions organized and carried to successful completion should be submitted as a part of each statement. This third standard emphasizes the view that no school is a good school which is limited in its influence on its pupils to classroom exercises. It is a curious fact about the conven- tional standards used in times past that they call for descrip- tions of static qualities and deal very little with evidences of effective influence. It can be readily shown that a static qual- ity is no virtue. The three standards suggested up to this point may be classified as standards relating to symptoms of vitality. I should require each school on the approved list to report on these three standards each year. Reports on these standards will show whether the operations of the school are vigorous and aggressive. I draw a sharp distinction between these standards and those which refer to characteristics of the school which have to do with certain less variable traits. Lest I should be misunderstood, let me pause to say with all em- phasis that the distinction which I am trying to draw is not a distinction which deals with comparative importances, but is a distinction which deals with aspects or characteristics that differ in nature. A comparatively permanent aspect of a secondary school is its curriculum or the training of its staff. A more permanent aspect is its building equipment. The building probably does not need to be made a matter of ex- amination more than once in every six or eight years. When the building has been inspected and made a subject of report, it can be assumed from that time on for a number of years. The only question which needs to be raised is the question of the way in which the building is cared for and used. Simi- larly the staff and the curriculum will change slowly. The gradual changes in the curriculum will be reported when they occur as a part of the program of experimentation called for under the first standard recommended in an earlier section of ’ this paper. Reports on new members of the staff might be re- 12 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS quired every two years. I judge that there ought to be a re- port on the curriculum as a whole at least every three years. I should like to suggest the form of the curriculum stand- ard which may be thought of as standard number four in my proposed list: The principal shall give an account of the kind of population which surrounds the school, the kinds of posi- tions to which graduates of the school go, the available re- sources of the community for the support of schools. On the background of the foregoing statements, the principal shall give a description of the curriculum administered by the school, describing the reasons for each course included. The suggested standard four seems to me to represent a view regarding standards which is worthy of careful consid- eration. Each school is here thought of as an agency func- tioning in a community. To be sure, the community must not be narrowly conceived. The reason why attention is called to the positions to which graduates go is that the larger commu- nity must be constantly kept in mind. The curriculum is, however, a community service, not a relic of historical pasts brought down from communities which lived totally different lives from those lived by the present generation. The cur- riculum is an evolving service. Its units do not fluctuate from day to day, but they should change in a tempo which comports with the tempo of social change in the community around the school. If civilization brings to the surface new obligations which arise from new complex forms of industrial or eco- nomic organization, the school must change its curriculum service. It was stated in an earlier paragraph that the order in which standards have been presented is not an indication of their comparative importance. We are now at the point in our discussion where it may be appropriate to say that per- haps the curriculum standard should be thought of as the most important standard in the whole list. It is so important that it should certainly not be allowed to continue to be formu- lated in the terms in which it has commonly been expressed by the conventional standardizing agencies. The curriculum ° PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 13 of secondary schools has not only tended to remain static in the past; it has been compelled to remain static by the stand- ards enforced by colleges and regional associations. Partic- ular subjects have been specifically mentioned and artificially maintained in the curriculum by highly detailed standards. Suppose that a school should arrive at the advanced stage of intelligence where it decided to let pupils do some of their English as independent reading. Should not the curriculum standard permit the school to adopt a new quantification of its English? Suppose that a way can be found of teaching the useful concepts of mathematics without encumbering the pu- pils’ programs with the trash which scholastic tradition has embedded in the conventional courses in algebra and demon- strative geometry. Should a school be outlawed for improv- ing its treatment of this important subject? There should certainly be a curriculum standard, but not a subject-program which is fixed and universally enforced. Perhaps enough has been said to make clear the way in which a dean of a school of education would operate in setting up new standards for secondary schools. The sample stand- ards do not fully cover the ground, but they indicate the di- rection in which reform should move. I am quite sure that one objection will be raised to the procedure which has been recommended. It will be said that the principal is here called upon to make reports which are intolerably arduous and unnecessarily long. The whole pro- gram should be simplified, it will be said, so that an intelli- gent clerk or an assistant principal at most can check off some twenty or thirty items and be done with the distasteful task of reporting on the school. I am not unaware of the multifarious duties which must be performed by administrative officers. I am also inhibited somewhat by the demands of common courtesy from speaking on this occasion all that is in my mind. I will not under present circumstances make the statement that most secondary-school principals seem to be almost illiterate if judged by the writings for which they hold themselves responsible. I will not say that 14 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS the principal who does not produce with reasonable frequency discussions of some aggressive experiment is falling so far short of his duty and opportunity that he ought to seriously consider resigning. I will not say that the whole profession needs to be stirred by a new type of standard which will dras- tically eliminate those who object to intelligent and intelligi- ble professional reports. I will merely say that in my judg- ment there is room for improvement among secondary-school principals in their attitude toward carefully prepared discus- sions of their doings. If I have by indirect intimation given a vague idea of what I think standards should do for principals, I may per- haps be allowed somewhat greater liberty in stating what I think of those who enforce standards through inspection. I once operated as an inspector of secondary schools for the state department of public instruction in Connecticut. I know how much easier it is to condemn incompetency by citing the ten commandments than it is to make clear by a plain straight- forward statement why a school is inadequate. I know how much easier it is to add up a score card than to form a real judgment. I, too, have been irked as an inspector at the neces- sity of making reports. With ali the experience which I have had and with what I have witnessed of formalism in the op- eration of standardizing agencies, I am now ready to say that a dean of a school of education regards about nine-tenths of the arduous work done by school inspectors as more courageous than constructive. I would that standards and modes of accrediting schools might be devised which make the inspector a consultant rather than a jailer. I would that the major attention of our regional associations might be devoted to the collection and distribution of fine statements of best practices rather than to the exposure of the lame, the halt and the blind. I may be misled by my desires but I think not. I feel confi- dent that the old standards have had their day. They did their service nobly at a time when secondary schools were emerging out of the darkness. The new standards will have to be differ- ent, because the whole social situation is different. We are to- PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 15 day in possession of scientific instruments of evaluation and we can find on every hand stimulating examples of progress. We have a new concept of public education. We are outliving formalism and petty regard for trivialities. We have learned to think in terms of function rather than in terms of struc- ture. Professor Thomas H. Briggs of Columbia University read his paper. WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD SECONDARY- SCHOOL AND BY WHAT STANDARDS SHALL IT BE EVALUATED? THOMAS H. BRIGGS Teachers College, Columbia University After all the years that we have spent in developing sec- ondary schools and in discussing what they ought to be, no one of us should be embarrassed by the question we are set to answer. But, in entire frankness and in humility, I confess that I, for one, am embarrassed. You and I have never reached any complete agreement on what a good secondary school is, and in the short time allotted each speaker no one of us can adequately even outline his own conception. But per- haps we can set forth some of the details and some of the prin- ciples to be considered in reaching an answer. Standards can be of two kinds. The first is the kind set up some years ago by our associations of colleges and secon- dary schools and generally copied by every state department of education. These “present wooden standards,” as Commis- sioner Zook in his recent masterly paper calls them, concern the attendant machinery of education. They are easily used in evaluation; they were much needed at the time when they were formulated; and they have proved of great value in the period when the nation was multiplying schools and improv- ing the facilities for education. It seems now unfortunate, as we look back over the past fifteen or more years, that they 16 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS were not supplemented by other standards that served to di- rect education itself. But let us not be too severe in our con- demnation. Such standards have served useful purposes. We all agree that they need to be replaced by better ones. Another kind of standard measures adequacy in terms of objectives, the competence of a school to do the work for which it is established and maintained. There have been many at- tempts, both here and in other countries, by central authori- ties to measure the accomplishment of students who have pur- sued the courses offered. The principle is sound enough, but it has been so administered as to thwart sound educational purposes. Almost if not entirely without exception the set examinations have attempted to measure the extent to which pupils have mastered traditional subject matter, and as a re- sult they have unfortunately emphasized in the minds of both the profession and the laiety the importance of that subject matter and of perpetuating it. This has been the result of our College Entrance Examination Board, of the New York Re- gents, and of the various agencies in the several European countries. Recent studies stimulated by the international Conference on Examinations have impeached both the valid- ity and the reliability of the European examinations, and those commonly given in our own country have long ceased to command the respect of those who know the facts. But although the examinations have been badly made and have in consequence had maleficent effects, the principle of measuring results is sound. Schools by and large need some check-up to insure that their energies are rightly directed, and unless the evaluation is made by impartial agencies the public can have no assurance that its money is wisely spent and its children are properly educated. Before Herr Hitler disrupted the program the German Republic was promoting a plan to set up very definite objectives for all secondary schools, to leave to each Gymnasium the decision as to what means it would use to achieve them, and then to measure by the best means possible the achievements. Perhaps one of the greatest sins to be laid at the door of the dictator is his inter- ruption of this program. We could do worse than adopt it. — ss me ht mt fe rf oe sb PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 17 But objectives of secondary education, soundly based, clearly enunciated, and definitely directive, are precisely what we do not have. We have never had them. It is true that from the beginning in our country we have set forth in broad general terms objectives for secondary education, but like political platforms they have been neglected and forgotten in administration. The earliest Latin Grammar Schools were professedly organized to prepare boys for service to church and state, the Philips Andover Academy was established to train youth for “the great end and real business of living,” the first public high school was “to bring the powers of the mind into operation [and] to qualify a youth to fill usefully and respectably many of those stations, both public and pri- vate, in which he may be placed,” and to-day we speak of training leaders for the new citizenship. But when we look at the curricula offered and prescribed from 1635 to 1934 we have difficulty in associating the means proposed—the Latin, the mathematics, and the rest—with the professed objectives. A measurement, however unscientific it may have been, of achievement in terms of the declared objectives would betray ineffectiveness now, though to a less degree, as it would have done when Ezekiel Cheever wielded his rod in Boston. Per- haps we need such measurements, examinations by an impar- tial central authority, of the extent to which stated objectives are achieved, to stimulate us to sincerity and consistency. Our spirit has been that of laissez faire. Some highly professional leaders have realized the need that secondary schools have of guidance, but have felt that in the formative period we had best not standardize too strictly lest experi- mentation and progress be hindered. This spirit has certainly not hindered experimentation, but with equal certainty it has not to any notable extent stimulated it. There have been many experiments, it is true, mostly in minor and loosely re- lated matters; but we have developed no habit and no tech- nique of carefully evaluating novelties; and, unfortunately, we have by and large no ardent desire to incorporate into gen- eral practice even those procedures that seem successful. We are a conservative people, as the uniformity of our secondary 18 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS schools without central compulsion proves, and we change slowly. We even procrastinate shamelessly to incorporate into our programs what the most scientific research proves. Far more schools now need guidance into better practices than need freedom to an experimentation for which they have nei- ther the vision nor the competence. I have hearty sympathy with the movement to restate our standards, and I have no doubt that the commission of the North Central Association will formulate a set far better than any that we have had before. But by logic I am compelled to the conclusion that before we can propose satisfactory stand- ards we must far more definitely than we have done before agree on what we want secondary schools to produce. In the field of mechanics we have standards definite to the thou- sandth of an inch. Why? Because in designing a radio tube or a carburetor we decide first of all precisely what we wish it todo. Although even in mechanics such precision as I have mentioned is not always used, the principle of objective de- sired is the beginning of planning and of evaluation. A pur- chaser wanting a motor truck, considers what work it will have to do, decides on the characteristics that seem desirable, and then in those terms considers the offerings of the market. The objectives of secondary education may of necessity at present be somewhat less definite; but if we do not at first decide what we want the institution to produce, how can we plan its procedure, either in general or in detail, and how can we evaluate its success? It is futile to retort that we don’t want an exact and uni- form product. Certainly we don’t. But what do we want the secondary school to produce? If we say youth better prepared for the service of church and state, we ascertain what these institutions demand and then devise means of training youth to perform the required services “justly, skilfully, and mag- nanimously.” If we say youth trained for “the great end and real business of living,” we have first to learn what that ideal requires before we can either plan or evaluate. If we say leadership, we must as a basis for everything subsequent con- PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 19 sider the kinds of leadership desired—not such certainly as Al Capone and banker Mitchell and promoter Insull and the dem- agogic senator from Louisiana have manifested—and then specify the qualities and activities necessary to insure it. If we say competent to share richly in the cultural heritage of civilization, we must first know what that culture is and then plan the training that one must have to receive and enjoy it. It should be manifest that our primary need is agreement on objectives that are soundly based, clearly enunciated, and def- initely directive. Without them we can neither plan wisely nor evaluate sensibly. For a number of years I have struggled to clarify my own mind on these matters. But the task is difficult and ex- ceedingly complex, the struggle leading one into consideration of the most fundamental problems of life as well as of educa- tion in general. About some of them I have come to be reason- ably clear. I have tried not only to learn what the good life is but also to approximate it in some of its many phases. I have for my own guidance formulated definitions of education, non- restricting but guiding and stimulating. I have examined and considered various types of organization proposed and used to facilitate education. I have attempted to evaluate devices of many sorts as means of achieving desired ends. I have vis- ited many classes and in them found manifestations of every- thing from ignorant aimlessness to superb purposeful genius. And yet I confess in humility that I am not sure that I know what a good secondary school is. By the ideals that I have formulated I can judge that in one part or another a school is to a certain extent good. But, like you, I need the help of all the combined wisdom in our profession to know more def- initely the large objectives that the school is expected to achieve, so that by such criteria I may judge of the school’s value. Like most other things in life, a school is seldom, if ever, wholly good or wholly bad. It may have a poor entrance and a good exit, good teaching and relatively useless subject mat- ter, a fine record system and poor results to record—and all of these assets and liabilities run, as we all know, through an 20 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS amazing range from the best to the worst. “Good,” as Josiah Royce long ago taught in his Studies of Good and Evil, is meaningless until qualified by a prepositional phrase. A school must be adjudged good for something, and that something must be defined before one can make a meaningful evaluation of a school’s worth. Consequently I am skeptical and hopeless of any attempt to prepare a set of standards that do not de- velop from clear definitions of the most fundamental matters. When I have attempted to lead my students into an under- standing of this principle and of my definitions that are in- tended to direct and stimulate without restriction, I seldom hear a dissent. They are likely to accept the principle and to approve the definitions. But then, with the exception of that rare and delightful genius who loves to think for himself and to blaze a path through the wilderness, they are likely to pro- ceed by asking for some authority to tell them exactly what a good high school should do. Recognizing that the great ma- jority of men and women who become successful administra- tive officers and teachers have neither the time nor the genius to think the problems through for themselves, to build detailed programs on foundations of principles, I am ready to accept any temporary help that standardizing agencies can provide. But ultimately the leaders must go back to fundamental prin- ciples and then evaluate in terms of them. The demand for new standards is just another evidence of the growing sense of need for more fundamental concepts of education—indeed of the meaning of democracy and of life itself. Such concepts must be formulated and popularized be- fore the new program for high schools can be made. And I have undisturbed faith that we are steadily growing into a state of mind that will be satisfied with nothing less than a basic attack on the whole problem. The Committee on the Orientation of Secondary Education is attempting to do some of the spade work necessary before the first stones of the foundation can be laid. When enough of us keenly realize the need, the means will, I have no doubt, be abundantly provided to finance the construction. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 21 There is a vast difference, on the one hand, between em- phasizing the need for laying a foundation before remodeling the structure in which we are to work, emphasizing the need and proposing, however vaguely, a plan for procedure, and, on the other hand, the irresponsible criticisms and demands that somehow, miraculously and immediately, secondary edu- cation be reformed. From various quarters we hear that sec- ondary schools must create a new social order, that they must abandon the old edifice before the plans are approved or even drawn for a new one, that we must evangelize for a new pro- gram before we have even agreed what ends we wish to reach, that we must create fused curricula, abandoning such wealth as empiricism has developed. I have no hostility to a new so- cial order, providing it is better than the one in which we live; but before moving out of a home that has proved not wholly bad, common sense demands that the promised land be of proved superiority. And always there are other possible ha- vens than the one loudly advertised by an agent who has never kept his own house in order. I would encourage evangelists, providing they are devoted to a gospel which they understand so thoroughly that they can convince us of its superiority to what may be revealed by wiser men. And, incidentally, I am skeptical of any evangelist unless he manifests that the gospel which he promotes has made his own life enviable. I have no objection to fused courses, providing they do not merely melt base metals and offer the amalgam as pure gold. I welcome the frontier thinker, providing his frontier is not a barren desert or a miasmatic morass. But I am sick unto nausea of charlatans in education, no less than in politics, finance, and religion, who by sweeping condemnation damn all of your work, who with loud reiterations of empty clichés advertise empty bottles, who by vague promises emanating from shallow thought tempt you away from fundamental building, and who by solemn mien hiding vague indefiniteness urge you to abandon your own thinking and to follow their own peculiar will-o’-the-wisps. “That way madness lies.” Reform we do need in secondary education; every one admits that. Civilization has again marched ahead while most of the schools are still two, three, or more stations behind. 22 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS But change is not necessarily progress; and safe and wise progress is not possible until we are orientated, until we have decided in what direction we wish to go. Minds accustomed to immediate practicalities become impatient with the tedious thinking necessitated by consideration of fundamental princi- ples. But if they are not willing to do such thinking themselves, they should at least appreciate the need and possess them- selves in sympathetic patience while the work is being done. Healthy reform takes time, but it is the only kind worth while. Instead of becoming too impatient and either following quack- eries, on the one hand, or subsiding into contented and thought- less robots, on the other, let us insist on a fundamental re- building of secondary education, participate in it if we can, encourage every honest effort, and after the program has won our understanding and approval, translate it into the most ef- ficient practice. The Point of View of the High-School Teacher was pre- sented by Walter Bissell, of Central High School of Cleveland. WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD SECONDARY SCHOOL? The Point of View of a High-School Teacher WALTER L. BISSELL Teacher, Central High School, Cleveland A good secondary school must meet the challenge of the times. Everywhere drastic economies have increased the teach- er’s load. The first challenge to the teacher is to do as good a job, better if possible, with less time per pupil to do it in. He must conserve time and strength by calling upon the pupils for greater codperation in the work of teaching. For instance, English teachers spend too much energy in checking errors in composition work. Pupils, all but the dullest, can be trained to check each other’s work. Let a class build its own composi- tion scale and use it in evaluating the work of its members. TH wt a AelllC Kl ll Ke Olle Ure Olle a Xi we we ee ot la el PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 23 Much of the distress in the world to-day is traceable to the inadequate training of the citizenry in social and govern- mental coéperation. The teacher and school must meet this challenge by training for citizenship more seriously than ever before. Splendid school projects carried out by members of a student council or by a few pupils voluntarily working for an honorary service award suggest the possibilities of the school as a laboratory for training in social service. Why not broaden the scope? We have courses in applied art; why not a course in applied social service? It could be handled in a manner analogous to that of physical education. It would be a correlation between the history department and the home room teacher. Credit would count for graduation. In such a course the theory of community living might be taught per- haps one day a week, but the greater part of the credit would be earned by actual service performed in the school and in the school neighborhood. Our graduates to-day are going out into a disillusioned world. Idols have been smashed, war has been stripped of glory, captains of finance discredited, and ideals turned topsy- turvy. Perhaps the gravest danger to our youth is not his realization that he goes out into a world that has no job for him, but rather the realization that he faces a world of con- fused ideals. If we destroy for him the glamour of acquisi- tion and the glory of power, we must give him other ideals in their place. As never before we must dramatize for him the conquests of the craftsman, the tradesman, the scientist, the artist, the social worker. In the absence of Mr. Bacon, his paper was read by title. 24 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD SECONDARY SCHOOL AND BY WHAT STANDARDS SHOULD IT BE EVALUATED The Point of View of the Secondary-School Principal FRANCIS L. BACON Principal, Evanston Township High School Evanston, Illinois No one would like to know the answer to the question, “What constitutes a good high school” more than the average high-school principal. The insistently immediate and future concern of the high school principal with standards for buildings and equipment must perforce, be related to the most economical use of all phy- sical facilities. Adequate space, by all means, but a hitherto un- known flexibility of standards is highly desirable. These stan- dards should be determined and applied through the findings of research in respect to architectural suitability, building mate- rials, space provisions, and adaptation of apparatus and equip- ment. What constitutes a good high school in these respects would not rest, except in a few specific items, upon comparabil- ity of a given situation to a set of previously arrived at stan- dards but rather upon the degree of effectiveness to which all of the available physical factors have been utilized. May I hope that principals will agree when I say that the high-school principal should know what he wants and how to go about getting it. The principal must be an appraiser of val- ues, an interpreter of standards, and an translator of ideas into realization. Although I do not presume to speak authoritatively for the American secondary-school principalship; it is my de- sire to point out with necessary brevity a few observations on this conception of the principalship and its relation to the topic under discussion. Much is said about college admission standards but there _is little the individual high school can do in the determination — Dp & we fF a), a ee ae ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee — eS St Sl) OO j=} PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 25 of these standards. The high school can and probably should concern itself markedly with the influences which the college preparatory standards exert upon the standards of instruction and the organization and content of the curriculums. Certainly it may be strongly argued that secondary schools should set up their own standards for graduation requirements, for scholas- tic achievement, and for the suitability of subject matter,—and all of these, quite apart from college specifications. Subject content and methods of presentation need a new set of evaluated standards on the basis of what is truly best for the pupils. An indication that principals are alert on this point is evidenced by the committee created by the Department of Secondary-School Principals upon the objectives, the issues, and the functions of secondary education. The high school es- pecially needs the development of standards which may be ef- fectively translated into the life of the pupils and of the com- munity. Existing and past standards have been too intimately related to the pedagogical world. How well does the school meet the needs, the interests, and the capacities of its pupils and what place does it have in the supporting community? The an- swers to these questions will give significance to a determina- tion of what constitutes a good secondary school. In the past the high school has often been particularly con- cerned with its percentage of failure, with attempts to keep the general failure rate reasonably low, and to balance off the va- rious subject fields with favorable comparisons in failure per- centages. It should be recognized that a high school isn’t neces- sarily doing the best work because its general failure rate is low or because the per cent of passing is as high in Latin or geometry as in any other subjects. Our standards for success or failure may well be vamped to rest upon the adaption of the material to the ability of the pupil taking it. Pupils who cannot profit in reasonable proportion to the time expended should probably fail, provided the school has made a sincere and intel- ligent effort to discover and direct pupil abilities, interests, and needs. This latter statement emphasizes the point that the real standard of the school should be related to an adequate and 26 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS wisely administered guidance program so that failure, in any instance, should either be a reflection upon the school whose functions in direction and diagnosis were at fault or upon the parents who did not support the school standard. A good school must meet this test satisfactorily from within its own organi- zation and, at the same time, carry understanding to the home and obtain aid from the parents. Another way of measuring school efficiency develops out of the situation I have been considering. We need a new inter- pretation of the standards we have created in respect to mark- ing schemes and devices. Our individual personnel and guidance work plus the findings of research should be developed suffi- ciently to measure individual capacity of the pupil over against his actual achievement. There is nothing new about this as an idea. We have written and talked much about such a measure- ment but we have yet to elevate this important consideration to the significance of a standard by which the school is to be judged. Under such a plan the only mark deserving considera- tion would be that which measured the relationship of accom- plishment to capacity. Conceivably, if standards in guidance, in properly adapted materials and in objective measurements of pupil capacity were sufficiently accurate and effective, there would be only the failure of those pupils who had not done as well as they knew and were capable of doing. Possibly another standard by which the good high school could be judged is in respect to the specific provisions for those pupils who do not respond to abstractions, who cannot or will not think; but whose emotions may be an ever ready and pro- ductive source of response. There are high-school principals who believe that what a school does for such pupils is a more significant indication of effective education than what is done for a no larger number who are winning honors in abstract subjectmatter. Should we not generally agree that the develop- ment of this consideration as a standard of school efficiency is more important than the list of mechanical indices which we now possess ? Another possibility which may have received less attention than it deserves may be summarized under the name of agen- ES a ee ee PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 27 cies of pupil expression. We are not, in this instance, thinking primarily of the creative arts. They are however included in our hasty consideration. How well do high-school pupils express themselves in all of the written and oral forms of practical communication? Our standards are apparently lacking in these respects. We are thinking beyond the mere test of the class- room to demonstrations of expression in the activities of the school and of the community. Are there standards, too, which operate for the group in the realm of school and outside ex- pression agencies? Too often there is a weak and meagre effort at a classroom standard and no attempt, worthy of name, at the application of even a meagre standard to the presentation of a school play or other similar group activity. Social forms of expression also receive little, if any attention, from the stand- point of carefully weighed standards of judgment or control. Unfortunately the lack of standards in these regards within the community, oftentimes nullifies the superior standing of the school in its relationship to the specific pedagogical stan- dards, which are supposed to set up the formula by which our main question of what constitutes a good school in answered. What are the ideals of the good school? Instantly comes the question how are we to measure them? We shall escape this major difficulty and we trust, adroitly, by leaving the answer to our accomplished program collaborators. Suffice it to point out the fact that each school by design, or by utter lack of in- tent, gives ample indication of its idealistic or motivating spirit. Perhaps it is expecting too much to hope that a workable stan- dard may be offered amid such intangibles. The fact remains that the morale, the spirit, the manifest idealism of the school may not be wisely ignored in any attempt to determine what constitutes the good school. Obviously a direct effort to estab- lish ideals or attitudes within the school should be skillfully tuned to the possibilities for practical realization. The good school will have harmonized the relationships be- tween play and work, leisure and recreation. Our standards in this field have been woefully insufficient or worse. Probably the pupil load for those who have conscientiously tried to carry - it, has been much too arduous in energy and demanding in time. Artificiality of standards in such matters have, no doubt, 28 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS contributed to the larger operation of the “get by” attitude. Certainly many pupils do practically no work other than that involved by mere attendance. The variance in achievement among secondary schools is well enough known by principals and college admission officers. How many pupils work too hard? How many are affected nervously by too much mental strain and too little physical activity? How many wear themselves out with excessive play and recreational activity and allow their mental equipment to be slightly, if at all, stimulated by scholar- ly endeavor? What checks and balances are there in the pro- gram of work and play relative to an ‘understanding, apprecia- tion and maintenance of good health? Do organization and methods combine to the fostering of efficient work habits with adequate knowledge of working techniques and methods of study? How well have the ends of leisure and of work been translated into immediate values, into conscious application to the life that now is? All of these are questions which cannot remain unanswered in any intelligent appraisal of the factors which constitute a good high school. The insistence of brevity has given the major considera- tion to a few possibilities concerning standards which especial- ly affect the pupil. We shall not attempt to develop implications which would set up particular standards for the teacher. It is especially important to stress, however, the significance of ef- fective teacher understanding and responsibility if we are to realize improvements in standards. May we emphasize, that most of all, the making of a good school will depend on superior mental abilities, effective per- sonal attributes, and the potentiality for continued growth on the part of the teaching staff. Objectives of the secondary school which may be inter- preted into practical standards are particularly important, not only as measures of what is being done but as directional stimuli to better purposes and more equitable accomplishment. The school has been and must continue to be the standard bear- er against a multitude of varying interests and forces which ever conspire to a lowering of the most worthy ideals and the highest achievement. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 29 At the close of the session the following names were pre- sented as the nominating committee: Milton D. Proctor, Prin- cipal, Westbrook Seminary and Junior College, Portland, Me. ; Paul E. Elicker, Principal, Newton High School, Newtonville, Mass.; Harold A. Swaffield, Principal, Roger Ludlowe High School, Fairfield, Conn.; R. E. Boyles, Principal of High School, Washington, Pa.; Oscar Granger, Principal of Haver- ford Township High School, Upper Darby, Pa.; Dana Z. Eck- ert, Principal of Herron Hill Junior High School, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Harold A. Ferguson, Principal of Senior High School, Montclair, N. J.; J. H. Davison, Principal of South High School, Lima, Ohio; John Barnes, Principal of High School, Grosse Pointe, Mich.; A. A. Rea, East High School, Aurora, Ill.; H. H. Helbe, Principal of High School, Appleton, Wis.; A. J. Burton, Principal of East High School, Des Moines, Iowa; B. C. Tighe, Principal of High School, Fargo, N. D.; S. B. Tinsley, Principal of Girls’ High School, Louisville, Ky.; S. L. Ragsdale, Principal of L. C. Humes High School, Memphis, Tenn.; Roy C. Bigelow, Supervising Principal, Johnson City, Tenn.; A. F. Bittner, Principal of Grant High School, Port- land, Ore. 30 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS THE STANDARDS STUDY COMMITTEE GEORGE E. CARROTHERS Professor of Education, School of Education, University of Michigan, and Chairman of The Standards Study Committee The six regional accrediting associations, covering the en- tire territory of the United States, including the Canal Zone and a few secondary schools in other countries, have placed the names of approximately 4600 secondary schools on their membership lists and have thus given them the stamp of ap- proval. Who can say whether these are the best public and private schools in the United States? How many of the 4600 are actually rather weak and inefficient schools? How many of the non-members are better secondary schools than the poorest 500 or 1000 of the members? Who knows? Or, to put it another way, what are the elements which go to make up a good high school? The commissions on secondary schools of the six regional accrediting associations have set up a Standards Study Com- mittee with the task of finding an answer to the question, What is a good high school? These associations have voted funds for use in getting this work started. The Commissioner of Education has rendered valuable assistance in getting the study started. Each regional association has a set of standards for use in selecting schools to be approved as members. Yet the standards are for the most part quantitative in nature and quite detailed. These have been built up piece by piece, stand- ard by standard, over a long period of time, and, as some claim, possibly without due regard to changing social condi- tions. In other days when schools lacked buildings, equip- ment, trained staffs, and many other advantages now provided, it may have been necessary to require a certain length of class period, a certain number of days in the school year and other supposed quantitative guarantees of good educational produc- tion in order to obtain the desired result. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 31 Quantity is still of great importance and quality of out- put is of still greater importance. In the course of time and in the midst of considerable educational progress, it may be that a good quality of production is possible without the ne- cessity of meeting all of the carefully developed, specially pre- scribed, quantitative measures. At least there are a goodly number of schoolmen interested in secondary education both in college and in secondary schools who believe that this ques- tion of standards is well worth studying. This is the first and most important reason for launching the study. A second reason for this undertaking is to try to see if there can be found some way whereby the regional associa- tions may come to be considered somewhat less as police and somewhat more as helpful, stimulating, encouraging friends. At present it appears that too large a part of the work of the accrediting agencies is that of checking up on member schools to see that they do not violate any of the sacred rules and reg- ulations. Some of this will doubtless always be necessary, but the chances are that a thoughtful, careful sympathetic study of conditions may reveal a way whereby the main emphasis may be shifted over to the helpful assistance of growing, dy- namic schools which are anxious to render the best kinds of service to the boys and girls. These schools are in need of and anxious to receive help. The regional associations ought to be in the most favored positions for helping such schools. The idea of a codperative attack on the problem is not new, but it is being worked a little harder at present than it has been for some time. The impact of the six associations, thinking and hammering on the one problem at the same time throughout the nation ought to be immensely better than any association working alone. As the work progresses and ten- tative conclusions are reached, it is the expectation that each association will analyze the findings and that each will adopt and adapt those portions which may be found to be suitable and beneficial in their respective parts of the United States. It is not thought that uniform standards or criteria could or should be developed for the accrediting of all secondary schools throughout the country. 32 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS The present appears to be a very suitable time for the in- auguration of such a study. First, the twenty-eight volumes of the National Survey of Secondary Education are just being received from the press. A large amount of useful informa- tion and carefully organized data is thus made available for the use of the Standards Study Committee. These volumes are in handy, usable form. The data which they contain ought to be of very great assistance in making this proposed study. At the same time this research work being carried on through- out the country ought to furnish a good channel out through which the information, collected by the Office of Education at a large expense, may flow to the secondary commissions and the numerous membership schools of the associations. The members of the research staff will also be able to help depart- ments of secondary education in colleges and universities to get a better idea of the material published in this National Survey. The hope is that this Survey may not be just another collection of figures to be published and filed away for future reference. It is hoped that at least some of the volumes, and whatever is of worth in all of the volumes, may be taken from the shelves and actually tried out in progressive secondary schools. This Standards Study Committee ought to be of help in disseminating this useful material. (1) What constitutes a good secondary school? We do not know. (2) By what standards should it be evaluated? We do not have a satisfactory answer to this question. Since the accrediting agencies cannot answer these two questions in a manner satisfactory to themselves decision has been reached to stop talking and do some acting. We are un- dertaking a carefully planned, nation-wide study of secondary schools and of the criteria by which they should be evaluated. SS ann we ae ff a Ms Tp es 1g a- or es ht y. h- at id he t- to al or re id Ip lo - PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 33 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1934 Second Session The second session of the convention met in the Assembly Room of the Hollenden Hotel at 9:30 A. M. Tuesday, Febru- ary 27, 1934. Principal P. H. Powers of East Technical High School presented Robert B. Clem of Shawnee High School, Louisville, Ky., who is President of the Department of Secon- dary-School Principals. Assistant Principal E. C. Allen, of Cass Technical High School of Detroit, spoke without notes on The Trends in the Development of the Technical High School, in which he re- viewed the salient points of the Industrial Revolution. Principal B. F. Comfort of Cass Technical High School of Detroit presented his paper, Textbooks and Lesson Outlines in Technical High Schools. TECHNICAL HIGH-SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS BENJAMIN F. COMFORT Principal, Cass Technical High School Detroit, Michigan When technical high schools came into existence in the United States (1906) there were no textbooks covering sec- ondary-technical education. Colleges devoted to technical in- struction had their own handbooks, but textbooks for those of high-school age were unknown. Some courses had been de- veloped in the trade schools of Munich, Germany, but what was done there was a professional secret and therefore Ameri- can technical secondary schools were forced to develop their own textbooks. February 1, 1907, the doors of the Cess Technical High School were opened in the old Cass building and 110 students were enrolled. In the summer of 1910 we began to equip a new annex and put in two machine shops, a pattern shop, me- chanical drawing rooms, forges, and a strong equipment for chemistry and physics. But here is where our hardest task DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 34 developed: What should we teach and what should we not teach? At this juncture we called in the leading industrial- ists of the city, with their engineering staffs, and had outlined then and there what they required their mechanics to know; their draughtsmen, their accountants, and office men to learn. The consequence has been that everyone of our courses fits in with the practical demands of industry. We revise these courses yearly. Therein begins the story of the textbooks. At first we hired as many graduate engineers who had been out in indus- try, and who had the necessary experience and aptitude for teaching as it was possible to secure. When we got to be a school of 3000 or 4000 we had to standardize our instruction just as the auto industry has standardized parts. Thus we commenced standardized lesson-sheets, laboratory manuals, and textbooks. In Cass Technical High School we have never introduced to the pupils in the day school any shop or laboratory courses until the same course has been thoroughly tested out in eve- ning school with the adults. If the adults found it practical and profitable, they popularized it and then we were ready to adjust it and modify it to the needs of the younger minds. Now the procedure in all of these course developments has been to concentrate those advanced in technical instruction around the department heads. Then these department heads were encouraged to compile manuals of instruction, shop and laboratory standards, and textbooks to cover the ground of each one’s specialty. The department heads uniformly teach in the evening school and that is where the major develop- ments are tried out. The evening school, therefore, becomes a testing laboratory for the day school. A real contribution to secondary education has been made in twenty-five years by these technical schools. To show what technical high schools have done in formal publications, I wrote to technical high-school principals and have the following list of textbooks, giving title, author, pub- lisher, and price. This list of textbooks represents the essence of a valuable experience. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 35 Principal Albert L. Colston of Brooklyn Technical High School discussed the papers. Third Session A few over one hundred were in attendance at the lunch- eon in the Ballroom of the Hollenden Hotel on Tuesday at 12:30 P. M. This was known as the Junior High-School Prin- cipals’ Luncheon. Superintendent W. L. Bogan of Chicago addressed the luncheon group on The Place of the Junior High School in the Present Organization. THE PLACE OF THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN THE PRESENT ORGANIZATION WILLIAM J. BOGAN Superintendent of Schools Chicago, Illinois The place of the junior high school in the present organi- zation was determined by its function, which in general is the adaptation of education to the special needs of pre-adolescence and adolescence. True, man learns during all phases of his life, but there is no doubt that certain periods are much more re- sponsive to educational treatment than others. The period of adolescence is one of these. The discovery that adolescence requires special educational treatment was one of the prime causes for the inauguration of the junior high school. Many years ago, Dr. G. Stanley Hall, in lecturing to a group of school principals on the subject of ado- lescence, placed much stress upon the dangers of that period. The fundamental principles of education brought down the ages through clan and tribe and school system and philosopher are: CONTROL THESE POWERFUL FORCES THROUGH EDUCATION; AND PROTECT AGAINST .THE WORST DANGERS BY PROVIDING LEGITIMATE OUTLETS FOR 36 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS ANIMAL SPIRITS. The junior high school was the result. Adolescence was given special treatment. Educators at last realize that Heaven and earth are perpetually opening up new treasurers for the adolescent. Sometimes over night he changes from chrysalis to butterfly. Always, he longs to try his wings and explore new worlds. The call of adventure is strong. The . appeal of the spirit is overpowering. Boys and girls who had been bored by the routine of the lower grades, especially the brighter ones who had been held back by the dull ones, as they saw the subjects of high school carried down to them and were given an opportunity to peer across wide horizons into other worlds, brought a new force into education. The junior high school was formed by a peculiar juxtaposition of time and place and motive. Dynamite, fuse, and match were ready for the ex- plosion. Dissatisfaction with older methods, older ideals and older forms of administration clamored for change. The conservatism of the secondary schools was criticized. In elementary schools the improvements in methods were marvelous; outside the schools ideals of education were changing rapidly; but the sec- ondary schools could not break their college shackles. In this crisis, the public turned to the schools for training in citizen- ship, a training which the junior high schools provided. The time was opportune to emphasize the theory and training nec- essary to make good citizens. How did citizenship become the special task of the junior high school? It was free to experi- ment. The sight of the wonders of our world, particularly the world of physical and social science, stimulated the pupils to freedom and independence such as could rarely be found in the regular elementary or secondary schools. Secondary teachers said that the junior high school pupils were prone to over- emphasize the things of the spirit to the neglect of the form. No doubt, they became cocky and conceited. Rules and regula- tions were sometimes treated lightly. Formalism, however, had been altogether too potent in the older methods. Perhaps a change may come through the spirit that will produce more lasting’ results. Conceit will do little harm, for life will chamfer the corners and shrink the ego. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 37 Is there need for an institution that will give special em- phasis to the spirit of creation, the development of thought and freedom and independence and character? The need is proved by the break-down of civic morale in all parts of the nation. Recent years have witnessed a wide-spread failure of leadership and character among men in all classes of society. Ideals that were held sacred have been discarded. Sacrifice for the community has been rare. Greed and selfishness of all kinds have affected the people. The redistribution of wealth, com- monly known as the depression, found rich and poor unpre- pared for the sacrifice. Prosperity following the War had gone to the heads of millions. Simple life with simple pleasures and contentment ended. In political life this period was a reminder of that of Walpole and of the Georges in England, when cor- ruption was rife in high places and representation in Parlia- ment was purchased like groceries, not only by the nobles but by the kings as well. At that time very few seemed to compre- hend the moral implications of those acts, or if they did they cared little for the results until they were shamed into a sense of righteousness that finally made the standards of legal and political life in England the admiration of the world. It is impossible to apportion the share of the blame for present conditions among home, church, school, and general environment, for all of these factors are dependent upon all the others. However, the school man need not concern him- self greatly over the failure of other institutions to achieve their objectives, but he should give careful consideration to the weaknesses, deficiencies, and even failures of public education. Shall we who try to mold the destinies of the nation through the education of youth accept conditions as they are, or shall we make full use of this instrument for the utilization of the ideals of adolescence without fear or prejudice? Goethe says: The century has given birth to a great epoch, but The great moment finds a petty generation Must we go down in history as a petty generation? The junior high schools occupy a strategic position for the development of freedom and independence. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that the old time school system devoted 38 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS eight years to the acquisition of skill in the use of tool subjects and four years to the earning of college credits. The few who developed independence along this route were fortunate, for the passing of examinations meant emphasis upon memory work in all recitations. All children were taught the rudiments of edu- cation, but in accomplishing this feat the schools minimized the necessity for developing independent citizens in a democracy. Perhaps this is not as strange is it appears, for every attempt to achieve independence in this land of the free is fraught with many dangers. The individual who lifts his head above the crowd is usually taught the error of his ways. If he is a teacher he may find himself a target for the powerful politi- cian. This servile condition is not of our day only. Plutarch, for instance, tells of the jeer Aristippus bestowed upon a stupid father who had asked him what he would take to teach his child. The answer was: “A thousand drachmas;” whereupon, the other cried out, “I can buy a slave at that rate.” “Do so,” said Aristippus, “and thou shalt have two slaves, thy son for © one and him whom thou buy for the other.” The junior high school is well-placed for the development of thought. The period of exploration, the period of new and fundamental experience, is the period when thought may be developed. It may be said that thought comes—or stays away— naturally; that it cannot be developed, but surely experience teaches even the low mentalities. The world was shocked when psychologists, during’ the War, discovered through their army tests that the average mentality of our people is that of chil- dren of twelve or fourteen years old. This fact, if it is a fact, should not shock us out of our senses, for if those who are more than twelve years old, mentally, will think back to life at twelve, they may discover that at that age they were depend- able members of the community. They had many responsibili- ties and they performed their tasks as well as, if not better than, some who ranked higher on the intelligence scale. The thinking of this type may never be of very high grade, but surely it may be deep enough to enable them to recognize and follow sane leadership. Creation, independence, character, reasonable freedom, and practice in citizenship are fundamentals of democratic edu- PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 39 cation. They blossom forth, if ever, at the junior high-school age—they should be captured, controlled and developed. Fourth Session In the afternoon of Tuesday, February 27, 1934, three groups were in session. Charles Forrest Allen, Principal of West Side Junior High School, presided in the Assembly Room. The state supervisor of the junior high school of New York, Harrison H. VanCott, read his paper, The Social Sig- nificance of the Junior High School. THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL HARRISON H. VAN COTT State Supervisor of Junior High Schools New York “Society is the collective aspect of personal thought’, says Cooley in his Human Nature and the Social Order and goes on farther to state that only in so far as a man under- stands other people and then enters into the life around him has he an effective existence. “What is it to do good in the ordinary sense?” he asks. “Is it not to help people to enjoy and to work, to fulfill the healthy and happy tendencies of human nature, to give play to children, education to youth, a career to men, a household to women, and peace to old age?” The imaginations, feelings, and attitudes of individuals have social control in their power. When individuals fall be- low their society norm in their imaginations, feelings, and at- titudes, as demanded by the society itself, they become handi- caps to social advancement whereas those who fall above these same norms become constructive citizens. Society is contin- ually changing. Organization, disorganization and reorgani- zation follow each other in order. The old order changeth 40 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS giving place to new, and the new product cannot be encom- passed by the same retaining wall of social standards. A progressive society is one which continually attains new and higher levels or standards of living resulting from keener imaginations, more sensitive feelings and nobler atti- tudes in answering the question, “Am I my: brothers’ keeper?” Because of past experiences in living, social controls tend to become crystallized. Folkways, customs, institutions, laws, governments, and educational programs persist through the years and successfully resist change until the power of appre- ciation of individuals for improved procedures demands that they be changed. To-day society is changing in many ways. Past practices of people in high places and in low places, in the individual world, the international world, the agricultural and the busi- ness world have led society astray and have aroused the peo- ple, as a whole to the support of a fearless leader. Imagina- tions, feelings, and attitudes toward society and government are not so apathetic as in 1929. A new America will result from our present dilemma. Let us examine briefly some of the forces which tend to disorganize society in the hope that we may get some light upon the obligations of society so to educate its people that the processes of disorganization may not gain an ascendency over the processes of organization. The ways of living of the family, the community, and the individual determine social solidarity. Forces of disorganiza- tion are at work within each. The Family. The family is the basic unit in the whole social structure but family living norms change to keep pace with changing conditions. Family disorganization does not occur suddenly. Family folkways and customs are too much institutionalized. The factory system of production, and the employment of mothers outside the home result often in unsupervised children who are the source of a large number of social misfits. Many PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 41 current ideas concerning the practices of free love and sexual satisfaction are successors to the ideal family norm of con- stancy and fidelity. Is the family good for producing children only? No, raising and training them are even more important to social welfare. Is the maintenance of the physical attributes of a home important? Yes, but an affectionate home where love abounds, which gives a safe background for the new experiences and discipline which any social group should provide for its mem- bers, is more important. The home is a place where individ- ual differences may be recognized and individual personality developed. The family should be an education center for planning a better family organization. Codperation is a needed asset on the part of both husband and wife to maintain a constructive family life. When the school helps to maintain wholesome family life it becomes socially significant. The Community. A community is characterized by a commonalty of inter- est. Queen' says, “A community consists of persons who are able to act together in the chief concerns of life. This ten- dency to act together is the most important element in the delimitation of a community.” Lack of feeling of all for group interest; failure to think in terms of the community regarding personal ambition of paramount importance rather than service to community; a disregard for attitudes of older people by youth; the haughti- ness of foreign children toward their parents and the commu- nity, after they begin to learn; the fact that religion as a fac- tor in social control has lost its early ascendency ; the fact that there has been a decline in interest in politics which is evi- denced by the fact that many of our best citizens are no longer among the candidates for political office, are all factors that make for community disorganizations. 18tuart A. Queen. What is a community? Social Forces, May 1923. 42 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS Community efficiency depends on the number participat- ing in the affairs of the community. Other community liabilities are: criminals, bootleggers, prostitutes, drunkards, gangsters, and others who have of- fended the mores of the community and who are not function- ally integrated with the interest of the community. This group also includes those classes who are segregated by cul- ture, racial or ecological barriers such as immigrants, negroes, and inhabitants of slum areas. Another division of this social group of non-participants are those whose occupations limit their activities such as night workers, individuals who com- mute and a third group of professional men who pay little at- tention to group activities. Again, the extent one participates in community affairs depends upon his community residence and its permanency. Mobility and social disorganization seem to vary directly with each other. Vice or anti-social behavior thrives in highly mobile areas in cities. The youth is what he is to an amazing degree because of his geographical position. Where he lives and how long makes a difference. “There is no one to care” echoes through the halls of thousands of rooming houses. When persons care for each other social organization tends to become stabilized. The life organization of the indi- vidual and the stability of the community depend for their efficient functioning upon healthy group relationships. The small town adolescent who cries “nothing to do and no place to go” uses his free time in sex discussions and sex experimen- tation despite the inhibiting force of community opinion. The home seems to be declining as a recreational center. In the majority of recreational community enterprises profit is a pri- mary objective. The movies, cabarets, night clubs, road- houses, burlesque shows, and prize fights offer scarcely any- thing which elevate social living to a higher plane. The movies are included because of what they might be made to accomplish in re-creating the imaginations, feelings and attitudes of those who attend instead of de-creating them as is so often the case. Elliott and Merrill give the following statistics concerning the de-creational effects of the movies.' 1Elliott and Merrill, Social Disorganization, Harper Brothers, pp. 642-643. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 43 From attending the movies, 49% of 110 inmates of a penal institution claim to have re- ceived the idea of carrying a gun 28% claimed to have received ideas of a holdup 20% claimed to have received ideas of stealing techniques 21% claimed to have received ideas of ways of stealing and eluding the police. 25% of 252 adolescent girls admitted sex relations with men after the movies 41% claimed to have received ideas of wild parties after the movies 38% claimed to have received ideas of truancy 33% claimed to have received ideas to stray away from home 23% claimed to have received ideas that they were motivated to commit sex delinquencies 29% claimed to have received ideas of a gay wild life What does censorship stand for? What should the schools do to protect its emotionally sensitive adolescent youth from the de-creational movie? When it does do something it will become more socially significant. The Individual The individual’s code of behavior embodies those things which the individual will and will not do. Each individual or- ganizes his life on the basis of what he is and what he wants to be. In a great measure this depends upon what he learns. As a result a status in life is acquired. This is his most pre- cious possession. Few who lose it ever recover. The ado- lescent individual becomes disorganized easily. His instabil- ity, his compelling social instincts, his antipathy to adult dom- inance, his lack of foresight and his eagerness for adult life as he thinks he sees it are attributes which tend to disorganize him as an individual and cause him to act in anti-social ways. Two hundred thousand juvenile court cases are being recorded annually in our country at the present time. About 26% of the boys’ cases are for truancy, and 27% for acts of careless- ness or mischief ; 25% of the girls’ cases are for being ungov- ernable and 21% for sex offense. Approximately 10% com- 44 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS mit burglary or run away. Colored and foreign born children furnish the larger number of juvenile delinquents. Urban centers furnish more than rural centers. Nearly six times as many boys as girls were brought to court. The factors re- sponsible for this delinquency are chiefly bad companions, ad- olescent, instability, early sex experience, school dissatisfac- tion, and poor home conditions. Delinquency is fostered in no small degree by gang life. Gang life provides the adolescent with a definite pattern of unusual behavior generally accom- panied by individual habits of vulgarity, gambling, smoking, drinking, and sex indulgences. Oftentimes motion pictures teach technical details in the practice of the holdup, murder, and shop lifting, but the older bad companion is more often the teacher. Much of the above material has been paraphrased from Social Disorganization by Elliott and Merrill.’ The junior high school is primarily a social institution. It is designed to minister to early adolescent boys and girls physically, mentally, socially, and morally. During the ado- lescent period many social instincts manifest themselves as never before: i.e., gregariousness, sympathy or fellow feeling, love of approbation, renown, fame and glory, the spirit of altruism, and interest in sex. Pringle in his Adolescence and High-School Problems so names them and says, “The cardinal problem of adolescence is how best to foster and nourish these social instincts in the interests of strong character and right habits of living.” Herein lies a task for the junior high school. If the development of these instincts is thwarted and neither nourished nor fostered, defense mechanisms will be set up and more disastrous than beneficial results may ensue for society and for the individual himself. If the gregarious instinct is not recognized and a chance for organization is not given to all in a wholesome school at- mosphere where youth can plan and execute programs of inter- est to themselves then those from interstitial areas especially, because their home conditions are not favorable for keeping 1Harper & Brothers, 1934. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 45 children in the home, will form their own gangs and will fol- low the lead of older and adult gangs, which operate to the dis- organization of society through the medium of organized crime. If the instinct of sympathy or fellow feeling is not nour- ished and fostered in wholesome ways, loyalties to gangdoms, brothers in crime, and sisters in debauchery, may easily result and the number of addicts to crime will thus be increased. If the instinct which calls for approbation, fame, glory, and renown is not satisfied as a result of the exertion of youth’s best effort in wholesome ways then it will be sought probably by the exertion of his best effort in unwholesome ways. The whole wide world and each individual in it is seek- ing for approval and if not in wholesome pursuit then in the next best and most alluring. If school environment does not afford a place for the winning of approval to what sort of an environment will Evelyn and Irving, Angelo and Antoinette, Ikie and Rachel, Mickie and Katy and all the rest go for ap- proval? If the spirit of altruism is not fostered by helping youth to be altruistic honestly the chances are he will be altruistic dishonestly. Many a high-school boy or girl has been caught stealing money not because he or she was a thief but because of a desire to get a doll or a drum for a favorite younger sister or brother. If the interest in and desire for sex knowledge is not nourished in wholesome ways by answering questions truth- fully and by giving opportunity for private and confidential conference concerning sex life with some one who commands the respect of the boy and the girl, then the desired informa- tion will be sought on the street and in the home environment and the truth may be so clothed in filth, lies, disease, and de- bauchery that the health and happiness of the eager listener may be jeopardized if not destroyed for all time. In the light of the many forces of disorganization in so- ciety, the social instincts of adolescent youth which must be 46 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS satisfied and the fact that the publicly supported school must aid in the construction of an efficient society, if it fulfills its proper function, we are confronted with the question, “What can the junior high school do about it?” In my opinion it can and must arrange situations wherein early adolescent boys and girls will be guided in the successful practice of interesting and wholesome acts of behavior which will nourish and foster their social instincts so effectively that they will carry over into their lives beyond the school years an inspiration for living clean, wholesome, effective and effi- cient lives. This is a large order. It should challenge the careful thought and study of every administrator. We have been so traditional in our thinking and so reluctant to make our school programs satisfy the seven cardinal principles of education, although they were formulated twenty-five years ago, that we still have the academic objective rather than the social objec- tive in the foreground. Worthy home membership is one of those objectives. Well, what has been done to teach adolescent girls and boys coéperation in the home, the sacredness of the marriage vow, the obligations and responsibilities of fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters to each other, the requisites for a happy home life, the opportunities for better homes in other surroundings than theirs, the care and upkeep of the house, or the furnishing of the home? What are we doing to glorify wholesome family life? How many times have you or your teachers visited in the homes of your boys and girls in order to better appreciate their problems? Another of the cardinal principles is good citizenship. What are we doing to improve community life? Are we helping our boys and girls to satisfy the altruistic instinct through community service clubs, to respect their elders by helping them to know some fine old people, to become inter- ested in government by allowing them to help plan and to par- ticipate in a school government which they can call their own, or to recognize and have reverence for a divine power through the medium of a star club, a flower club, a nature club, or a microscope club? PROCEEDINGS uF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 47 Are our buildings and grounds open evenings and Satur- days and Sundays for wholesome recreational projects or do other de-creational projects outside the school attract our sen- sitive adolescent youth? Are we doing what we ought to help youth appreciate the aftermaths of lawlessness, crime and warfare, or the effects of patronage upon efficiency in service? Are we showing them the meaning of true statesmanship? Are we so eager to satisfy the academic objective that we are losing sight of the more important social objectives? What are we doing to help each individual boy and gir] of ours catch a vision of the marvelous opportunities which are his if he will do his best? Everyone is different from every other, his individuality, his family and his environmental as- sets and liabilities; his physical, his mental, his social and his moral weaknesses and strengths; his power of imagining the finest things in life, his feelings and his attitudes toward oth- ers. All are there in embryo waiting for nourishment and re- lease into a life of constructive or destructive efforts. What are we doing to develop self directive, open-minded, unbiased thought power? The guidance program is an individualized program. It is for each pupil who differs from all others. Its objective is growth. What growth? In my opinion it doesn’t matter so long as it is wholesome growth and if the subject wants to grow some more. A thrift program may help to preserve a home some day; a courtesy and kindness campaign may help in.maintaining a happy home atmosphere somewhere; an appreciation lesson on Watt’s Sir Galahad may set up ideals for lives of service somehow; Channing Pollock’s play, The House Beautiful, may inspire to beautiful family relationships. A study of the forms of social evils in contrast with types of service may do much for enlightening the eager mind of youth; a sheet metal course may catch the interest of a delinquent boy and hold him in school; a Christmas card sent to a youthful criminal may touch his heart and bring him to his senses; a chance to play with his gang on the school court or play field may keep an inno- cent youth away from a gangster hero; a truthful answer to an honest question may steer a girl or a boy away from a lifr 48 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS of shame. Perhaps a school could get along without pupil par- ticipation in government and with less work but would the attitudes of pupils toward law and order be as wholesome? Perhaps traffic squads are unnecessary but if they teach re- sponsibility to the officers, are they not valuable? A school newspaper may require a lot of work, but if it engenders a sound public school opinion, it is most valuable in the develop- ment of good citizenship. “Good government is the length- ened shadow of the good citizen.” Good citizenship is an in- dividual matter and depends upon the behavior patterns of each individual citizen. In conclusion, the junior high school will be socially sig- nificant when the developing imaginations of youth are so fired, their sensitive feelings so affected, their growing de- sires so satisfied, and their changing attitudes so molded by virtue of its program, that lives of service will become goals to be fought for in spite of family or community or personal handicaps, and they will want to obtain them. Our boys and girls need visions to guide them. What visions for service are your junior high-school programs giving to your boys and girls? H. E. Binford, Supervisor of Secondary Schools of Louis- ville, Ky., read his manuscript. ARTICULATION IN LOUISVILLE SECONDARY SCHOOLS H. E. BINFORD Assistant Superintendent in Charge of Secondary Schools Louisville, Ky. Quotation—“There must be an investment of much time and effort in the study of the ever-recurring problems of articu- lation.” I propose to tell briefly the story of articulation in Louis- ville, confining the remarks chiefly to articulation problems be- tween the elementary-junior-and-senior high schools. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 49 Louisville’s first junior high school opened at the late date of 1928. By next fall upon the completion of a new unit housing 2400 pupils, the complete transition from the 8-4 plan to the 6-3-3 or 6-6 plans will have been made and the children of the 7th, 8th and 9th grades will nearly all be housed in buildings built since 1928. An urgent need for curriculum and course of study revi- sion in the Louisville junior and senior high schools was recog- nized shortly after the junior high-school program was begun. However, little was accomplished in the way of a six year pro- gram of secondary education until the year 1931-1932. In the fall of 1930, under the leadership of the Superin- tendent of Schools, committees were appointed in all subjects. During that school year a few meetings were held. The chief purpose for the year was for all members of the committees to acquaint themselves with the general problem of curriculum construction and the special problems of course of study con- struction in their special subjects. The courses of study for the junior and senior high schools are being produced by committees of teachers. The chairman in some subjects are the supervisors of those subjects. In other subjects the chairmen have been heads of departments in the high schools and in 1931-1932 devoted full time to this leader- ship. General direction of the work is one of the duties of the Assistant Superintendent in Charge of Secondary Education. The teacher committees are composed of one teacher from each junior high school and one from each senior high school. These committees often work in smaller groups called sub-com- mittees. The first product is tentative. In some instances this is largely the product of the chairman. The second draft of any course is modified as a result of experimentation with the first. It represents not only the work of the members of the commit- tee but embodies the best thought of all classroom teachers plus the suggestions of the administrative staff. The principals of the schools were especially helpful with suggestions in pro- ducing the second draft. The principals, while not active mem- 50 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS bers of the committees, are invited to attend as many meetings of the committees as their many other duties will permit. While our chief object in this work is seriously to attempt to provide the teacher with subject matter, devices, and pro- cedures which will aid in carrying out the objectives of high- school education, we believe that an almost equal value of cur- riculum revision lies in the process of the making. Those who are helping are rekindling their intellectual life and in many in- stances gaining a viewpoint impossible to obtain in any other way. This purposeful thinking will have permanent value in future years because of renewed interest in the problems of education. This, with increased pride in our schools, will carry over to the lasting benefit of the youth who are already citi- zens of Louisville. Changing society brings about changes in our objectives which in turn necessitate changes in the curriculum. We recog- nize this evident fact. However, after the second draft of a course of study is made it should remain in force with only minor changes for a few years. Only by testing and noting the outcomes over a period of years can the effects of a course of study be scientifically determined. We cannot constantly be changing to satisfy individual desires, motives, and caprices. We hope to adhere rather closely to a given course of study until such time as a majority of teachers, after scientific study of results, determine upon a more desirable educational pro- cedure. One author has said the program of studies and the teacher are the two most fundamental agencies for the educa- tion of children. Along with our construction of courses of study our program of studies problems were more definitely de- termined. A wide departure for Louisville in the senior high school program was to establish a major and minor plan instead of the traditional curricula. The traditional curricula provided for very little choice after the curriculum had once been selected. This new plan which provides for majors or minors in ten sub- ject fields has been a very successful plan in solving many of our pupils’ articulation problems. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 51 We are rather confident that these changes with carefully planned courses of study will do more than any other single agency toward solving our articulation problems. The courses are so planned that “individual differences,” including all that that expression covers, are partially taken care of. Minimum requirements, enrichment, suggested activities, time left for in- dividual teacher initiative to have its chance, all are provided for in the courses. The following briefly explains the then and now (before and after course of study construction) in the field of business subjects in our secondary schools. Then: 1. Lack of uniformity in objectives, accomplishment, of- ferings, subject-matter placement and texts. Guidance was of such type as to direct in large num- bers, pupils with low I. Q.’s into commercial depart- ment and to direct students of higher intelligence away from department regardless of needs of pupils and demands of business. The exploratory courses did not really explore the field of business education—explored typing only. No attention given to consumer education. Such training, as was given in subjects offered in the field of business education, did not always de- velop definite skills and correct habits upon which subjects in senior high school are developed. Ex- amples: Typewriting skills, such as correct finger- ing. Junior Business Training, such as handling and interpreting correctly business forms. An increased amount of uniformity with a sequence in subject matter which leads to further develop- ment of that subject matter in senior high school. By placing in the courses of study some general in- formation on guidance for counselors and requiring, 52 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS in the exploratory course, a study of the traits and characteristics needed for success in the various fields of business explored, some improvement in pu- pil placement has been shown. An exploratory course has been developed which ex- plores the majors and minors of all the commercial subjects in the senior high school. A broader view and a more serious examination of the senior high- school offerings has resulted. Consumer-education for all pupils in both senior and junior high schools, is being developed. In the junior high school it is a required subject. Through united effort of the teachers of both levels of secondary field specific and integrated objectives have been determined; correct skills enumerated and specific habits listed so that the need for breaking down some habits and reteaching others has been eliminated. This is especially true of fingering and machine manipulation in typewriting and handling materials in junior business training. CONCLUSION Because of the youth of the 1-6-3-3 or the 1-6-6 organiza- tion in Louisville, we realize that even our articulation prob- lems may be painful for some time to come. We feel that there has been a rapid growth toward mutual understanding. Most of the above mentioned agencies and devices are proving help- ful. Sympathetic attitudes are being, developed among all groups involved. While there may have been some unfortunate attitudes at first, cooperative effort with resultant understand- ing is removing friction and discord. The philisophy of ar- ticulation seems to increase mutual respect of the workers and happiness for our children. Will French, Associate Superintendent of Schools of Tulsa, Oklahoma, read a paper on A Tradition-Free Curricu- lum for the Junior High School. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 53 A TRADITION-FREE CURRICULUM FOR THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL Dr. WILL FRENCH Associate Superintendent Tulsa, Oklahoma It is easy to assume, especially in these days, that it is al- ways desirable for a school to be entirely free from tradition. Such, however, is not the case. The desirability of such free- dom depends upon the amount and degree of conflict between the school’s traditional practice and the functions of the school in the social situation in which it operates. Conflict of this character usually arises out of the natural tendency of an edu- cational practice to persist long after the reasons for its exist- ence have perished. If these reasons begin to die off in large numbers and in quick succession, the school may suddenly find its whole program deprived of most of its traditional support. This paper proposes that however well supported the curric- ulum program of the junior high school may have been in the recent past, there is now evidence of a widening gap between that program and the functions of this school in the present and impending social situation, and that, therefore, we espe- cially need at this moment a tradition-free curriculum for the junior high school. The writer also proposes upon the basis of an examination of the present functions of this school to suggest the outlines of such a curriculum. This first paragraph reveals a point of view with respect to the responsibility of a school to its supporting society upon the acceptance of which the validity of much that is said here- after is based. That responsibility is the one implied in what may aptly be called the investment theory, since Briggs in 1930 in his Inglis Lecture enunciated the doctrine that “The State supports free public schools to perpetuate itself and to promote its own best interests. Education is, then, a long-term investment that the State may be a better place in which to live and a better place in which to make a living.”* In the *Briggs, Thomas H. The Great Investment, Secondary Education in a Democracy, P. 8, Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1930. 54 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS four years which have intervened since Briggs first stated this principle, it has not been seriously challenged. An indi- rect denial of it may underlie the position of those who hold that the school should build a new social order. However, until we have a clear-cut example of a school which has built such a new order in spite of the protestations of the old order, we may assume that the degree of leftness which a school ex- hibits is one which the supporting society is willing to see it manifest as a possible means of “promoting its own best in- terests.” Certainly we may contemplate in sorrow if not in fear, the sad examples of a number of new-order educators who have found the neck of the old generation not quite lim- ber enough to make their creative experiment in social recon- struction a great success. This paper, therefore, holds to the education-as-an-investment point of view as the most prac- tical facing of the total situation in which public schools oper- ate. If this investment idea of education is accepted, a num- ber of deductions of significance here may be made: (1) So- ciety has a right to expect returns on this investment. (2) The decision as to what returns are desirable is not one to be made by the educator alone. He only assists in this task along with other members of society, and is followed only in proportion as he is able to convince society that his proposals have merit. (3) His professional training makes his the task of determining how these returns, once agreed on, shall be se- cured. (4) The returns considered adequate by society a short time ago, may suddenly become inadequate. (5) The educator must at such times appraise his program in the light of these recent social changes to see whether old returns are now inadequate and what new returns are desirable. (6) He must at such times, if possible, offer modifications in the edu- cational program which in his judgment will give society the kind of returns it seeks. If these are logical deductions, we are concerned in this paper with the answers to the following questions: 1. Have there been such recent social and economic changes of probable consequence to education? PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 55 2. Do these changes mean that the traditional program of the junior high school will make larger or smaller returns on the investment? If there have been such changes as are mentioned in the first question, what sorts of returns does society now value more highly and what less highly? What changes in the program of the junior high school could we propose to make in order to give to society larger amounts of the kinds of returns which it now desires from its investment in education? The first two of these questions need not delay us long. There will be few to deny that the last four years have seen the most profound and sudden shifts in social and economic thought since the first industrial revolution. The conserva- tive commentator may say we are seeing major changes in the structure of capitalism and the social order which grows out of it. The more liberal observer may speak of the crack-up of capitalism. As we in this country are just beginning to hope for an orderly readjustment under the New Deal, fresh trou- ble breaks out in Europe to add more evidence of the wide- spread and fundamental nature of the present movements. Perhaps “the old order changeth, giving place to new.” Nei- ther can anyone well deny that such a violent social and eco- nomic upheaval can occur and not disturb the equilibrium of all institutional life. The superficial tremblings so far experi- enced by institutions are but the slight surface tremors pre- ceding the real shocks which will later rock them. The schools have not and cannot hope to escape—and quite possibly they should not want to. The secondary school is already under some criticism and this extends not only to its form or organi- zation, but to its content or curriculum. The more funda- mental and far-reaching the social and economic shifts be- come, the more certain it is that the demands made upon the schools will require basic curriculum reorganizations. Assuming, then, as a matter of being prepared for the worst or the best—according to your point of view—that re- cent and impending social and economic changes are causing 56 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS the State to revise its list of desirable returns from its invest- ment in education, it is pertinent to examine the trend of these changes to discover, if possible, the probable nature of the new returns from education which the State is likely to demand. It is probably too early in the course of the move- ment to speak with any certainty about details, but it is not too early to begin projecting the general direction of the curve of change which events are beginning to establish. The writer will risk three points at which the State is and will demand a larger and different return on its investment in education than it has heretofore sought. The first return: A people with a vision of the possibili- ties of the high levels of human happiness and welfare now available to all in a society of plenty which would consciously and purposefully organize its people coéperatively to seek such levels of living for itself. A people who know of and are prac- ticed in the techniques useful in working together for the at- tainment of this goal. . The second return: A people who regard the natural re- sources of the society as material to be utilized by it to make higher levels of living possible for all, and who value science and technology because of the great contribution they can make toward the effective use of the materials of this environ- ment to this social end. The third return: A people each of whom is as well de- veloped a physical, mental, and spiritual being and personal- ity as his nature and capacity make possible; whose weak points have been overcome or removed as is possible; whose strong points have been built up to capacity and each of whom is, therefore, able to participate effectively and happily in the life of a high-grade social order. Society’s demand for more of each of these three returns is justified and implied by every phrase of Briggs’s statement of the investment theory. For example, “to perpetuate itself,” “to protect its own best interests,” “a better place in which to live and a better place in which to make a living.” Each of these three is also supported by the trends of recent PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 57 events. We surely move toward a socially controlled order and away from an individualistic one; toward a planned group life from laissez-faire; toward one in which economic and po- litical life must subserve socially justified goals and away from an order in which economic and political favorites have exploited both the human and natural resources of society. Liberalists in America from Roger Williams to Franklin and Jefferson to Parker, Wilson, and Dewey have always held be- fore our eyes the vision of such a social order in America. As James Truslow Adams phrases it in his American Dream, this country for some has always been conceived as “a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man with opportunity for each according to his ability of achievement. * * * It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous cir- cumstances of birth or position.” Even individualism in America has been justified because it seemed to offer an open road to such a social order. And now under a changed social and economic setting, America is forsaking individualism and is giving enthusiastic support to its first broad attempts at a planned order of social control. It is but a new path toward an old goal. It may, therefore, be no total loss of time for us to exam- ine these three proposed returns, broad and general though they may be, and measure our present curriculum program against them as the new criteria of its social value. Under the investment theory, once returns are agreed upon, educat- ors working in the schools have but one major concern. That is to recommend a program which in our professional judg- ment will yield a maximum of the desired returns. The ques- tion is not how much of these returns can society count upon the school’s traditional curriculum to produce, nor is it what reasonable modifications in the curriculum offering can be made to produce a slight increase in the amount of return to be expected from education. Both of these questions set the 58 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS school’s program ahead of society’s right to demand certain returns from education. Both give the traditional school cur- riculum the inside track and require society to win its return as best it can. They both involve a half-hearted acceptance of the investment theory. The real question is what program of education, irrespective of the school’s traditional offerings, can we propose with at least reasonable assurance that returns of the desired character will be forthcoming. This calls for a curriculum offering as free from traditions as the present de- sired returns are different from those which may have been desired by society in 1925. We should then have, in effect, a tradition-free curriculum. With this professional obligation in mind and with the three tentatively stated returns now sought by the State in mind, we may outline a curriculum program for the junior high school which makes a direct attack on the problem of meeting the State’s demand for these specific returns. To the writer, such a program appears to have four aspects. The first return which society seeks obviously concerns itself with social relationships. The State thinks that educa- tion can do something about developing more power to handle present social problems and to improve social situations now existing to the disadvantage of the state. The problem is to learn to live at high levels in social groups of increasing size and complexity. Such current social problems and situations as are within the experience of junior high-school pupils need to be studied and lived through as the subject matter of this aspect of the school’s program. ‘“Man’s problem is now man” might be said to be the theme of portions of Kilpatrick’s Our Educational Task,’ and this should be the dominant theme of secondary education. This will, of course, involve the really serviceable material of the social studies. To this will be re- lated some of the literature of what is now the English class with other good reading material less classic in nature added. It will utilize some aspects of mathematics as graphing and simple statistical techniques which are useful in thinking 1Kilpatrick, W. H., Our Educational Task, University of North Caro- lina Press, Chapple Hill, North Carolina, 1930. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 59 about and comprehending social data. It will call to service any subject matter now conventionally assigned to any sub- ject if it can be used in the better understanding of the social situation being studied. Thus then will the basic social func- tion for the entire period of secondary education be discharged by assembling present subject matter for use where it func- tions in the understanding of some social situation. The purpose here is for all children to become familiar with how group life is now carried on; the advantages and disadvantages of it examined; its strengths and weaknesses observed and studied. To become acquainted with the prob- lems involved and to study the merits of various proposed so- lutions. To see some of the background to these problems and situations without becoming so involved in the backgrounds as to forget the foregrounds. To get some experience in good methods of procedure to follow in solving social problems and in meeting situations by having an opportunity to live in groups where life is lived at high levels and where its prob- lems and situations are solved and met coéperatively and dem- ocratically. In sum, to give the experience with group living that will emphasize the satisfactions to be gained by high grade group life and thus promote the desire and power to sustain it at such levels. The first responsibility of the cur- riculum of the secondary school is to do absolutely everything it can to create as much of that power in as many young peo- ple as the best program of education which we are capable of conceiving, can do. The very continuance of the social life of mankind seems to depend upon whether we can generate such power faster than the need for it develops. This social-life aspect of the curriculum must then make a direct, and effect- ive attack upon this central problem of our modern world. The second return from education which we have pic- tured the State as demanding involves the management and use of the physical inheritance, the natural resources of the State. In this State, the economic and industrial aspects of life are to be purposefully made subject to social ends. Tech- nology is to be the servant of social progress, not its master, nor even a free lance. Its power in the promotion of this so- 60 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS cial end will be too freely recognized to permit society to run any risk that this power will be misunderstood, unappreci- ated, or poorly applied. The second functional center of sec- ondary education to be proposed is, consequently, the technical and scientific aspect of education dealing with the use and con- trol of the physical world in the interest of social progress. This social emphasis is scientific and technical education has been in a decidedly minor key. It is proposed that this scien- tific aspect of education be postulated on the proposition that the natural resources of a society are to be used and developed solely in the interest of public welfare and that the function of science and technology is to guide and direct this process so that the maximum in social progress may be attained with the minimum expenditure of the natural resources. Thus, while part of the daily program of the junior high school will be concerned with the “Man-Man relationship” a second part will deal with the “Man-Thing relationship’! with Man in either case the controlling element in the combination. Problems and situations in this second core commonly involve large use of science and mathematics and we may expect to find the sub- ject matter of these departments well represented here but ar- ranged in an order for use in meeting a life situation. Thus the aspects of these subjects vital to any problem or situa- tion within the ability or interest of junior school pupils will be included. Other really vital portions of these subjects will as a matter of course be included in connection with the more complex problems or situations considered by older students so that in the end the subject will be as adequately covered as current living makes necessary. Since all of this material will be included because of its social usefulness or value and since, as stated, the whole point of view will be that of educating children to see how the physical environment can be managed and used to improve man’s social status, the social emphasis in technical education will be greater than to-day. Thus even science which heretofore has been only covertly a social study will then become one overtly. - que, Harold O., The Great Technology, Preface, John Day Co., N. on b PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 61 The third return calls for the full development of each in- dividual member of the society. This is sought by the state purely for selfish motives and not through any altruistic in- terests it may have in the welfare of individuals as such. The State recognizes that it has two assets out of which it must build its life. One of these is its natural resources. Econ- omists and sociologists agree that without an adequate and varied supply of such resources no high levels of social living can be long maintained. Our second return shows that the State realizes the need for wise and complete use of this asset. The second of the State’s assets is its human resources. Un- less this last asset is properly developed the first asset will be inadequately used or misused. Only when the two are fully developed in unison can the best obtainable level of life be reached. This development of the second asset depends upon the extent to which the innate capacity of each individual is attained. His weaknesses must be strengthened and his tal- ents developed. Thus by minimizing his minus points and magnifying his plus points, the net capacity of each indivdual will reach its maximum and hence that of the whole society, its maximum. The State, therefore, regards failure to over- come a remedial weakness or failure to develop adequately a strength as so much human resources lost to its use. The third phase of the program of the junior school is then concerned with providing opportunity for the discovery and exploration of special abilities and capacities and the meeting of special needs. Some of these will, of course, be- come evident in connection with the first and second aspects of this school’s educational program, but there are many other abilities, capacities, and needs not falling within these fields, the development of which will be of value to society because a source of gratification and pleasure to the individual. Three particular functions will be performed by this phase of the junior school’s program. First, it will permit op- portunity to those who by reason of the enriched character of their experience as children, have early developed rare ability in any special field or a deep and abiding interest in any spe- cial activity, to pursue this interest or enlarge upon this talent 62 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS as a regular part of the school program. These opportunities may vary from a good recreational hobby to artistic creation. Or again this phase of the school’s program may provide time for additional reading or more experimentation along lines started in the social science or scientific phases of the pro- gram. It may be an individual affair which the student will pursue in the library, shop, laboratory, studio, or any other appropriate place. On the other hand, it may be an activity, such as keeping up one’s ability in conversational French or playing in a large or small instrumental group which he will carry forward only in company with others. Whatever the character of these interests, one-third of the program, if de- sired, can be devoted to them and always the school will fur- nish whatever of assistance, guidance, teaching, or leadership is appropriate to the situation. In the second place, here the students will have an oppor- tunity to investigate and explore fields of curiosity; just an opportunity always available to find out what is over on the other side of any mountain that forms a part of a pupil’s in- tellectual horizon. No deep or permanent interest or well de- veloped capacity is here assumed. The whole idea is to keep boys and girls in the habit of satisfying intellectual curiosi- ties as they arise. Nothing is so creative of a stale and stag- nant mental life as the habit of inhibiting all promptings of curiosity. It is the power behind natural child learning now all too soon disciplined out of existence. Yet, “the cultivation of interests, starting with the relatively undifferentiated hu- man needs and drives, is one of the chief functions of educa- tion.”! Moreover, if all of life is to be educative as it should be, then something within the individual must urge him to follow out after intellectual promptings instead of habitually dismissing them as “out of my line.” Somewhere in the edu- cation of adolescents, provision for developing this mental at- titude ought to be consciously provided. The third function of this aspect of the school’s program is to furnish an opportunity to any student to make up any 1Freeman, Frank N., “Proposed Educational Reforms—Some of the Major Issues,” The Nation’s Schools, Vol. XII, No. 1, July, 1933. > oO ® oa. a ob me Ss © 63 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING shortages or deficiencies in his educational or personal equip- ment. Unusual weakness in such a basic skill as reading, a particular need for an additional skill such as typewriting, a remedial speech defect or a physical condition requiring spe- cial exercise are examples of types of need which children may develop and for which adequate provision should be made as a means of raising capacities and abilities to their highest levels. Many of these shortages and special needs developed in adolescence and at the time seeming relatively unimportant may account for major weaknesses in adult life. A society which like the one we have projected, counts every inadequate- ly or improperly developed human capacity as so much wasted potential social wealth, will expect its educational system early to discover and correct as far as possible incipient weak- nesses and shortages as they develop. Without provision for this third aspect of the work of the junior school which per- mits free development of individual interests, which urges ex- ploration by building intellectual curiosity and which repairs incipient weaknesses, society will dwarf its cultural and aesthetic future and weaken its economic structure. With these three major aspects of the junior school’s pro- gram in mind, we may think of the school day as divided into thirds, one-third being devoted to each of these three phases of the work. It will not be necessary to subdivide further the day into periods for the study of many subjects or to alternate on successive days of the week between subjects. In any third of the day, the work will be unified around its underlying functional purpose. It is even possible to suggest that work in a large interest center such as one concerned with public health and sanitation will call for unification of the first and second aspects of the school program because involving both social study and science. Thus still further unification and integration will be provided for. In any case, material from any of the present subjects will be utilized as and when needed because that material will be useful in connection with under- standing an aspect of life which is being studied or lived by pupils. Pupils with interest and ability in such subject ma- terial as is not being utilized in connection with either of these 64 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS first two aspects of the school’s program can find opportunity to follow this personal interest, if of any social value what- ever, as a part of their work in the period of the day devoted to the promotion of society’s third function for this school. Thus, with these three functional centers, we unify the pro- gram of education around social purposes, integrate the work of pupils into larger related wholes, eliminate an array of subject titles without losing any of the socially useful mate- rial now taught under them and simplify the whole admin- istrative setup of the secondary-school curriculum. Such a junior school will be a natural development from our present junior high school in which the spirit of a functionally active educational program is bound to earth by the inherited for- malism of the older high schools. In conclusion, this paper has sought to accept the respon- sibility resting upon the school under the Briggs theory of public education as an investment by the State. It has set up what seem to the writer in the light of recent social and eco- nomic trends, to be three returns which the State now seeks with increasing eagerness from its investment in education. It has then on the basis of these three returns outlined a func- tional curriculum program for the junior high school with three principal aspects and has argued for the pursuit of these returns through this program without reference to what may or may not have been appropriate and approved content or arrangement of subject matter or method of teaching in any previous period. Only once before, if ever, has secondary education in America been faced with such an opportunity, such a respon- sibility, and such a challenge. The birth of the American Academy may have signalized such an occasion. For the American Academy was born of the liberal educational theo- ries of Benjamin Franklin. His ideas of a curriculum for this new secondary school, says Briggs, “were revolutionary”.' So, for three-quarters of a century, this new secondary school gave some promise of becoming the means for the realization ¥ 1Briggs, Thomas H.,Secondary Education, pg. 77, Macmillan Co., N. . 1933 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 65 of a democratic program of secondary education in America. It failed of this high possibility, however, continues Briggs, “because there were no provisions for developing detailed plans of procedure for converting to the new philosophy, teachers who were saturated by tradition and for guiding them by supervision to appropriate practices.’ Since the demise of the Academy, a new profession of secondary-school administrators has sprung into being. It is an acknowledged part of their task to convert teachers to a new educational philosophy and to guide them by supervision to appropriate practices. Therefore in the present educa- tional crisis our profession of secondary-school administra- tors as well as the secondary school itself, is on trial. The su- preme test is the development of a curriculum as free from social, economic, and educational tradition as the secondary- schools’ functions under the new dispensation, demand. In the Club Room under the direction of James E. Blue, Principal of Rockford High School of Illinois, the junior-col- lege group met. President R. L. Moore of the Junior College of Mars Hill, North Carolina, presented the first paper, The Teacher, the Solution of Our Problem. THE TEACHER, THE SOLUTION OF OUR PROBLEM R. L. MOORE President of Mars Hill Junior College Mars Hill, North Carolina The problem is not the founding of the school but the finding of the schoolmaster.—HORACE MANN. Our problems are numerous and must have attention, but we must beware lest bewildered by the multitude of them we fall into the helplessness of the centipede, which trying to de- cide which one of his hundred legs to move first, in his con- - fusion, couldn’t budge an inch. “Ibid, pg. 88. 66 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS Again, there is the greater problem of our moral break- down. Did you read the article by Dr. Paul H. Douglas of the University of Chicago in the March, 1933, Bulletin of the Association of American Colleges on “Has Higher Educa- tion Failed”? After referring to the fact that the high tariff leaders in Congress have sat at the feet of teachers who al- most without exception were free trade in teaching, and the further fact that those whose teachers championed world peace have themselves become outspoken advocates of big na- vies and a nationalism which is dangerous to world peace, he says, after listing some college men who have become reform- ers, “It is also true that if we look over our unsavory political machines, we find that in an extraordinary large number of cases they have been dominated or abetted by highly trained college graduates.”” Dr. Douglas then names men and the uni- versities they represent who have figured in corrupt politics in New York, Philadelphia, even this city. Harvard, founded to promote piety, morality, and “knowledge,” has fallen from its high place in furnishing the moral and religious leader- ship of a nation. Having put the emphasis upon making a living rather than making a life, we have intensified greed and selfishness. The Golden Rule has been given a back seat, and big business has taken the saddle, and the exploiting of weaker peoples goes on. The trouble with us is not material but spiritual. What did we have in 1928 that we did not have in 1933? The soil produced bountifully, there was no drought, no epidemic, no invading foe, no disaster of any kind. The same factories, the same water power, the same equable climate, the same supply of money, the same people—yet prosperity one year and de- pression the next with millions starving and freezing. The things seen are unchanged, the things not seen—faith, hope, love—have during the years suffered disintegration. We have been defeated in the things of the spirit. We have let things press in on us—the world is too much with us—we have made the practical the highest good and have left out the profound, magnifying the material and leaving out the spiritual. —_ VwT ® —_—— oe eC «= 0 CO — oF ~- @® 1 on @® —— -y PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 67 Go back 1900 years. A young Teacher at the age of 33 had just closed His work on a wooden cross just outside Jeru- salem. For 40 months He had had a group of a dozen men with Him in training. With lakeside and hills for laboratory and classroom He trained and inspired and transformed this group of fishermen and insignificant learners into forces that changed the currents of history. In this connection these words of Dr. Glenn Frank are worth repeating: “He was not interested in giving His hearers new information. He was interested in giving them a new way of looking at all information, old and new. He was not interested in having His hearers absorb a mass of standardized information, but in having them think about the pressing problems of their own lives. He was not interested in increasing their understanding. He was not concerned to have them practice remem- bering. He wanted them to practice thinking. Jesus would have a hard time getting an appointment to a $1,500 instructorship in a modern university.” A few centuries before, Socrates taught in the parks and streets of Athens and left an impress that lives yet, and nearer our own era is Mark Hopkins. These justify the as- sertion that it is men, not bricks and mortar, that make a seat of learning. The atmosphere in many schools, great and small, is as cold and dead as the stone in their walls. It takes a great teacher to create an atmosphere in which the spirits and souls of men may grow. Every one of you who have amounted to anything have somewhere along the way had a great teacher, one whose love of knowledge, enthusiasm, high ideals, deep convictions, and moral earnestness are reincarnated in you. You may have found her in the elementary grades, or in high school, or in college as a teacher of philosophy who steadied you in the days of doubt and confusion and faltering faith. You know who I am talking about and are grateful that your paths crossed. However difficult and trying conditions may be, the way out or through appears when a man is found, a Washington, a Lincoln, a Wesley, a Frances Willard, a Page, a Patton. We 68 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS shall make progress in the solution of our educational and moral problems as we find teachers of unselfish and beautiful spirit, apt to teach, with burning zeal for right. If for a pe- riod of ten years we should forget in large measure our prob- lems and should center our efforts in finding and developing great teachers, is it not certain that we would be farther along the way than we are? If we could reinstate the simple, rever- ent, rigorous virtues of the Puritan fathers we might save ourselves from the mushiness, the ease-loving, pleasure seek- ing craze of these latter days. Teachers, genuine teachers, correct in vision and outlook, will work marvels. And so I plead that we find worthy teachers and give them a chance to teach. Is it not possible to free them from the making of so many reports? I think I have discovered a sort of shudder passing through a faculty of teachers when the superintendent or principal goes off to study or to meetings of this kind. He invariably comes back with some new type of report, a handful of questionnaires that call for laborious ef- fort in compiling statistics that all too often are never used by anybody for anybody’s good, or an assortment of tests to be tried out on innocent victims. Relieve your teachers, I pray you, of the drudgery of so much written work, relieve them of mechanics and demand vital teaching. Let me plead, in the second place, for relief from fear of losing one’s position. Suppose that at the beginning of this century we had deliberately started out to produce a genera- tion unselfish, true to the best that has come down to us as the heritage of the past, willing to serve, and desirous of knowing and doing the right ; suppose that in the little schoolhouse back in the cove as in the great city school we had got across to those who sat twelve to sixteen years at our feet that “public office is a public trust’; suppose we had put the emphasis on making men with “great hearts, true faith, and ready hands” —‘“men whom the lust of office does not kill, men whom the spoils of office cannot buy, tall men, suncrowned, who live above the fog in public duty and private thinking’, would not things be different now? we FSB Ww woe Ft Te Se Or errlllUelClCUN PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 69 And so I present the problem of problems—the finding of the schoolmaster, the finding and training of teachers whose vision, horizon, heart power, and teaching ability are unques- tioned and of superior quality. In this process of developing a new order of teachers our colleges must accept a higher responsibility both in the select- ing of those who are to become teachers and in the process of training them. Many courses in education are evidently of little value in the making of the type of teachers needed. And many of these courses revitalized should probably be placed later in the curriculum. Should a teacher specialize on a foundation less than that required of a lawyer or a physician? The certification departments of our states must also look more carefully to the quality of men who are granted certifi- cates. Ought any man to be licensed until his character is at- tested by good and true evidence? In my state the veriest moral leper ever graduated can get a certificate to teach if he has the required number of hours of education. Would it not be a step in the right direction to grant the privilege of teach- ing for only one year after graduation, the renewal of the cer- tificate to depend upon evidence that the teacher has personal- ity and power to inspire pupils, exerts a wholesome influence in community affairs, lives above reproach, and gives promise of making a superior instructor or school official. There must be a process of elimination also, this process to be speeded by certification departments, superintendents, and school boards, as fast as new teachers can be found. There are better days ahead. We have cried from the depths, and the answer comes afar. Ideals are practical. Let us cherish the highest, in the spirit of these words from the distinguished editor of the Journal of the National Education Association, Dr. Joy Elmer Morgan: “Is it not plain that what the world needs just now is a new devotion to great ideals: In statecraft, in business, in industry, in law, in the church, in sci- ence, or in teaching can anything be more intensely fruitful and practical than a renewed faith in the higher and finer things? Hour after hour, day after 70 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS day, we are all facing situations where there is choice between the higher and the lower. It takes but a little common sense and a will to choose the higher path— to change the whole course of a life, a school, a nation, or an age. A little more faith, a little more idealism and the confusion of to-day may give way to the fair- est dawn the world has seen.” The second paper was read by Dean J. J. Oppenheimer of the University of Louisville, Louisville, Ky., Some Problems Confronting the Junior College Movement. SOME PROBLEMS CONFRONTING THE JUNIOR- COLLEGE MOVEMENT J. J. OPPENHEIMER University of Louisville The Concern of the Secondary Principal and Teacher.— The rapid growth of the junior college and its accompanying reception by the people of this country make it imperative that any forward-looking person connected with secondary education recognize that the junior college is being accepted as an integral part of our educational system. While it is true that the junior college movement has been more closely identified with that of higher education, than with that of sec- ondary education, the trend has been unmistakably toward its inclusion in the field of secondary education. The high-school principal must concern himself with this problem of the jun- ior college for three reasons: (1) Because in all likelihood he will be faced with the problem of establishing one in the near future; (2) Because if he is not so confronted he must at least face the problem of articulating the curriculum and program of studies with that of a junior college; and (3) Because he will find in the study of the junior college many interesting suggestions which may have bearing on the improvement of senior high-school education. This paper is concerned with the problems confronting the public junior college. Its chief purpose is the consideration of the possibilities of a unified institution which will include the present senior high school PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 71 and junior college. In the presentation of the thesis of a uni- fied secondary institution certain problems of importance to furthering its development will be presented. The Social Scene and the Junior College.—For education to be effective it must be based upon the social, political, and economic elements in contemporary life. The student of mod- ern secondary education must constantly orient himself in ref- erence to the profound social changes that are taking place. Too much of secondary and higher education has been deter- mined by cultural patterns that are long outmoded, if, in fact, they ever existed. The long servility of the high school to col- lege domination and to the great tradition of culture as an ornament has left deep impresses upon the high school as an institution. Consequently, its present conservatism may be a natural outcome. It may well be that the long fight for liber- ation has blinded the fighters to the opportunities of the newer freedom. These are insitutional changes and, as such, are more perceptible; but the slow, visible changes of the whole of social life are less noticeable. What are these changes? 1. Despite the present curtailment of funds for educa- tion, there is an unmistakable demand for the extension of popular education beyond the senior high school into the area of the junior college and a trend from formal education to greatly increased facilities for diversified adult education. It would be a strange reversal of a historic movement to witness a decline in demand for popular educational opportunities. 2. The gradual acceptance on the part of government, business, and industry, of a belief that social institutions are amenable to human planning and control will make radical changes in what we teach concerning the social order. Any social planning must include education. To avoid serious so- cial conflicts of all sorts a great deal more energy must be ex- pended on higher education including the continuing educa- tion of adults. No longer can modern society depend upon the learning of children as the sole instrument of social progress sufficient for a life time. Education is life long. 3. The rapidity of change in technological processes will require a much broader type of vocational education than the 72 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS former type of specific training. In the same connection pre- industrial education must make the individual much more adaptable to economic changes. 4. The change from an economy of scarcity to one of plenty will entail the decrease of working time and delayed entrance into economic life. If these trends are certain, then more general education, especially in those subjects which may contribute to leisure activities, must be increased. The so- called fads and frills—arts, music, drama, crafts, literature— must become a larger element in education. 5. Four years of economic stringency should have chas- tened us into placing more emphasis upon moral and spiritual values. No thoughtful American educator can read the sober- ing words of the “Report on Recent Social Change”? and not attempt to bring about a change of attitude and social be- havior in his pupils. Note these brief quotations from the report: “Fully real- izing its mission, the Committee does not wish to assume an attitude of alarmist irresponsibility, but on the other hand it would be highly negligent to gloss over the stark and bitter realities of the social situation, and to ignore the imminent perils in further advance of our heavy technical machinery over crumbling roads and shaking bridges. There are times when silence is not neutrality, but assent. “Finally, the Committee is not unmindful of the fact that there are important elements in human life not easily stated in terms of efficiency, mechanization, institutions, rates of change or adaptations to change. The immense structure of human culture exists to serve human needs and values not al- ways readily measurable, to promote and expand human hap- piness, to enable men to live more richly and abundantly. It is a means, not an end in itself. Men cling to ideas, ideals, institutions, blindly perhaps even when outworn, waiting until they are modified and given a new meaning and a new 1Recent Social Trends in the United States. A Report of the Presi- dent’s Research Committee on Social Trends. Vol. 1, Ixxiv and lxxv (In- troduction) PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 73 mode of expression more adequate to the realization of the cherished human values. The new tools and the new technique are not readily accepted; they are indeed suspected and re- sisted until they are reset in a framework of ideas of emo- tional and personality values as attractive as those which they replace.” 6th and last. Modern life demands greater emphasis upon integration. Many mechanical changes, such as improve- ment in travel and communication, increase of urban life, the deeper understanding of human relations, the universality of knowledge, the unity of sciences, and the realization of the unity of the human organism emphasize the necessity of syn- thesis, common purposes, and significant interrelations. This is quite different from a world made up of dualisms and com- partmentalizations. The Junior College and the Depression.—Nothwithstand- ing the drastic reduction of budgets for educational purposes the junior-college movement has continued to grow throughout the depression. Dr. Doak Campbell, Secretary of the Ameri- can Association of Junior Colleges, reports that in the latest census of junior colleges, there were 514 junior colleges in the United States—210 publicly supported and 304 private in 1932, as against 493 in 1931.1. These have a total enrollment of 103,530. There are junior colleges in every state of this country with the exception of Nevada and Wyoming. ENROLLMENT IN JUNIOR COLLEGES IN THE U. S. A. IN 1931-1932. Total No. Number YEAR — (of 3 of Students O%E UDC, students oF Erivate, students 1932 514 103,530 210 70,221 304 33,309 1931 493 96,555 189 60,345 304 36,210 Per Cent Increase ..4% 7% 10% 14% 0% Per Cent | Decrease .. 9% The above figures indicate an increase in the number of public 1“Directory of Junior Colleges,” 1934, The Junior College Journal, 4:205ff (January 1933) 74 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS junior colleges of 10% and in the enrollment of these colleges an increase of almost 10,000 students, or 14%. The number of private junior colleges has remained the same with a de- creased enrollment of approximately 3000, or 9%. Dr. L. V. Koos, one of the foremost authorities of the movement, says: “- - - The acceptance of the junior college in the thinking of both educator and intelligent layman is now even more widespread than the distribution itself. Not that acquaintance with the movement is universal, but that convic- tion of its significance is sufficiently prevalent to remeve all doubt on the score of the persistence of the institution. This conviction has been greatly strengthened during the period of the depression, in fact, by the depression. In these days of shrunken family incomes students at the college level have turned in increasing proportions toward local educational in- stitutions, and the influence of one of the potent factors in the development of the junior college has been accentuated.”* The depression and its accompanying changes brought about in the organization and theory of our economic life, along with the changes in secondary and higher education, and likewise, the changes brought about in the development of the junior college through experience and formal experimenta- tion, have accentuated a number of problems closely related to future development of the junior college. These problems have direct bearing upon the future of secondary education: 1. Is the public junior college to be a free public insti- tution, or is it to be restricted to those who can afford to pay tuition? 2. As far as local public education is concerned, is the junior college to be an integral part of secondary-school or- ganization? 3. Is the new junior college to be the people’s college in reality, or maintained for a selected group—the senior college preparatory group? “Training of Junior College Teachers,” Junior College Journal, 4: 163, (January 1934) PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 75 4. Is the new junior college, or if you please the upper level of secondary education, to be unified from the standpoint of curriculum or to be a mosaic of many unrelated units? Problem of Financial Support.—In these days of eco- nomic stringency, one would be a heretic who did not recog- nize the priority of the problem of financial support. Accu- rate data are not available, but there are evidences that re- striction of public funds has caused the abandonment of some of the junior colleges, and in many cases it has compelled boards of education to charge tuition. There is likewise evi- dence that some boards of education have felt junior-college education to be a luxury, at least not an essential part of pub- lic secondary education. But public opinion has been aroused. The protests that have arisen from the closing of the Crane Junior College in Chicago show that a large part of the public do not agree with that board of education. The depression has focused more clearly the problems in regard to financial support, namely: (1) How many junior colleges are needed? (2) How and where shall junior colleges be located? Are local communities solely to be permitted to determine this question? Have we not learned from experience in locating high schools? (3) How large a school unit is needed to sup- port an effective junior college? (4) What are the sources of support for the junior colleges? (5) Shall it be a free insti- tution? These are insistent problems, but already in the brief development of the junior-college movement materials are being gathered that are helpful in answering them. A few will be presented. In those states in which public junior col- leges have developed, data concerning the amount of support necessary for an adequate junior college program are being assembled. Dr. Judd‘ in his comments on the development of the junior college as a phase of American education supports the conclusion of Dr. L. V. Koos, who has set the following re- quirements: (1) That the community should be at least 30,000 population; (2) That the enrollment should be at least 200; and (3) That the community should spend from at least $185 to $215 per capita, depending on the method of determining 1Judd, Ch. H., Problems of Education in the United States, p. 65. 76 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS the number of students in the college. Holy, who has studied middle western conditions, set the population at 17,000, the assessed evaluation at $30,000,000 if the local district carried total cost, and an enrollment of 150.’ In his careful analysis of criteria, Dr. W. C. Eells sug- gests as a reasonable assessed valuation at $15,000,000, high- school enrollment of 500, but he emphasizes quite rightly the importance of a survey as a method of determining the loca- tion of a junior college.” The second fiscal problem of junior colleges concerns itself with the sources of support. Local junior colleges re- ceive state support in two states, California and Mississippi.* Opinion varies from that of total support from the state to complete support from local taxation. Most authorities agree that the public junior college should be a part of the local sec- ondary educational system. Three state surveys of higher ed- ucation in Texas, California, and Georgia have made such pro- nouncements. However, this is not to say that junior colleges shall receive no state aid. They should receive aid along with other units of secondary education. It is generally conceded by all serious students of educational support that more of the burden of support must rest on the state instead of on the local taxing unit. In these recent days many advocates of public education are demanding federal support for education. If the principle of equalization of education is carried to its logical and practical conclusion some states must receive Fed- eral aid. Dr. Groves of the University of Wisconsin, a lead- ing tax expert in this country and a former tax adviser of the Treasury Department, advocates the inclusion of education in the Federal budget.’ But the slowness with which state legis- latures have responded to the need of equalizing educational opportunities within states and the tardiness of the Federal Government in responding to the dire needs of the schools of 1Holy, T. C., “Criteria of Establishment of Public Junior Colleges,” Thirteen Yearbook of the Department of Secondary Principals of the Na- tional Education Association, Bulletin No. 25, pp. 308-18, 2Eells, W. C., The Junior College, pp. 556-573. op: cit. pp. 556-573. 3Groves, H. M.,“A Tax Policy for the United States,” The New Re- public, 77: 357 (February 1934) PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 77 this country would indicate that public opinion will have to be more thoroughly aroused if any radical changes are made in support of education. If the junior college is to be the terminus of general edu- cation and thus round out the secondary school, then there can be little argument that it shall be a tuition free institution. I cannot see how any other conclusion can be derived if the premise is granted. True, in an emergency, exceptions must be made. Likewise, more adequate methods of equalizing funds must be derived, but the fundamental principle re- mains. Can we afford more public education? The students of public finance say we have the wealth. The question is: Do we desire to spend more of our national income for educa- tion? If the public agrees, the responsibility is on the schools to make good an increased investment! Problem of Organization.—If it is agreed that the public junior college can be supported, then what form shall the junior college of the future take? A separate institution called the college or junior college? A three year institution? Which? At present it is decidedly a two year institution or the lower division of a four year college of liberal arts. There are strong advocates of the six-four-four plan. There are equally strong advocates who believe this new institution should be a two year organization. If one takes a single com- munity the recent survey of the Pasadena plan of organiza- tion presents very convincing evidence of the feasibility of the six-four-four plan. Dr. W. M. Proctor, who directed the sur- vey, says: “The Director of Research Studies can say unhesi- tatingly that the four year high school as it has been devel- oped in that city under the existing six-four-four plan is both an administrative and educational success.” He supplies a large amount of data to support the efficiency of this plan, such as: 1. Pasadena with a six-four-four organization is at the top of cities of her size in holding power. 1Proctor, W. M., The Six-Four-Four Plan of Organization in Pasa- dena, p. 89 and pp. 191-196 78 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 2. Over half (52%) of the students are enrolled in ter- minal and vocational courses. This refutes the commonly ac- cepted statement that students will not enter non-college pre- paratory courses. 3. A careful study of 14,000 children in four California communities in regard to physical maturity revealed that cer- tainly a four year span including grades 11 to 14 is no more a violation of homogeneity than a four year span embracing grades 9 to 12 inclusive. 4. The faculty of the junior college believe the combina- tion junior college and senior high school affords better cur- riculum and extra-curriculum opportunities. It must be re- membered that this evidence is taken from one junior college and consequently no generalizations of country-wide propor- tions can be made. However it is sufficient to warrant seri- ous consideration and to stimulate further investigation. In the National Survey of Secondary Education, Dr. L. V. Koos has appraised all of the significant experiments in re- organization of the junior college. He has looked upon the movement as a whole. He concludes :' “The foregoing analytical description of the spe- cial organization considered has been accompanied by a partial attempt at appraisal, sometimes factual and sometimes speculative. Although the brief examina- tion that has been possible finds most, if not all, to be promising innovations, no one of them has reached a.stage that it does not require further scrutiny and further improvement in the light of results of such scrutiny.” The interesting facts are: (1) That there is serious ex- perimentation in this field of organization; and (2) That the thesis of reorganization for economy of time and integration warrants further study. Other parts of the educational sys- tem could well afford to emulate this willingness to test re- sults by critical methods instead of by dogmatic assertions. There is considerable evidence to the effect that notwithstand- 1Koos, L. V., “The Training of Junior College Teachers,” Junior Col- lege Journal, 4:164, (January 1934) PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 79 ing the opposition of most accrediting agencies to any sort of organic connection between the junior college and the senior high schools, there are in reality many administrative connec- tions. Let me cite two cases: (1) Approximately seven- eighths of the public junior colleges and almost three-fourths of the State junior colleges are housed on the same sites of the high school; (2) Dr. Koos reports that in a survey of the junior colleges in California almost two-thirds of the instruc- tors carried teaching responsibilities at both high-school and junior-college levels.? What place will the junior college hold in the school or- ganization of to-morrow? Dr. C. H. Judd, who has never been given to making futile prophecies, thinks that the Amer- ican school system of the future will be composed of a six- year elementary system preceded by a nursery school unit or kindergarten unit or both, and a six-year secondary school’ composed of a lower and upper division. The upper division will include a present junior-college organization. He presents a challenge in this fashion: “What is needed in the United States and what is being vaguely demanded by society is a new scheme of education. The details of this scheme cannot and will not be determined by the vested interests of the present administrative units. They will be deter- mined by the results of studies which utilize the techniques of psychology and the other social sci- ences.””? Problem of Function.—Organization makes possible func- tional changes. What are the functions of the junior college? Is it to be a replica of the first two years of the standard col- lege? Is it to be a vocational school? Is it to be a diluted college for those who cannot succeed under the rigid discipline of higher education? Is it to be a terminal institution? Isth- mian in character? A people’s college? An institution for 1$paulding, F. T., Frederick, O. I., and Koos, L. V., The Reorganiza- tion of Secondary Education, pp. 414-415. 2Koos, L. V., “The Training of Junior College Teachers,” Junior Col- lege Journal, 4:166, (January 1934) 3Report of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teach- ing, State Higher Education in California, p. 34. DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 80 education of adults? A post-graduate course in the senior high school? The best statement I can present to you is that made by the Commission of Seven on State Higher Education in California. It says: “The junior college period is the last stage of the upper or secondary period of common schooling, the dominant purpose of which is general to all the purposes of civilized life in so far as different stu- dents wish to or can achieve them.” “The Commission recommends that it be the pol- icy of the State Board of Education to recognize that the system of junior-college education may properly include groups of functions or services, five in num- ber, as follows: (1) Social intelligence, (2) Special- ized vocational, (3) Pre-professional, (4) Pre-aca- demic, and (5) Adult.’’? One can readily see that the junior college is to be a unit in the school system and that it has multiple functions. It is broadly conceived to take care of the advanced needs of sec- ondary education. The discussion of the curriculum adjust- ment will include more detailed account of the manner in which these functions are to be carried out, but a brief ex- planation may be necessary to understand some of the terms. The social intelligence curriculum is an innovation in secon- dary offering in that it provides for rounding out the general education of the student by giving him a unitary conception of our developing civilization. It is functional in character; it endeavors to acquaint the student with the insistent prob- lems, the workings, and the agencies of contemporary life. Vocational curricula which for years have been the sole con- cern of the technical institute, have been instituted in the larger junior colleges. These courses are terminal in char- acter in that they prepare the junior-college student for en- trance into the out-of-school life. As yet, adult education has not been closely identified with the junior college. If the jun- ior college of the future is to be the capstone of the educa- tional system of most communities, then what better service Ibid, p. 35. 2Report of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teach- ing, State Higher Education in California, p. 34. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 81 could it perform than that of meeting the educational needs of adults of the community? With the radical changes in the economic life, there can be little doubt that adult education will be one of the community’s major concerns. If the junior college does not meet this challenge some other agency will. The task of making the junior college more than a college pre- paratory institution will require radical change in popular be- lief. The belief that there can be any other kind of higher ed- ucation than that found in the college of liberal arts is strange and new. The idea that adults after college graduation should return to school is fantastic. Yet just this seems to be what the future holds. If the junior college meets the challenge to become the people’s college, it must have multiple functions. It cannot cater to one group, however worthy that group is. To serve effectively the advancing needs for higher education, it must be an institution most sensitive to the great changes in economic, political, and social life. Problem of Curriculum Articulation.—In light of an in- tegrated upper secondary unit the problem of reorganization of the curriculum is the most neglected problem with which If the chief objective of the senior high-school- junior-college unit is to round out the period of general edu- cation, then much attention should be paid to the nature of we are faced. general or liberal education. The issue is this: Is there any- thing resembling continuous education between the curricula of senior high school and the junior college when there is such disparity in aim and content? Let me be a little more ex- plicit. If one takes the time to analyze the changes that are taking place in the curricula of the liberal arts colleges of this country, I believe he will find a surprisingly large number that are reorganizing their junior-college courses with the view of giving the student a survey of modern knowledge and its re- lation to contemporary life. Of course, there is yet much to be done. Let us in a more or less dogmatic way differentiate the nature of the older and the newer types of the curriculum organization in the secondary field: 82 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS Older Type Educational experience made up of many small, isolated, detailed units of learning. Accomplishment of learning ex- pressed in terms of summation of certain numbers of unrelated credits or hours. A cultivation of unrelated courses. Subjects or courses kept in com- partments; boundaries strictly ob- served. Materials logically organized, es- pecially in terms of needs of sub- ject development. _ Learning of isolated facts, prin- ciples, etc. Tool value stressed. Newer Type Educational experience made up of well integrated patterns of learning which continue to expand into larger implications. Accomplishment of learning ex- pressed in terms of ability to use things learned; especially in terms of solving one’s immediate prob- lems and obtaining insights and meanings. The inter-relations between meanings and courses are stressed; the various aspects of a phase of civilized life are presented. Materials organized psychologic- ally in terms of the student’s need of orientation and growth. These must in turn be logically organized. Learning of attitude, facts, meth- ods and principles meaningful to the learner. Thinking which will reconstruct one’s living is sought. Use mainly in the present to orient the student to his own growth in a changing environ- ment. Use mainly for future; courses are introductory to a next course. If the newer objectives dominate the curriculum of the unified upper secondary school, certain changes may be ex- pected, such as: (1) A relatively fewer courses than exist at present; (2) Broader or more inclusive courses similar to survey courses; (3) Courses that continue for the four years instead of a semester; (4) A great deal of integration or fus- ing of subjects similar to courses in junior high school but of a much more advanced nature; (5) Inclusion of more fields such as psychology, philosophy, and certainly the fine arts; (6) Greater stress on the significance of contemporary life; (7) Promising innovations in the field of curriculum con- struction such as unit organization of materials. If one is seeking suggestions regarding the type of cur- riculum that may be expected in the newer junior college, he PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 83 may well consider the curriculum of the General College of the University of Minnesota. The objectives of the courses are well stated in the following extracts: “The General College of the University is de- signed primarily to provide broad intellectual train- ing to that large body of students who seek an over- view of life and of man’s activities rather than spe- cialized study These new courses tend to build in the mind of the intelligent student a background of understanding of the present world. They give him the vital comprehension of what other men and women do. They teach him also why and how things are done. They should, therefore, serve to satisfy his intellectual curiosity and to prepare him for en- lightened living in his public and private relations.””? Director McClean and his associates have shown their ability to construct a curriculum which admirably carries out this objective of social intelligence. A list of the courses will aid one in understanding how inclusive has been their aim. Some of the courses are: Basic Wealth—a course designed to give the student a realistic picture of the basic sources of all wealth, natural resources, plant life, and animal life; Human Biology—general biological concepts in relation to mankind, the human body, its structure and operation, and personal and community health; Our Economic Life; Technology; Euthen- ics—which include the management of the home, house plan- ning and furnishing, textiles, food and nutrition, and design- ing and financing the home—open to both men and women; Appreciatio of the Fine Arts; Background of the Modern World; Formation of Public Opinion—which includes shaping public thinking; the newspaper and periodical and their func- tions, propaganda campaigns; Human Development and Per- sonal Adjustment—personal and applied psychology and men- tal hygiene; Vocations; Earth and Man; Biography; and Ed- ucation of the Modern World. Are these courses and others like them the type of con- tent our senior high schools need? It may be that such courses 1General College of the University of Minnesota, 36:7 (July 27, 1933 84 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS would not be adaptable to the intellectual and social level of the senior high-school student, but this question can only be settled experimentally. On the other hand, the tested experi- ences of such junior colleges as Long Beach, Stephens, Kansas City, and Pasadena would restrain one from making the bold assertion that juniors and seniors in the present senior high school are incapable of a quality of work comparable to that of college freshmen. Liberality in removing restrictions for the benefit of honest experimentation by such accrediting agencies as the North Central Association is falsifying the old excuse that standing of high-school pupils will be jeopardized. Little objection can be expected from the colleges. Just what effect such a fundamental reorganization of content would have upon the curricula of the junior college and senior col- lege is problematical. Koos and others have shown that for over one hundred years there has been a gradual settling of the college courses into the senior high school. With the de- mocratization of education, there is little reason to believe that this movement has stopped. To those who hold that one of the major objectives of the senior-high-school-junior college is to prepare students for academic or professional work, there can be no objection. However, there is a growing accumulation of evidence that this job is not being done in a uniform way. I refer to find- ings in the Pennsylvania Study of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The wide variation among the graduates of high schools of the same rank and the varied accomplishments among the graduates of the same high school have led Dr. W. S. Learned and others to advocate the possi- bility of the accreditment of individuals and not of institu- tions.' Certainly a serious study of the curriculum require- ments of those who intend to take professional or specialized academic education would be very much to the point. The techniques that Dr. W. W. Charters has employed in the determination of the curricula of professional schools and of that of determining prerequisites hold interesting possibil- 1Learned, W. S., College Admission and Guidance, A Reprint from the Educational Record, pp. 11-37. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 85 ities. His techniques would determine elements, such as facts, principles, and traits instead of the traditional method of requiring a new grouping of existing subjects. To what extent these differentiated curricula will contain the same content no one can say. Many advocates of the new education hold as a tenable hypothesis that a genuine functional cur- riculum which serves the living interests of youth will be the best preparation for academc and professional studies. In support of this contention are two facts: (1) The increas- ing demand of professional schools that students who aim to enter them must have more general or liberal education; and (2) The realization in the fields of technical education that a broader education is mandatory for making the individual more adaptable to technological changes. But any curriculum reorganization without provisions for student guidance would be educational waste. In addition greater provisions for individual instruction, and better methods of measurement must be made. But discussion of these problems deserves more time than I have at my disposal. Summary.—By way of summary let me return to the two major issues concerning the future of the public junior col- lege, namely: (1) Adequate support to make it a free insti- tution; and (2) Its reorganization to make it in truth the people’s college. Both of these issues are bound up with the problems of democracy in education and of democracy in society. Despite isolated attacks and too frequent experiences that can be enumerated, the American people have determined that the elementary and high school shall be free public insti- tutions. They have not so determined that higher education shall be free to all: In light of our historic tradition of free education, evidence that youth will increasingly be barred from the economic life, and of the need of more education to carry on our institutional life, and of our material wealth to support more education, can we say that the American nation has decided to limit free educational opportunities to twelve years of schooling? Can a democratic nation depend for its own existence upon the discarded theory of education that twelve years of schooling will provide enough of intellectual 86 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS stimulation to guarantee learning and adequate adaptations throughout life? Can a democracy that is rapidly displacing an outworn economic theory of rugged individualism, hold to an analogous theory in education? The public junior col- lege is and will be the front line of the struggle between the advocates of democracy and dictatorship. With Harrison C. Lyseth, State Supervisor of Secondary Education of Maine, presiding in Parlor A, Professor J. Paul Leonard, of William and Mary, opened the program at 2:30 P. M. with his paper on The Course of Study in Secondary- School English. THE COURSE OF STUDY IN SECONDARY- SCHOOL ENGLISH Dr. J. PAUL LEONARD Professor of Education, College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia If we accept as sound the policy of universal secondary education, we have the guide for determining the function of the secondary school and a basis for understanding the char- acteristics of its personnel. To unify our approach to the study of the high-school curriculum, let us pause a moment to examine these matters of function and personnel. We are confused in principle, restricted in content and instructional materials, and controlled by the requirements of the college. Yet we have the equipment and a sufficient num- ber of pupils to dominate the situation if we chose to do so. An organization like the Department of Secondary-School Principals has the potential power to unify nationally our con- cept of the purpose of secondary education, to liberate the high-school child from the oppression of college dominence, to construct a curriculum suited to the growth of the adolescent child, and to exert a vigorous and unrelenting leadership in de- manding the replacement of the present program with the new. Singly we are ineffective; collectively we could dictate. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 87 We need courage to defy tradition and an educational pro- gram to prepare children to accept change. If the public schools cannot get support from: those they have educated, we are indeed in need of a change, for our pupils have not caught the highest purpose of education—the capacity to keep on growing. To teach children how we got the way we are is im- portant, and we have labored early and late to make certain that our pupils know that; verily, we have sacrificed our joys of living that they might repeat that accurately. But where are we going? Now, as never before, change is the order of the day. The present situation in America gives us an oppor- tunity for which we have been waiting. If we miss this chance, we miss the greatest privilege we have ever been given. To meet this opportunity what shall be our program? What shall be the function of the secondary school in present society? I shall not here review critically previously formed statements-of the purpose of the secondary school, neither shall I propose a list of functions. You have a committee working on that task now. I do wish, however, to present and to develop briefly three challenges which the secondary school must face, challenges which demand unity and synthesis of content commonly presented as organized bodies of knowl- edge. First of all, we must give meaning to the struggle of man for the achievement of his ambitions and desires. All strug- gles have been by natural law fundamentally individual, but some have exploited society, while others have advanced it. One man achieves his ambitions by subjugation of his fellow men. He compels men to die for his conquest. He crushes to achieve. Such has been the history of ruthless industrial lead- ers and of imperialistic nations. Another man guards his own freedom by protecting that of all men. He believes in the principle so excellently ex- pressed by Thomas Paine: “He that would make his own lib- erty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” The boomerang of freedom through op- pression has come home to us the last four years moré force- 88 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS fully than ever before. By sharing, we prosper; by enslaving, we suffer. This, I say, must be impressed upon the child, and our secondary school must accept the teaching of this princi- ple as one of its major purposes. The story of man’s struggle becomes our content; the inculcation of the ideal of protection for all, our aim. In the second place, we must explore the possibilities in our present social order. What are our resources? Never be- fore have they been so bountiful. That we have starving amidst plenty, that we have work to be done, that we have idle materials with which to shelter and clothe ourselves, that we have machinery to ease our burden is common knowledge. Man’s endurance of necessary hardships with fortitude is his heritage and is to his glory, but to accept planned defeat in a world that could be gracious is a disgrace to his courage. Man will not continue to embrace that which gives him displeasure and which destroys his self-respect. The surest way to inspire him to secure the essentials of life is to build our curriculum around such possibilities, and so to teach them that a deter- mination to secure an equitable share of these resources will become virtually a religion with the child. This may well be- come a second principle. Following these two challenges, a third suggests itself— what can we do about it? Needless to say, no one knows the exact pattern our future society will take, but there are signs and signals, there are already indications that definite pat- terns are being formed. How can we all be sure of food and clothing? How can we have reasonable economic security? How can we obtain the freedom which scientific achievements make possible? In other words, how can we order our living so as to achieve those ambitions and desires arising from the potentialities of modern resources? “But,” you say, “you want a heaven.” I answer, “No, I want relief from the earthly torments of Hell.” A planned society is what I am talking about, planned for the prviection of all men. This may be- come a third principle, and these three concepts—a belief in the principle of freedom through sharing, a grasp of the po- tentialities of modern life, and a determination to secure an PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 89 equitable distribution of social resources—represent a chal- lenge to the builder of the secondary-school curriculum who desires to meet the problems of mass education in modern so- ciety. a Let us pause just a minute to glance at our secondary- school population. There is a characteristic of the modern adolescent which definitely distinguishes it from the youth of previous generations. It is an attitude of mind, a way of thinking and living, and arises from the very fibre and ele- ments of the society in which we live. The pattern of life into which our present youth are born is a curiously complicated one. There is no dominant Puritan religious ideal, no great unified desire for the exploration of land, no combined loyalty to any common cause which solidi- fies our ideals and endeavors, such as we had during the civil and world war periods of our history; even devotion to the common aim of great industrial expansion as waning. We have divided loyalties, debated values, divergent causes. Such a state of society gives youth instability. What we were once sure of, we now doubt; those things we thought secure have perished; those ideals to which we formerly clung vigorously have been abandoned, our older codes of ethics have been in- validated. At one time in our history there existed a body of knowl- edge which seemed conclusive and infallible; our schools seized upon it and called it minimum essentials. There was a respect for the authority of the written word, for the teacher, the minister, the banker, the judge, and for the aged. Youth was asked to accept the pattern of society which he had inherited, to bear the load of life, and to pass on the burdens to the next generation. But one word youth has learned spoils all—the pregnant word Why. Youth cries out: “Why must I accept? Why must things be this way? Why must I support the pres- ent conditions Why not change? Why should I not use my own intellect to devise a better civilization?” “Our father’s generation made a mess of life,” they say, “why must I prom- ise to perpetuate his causes or why must I ever pay for his 90 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS errors?” That which the laws of nature force them to accept, youth will uphold, and with fortitude, too; but that which man devises to impose, youth will reject. The point is well illus- trated by the attitude of the present German youth who re- fuse to spend their lives in poverty to pay a debt of war in- curred by their fathers. Deplore the attitude as we may, the fact remains that the tendency is a reality, and an encourag- ing one, because if accepted by the present generation it should be a blessing to future children. Inquiry into truth is the atti- tude of the high-school children; to call it impertinence is to admit our own inability to educate them, for simultaneously we indicate that our own education has stopped, and a person who neglects this modern inquiry into truth is unsafe as a di- rector of youth. Some of these “little rascals,” as we long to call them, “have empires in their brains,” empires the nature of which we have not dreamed. For these children, much of our old curriculum we can use no more. So much for a basic understanding to give us a unity of approach to the curriculum problem. With an acceptance of these challenges to secondary education, which I have just outlined, and with a full realization of the modern character- istics of our high-school population, we are ready to approach the main problem set before us—what sort of a secondary course in English shall we offer? We need not waste time reviewing the present condition in English in our secondary schools to-day. You. know that— you attended them and you now administer them. If you feel you need some help, read Miss Dora Smith’s recent monograph called Instruction in English, one of the bulletins of the Na- tional Survey of Secondary Education. She reports very suc- cinctly the condition in our secondary schools to-day. Our first task becomes the formulation of a sound point of view for the teaching of English in the high school. Such a point of view must necessarily evolve from a study of the pur- poses of the secondary school and from an understanding of the particular contributions which the subject of English should make to the major aims of secondary education. Re- a a a a — Qs PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 91 duced to its simplest terms English (as a subject) deals with expression—the expression of the child and the expression of the artist; the one we pedagogues have dubbed composition ; the other, literature. To clear our thinking for the moment let us substitute the word expression for the word English as a high-school subject. Part of the course would then be planned to teach the child to express himself, and part to teach him to understand the expression of others. The key to all expression is experience ; expression is, therefore, the source of literary art and the substance of the child’s speaking and writ- ing. The two then are inseparable. In a finer sense, one can no more divorce literature and composition than he can sep- arate art from experience. We cannot go far toward synthe- sizing our English course until we end the dichotomous divi- sion between composition and literature. In saying this I realize the practical danger, for we still have teachers who ask children to write on “Why Brutus failed.” Let me treat each phase of expression separately for a moment—expression of the child, and expression of the artist. “Man is only half himself; the other half is his expres- sion,” wrote Emerson. The alert English teacher will show the child that man has always endeavored to express himself ; he wanted to make permanent his best ideas. He tried pic- tures and symbols on stones and trees, he tried music with its power to give vent to moods, he tried to dance, to paint, to fashion stone and wood into permanent form, but his greatest social invention was his language, through which he could in- form, give moods, paint pictures, and preserve experiences. When the child enters school, he desires to express himself; when he graduates from high school, he can’t be persuaded to write an experience or a feeling. School theme writing has done the trick. Let us, once and for all, get clear in our minds that our present brand of theme writing never did teach chil- dren to write and never will. It violates the first principle of creative expression—a desire to make permanent a thought substance or a genuine human experience. In the conven- tional theme both the substance and the desire are gone. The last blow we administer is the requirement that the child must 92 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS punctuate his writing correctly. The theme wasn’t worth writing, let alone worth punctuating. Let me offer a few suggestions for the school’s expres- sional phase of English. Man writes and speaks his experi- ences, ideas, and feelings. Both require the same substance, experience; but each has its mechanical characteristics. Oral expression is man’s most common medium of expression. It should receive major attention. The natural spoken language of the child is usually his most creative work; that is, it is his truly expressed feelings, ideas, and experiences. Emphasize that. Substitute the development of speaking for the writing of silly themes. Stress oral expression. Encourage it and help the child to do it more effectively by enriching his experi- ences and by correcting his form. His spoken word is an evi- dence of his thought, his education, and his culture. Help him to express more effectively his experiences, to organize clearly his ideas, to speak with dignity his feelings, to present force- fully his arguments, and to tell beautifully his passions. Or- ganize your instruction around social centers of oral expres- sion: social convention, relating stories and incidents, inter- views, class discussion and questioning, participation in meet- ings of organizations, telephoning, speaking before groups, buying and selling, and entertaining. Spare the assignment of topics for reports and for what we call oral composition day, and seize every spoken sentence as an opportunity to develop a desire to talk and to produce a finer form of expression. Ex- perience, I repeat, is the key word, not yours or the teacher’s, but the child’s experience. Not much else the child knows is worth talking about. Oral expression is not a school activity for given class periods; it is a continuous school experience. Cultivate it always, coax it frequently, and assign it rarely. Make every day and every period an opportunity for growth in the power of oral expression. Written expression is a somewhat different thing. One writes either to preserve an idea or to present it to one whom he cannot meet fact to face. Like oral expression, the substance of written thought is experience. We have failed on two counts effectively to teach written expression. First, we have PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 93 forced writing on topics of inconsequence to anyone. What teacher has not cried, “Oh for a composition of maritous ideas.” Again the child’s failure is a result of our own ineffi- ciency. And, in the second place, we have taught composition writing as the means of obtaining mechanical correctness. We need less writing in school, not more. Writing must be an opportunity, not a task, and it can become so if the child is allowed completely to saturate himself with ideas and experi- ences before he can have the privilege of writing. This may sound queer to one who has never tried it, but it can be done; it is being done. Cultivate ideas, enrich experience, write less, and teach form and correctness as a means of refining some idea worth preserving. Center the teaching of writing around functional social centers of written expression—the friendship letter, the business letter, informal short social notes and school notes, reports to organizations and special groups, verses and short stories, diaries, criticisms, explana- tions, personal opinion articles and descriptions, telegrams, formal social notes, and memoranda. Our schools are cultivating much unnatural bookish form in adolescent expression. We try to teach style; we succeed only in making imitators. Doubtless, most of the elements of style are quite beyond teaching, for it springs from the endow- ment of the writer himself. As English teachers we had bet- ter stay, then, where we can do most effective work. Mr. C. H. Ward makes a convincing case for the belief that the arrangement of the parts of a sentence is the most teachable element of style. He proposes, though, the study of syntax to improve and to correct sentence form, using grammar to se- cure goed style in composition. Here one faces the polemic question of the place of grammar. Doubtless no other traditional subject in school has been open to recent discussion more than grammar. Because of its controversial nature I shall dwell upon it at length. Claims made for the value of grammar have been plentiful—all the way from disciplining the mind to improving sentence struc- ture. It has been taught formally and informally. We have listed it separately, and have squeezed it into the course inci- 94 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS dentally. In recent years the validity of nearly all the claims of formal grammar has been challenged, and research students have clearly and convincingly demonstrated that many of these claims have little weight. Dr. Briggs early disproved the dis- ciplinary values of grammar; the late S. A. Leonard labored accurately to convince us that our language is changing and that only pedagogues insist on certain constructions. Storm- zand and O’Shea and Rivlin have attempted to list for us the items of grammar which do possess the best teaching values. For the most recent lists of functional grammar examine the article of Miss Verna Newsome in the January 1934 issue of the High-School Edition of the English Journal, and my own list in the November 1933 issue of the same periodical. A comparison of the two will reveal an attempt on the one hand to pare grammar down to almost no content, and on the other hand to preserve those items which seem to have potential value until further research can give more convincing evi- dence. I prefer to reserve judgment and to experiment with children. We all agree that the child should be taught grammar by someone else, and we probably all agree that only functional grammar should be emphasized. By definition an item of grammar is said to be functional when the knowledge of it “will prevent the commission of an error in English or will assist in the correction of an error already made.” But this definition is easy of misinterpretation due to teachers’ pre- conceptions of the function of grammar, and it cannot be ap- plied as a principle until we know definitely which items of grammar actually function in speaking and writing. The knowledge of whether an item actually functions in sentence structure cannot be determined from an intensive and schol- arly study of the history and growth of English grammar; nor is it likely to be discovered by a study of the collection of expert opinion; yet, one of our best investigations of this prob- lem rests its major conclusion on the validity of this assump- tion. Such a study of the expert opinion of English grammar 1Rivlin, Harry N. Functional Grammar. Teachers College Contri- butions to Education, Number 435. 1930. p. 61. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 95 scholars may tell us what items of grammar possess potential functional values. After the question of possibility has been determined by such a study, the matter of certainty—that is, whether a knowledge of grammar will prevent or correct er- rors—must be determined by an experimental study of the transfer of the knowledge of grammar to its effectiveness in preventing or correcting errors in the actual oral and written expression of children. We have some good evidence to show us what items of grammar possess possible functional values; but, to my knowledge, we have none of importance to tell us the actual transfer values of these items. The answer to this question awaits further experimentation. Consequently, while we honestly advocate the teaching of functional grammar, by misapplication of the principle and by lack of the knowledge of those items of grammar which are actually functional, we continue to teach formal grammar. We must, first, I have said determine carefully and accu- rately by experimentation the functional value of each item of English grammar; and we must, in the second place, deter- mine the transfer values of the knowledge of each item. In the third place, we must decide on the grade placement of each item of functional grammar. Language work now has a ten- dency to precede the developing maturity of the child and to anatomize every sentence and teach the syntax of every ele- ment. Language is a vehicle of thought, not a corpse for dis- section, and its teaching must parallel the mental growth of the child. Teaching subordination, for examiple, before the child thinks in terms of complex thought patterns is wasteful. The very nature of such teaching breaks down the functional concept. Here is an excellent and most needed field for experi- mentation. Studies need to be made to determine the normal language growth of children and to discover where items are most economically learned. There probably is a best time, psychologically speaking, to teach each of the grammatical items. It would be helpful also to know what growths in thought processes are necessary for effective expression. Until these facts can be determined, what then? I sug- gest that we take the results of the best studies already made 96 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS to show us what items seem to possess the greatest functional values; then choose those items which seem to offer the most satisfactory possibilities for the sound education of the high- school child. These choices must be changed as new facts are revealed. We already have enough evidence, for instance, to show that the teaching of such qualities of nouns as the fol- lowing possesses little or no functional values: classification of nouns into abstract, concrete, and common; uses of nouns as substantives and as adjectives; nominative and objective cases of nouns; person, and predicate nouns. We are justified in eliminating these from the high-school course. Other elim- inations may be secured from an examination of the literature of the field. After these eliminations have been made, the re- maining grammatical items which are considered functional may be grouped into the following six major functional con- cepts of sentence use: (1) Complete sentence concept; (2) Subject element; (3) Predicate element; (4) Modification ele- ment; (5) Connective element; (6) Refinements of expres- sion in sentence structure and diction. These grammatical items should then be distributed by years into the junior and senior high school. One principle I should like to emphasize forcefully—Teach no organized grammar in the elementary school. Cycle the items of functional grammar throughout the secondary-school period. The vicious habit of putting all items of grammar in the seventh and eighth grades and ex- pecting the child to remember them throughout his remaining school years will never produce satisfactory results. Punctuation like grammar has been over-emphasized in our schools; as techniques they have been put above substance and inspiration. The following of rigid rules and the inclu- sion of an abundance of punctuation are traditions of an ear- lier educational system. We have been taught never to think of the word therefore, for instance, without associating two commas with it. Clarity of expression is the only purpose of punctuation. The idea to be conveyed, not a rule to be fol- lowed, determines the need for punctuation. I remember see- ing once a manuscript of Stevenson’s on the margin of which was written a plea to the printer to put commas where Steven- PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 97 son had put them and nowhere else. From printer to teacher we are proofreaders of the works of others. Do not teach punctuation by rules, present it as a means of making clear the ideas the writer wishes to convey to the reader. A safe rule, I think, to give to the child is: Never use a punctuation mark unless the omission of it makes the sentence ambiguous. Like grammar, the study of literature has been a tradi- tion in American secondary schools. From the Old Deluder Satan Act to the present, we have feared that learning might be buried in the graves of our forefathers; and the term learn- ing applied to literature has meant the classics. In fact, some- one has defined a classic as a literary selection read only in school. We have, therefore, made the study of literature a labor instead of a pleasure; a lesson to be learned, not a source of enjoyment and the sharing of experience. The content of our course is remarkably similar to that of the past century, our analytic method of teaching, too, has changed slowly. As Lewisohn says, “We operate as though literature, the fullest and most continuous expression of man’s life, had stood still in all but outward fashion, while philosophy and statecraft and science had been wholly transformed in the ever swifter currents of time.” Our school traditions about literature have darkened our minds about it. Let me hasten to say that I have no quarrel with the clas- sics. I, as every teacher of literature must do, turn to them again and again; I accept many of their thoughts as universal, as expressing all times and moods. But we must forever re- member that the appreciation of an adult is a growth, and that many of the classics were never written for children to read; they speak of human experiences which a child has never shared. Our sole criteria for the selection of literature for teaching in our secondary school cannot be: Is the selection a classic? or, Was it written long enough ago to have stood the test of time? What then shall be our criteria? What should be the characteristics of these selections? First, of all, I wish to emphasize a point I made earlier. A child is drawn to a selection, first, if it presents experi- 98 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS ences he can share. Does he share with the author a feeling or an idea? Does “Mind touch mind?” Is the experience ex- pressed by the author within the child’s real behavior or imagination? If it is not, we must acquaint him with it later in his school life. If he ever knows it, he will be better off than if he meets it and resents it. This criterion of experi- ence corresponds with Dewey’s concept, “When we experi- ence something, we act upon it, we do something with it; then we undergo or suffer the consequences—we learn something.’”? If the selection meets this criterion of shared experience then we are ready to apply to it the next measure—Is the expres- sion of the author’s experience genuine? Is it a true expres- sion of the creative spirit? Is it a true and accurate record of a reality or is it mere propaganda? This second criterion will rule out much we have taught and bring in much we have over- looked. Poems of mere sentiment, tales for the amusement of polished life, lovely and dignified but unreal maxims of life and death, stories of serene acceptance of needless oppression, expression of untrue feelings even though they be written in good and respectable moral prose and poetry would be dis- carded for stories of real human experience and of man’s de- termination to subdue tyranny and oppression, and for poetry of vigor and power expressing the true feelings and profound experience of men of all times. We can check our selections by Longfellow’s “monition” to writers—the one he gave but did not follow: “That is best which lieth nearest; Shape from that thy work of art.” Do our selections, then, portray accurately the genuine experi- ences of the author? We cannot measure our selections by the leisure or aristocracy of the author. With probably two exceptions, the spirituals of the enslaved negroes are worth more as literature than the writings of their genteel masters. So are the cowboy ballads truer expression of life than much of the polished smugness of many of our New England writ- ers. This comparison brings into bold relief our criterion of 1Lewisohn, Ludwig. Expression in America. Harpers, 1932. 2Dewey, John, Democracy and Education. Macmillan, 1916. Tea *s "SCS FS PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 99 mere artifice. An expression of the heart may be crude, but if it is genuine, it is more helpful to modern youth than pol- ished language copied from an age of prudishness. A third criterion seems to be: Is the language used within the understanding of the child? Is the thought ab- stract? Are sentences long and involved? Is the vocabulary too difficult? Most of the studies on vocabulary difficulty, including the recent one of the National Council of Teachers of English, have been disappointing. They have not deter- mined difficulty accurately enough for use. They have shown us that major difficulty does not reside chiefly in vocabulary. Abstractness of thought element and complexity of sentence pattern seem to present more of a deterrent to understanding than word difficulty. Doubtless this is related to both of the first two criteria I have suggested. These three criteria— shared experience, genuine expression of the creative spirit, and language within the comprehension of the child—suggest that literary selections must present detailed accurate records of experiences within the realm of child thought and imagina- tion which are written in the fresh natural speech of people— not the language of books—and phrased in a clear, simple and vigorous style. Such literature may do things to children— enrich their experience, refine their emotions, command their appreciation, and carry them into the realm of imagination. It should at the same time make clear to them the fundamental forces in life and their effect upon men, and acquaint them with the way the creative spirit may find its supreme expres- sion in the interpretation of life. So much for the choice of literary selections. May I say just a word about method. If analysis be the price we must pay for appreciation, we have paid in full. As Aldrich says, “We vivisect the nightingale To probe the secret of its note.” But with literature as with the bird, we find the process of vivisection destroys the beauty we seek to find. We must seek the whole, the unity of the thought; that “the style is the ran” will become obvious to the child later on. Fortunately, 100 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS we have ample research to convince us that we not only lose nothing by teaching literature extensively, but we gain much. Williams, Hosic, Coryell and others clearly show that by using the extensive method we gain greater width of vision, secure excellent preparation for further reading, get as good com- prehension, cover many times as much material, and promote better interests. The extensive method proves to be as ef- fective with low as with superior pupils, and, I cannot help but interject this for the benefit of the skeptical: Miss Coryell showed that groups taught by the extensive method passed college entrance board examinations just as well as her inten- sively taught groups. So far, I have endeavored to present a point of view for the high-school course in English based on the acceptance of three challenges to curriculum organization. I have frequently indicated the approval or need of research. You are probably asking, “How can this material be put into a course of study for high-school English?” One may retain in the high school an organized course in English to be taught as a separate subject, and one may even divide it into composition and literature and still achieve many of the objectives suggested in this paper. But a better approach would be a unified course built on the combination of literature and composition. One may do still better, I feel, by subordinating the organized course in English to a large major principle of curriculum organization and ask the sub- ject to contribute its maximum values to the development of this principle. This idea is the basis of the Virginia State Curriculum Program and it is the development of that pro- gram which I wish to explain; not from a desire to tell you what we are doing, but to cite the organization as an example of an attempt to give the best answer to your question, How can the suggestions of this paper be put into a course of study? In the first part of this paper I prepared you for this ex- planation by laying down three challenges for the secondary curriculum. The meeting of these challenges is a major pur- pose of the Virginia program. Fundamental to any curricu- PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 101 lum program is the determination of the aims of education. What do we want to do for or to children? Without the base of sound educational aims our program lacks proper direction; we are in the sand again. In Virginia we have set up our aims in terms of understandings, attitudes, appreciations, and abilities. Aims indicate the goals or objectives which the teacher and the school must assist the child to realize. The aims of our program are based on the needs and ideals of so- ciety and are not drawn from a study of traditional school subjects themselves. In order to secure an integration and an articulation of subject matter, we selected the major functions of social life and have endeavored to fuse these with the in- terests of children. These major functions of social life were derived from an analysis of societies—past and present—and are the driv- ing forces in life which have continued throughout all times. They are the persistent elements of civilization, the things for which men have always striven. These become independent variables to guide the selection of content. The following ma- jor functions of social life have been chosen: (1) Protection and conservation of life, property and natural resources; (2) Production of goods and services and distribution of the re- turns of production; (3) Consumption of goods and services ; (4) Transportation of goods and people, and communication ; (5) Exploration (geographical, industrial, and intellectual) ; (6) Recreation—for health, leisure and creative expression ; (7) Education—formal and informal; (8) Extension of free- dom—political, economic, social and intellectual; (9) Expres- sion of aesthetic impulses; (10) Expression of religious im- pulses; (11) Integration of the individual. These eleven major functions of social life become guides for the selection of content; our aims determine the direction the teaching shall take. For instance, these major functions demand that we show war as a means man has used to settle disputes, our aims demand that we show war as a social means which can no longer be tolerated. In order to provide the scope and sequence of the eleven functions of social life, each of these has been broken up into 102 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS four statements, each one of which is an aspect of the major function. One of these aspects will be taught each year and all eleven aspects for each of the four years represent our in- tegrated or core-field program. One must of course have a criterion for determining the yearly aspect. That is, the phase of the problem to be devel- oped each year. This in turn requires the establishment of another independent variable for each of the four years. These have been selected in terms of difficulty and an ever- expanding orientation of the child to social living. These va- riables are: For year one, a study of the adaptation of our living through natural, social, and mechanical inventions and discoveries; Year two, a study of our two major social orders, ‘industrialism and agrarianism and their effects upon our liv- ing. These first two years’ work give the child a background, as it were, a basis for the considerations of the third year: namely, the effects of changing culture and changing social institutions upon our living. With a knowledge of what we are and were, and from a study of change as such and the pos- sibilities of the present order, we are ready for the work of the last year: what could be the effects of a continuously planned democratic social order upon our living? Briefly, the four years would be spent in studying: What were we? What are we? What are our possibilities; and, How can we plan to secure our needs and desires? Let me illustrate for two of the major functions of social life. Take first the one on protection of life, property, and natural resources. Men have always tried to do it. The as- pects of this function by years are as follows: First year, How and why do nature and agencies resulting from invention and discovery affect the protection and conservation of life and property? Second year, How and why does the change from an agrarian to an industrial order affect the use and conser- vation of natural resources? Year three, What advancement in the protection and conservation of life and property is es- sential in a changing society and how can it be achieved? Fourth year, How can nations through social planning guar- PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 103 antee to all the protection of life, property, and natural re- sources? For a second example take the expression of the aesthetic impulses. The aspects of this function by years are as fol- lows: First year, How does man’s natural environment pro- vide worth while opportunities for the cultivation of aesthetic expression? Second year, How do agrarianism and industrial- ism influence the development of our artistic resources and the adjustment of all individuals to their use? Third year, How do culture areas and changing social institutions influ- ence the development of the fine arts? Fourth year, How can a planning society improve the quality of living for all by uti- lizing man’s desire for beauty? When each of the major func- tions of social life has been broken up into four aspects, we have the scope and sequence chart which dictates the selection of our content. The development of certain understandings, apprecia- tions, and attitudes concerning the aspects of each of the eleven major functions of society becomes the chief purpose of our secondary-school program. By this process we synthesize the contents of the curriculum into a core-field program, as we have called it, which draws upon any and all subject mat- ter needed to achieve the desired educational aims: under- standings, appreciations, and attitudes. There are three es- sential organized fields which will contribute material to these aims: social science, natural science, and English. Music and art, too, are integrated with these core subjects. These sub- jects are then fused into one program and become the core- field course of study. Each subject does not contribute equally to every aspect, but each does make a major or minor contri- bution to nearly every aspect. For every aspect each subject teacher has an outline of the contribution which is possible for her subject field to make; and, through an administrative technique, these contributions are made simultaneously. Such an organization makes functional the learnings of each field. By way of aside, for it is not pertinent here, but the lack of information may worry you administrators, the study of the content of the core-field for all four years is to be required of 104. DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS all children; the other subjects ordinarily taught may be of- fered as electives. In the first year only, the integrated pro- gram carries material from the fields of mathematics, agri- culture, and home economics. This program for the first year requires the child’s entire time. With the program organized to this point the next step sets up a plan to make this material function in the classroom. We seek to do this by connecting the child’s interests with definite activities, which when experienced may achieve the desired aims of education. The program, therefore, has an activity base, and for each activity we suggest the educational aim to be achieved, subject matter and experiences to be uti- lized, and procedures for effective teaching for the careful evaluation of results. Skills are set up separately, to be learned both incidentally through activities and by isolated driJl. Let me illustrate from two major functions of society to show how the English teacher contributes to the development of the concepts in two aspects of these major functions for the first year of the high school. You'll recall one of our major functions was production and consumption of goods and serv- ices. The aspect for the first year’s study was, How is society dependent upon plant life, animal life, and minerals? With the social studies teacher, the child learns about such things as the occupations connected with the production of food and minerals and the interdependence of agriculture and indus- try; in the natural science class he studies mineral salts in food, the use of plants and animals as food, and the way food is manufactured by plants. In the English class the teacher shows the effects of nature, plants, and animals upon man so- cially and artistically. The English program then looks like this: 1. The contribution made by plants and animals to beauty in our lives; such as beauties of nature, seeing God through nature, nature as a subject for artistic expression. 2. Man’s interest in plants and animals and minerals which takes the form of adventure; such as hunting through- out the ages, life in gold rushing areas, arctic adventures. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 105 3. The pleasurable hobbies and pursuits provided man by nature; such as outdoor sports, exploring, tramping, trav- eling, etc. 4. Animals as friends and pets of man; such as beasts of burden, as protectors of life, and as subjects for art. One more illustration will suffice, and here I shall con- fine myself only to the English phase of the aspects. I choose the expression of the aesthetic impulses for year 1, stated as follows: How does man’s natural environment provide worth while opportunities for the cultivation of aesthetic expres- sion? The English teacher assumes a major responsibility for teaching this aspect. She may treat her problem in the following manner: 1. A study of the forces in life which give rise to aes- thetic expression, such as nature, love, and religion. 2. A study of the way man’s environment affects his aesthetic expression. 3. An understanding of the mediums men use to ex- press their aesthetic impulses becomes another phase of this problem: the brush, the chisel, music, and language. 4. Then a study of how each individual child may ex- press in his own life his aesthetic impulses. Here is a splen- did opportunity to do a much neglected thing: to help the child see beauty in his immediate environment and to discover ways to enjoy it and to express it. 5. A study of the standards we can use to judge the quality of aesthetic expression. This should begin early and must be developed gradually. It involves a study of the merit of the child’s own expression as well as of the expression of others. It is obvious that such a program is a marked departure from tradition, and the precedent of experience for it is lack- ing. It is also apparent that such an organization possesses the possibilities of providing for the integration of previously DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 106 isolated subject matter and makes functional the study of facts and understandings. The future teacher must first be oriented to the life about her and to the dominant achievements of preceding genera- tions. She must be taught the methods of synthesizing knowl- edge if she is to be able to teach it to children. The relation of science to the ideal of freedom; the kinship between eco- nomics, history, and sociology; and the place of art in the life of man must be presented as the forces of life which de- termine the patterns of our civilizations. And last, the teacher must support with fervor the ideals of the school in its at- tempt fo plan for the giving of equality to all men. Such a program will require a reorganization of the college course, and will, doubtless, require four years of study followed by a year of professional preparation. Modern life requires a new interpretation for modern youth who desire to seek truth. The secondary school as a social agency must meet the challenge of the demands of youth, whose belief in the principle of freedom through shar- ing the resources made possible by the advancement of science and by social inventions fires them with the determination to build a social order more equitably protecting the rights of all men. A new relation of the materials of instruction in the high school is required, a relationship between former iso- lated bodies of knowledge which will orient the youth to pres- ent civilization and prepare them to achieve their desires through social planning. English as a record of the expres- sions of men and as a medium of the expression of youth must assume its place in this new program, arranging its contribu- tions to education so as to function in the thought life and the social intercourse cf the adolescent child. Toward such a pro- gram in the secondary school we are moving. Our duty and our responsibility are clear and our opportunity is present. Not only is our reputation at stake, but our very existence is challenged. We must prepare modern youth to face a modern world, not only the world of the present, but the society of the future whatever form it may take. We can do no less and be true to the ideals we embrace. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 107 Professor Junius L. Meriam read his paper, The Tradi- tional Curriculum of the High School Challenged by the Activity Curriculum of the Elementary School. THE TRADITIONAL CURRICULUM OF THE HIGH SCHOOL IS CHALLENGED BY THE ACTIVITY CURRICULUM OF THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JUNIUS L. MERIAM University of California at Los Angeles I have taken the liberty to change the form of the title of this paper, from that assigned me, to its present form in order that I may emphasize the one curriculum as pitted against the other curriculum. The high school and the elementary school as distinct organizations are of less concern just now. Then, too, this title, in the form of a declarative sentence is indeed a decla- ration of opposition between two forces—and forces they are. This title reminds me of numerous observations when a small boy on a farm. It was regarded for the welfare of the poultry division that occasionally a rooster from a neighbor’s flock be introduced to our flock. There was usually a sharp conflict between the home rooster and the newcomer. The adult farmer is author of the saying: “A cock fights best on his own dung hill.”” However, sometimes the new rooster carries off the honors. Sometimes, too, there is an honorable draw between them. Now I feel quite at home in both of these curriculum camps. But I wish to do more than merely look on at this “cock-fight.” I prefer to play the role of umpire in this con- flict. But do not expect a conflict between bantam roosters, but rather a Plymouth Rock of traditional fame, challenged by a Rhode Island Red with a considerable amount of red activity. The word challenge is a strong term. The party on the challenging side believes that it sees in the party challenged 108 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS certain deficiencies or certain characteristics not in harmony with the party of the first part. They are irritating. The ag- gressor is usually of the self-proclaimed progressive type. He wishes to mend matters. He is sufficiently self-centered to believe that he can contribute to the improvement of the other party. I plan the conduct of this challenge in three parts; “rounds,” if you please: (1) I shall endeavor to point out in the traditional cur- riculum of the high school certain policies, certain practices that are definitely deficiencies in the judgment of one who dares to be frankly critical, and honestly helpful. (2) I shall try to place the activity curriculum strictly in the open. This new movement has unquestionably marked virtues, so marked as to warrant it playing the role of David going out to meet Goliath. But let me be sufficiently judicious to remark that unless some of its gross inadequacies are over- come serious misfortune will take place. (3) I wish to show how the traditional curriculum of the high school can meet this challenge with such professional spirit and timely courage that real victory is accorded both of our contestants. To attempt to evaluate the traditional curriculum of the high school within the first third of this paper is a dangerous undertaking; yet more dangerous to try to expose those phases which warrant a challenge by the activity curriculum of the elementary school. I feel sure I shall express views with which many—even most—of you will not agree. I have no apologies to make. Sincere professional disagreements are tonic in educational endeavor. I shall say some things very baldly because of my strong convictions and by reason of not having time to “beat about the bush.” The North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools took the initiative, in 1928, asking that an extensive study be made “that we may know where we stand in second- ary education.” The office of Education at Washington was ee PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 109 invited to conduct this survey. Commissioner Cooper was di- rector and associated with him was a staff of experts in sec- ondary education. The results of this study are published in 28 monographs, issued by the Office of Education. This series of monographs can not give us the whole of the picture of secondary education, but is probably the most reliable account we have of current secondary-school prac- tice and theory. I shall base my evaluations on representative portions of this survey supplemented by my own observa- tion and experience in secondary schools. Monograph No. 5, “The Reorganization of Secondary Edu- cation.” Here we come very abruptly upon one of the occasions for the challenge by the “Activity Curriculum.” And I make bold to say that I suspect few of you secondary-school men are aware of how this “reorganization of secondary educa- tion” contributes to instigating this challenge. Believe it or not: Extensive reorganization has been effected and is now continuing with little significant regard for the real curricu- lum work of the school. Reorganization for the purpose of organization—an administrative affair. I have examined this volume of 423 pages, in search of sufficient occasion for re- organization. The first paragraph in this unwarranted long monograph tells the story. “The chief purpose of this study has been to determine what existing forms of American sec- ondary-school organization are of greatest promise. in particular, to discover the effects of the junior high school movement upon practice in school organization Rs Koos, in his book, “The Junior High School,” indicates various forces responsible for this reorganization movement. (1) Time is wasted. Pupils do not progress as rapidly as do European pupils. Therefore, reorganize. (2) Pupil mortality is great in the upper grades. There- fore reorganize to induce pupils to continue in school—as' though continuance in school is a vir- tue irrespective of the nature of school occupation. 110 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS (3) School authorities desire their schools to be known as “progressive,” even if the change made is a mere superficial regrouping of grades. I invite you school principals to be frank and honest— courageously so. I invite you to agree with me that the sub- ject-matter courses of seventh, eighth, and ninth grades have been given no significant change by reason of the much- boasted reorganization of secondary education. Likewise, grades ten, eleven, and twelve. You will recall this when you face the challenge of the “Activity Curriculum.” It is well to look into reports upon the more prominent of these school subjects. Monograph No. 20. “Instruction in English.” Here we find many statistical tables and charts present- ing a variety of time allotments. Aims of teaching composi- tion—fifteen of these nicely charted, followed by eighteen more labelled “Specific aims of written composition,” also nicely charted; then twenty aims of oral composition nicely charted. Fifty-three aims for composition! Chapters follow treating in similar fashion the other two traditional divisions of this traditional English, viz. grammar and literature. In the con- clusion of this English survey we find three significant state- ments: (1) “There is . . . in composition a preoccupation with matters of form and surprisingly little concern with hav- ing something to say.” (2) “The stress upon grammar technicalities seems curiously unwarranted - (3) “In the division of literature . . . “intensive study of a few set classics persists in a large number of courses.” Are you principals sufficiently intimate with your stu- dents to realize that such composition, grammar, classics, are positively obsolete in the current life of red-blooded, buoyant American youth? PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 111 On this score a challenge by the activity curriculum is forthcoming. And closely related to English are all the foreign languages. Let me surprise you by putting in this same group the conventional high-school music, art,—yes, and physical education. Monograph No. 23. “Instruction in Mathematics.” The reorganization of secondary education, referred to above, has left almost undisturbed the arithmetic of grades seven and eight—formerly of the elementary school, now of the junior high. True, some schools report the addition of so-called “general mathematics,” but under this caption one readily recognizes chapters from the traditional arithmetic, e. g. fundamental operations, percentage, areas, graphs, arith- metic of business, etc., etc. Algebra in grade nine of the junior high school retains the earmarks and nearly all the other marks of the algebra in the high school before reorganized. This survey reveals in the senior high school mathematics “more emphasis on disciplinary and cultural values than on practical outcomes Fa It is playing’ with fire to even question the prominence accorded this time-honored and almost sacred division—mathe- matics. Are you principals willing to secure honest statements from your students as to their likes and dislikes in mathe- matics from grade seven on; and are you willing to be strictly consistent in your advocacy of functional mathematics and your administration of mathematics courses? Again, I am anticipating the challenge which the activity curriculum is soon to make. Monograph No. 21. “Instruction in the Social Studies.” The survey shows that in the great majority of schools the arrangement of courses in this group is largely as existed before the “reorganization of secondary education.” The pre- vailing plan is: United States history—grades 7, 8 Geography —grades 7 Community civics —grades 8, 9 112 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS World history —grades 10 Mod. European hist.—grades 11 American history —grades 11, 12 American governm’t—grades 12 You and I went through this same program. The survey concludes to this effect; some schools claim great activity in curriculum revision. Other schools have not engaged in such activities. But in both groups the actual content of instruction in geography, history, civics, is es- sentially as formerly. And these three distinct subjects of earlier years are now combined in a most peculiar arithmet- ical sum, “the social studies,” but each retains its own identi- ty. Again, I ask you principals if you are in the classroom enough to sympathize with pupils who are obliged to work upon geography quite foreign to lives they are living; on his- tory so much in the past as to have little vital contact with present life; on forms of government rather than on the governing of life. Here is another warrant for a challenge by the activity curriculum. I have gone far enough in presenting representative situ- ations in your high schools. Have I been unfair in thus boldly questioning the accepted values of English—grammar, com- position, literature; in raising serious doubts as to the con- ventional worth of arithmetic, algebra, geometry; in daring to even intimate that geography, history, civics, are not real social studies at all? But I am earnestly endeavoring to pre- pare you for a challenge that will surprise—even shock— those of you who are not conversant with the activity cur- riculum of the elementary school. I have known secondary-school principals well enough in the past quarter of a century to hear some of your own thoughts just now. To this effect: Whatever be the truth of what has been here exposed, we are not responsible. Social custom, you say, selects teachers prepared to teach these sub- iects in the conventional way and social custom supplies text- books loaded with content to be taught. And further, college PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 113 entrance requirements dictate the courses and the units with which the high-school graduate must be equipped. Here is a fourth warrant for the challenge soon to come. And you may expect its first appearance at this point. But be- fore this challenge is made, it is imperative that the activity curriculum of the elementary school be somewhat examined. Now we are in trouble. English grammar, algebra, Ameri- can history, these we know. But what is this activity curricu- lum? Evidence indicates that nobody knows, though many think they do. It is interesting to note that within the past two weeks three studies of these activities have been made public: (1) The National Society for the Study of Education presents its thirty-third Yearbook on “The Activity Move- ment.” (2) The Informal Teaching Committee of the New York Principals’ Association presents an “Analysis of Trends in an Informal Unit (Activity) Teaching Program.” This is pub- lished in the January issue of Teachers College Record. (3) “A Critical Survey of 1000 Activities” was present- ed this morning before the American Education Research Association by the writer of this paper. I wish to give you first an epitome of the findings and the conclusions of these three studies. You, as secondary-school principals, probably think that three such studies would clarify the issue and give expression to a notion of the activity cur- riculum satisfactory to leading educationists as well as to the intelligent public. But not so. The keen and able critic, Bagley, characterizes the activity program as “fundamentally falla- cious” in certain respects; as “totally blind to two funda- mental facts;” as “perilous” in other respects*. Such criticism is cutting and severe. My own studies of this activity curricu- lum, in theory and in practice, have led me to agree so far with these criticisms of Bagley and others, that I am unable to see in the activity curriculum, as it now is, a challenge worthy *See Thirty-third Yearbook, N.S. S. E., Part II, p. 77. 114 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS of any retort by the traditional curriculum of the high school. I hope, however, to show certain underlying principles in this activity movement so in tune with modern life—of the best type—that you principals will be pleased with the challenge. In attempting to give you a very limited word picture of these three quite extended studies, it is obviously impossible adequately to present many phases regarded as important. I think I can contribute perspective by calling to mind the pro- ject method of teaching, so popular a decade or so ago. Simply this. Teachers recognized that pupils had difficulties in learn- ing the old school subjects—even indispositions towards such learnings. They recognized that these same pupils acted read- ily and joyfully in their own affairs—projects they were called. Only a little pedagogical ingenuity was needed to put these two—normal life projects and formal class subjects— together and, presto, we had the effective project method of teaching the Three-R’s. This procedure was extensive in the elementary schools. It was used only a little in high schools. The activity program is an extension of this project method, I shall briefly present four aspects of this movement. 1. The activity curriculum emphasizes child life. Of the normal boy it is said: “He cries, he laughs; he sees, he hears, he feels, he tastes; he runs, he walks, he rests; he eats, he sleeps, he wakes; he whistles and sings; he listens to stories and tell big whoppers, too; he quarrels and even fights at times; he asks questions and gives expression to an ap- parently independent self; he plays, he works,—and sometimes shirks. All this and much more is characteristic of the boy,” and of his sister.* Normal child life is full of movement, rich with joy and gladness and safety allowed large freedom. In harmony with this child life, the activity school provides gen- erously for physical movement—physical exercise and play, excursions and constructions work. The school encourages joy and gladness by basing the program upon interests rather than upon discipline. The child is granted large freedom to choose what he is to do and freedom to change as he sees fit. *In Childhood Education. April, 1925. et PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 115 2. The activity curriculum emphasizes social contacts. The socialized recitation has been a stepping stone to this new movement. The school has become a social unit. A large meas- ure of informal democracy reigns. Self-government is allowed. And more—increased contacts are made with the out-of-school community, social and industrial. Codperation is claimed. Group spirit prevails in the school; parents make more positive con- tributions to the school in response to the extended interests of the pupils. All this due to the so-called social studies, as one of the prominent divisions of the new school curriculum. 3. The activity curriculum emphasizes a principle called integration. This is a new term in our educational nomencla- ture. But the term is obviously used with two distinct mean- ings. By some, the reference is to a unit in the life of a child. To use Kilpatrick’s language: “. . . a unitary sample of actual child living.”” By others—a larger number indeed—in- tegration is essentially a further development of the earlier term correlation. Under this notion an activity unit of study carries out the principle of integration when it provides for a correlation of the variety of school subjects. Thus the term is used in relating a school subjects around an activity as cen- ter. 4. The activity curriculum emphasizes the method aspect of learning. More than a quarter of a century ago, the psycho- logist James emphasized the idea that impression depends upon expression. Later, learning by doing was emphasized. And now we have—activity is a learning process. Here is the most con- spicuous feature in this activity curriculum. The traditional subjects, with their skills and knowledges, are intimately and almost continually related to the activity. A statement from the last Yearbook expresses the prevailing situation. “... the children’s effort is utilized in enriching the required subject matter and in furthering its learning. What the learner does in this way is regarded as a means of getting the subject matter learned.”* Here we have essentially the project method. *Page 71. 116 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS In each of these four aspects, a serious weakness is pres- ent. 1. The activity curriculum as now prevails coddles and pampers children by catering to their interests. The extreme freedom granted pupils in this new movement becomes a license based on coddling rather than on child welfare. I fear it re- flects against the teacher’s ability and preparation to guide, rather than does credit to child judgment and self-control. This serious weakness is not a challenge to the traditional curriculum of the high school. 2. The much-vaunted codperation in social experience jeopardizes hard, serious, individual work and continued effort. The discipline of accomplishing tasks, laid out by adequately prepared teachers, is lacking. Too much superficial work is done under the guise of social codperation. This second serious weakness is not a challenge. 3. Integration has no significance when used to indicate a unit in the normal life of children, and to effect a correlation of school subjects about a life activity is to make relationships without value and heap indignities upon the beautiful activities of childhood. The activity curriculum now in practice is not a credit- able challenge at this point. 4. Activities used to motivate uninviting subjects to be studied as a method of stimulating the learning process is posi- tively belittling to our teaching procedures and a gross devalu- ation of the life activities of children. Let us not countenance a challenge here. This activity curriculum of the elementary school is se- riously jeopardized by the four weaknesses presented above. But candid judgment must thus evaluate this curriculum as described in educational literature and as seen in schoolroom procedure. This is the natural consequence of the efforts of teachers whose enthusiasms for progress is not governed by PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 117 adequate study of principles involved. You who are responsi- ble for the direction of secondary education are invited to look beneath these weaknesses. The activity curriculum in principle is far more than it has yet appeared to be. I invite your attention to three commendable aspects and to the chal- lenge they make. 1. The activity curriculum of the elementary school is sufficient unto itself and the immediate lives of the pupils; it is not a stepping stone to high-school work. To the high credit of our secondary schools, pupils in the lower schools have never been called upon to pursue certain grammar, or arithmetic, or geography as prerequisites for admission to high school. The activity curriculum pays no disrespect to the high school by utterly disregarding preparation for high- school work. Here is the first challenge: that the high school assign itself the task of serving’ youth (12 to 18 years of age) with- out regard to college entrance requirements. Secondary schools have long been so enslaved to college entrance that the ma- jority of youth are sacrificed for the relatively few. The chal- lenge is direct—that you in secondary schools provide that education which equips youth for participation in home and industry and society. All high schools should be trade schools, in the sense that secondary education serve the large ma- jority instead of the small minority. This is not a new mes- sage. But most of our high schools serve the higher institu- tions rather than youth in the every day walks of life: they are under the domination of the college entrance rather than public service. The Progressive Education Association has announced a unique adventure. Twenty-seven high schools selected on the basis of progressive tendencies have an arrangement with a goodly number of colleges and universities whereby their graduates will be admitted to freshman standing without com- plying with the usual requirements. This leaves the high school free to serve local interests. The result of this experi- ment will be watched with great interest. In the meantime, are our high schools willing to serve their own students rather 118 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS than higher schools? There is evidence that college students would probably be of higher order than at present. But that is not our concern just now. 2. The activity curriculum of the elementary school takes its subject matter directly from real life and thus avoids the abstractions which constitute practically all of the subjects of the traditional curriculum. The challenge now is of large di- mensions. It calls for a discontinuance of English literature, grammar, composition; of arithmetic, algebra, geometry; of geography, history, civics. Freed from college entrance re- quirements and social custom, this new procedure in dealing with real activities would be strictly normal. But this chal- lenge must be made more specific. For some years there has been a distinct tendency to stress in English courses the preparation for wholesome leis- ure. But let us take a long stride forward. Increasing leisure time is upon us. Better preparation is imperative. In the high school connected with the University of Missouri twenty years ago, we provided a leisure reading room. In this room we placed all the wholesome reading books we could command. A teacher was present, not to teach and make assignments, but to be a leading companion with students who were allowed at least one hour each day in this room. The room was equipped for com- fort; rocking chairs, sofas, a variety of chairs and tables, flowers and plants,—even canary birds. But we must now provide much further. Music rooms are needed providing op- portunity for choral work and instrumental, and for appreci- ation. Art and museum rooms are needed, richly supplied with pictures that please and inspire. The moving picture merits a large place in schools, to supplant the unwholesome commer- cial supply or as a means of helping to improve the choice by moving’ picture fans. Dramatic work in our high schools is too largely superficial and demoralizing. It is largely for petty show. It merits much more time, attention, guidance, leading to a much higher type of wholesome self-entertainment. A great variety of game rooms are needed, suitably equipped. The social dance, too, a large factor in the recreational life of youth, needs the guidance of our schools. Many complaints are made PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 119 against the social life of high-school youth. The schools are largely responsible. Composition, algebra, foreign language, history, etc., etc., an uninteresting daily grind with tedious home assignments, all drive the youth to seek relief in social life, not always wholesome. Two hours each day of such leisure activities under help- ful guidance would be appropriate, not as a teaching-learning situation, but as a part of normal life that rightfully belongs to youth. This is the challenge for one-third of the school day. The activity curriculum calls for another two-hour period each day in a variety of work activities, e. g. wood shop and metal, print shop and office, cooking and sewing, laundry and hairdressing, etc., etc., etc. Everybody busy two hours each day in wholesome occupation. What an influence upon habits of industry! The activity curriculum calls for a third two-hour period devoted to acquiring an understanding of the very complex environment in which we live—nature all about us and human nature all around us. Here is an education far more funda- mental than the so-called fundamentals in our schools.? But the studies must relate to concrete issues, not to generaliza- tions composing our traditional school subjects. (Professor Bruner, in the January 1934 issue of the Teachers College Record, lays emphasis upon this type of fundamental education.) Thus the large, inclusive, three-in-one challenge invites the high school to provide a daily program of three two-hour periods, one for leisure activities, one for work activities, one for informational activities. This encompasses the range of the life of youth and does not direct all to college. You principals are now wondering about the disciplines of English grammar, the algebraic equation, the sequence of history. A third challenge of the activity curriculum invites 1Compare “Fundamentals in the Elementary School Curriculum,” N. E. A. Proceedings, 1909 : 169-175. 120 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS you to recognize such disciplines, so far as they have values, as strictly incidental to the larger values in the activities of real life. As pointed out above, too frequently the activity curriculum, as the project method before it, serves as a teach- ing situation, a motivation for learning. Various researches in the elementary school field indicate that the formal skills are yet better acquired when the acquiring is strictly inci- dental to the activity in which they function. Thus, second- ary schools may be justified in placing grammar, algebra, history, and all allied subjects, on the reference shelf, to be used only as the development of an activity calls for its use. The activity curriculum is a school organization of child life and its environment for the purpose of enriching child- life. This activity curriculum is a bold break from tradition but for the sincere purpose of greater service to children, for their improvement. The activity curriculum of the elementary school looks upon the traditional curriculum of the high school with sym- pathy. It realizes the great pressure from above, i.e. require- ments stipulated by higher institutions. It realizes also the great pressure in the undercurrent of social custom, expressed in the traditional curriculum. But far more does it realize the yet greater pressure of modern life—service to youth. The traditional curriculum of the high school is chal- lenged by the activity curriculum of the elementary school to do three things: (1) Render service to youth irrespective of college entrance; (2) Help boys and girls to participate in the vital issues of current life, in leisure and in work, irrespective of the traditional school subjects; (3) Help adolescent youth to evaluate school arts as incidental to life acts. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 121 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1934 FIFTH SESSION William E. Burkard, Principal of Tilden Junior High School of Philadelphia, presided over the group that met in the Assembly Room at 9:30 A. M. Frank W. Cyr, Associate Professor of Rural Education of Columbia University, read his paper, What Can Be Done for the Small Secondary School. WHAT CAN BE DONE FOR THE SMALL SECONDARY SCHOOL FRANK W. CYR Teachers College, Columbia University What can we do for the small secondary school? One of the most serious and perplexing problems in American edu- cation is that of providing an adequate educational program in the small secondary school. Let us attack this problem by considering three ques- tions: (1) What is the importance of the small school in the whole field of secondary education? (2) What are the spe- cial problems of the small school because of its size, and most important of all; and (3) How can the small schools provide an enriched curriculum? First, what is the importance of the small school in the whole field of secondary education? According to the last Biennial Report of the United States Office of Education for 1930, 54 per cent of the public high schools of the United States have an enrollment of fewer than 100 pupils. Two special problems of fundamental importance in an attack on the small school situation are: (1) the low pupil- 122 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS teacher ratio, and (2) the large number of daily subject- preparations per teacher. A teacher cannot make five or six daily preparations which include such diverse subjects as Latin, history, and mathematics and do justice to his work. He is constantly faced with the futility of doing careful, thorough work. Here then is a second problem characteristic of the small school which gradually disappears as schools become larger. These two problems, the low and varied pupil-teacher ratio and the large number of daily subject-preparations per teacher, present two vital points at which the problems of the small school can be attacked. Techniques and methods for enriching the curriculum must be developed which also in- crease the pupil-teacher ratio and decrease the burden of daily subject-preparations per teacher. Such techniques will make possible economical enrichment of the small secondary-school curriculum. What are such techniques and how can they be utilized? In the small secondary school, it is necessary to under- stand the functions of secondary education as proposed by educational leaders. It is then necessary to think of each subject in terms of the objectives to be attained and the con- cepts it is to teach. To make a fundamental attack on the problems of the small school we must think in terms of the purposes to be achieved and then utilize any methods and techniques which will effectively achieve those purposes. The Benton Township Consolidated School of Lacka- wanna County, Pennsylvania, has developed a broad shop program adapted to the needs of the pupils. First the func- tions of a shop were studied and objectives agreed upon. Then one large room was built which provides facilities for woodworking, varnishing, sheet-metal work, electrical wiring, auto-repairing, forge work, concrete mixing, harness repair, and plumbing. One end is set off with a glass partition for the science laboratory. Thus in one room a boy or girl may explore and develop his abilities, interests, and capacities. oon PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 123 Following the same procedure in science, we would teach in terms of the principles to be studied and concepts to be developed, rather than, as usual, in terms of textbook, labora- tory equipment, and laboratory exercises. To study atmos- pheric pressure, for example, there are any number of simple experiments with ordinary equipment which are much more stimulating of questioning and further study than many of the usual laboratory exercises with expensive equipment. Professor C. H. Lynde, of Columbia University has about 300 experiments illustrating principles in physics, all of which are performed wth equipment found in the home or the ten- cent store. The total cost of equipment for all 300 is less than $5.00. These experiments with ordinary tin cans, fruit jars, milk bottles, newspapers and sink stoppers, are much more dramatic and stimulating to the imagination than the tradi- tional physics experiments with carefully prepared and ex- pensive equipment, usually are. An important method of enriching the curriculum of the small school economically is through utilization of commu- nity resources. The high school at Carmel, New York, which has an enrollment of fewer than 70 pupils, is utilizing its human resources. A local banker teaches a practical course in accounting. A high-school boy with special aptitudes for banking, as shown from a careful study by the Vocational Research Bureau of Kent Cliffs, New York, works in the bank a number of hours each week during the school day. A high- school girl with an aptitude for painting is taught by a local artist. The village blacksmith trains two tenth-grade boys in his shop, a boy with a decided bent toward medicine works in the doctor’s office, one girl works with the school nurse, another with the school librarian and another with a primary teacher. These pupils are obtaining an understanding of occu- pations in which they are interested that would be impossible in even the best equipped laboratories and shops. In Lennox, South Dakota, the courses in vocational agri- culture and home economics consider the farms and homes of the community as school laboratories. The class in Ameri- can problems gives major emphasis to farm problems such 124 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS as production, surplus, consumption, farm prices, mortgages, rural social conditions and national legislation. Consideration of national and international questions grows out of the prob- lems of the local community and its relations to them. One of the most promising methods of enriching the cur- riculum is through supervised correspondence study. This method which has been used by the schools of Australia for 20 years and more recently in New Zealand, Russia, and Canada, was introduced into the United States at Benton Harbor, Michigan, in 1923. S. C. Mitchell, now superintend- ent, discovered that many students were not receiving the vocational training they needed and arranged privately for them to study correspondence courses. By 1925 this procedure was officially adopted by the board of education as part of the school program. There are now more than 400 courses available to the boys and girls of Benton Harbor through the correspondence department and 136 pupils are enrolled in 22 different courses. According to Gaumnitz, “public institu- tions offering high-school courses by correspondence are found in 32 states. In 23 of these states this work is carried on at the state university ; in one, Massachusetts, it is handled through the extension division of the State Department of Education.” Some of the most notable work with supervised corre- spondence courses has been at the University of Nebraska. The Extension Division of the University in codperation with the faculty of the teachers college and the state department of public instruction is developing such courses especially adapted to the small high schools of the state. The high-school pupil, through a guidance program, selects the course he desires from a wide variety offered. A local teacher then sees that he secures his materials, has a regular place to study, and offers encouragement and advice. Lessons are mailed regu- larly to the university where a highly trained subject-matter specialist corrects, comments upon, and returns them. The local teacher need have little or no knowledge of the subject. 1Gaumnitz, W. H., High-School Instruction By Mail, U. S. Office of Education Bulletin 1933, No. 13, p. 34. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 125 These courses cost the small school a total of $6.00 per pupil, per semester. This is somewhat less if the papers are cor- rected locally. Supervised correspondence study is merely one method of providing individual instruction materials. Another method of bringing highly trained subject-mat- ter specialists into the small school is through the circuit teacher. In Ohio, circuit teachers are sometimes employed as members of the county superintendent’s staff to teach music in the schools of the county. They travel from school to school on regular schedules. In Maryland, the county music supervisors perform a similar function. In Pennsylvania, 22 counties employ county supervisors of agriculture, and 12 county supervisors of home economics, who are in reality circuit teachers, serving as many as eight different schools and 170 pupils. There are two general types of methods by which the educational program of the small secondary school may be improved. Those, including the ones just discussed, which take education out into small schools, and those concerned with reorganizing and re-districting schools. The reorganization of the 8-4 type of school on the 6-6 plan, the consolidation of small schools into larger ones, and the development of larger administrative units are all vitally important. Spaulding, in the National Survey of Secondary Education, has pointed out tendencies toward better programs in the reorganized schools, and the economy of the six-year high schools as compared with the 6-33 plan. In the 1934 Yearbook of the Rural Department of the N. E. A., he devel- ops a program for the small six-year high school. Re-districting is needed to make school district lines coterminous with the natural boundaries of the community. Improved transportation and communication have brought about great changes in rural life. Neighborhoods have merged into communities which are in turn in closer contact with state and national life. Often, however, where paved high- ways, automobiles, busses, power lines and other modern im- provements have entered a community, there has been no 126 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS change in the school organization. Consolidations in the past have not always been carefully planned in terms of local con- ditions, and with major emphasis on provision of a richer curriculum. A scientific study of each situation through care- ful surveys, such as those conducted in Arkansas and New York State, is of vital importance. An excellent example of how consolidation may provide an enriched curriculum is found in the centralized school district located in Southwest- ern Lewis County, New York. Another type of reorganization of utmost importance to the small high school is that which will give a larger local administrative unit, such as the county greater responsibility, in the administration of the educational program. Attempts to perform all administrative duties within the school itself continue to prove costly and inefficient. Many of the modern needs of an educational system including well-trained leader- ship, supervision, health service, library facilities, and cir- cuit teachers can be provided much more economically by a unit such as the county which includes a group of community districts. A recent study’ by the speaker shows that in many states, the county superintendent has practically no respon- sibility for the secondary-school program. Strong local leadership is important to an adequate educational program in the small school. Conclusion We have now discussed the importance of the small sec- ondary school in terms of the number of schools, the probable future, and the importance to the whole commonwealth of a healthy, intelligent, well-trained rural population. We have suggested that the principal of the large high school should use his influence to encourage the best possible type of pro- gram for the small school. We have then suggested that a scientific approach to the problems of the small school is nec- essary, and analyzed briefly two special problems character- 1Cyr, Frank W., Responsibility for Rural-School Administration New York: Bureau of Publication, Teachers College, Columbia Univer- sity, 1933. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 127 istic of small schools: (1) The low pupil-teacher ratio; and (2) The large number of daily subject-preparations per teacher. The methods proposed for developing an adequate pro- gram included: (1) Planning the building in terms of cur- riculum needs; (2) Study and utilization of community resources; (3) Use of individual instruction materials, par- ticularly supervised correspondence courses; (4) Provision of circuit teachers; (5) Reorganization of six-year schools; (6) Scientific re-districting schools; and (7) Development of the larger administrative unit. Public School Supervisor Mark S. Godman, of the State Department of Education, Kentucky, then read his paper, The Teacher’s Part in the Guidance Program of the Small High School. THE TEACHER’S PART IN THE GUIDANCE PROGRAM OF THE SMALL HIGH SCHOOL MARK GODMAN Public School Supervisor, State Department of Education, Frankfort; Kentucky Guidance in one form or another is a well-established function in most of our secondary schools. Broadly speaking, the whole process of education should be thought of as a guiding process, a process by which the child through sympathetic direction develops the great end points of his education, knowledge, interests, ideals, habits, and powers. If our conception of education is that of a guiding and developing process, what then is the teacher’s part in this process? His is the major part.- This is true because, in the last analysis, the teacher must be the one to guide and direct boys and girls in the attainment of these end points. In the past, too many teachers thought more in terms of subject- 128 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS matter than they did in terms of enrichment of personality ; more in terms of scholastic achievement than in terms of growth of character. All too many of them looked upon their position as that of an autocrat, fixing tasks and outlining duties. Observation convinces me that far too many of them to-day, even our best-trained teachers, continue to believe that this is their chief responsibility. While a teacher must be concerned about such important matters as subject matter and scholastic records, still his big function is to act as a guide, a director, a counselor, an adviser in the pupil’s effort to acquire desired knowledge, discover worth while interests, develop proper ideals and fix desirable habits. Before teachers can intelligently and effectively guide young people in the achievement of these desired ends and objectives, they must know their pupils. They must know the material with which they work. I say this:because in my judgment the real test of teaching is not found so much in degrees or in majors and minors as it is in the way that the teacher works with his pupils. To work intelligently and sympathetically with pupils demands that the teacher know their mental, physical, emotional, and social characteristics. It demands that he know their home life and their duties both within and without the home. He must know their mental age, their previous scholastic records and their attitude toward and difficulties in the subjects that they have and are now studying. He must know their mental and physical health, their hobbies, their natural interests and their probable voca- tional future. I emphasize this point because in the last analy- sis, the foundation of that which we call guidance in the school is found in the knowledge that those who teach have of each pupil in their charge. What I have said so far in reference to the teacher and his part in the guidance program applies equally to the teacher in the large high school as well as the teacher in the small high school. You will note that my subject is “The Teacher’s Part in the Guidance Program of the Small High School.” Most of the high schools of our country are small. More than one-half of them enroll 100 or fewer pupils. Ob- PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 129 viously, these small schools cannot provide a program of guidance that is comparable in its scope and richness to that provided in large, comprehensive high schools with their directors of guidance and their deans of boys and deans of girls. The small high school must of necessity have a pro- gram that is simple, a program that is limited, a program that represents a codperative undertaking of the principal, the classroom teacher, the home-room teacher and the pupils. When I think of guidance, I think of it in three senses: educational, vocational, and personal. What can the teachers in the small high schools do along these lines? Let us first consider educational guidance. Before the teacher can guide his pupils wisely along this line, he must not only know their individual differences in respect to aptitudes, interests and capacities, but he must be in a position to help them give satisfactory answers to such question as, why should I stay in high school? What electives should I select from the few that are offered? Will it pay me to go to college? What fields of learning are most attractive to me? Where can I best find the training that I desire in institutions of higher learning, and what are the demands that will be made upon me in those institutions? I submit that these are live and vital educational problems that face the pupils of the small as well as the large high schools. I wish that I had the time to go into detail regarding procedures that I have observed teachers in small high schools employing to help pupils answer these questions. I shall take time for only one. The high school of which I am thinking has 117 pupils enrolled and five teachers employed. My in- spection of the school began the first period after lunch, the extra-curriculum period in most of the high schools of my state. On this day, the school was using this period for home- room programs. I went to the home room of the teacher who had charge of the twelfth grade. I discovered that the project which this group had under way was designed to help the pupils to find out satisfactory answers to such questions as, where should I go to college? What are the demands that will be made of me in the various colleges? How had the teacher 130 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS gone about helping the pupils answer these and other ques- tions involved in the matter of college entrance? The class had secured catalogs from the various standard colleges of the state, as well as from a number of standard colleges out- side of the state. Then they had prepared a list of the vari- ous items which they wished to study in these catalogs. A brief historical sketch of each school was made and studied. A study was made of each institution with regard to such items as tuition fees, living costs, and kinds of financial aid open to students. Information was also compiled regarding how each institution was supported and controlled. A chart was being compiled showing the subjects required for en- trance, requirements demanded for graduation from each institution and the various kinds of degrees granted. Who did this work, the teacher or the pupils? The pupils did it through committees. The teacher’s part was to guide and direct the pupils while they carried on the investigations. I submit that what this school was able to do along this line of educational guidance can be done in any small high school with a graduating class. Let us think of vocational guidance and what the teacher in the small high school can do along this line. It is now rec- ognized that before one can choose a vocation wisely, he must have information about vocations. It is apparent that the small high school cannot provide expensive, technical voca- tional training. It can and should, however, provide for voca- tional information and self-analysis on the part of the pupil regarding his fitness for certain occupations. In my state, we suggest such a course as occupations, vocations, or voca- tional guidance in the ninth grade. Unfortunately, however, we are finding a problem here. Many small schools either cannot find the time for this work in their narrow curriculum, or they do not have teachers who are acquainted with or are sympathetic with vocational problems. Again, most commu- nities in which these schools are located do not have the indus- tries discussed in these courses and, as a result, pupils do not have an opportunity to visit and study them. Since this is true, too many small high schools either neglect giving PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 131 vocational information entirely or are satisfied with having some local professional man or tradesman speak before the student body regarding the problems of his particular line of work. It is my observation that all too frequently those who speak think it is their obligation to amuse and entertain rather than to give a serious presentation of the requirements, ad- vantages, and disadvantages of their respective professions or trades. As I think of vocational guidance apart from a formal course in the subject, I wonder how many of our teachers in the small or for that matter the large high schools, realize that practically every subject in the curriculum can be em- ployed to give vocational information and arouse vocational interests? Certainly the teacher of high-school geography can find much material which the pupil can study from the viewpoint of one interested in making a choice of a life work. The work in English furnishes an excellent opportunity along this line. Themes may be written on vocational subjects and oral talks may be made regarding industries visited. History and biography, especially a study of the men and women now living, give the pupils an excellent opportunity to analyze the reasons for the success of great men and women. Certainly the teacher of physics can awaken his pupils to the possibili- ties of a life work in electrical or mechanical engineering and the teacher of biology can give an insight into agriculture as a life work. Even Latin, thought by many as being the most impractical subject in the curriculum, can be made to con- tribute abundantly to this end. This illustration came to me some time ago in my reading. The class in elementary Latin was studying the word “secretus” (secret). The teacher explained that our word secretary comes from the Latin word “secretarius” (derived from “secretus”) which means a keeper of secrets. Knowing this to be true, it was easy for the teacher to make it plain to the pupils that in commercial life a secretary is a keeper of business secrets as well as one who cares for the correspondence of her employer. From here it was easy for the teacher to have the pupils trace the history of this occupation from Roman days to the present. 132 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS It was easy for him to have the pupils study the methods and tools used in that time and contrast them with the methods, preparation required, advantages and disadvantages, remu- neration, and personal qualifications necessary in this type of work to-day. Apart from the vocational information which the pupils gained by this procedure there were the added advantages that come as a result of the pupils’ increased interest in the subject. To them the subject of Latin related itself to life and to the work of the world and as a result lost much of its classification as a dry and impractical subject. Of course, in attempting to use this plan the teacher must make careful and thorough preparation. He must read about the vocations which he is going to introduce and, if possible, he should visit the places where they are practiced. Teachers who are willing to make this preparation will find that many teaching materials can be procured along this line without cost from leading manufacturing concerns. Again, small schools that are equipped with electricity can secure films at a minimum charge from many industries and institu- tions of higher learning. Current literature in this phase of guidance offers the interested teacher many suggestions as to how the vocational implications of his subject may be given the pupils. If the choice of a life-work is not to be left to accident and chance, teachers, especially those in small schools, must be alert to the vocational implications in their subjects. As one has said, “All too many leave school to grope in a ‘blind alley’—lost without aim or idea, purpose or ideal, to drift as blind chance and the shifting currents of society may direct—trusting to luck, with money to-day—and broke to- morrow.” Industrial life is becoming increasingly complicated and complex. It is hedged about by barriers difficult for youth to scale and bewildering to those who must make a choice. This means that our educational process cannot be simple; it must be rich and revealing in content, abounding in oppor- tunities to discover and to learn. Helping the individual to live happily in this complex world and to make satisfying adjustments therein is a veritable challenge to those who PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 133 guide and direct in the ever-changing process of pupil learn- ing and development. Let us consider briefly how the small high school can aid in solving the many perplexing personal problems that confuse and bewilder youth. The high-school pupil is an adolescent. Gradual changes have taken place within him until he possesses certain phys- ical, mental and social traits. These confuse and bewilder him. Not being mellowed by experience he is inclined to go to ex- tremes. One minute he may rise to heights of service and idealism that his elders can not attain and the next minute he may sink to acts that shame and embarrass him. Certainly he needs guidance and direction in the close, intimate, and personal things of life. Here is the teacher’s richest field of labor. He must bring to the situation understanding, sym- pathy and a spirit of justice. Of all those who should aid, no teacher in the small high school can play a more impor- tant part than the home-room teacher. It is in this capacity that the teacher comes to know each pupil and his problems intimately. It is upon this teacher that the pupil will and wants to lean. If he does not, especially in schools of some size, he may feel that he is lost in the shuffle and conclude that the only way to be recognized is to engage in mischief. How can the home-room teacher render this aid? He can do it by finding out their personal troubles, their difficul- ties with their teachers, their home conditions and environ- ment, their associates in school and out, their attitudes, inter- ests and habits, their health and their weaknesses in the fundamentals of their subjects. All of you know how hard it is to get many pupils to tell the whole truth regarding their difficulties in a subject to the one who teaches that subject. This is especially true of early adolescents. Why is it true? The reason is simple. They will not tell because they fear failure. They will, however, tell most if not all to the one to whom they feel close and confidential like their home-room adviser. Since this is true, it is important that principals in the small high schools especially make it clear to home-room teachers that one of their biggest tasks is to sympathetically 1384. DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS guide and direct pupils in matters that are personal and intimate, matters like those of discipline, personal habits, study problems and companionships. Not only home-room activities, but all the other extra-curriculum activities of the small high school can and should be made to contribute to all the phases of guidance that the pupils need. As I said in the beginning, the teacher is the pupil’s guide or director in his effort to acquire knowledge, interests, ideals, habits and powers. This means far more than giving the guidance that will enable him to merely make a living. It means guiding him in discovering his best personality possibilities; it means revealing to him the possibilities to be found in the higher activities of life—activities that involve an appreciation, understanding and capacity to enjoy the best in nature, art, music, literature and life in general. In other words, the life of the modern high school, large or small, must be a revealing life, a creative life, a life in which through careful guidance, knowledge is acquired, interests are stimu- lated, ideals are developed and habits are fixed that will enable the pupil to successfully and happily contribute his best, both to himself and to the society in which he lives and serves. Associate Professor of Education of Fordham University, Miss Verna A. Carley, read a paper entitled Class Size in American Secondary Schools, written by the speaker and Harold C. Hand, Assistant Professor of Education, Stanford University. CLASS SIZE IN AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS VERNA A. CARLEY Associate Professor of Education, Fordham University and HAROLD C. HAND Assistant Professor of Education, Stanford -University Although there is an abundance of literature concerning certain advantages of large and of small classes, published PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 135 materials thus far made available give no clear indication of the prevalence of large classes. Studies conducted by the National Education Association have revealed the present trend toward larger classes and toward an increased ratio of pupils and teachers. In order to discover the extent to which class sections of 50 or more students had been introduced into the high school, the investigators in November, 1933, sent a relatively simple form of inquiry to all secondary schools in the United States located in communities of 5000 or larger population, and to one out of every five in communities of lesser size. Usable replies were received from 1800 schools, a full 75% of the 2400 schools approached. The large size classes reported upon in this paper contained in every case more than 50 pupils, and were exclusive of sections in phys- ical education, chorus, band, glee club, orchestra, home room and the like. It was discovered that one out of every five (21.5%) of the secondary schools included in this study reported one or more large classes. TABLE I Number and Percentage of Schools Reporting One or More Large Classes ENROLLMENT. (Exclusive of Phy. Ed., Band, Orchestra, Glee Clubs, Home Rooms, etc.) TYPE OF Below 500 500-999 1000-1499 1500 & Above TOTAL SCHOOL No. % No. % No. % No. % No 9% JR. H. S. 10 11.4 41 19.1 42 300 28 35.4 121 23.3 4 YR. H. S. 9 13.3 21 11.4 16 152 52 29.4 98 18.3 SR. H. S. 4 10.0 22 13.3 23 23.5 66 36.5 115 23.1 JR.-SR. H. S. 4 222 14 13.3 14 240 21 313 53 21.4 TOTAL 27 12.5 98 144 95 27.3 167 33.1 387 21.5 The percentages so reporting were: 18.3 for four-year high schools; 21.4 for six-year high schools; 23.1 for senior high school; and 23.3 for junior high schools. When the data were tabulated according to size of school, it was revealed that large classes were much more frequently reported by the schools of larger enrollments. Only 12.5 per cent, or one out of every eight, of the schools with fewer than 500 student report- 136 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS ed one or more class sections of 50 or more pupils. The pro- portion reporting large class sections was only slightly larger (14.4 per cent) for the 500-1000 enrollment group. For the schools in the 1000 to 1500 classification, however, this pro- portion increased to well over a fourth (27.3 per cent). Nearly a third (33.1 per cent) of the schools enrolling 1500 or more students reported one or more large-size classes. For all schools regardless of type or enrollment who reported one or more large sections the median number was found to be 3. TABLE II Number of Large Classes* (Q3, Median, and Q1) by Size and Type of School for Schools Reporting One or More Large Sections TYPE ENROLLMENT TOTAL Jr. 4Yr Sr. Jr.-Sr. Below 500 1000 §=1500 & H. S. H.S. H.S. H. S. 500 999 1499 Above eee 7 5 6 4 3 4 5 9 7 Median ....4 3 4 3 3 2 3 4 3 a 2 1 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 When the replies were classified according to geograph- ical sections of the country, considerable variation in the per- centages of schools reporting large classes was observed. TABLE III Percentage of Schools Located in Various Sections of the United States Who Reported One or More Large Class Sections TOTAL NO. WITH LARGE CLASSES SECTION REPLIES NO. % New Englan .......................-cccccocoee 237 37 15.6 Middle Atlantic ..... 391 93 23.7 I III eiccccrctinssonstecninechananl 150 29 19.3 South Central ..................... 206 29 14.0 North Central (Lakes) ................ 460 112 26.1 North Central (Plains).................. 155 41 26.4 ND ibs ice tia ceetiihieeedadiciia oem stated 47 14 29.8 Ne oF ag 154 32 20.7 I siccechiishesiiiitaatlte iataeadteal ls 1800 387 21.5 *Exclusive of Music, Phy. Ed., Band, Orchestra, Chorus, Glee Clubs, etc. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 137 Only 14.0 per cent of the schools in the states classified as South Central reported large sections, while a proportion more than twice as large (29.8 per cent) in the Plateau region so reported. The percentages for the other six sections or re- gions into which the states were classified in this study were: New England 15.6; South Atlantic 19.3; Pacific 20.7; Middle Atlantic 23.7; North Central (Great Lakes) 26.1; and North Central (Plains) 26.4. The subject matter fields in which large classes were re- ported in the present investigation provide pertinent data. TABLE IV Number and Percentage of Schools with Large Classes Reporting Large Sections in Various Subject Matter Fields FIELD NUMBER PERCENT Music (Exclusive of Band, Orchestra, Chorus, Glee Club) .. 172 46.4 Commercial .................-.-. 154 41.5 Social Studies .....................- 108 29.1 English ..... ai 80 21.6 Science ...... 72 19.4 Mathematics . aa 66 17.8 F. Languages .............. a 24 6.5 TR sticcceis a eee 23 6.4 Home Arts ..................0<.....-20<....- 4 1.0 | DS eee ene 4 1.0 Of the nearly 400 schools with one or more class sections of 50 or more students, nearly half (46.4 per cent) reported large classes in music, exclusive of band, orchestra, chorus, and glee clubs. A proportion only slightly smaller (41.5) re- ported large classes in various commercial subjects. Nearly three-tenths (29.1%) were attempting large class instruction in social studies. Slightly more than a fifth (21.6 per cent) reported large sections in English. Approximately twenty per cent had large classes in the field of science. Nearly 18 per cent were giving large group instruction in mathematics. The percentages of schools reporting one or more large sec- 188 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS tions drops to around 6 per cent in foreign languages and in art and te only 1 per cent in home economics and industrial arts. In general, teachers and administrators deplore the ne- cessity of giving instruction in large classes. Although the numerous class size experiments thus far reported lead one to suspect that students taught in larger groups have not suf- fered, so far as the acquiring of information and understand- ing is concerned, many educators have nevertheless been un- willing to accept the findings. This unwillingness may be due possibly to the influence of tradition or custom in the matter of class size, but more primarily to a difference in educational philosophy which will not permit them to accept scores on standardized tests of information as sufficient criteria of the outcomes of large or small class instruction. They claim that only a partial knowledge of the effects of large class instruc- tion have thus far been secured objectively. Attention is called to the more intangible but vital out- comes, to the possibility that pupil interests may not be as ef- fectively nurtured in large as in small groups, that students in large classes may be less able to work at their own pace, feel ‘less free to ask questions or to participate in discussion, and have less opportunity to recite or to secure needed help from the teacher. It is also pointed out that in large classes with the less informal atmosphere the students probably become less well acquainted with the teacher and with the other mem- bers of the group, that class procedures in the large sections tend, of necessity, to become too inflexible with insufficient provision for the immediate needs and interests of pupils; in short, that the educational rights of the individual child are endangered. Harrison C. Lyseth, State Supervisor of Secondary Edu- cation of Maine, presided over a group that met in the Cypress Room at 9:30 A. M. Principal Evan L. Mahaffy read his pa- per entitled, The Administration of Attendance in Large High Schools. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 139 THE ADMINISTRATION OF ATTENDANCE IN LARGE HIGH SCHOOLS HARRISON G. LYSETH State Supervisor of Secondary Education of Maine One may say that all schools over 500 may be referred to as large high schools. Certain it is that somewhere between 500 and 1000 in enrollment, there is a point above which no one person in the school is likely to know well every pupil en- rolled. At this point, certain pupils get the notion that the school has become so large that they may not be missed at the time the rolls are taken. Experience has shown that fre- quently pupils who have been in smaller schools become care- less in a larger one and frequently take the chance of being truant for all or part of a day. It appears to be the judgment of many principals that a more stringent type of checking procedure must now be set up than that which serves in the smaller groups in which absence becomes obvious on a mo- “4 ment’s notice. It is with this group of larger schools and with the administration of the various phases of their attend- ance procedures that we are to deal. Lf It is the purpose, however, of this particular investiga- tion to determine present procedures with particular em- phasis upon the most common ones and those innovations which seem to indicate promising trends in the various phases of the attendance problem. It is hoped, therefore, that some factual material may be brought out that may be of value to principals whereby they may improve their handling of this challenging problem. Perhaps they may lead to a more pro- gressive philosophy for the solution of the individually differ- ent cases in this field. For the purpose of this paper we are defining that pupil as tardy who arrives in the given room after the time sched- uled for the work of the given period to begin. | As regards the place of reporting, the results of the in- quiry show that in 165 of the 436 schools reporting there is a 140 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS specially designated room or attendance office with a teacher or clerk in charge who disposes of the admission of tardy pu- pils. The principal’s office ranks next in 129 instances. Home room teachers do this work in 73 cases, and in 47 schools the teachers of the pupils’ first classes handle it. Of these three procedures the first is to be preferred. Tardiness between classes is administered in 251 cases by the teacher whose class is entered. In only 26 schools do we find that the pupil is sent back to his previous class to account for his being late. Ninety-six schools report that such cases as these are sent to the special attendance office. The pre- vailing practice seems to be wisest. Too much time would be lost by the home-room or classroom teacher, were the tardy pupils to be sent some considerable distance to a central at- tendance office to settle such problems. If there were any considerable number of such individuals in a given period and each one had to have a special interview, the class period might easily be over before the case was concluded. If the teacher of the previous class was responsible for the lateness of the pupil it might be well for him to be asked to account for the case. This should serve to reduce the number of times ‘such an instance would occur. Oral excuses are accepted for all tardiness in 214 schools. One hundred ninety-one require written excuses to be presented either on the morning of the tardiness or on the following morning. Twenty schools allow the pupil to write his own excuse. Here is a fine place for the use of judgment. Modern pro- cedure does not allow us to overlook tardiness altogether. There are so many places in life where being on time is im- portant. Training to be punctual is undoubtedly worth while. Genuine excuses ought to be accepted whether written or oral. The right person will have no difficulty in determining the genuine from the spurious variety. Those who come late need guidance. We believe that as a rule, excuses should be written and kept on file as evidence if the case becomes chronic. One hundred thirty-seven institutions report that they re- ward their punctual pupils at the end of the year by present- ing medals, ribbons, badges and in some cases certificates. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 141 Ninety-nine schools penalize all tardy pupils, while 246 just penalize those who have no satisfactory excuses. One hun- dred seventeen penalize first offenders, while 228 only penalize the chronic ones. Two hundred thirty-five say that they in- crease the-penalty of repeaters in a geometric ratio. The penalty indicated is usually in the form of the pupil paying back to himself, at least the time he has missed. It is interesting to note the existence of rewards and pen- alties in this matter of tardiness. There are doubtless those young people who might be stimulated by the winning of a re- ward. There are also others who would make an extra effort to be on time in order to avoid a penalty. In terms of present day procedures of dealing with children, it would appear that we ought to be able to assist those who have difficulty in this area, by giving them kindly guidance and helping them to ap- preciate the value of punctuality for its own sake. Ranking highest among the causes of tardiness are: in- accurate time pieces, 290 votes; late starting, 283 votes; faulty transportation, 257 votes; loitering on the way to school, 174 votes; poor control in the home, 156 votes; indifference on the part of the pupil, 135 votes; running errands in the morning, 129 votes; unusually inclement weather, 115 votes. Of the other 34 causes suggested there are 6 which have received fifty or more votes. These are: general laziness, morning employ- ment, being up late the night before, the first class occurring too early, getting under way slowly on the mornings after holidays and sickness in the family. On first thought it would appear that some of these fac- tors are not subject to control or improvement by the pupil, however, one might foil even the delay of inclement weather and such causes as faulty transportation and inaccurate time pieces by starting earlier. Among the suggested solutions of tardiness are the fol- lowing, listed in the order of their popularity in the minds of principals: making a contact with the home with a view to removing the cause, 249 votes; helping the pupil to see the value of promptness in life situations, 224 votes; requiring the a 142 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS pupil to make up the time he has missed, 155 votes; helping the pupil to see the importance of meeting business appoint- ments, 148 votes; building up a high morale in the student body, 110 votes; requiring the pupil to come early for a while, 126 votes; and assigning the pupil a definite responsibility requiring his presence before the first class, 101 votes. The solutions of the tardiness problem are an interesting mixture of procedures, involving at least two points of view. One emphasizes penalties and the other guidance. It may be encouraging to note that there is a distinct trend here toward the recognition of individual differences in the light of the old statement that circumstances alter cases. Closely allied to being absent from the first class of the day by reason of tardiness is that of being absent from one or more of the classes of the day. While such cases are less com- mon than the other phases of absence, they are usually more difficult because they are usually willful. The accounting of the pupil for his class absence is done by administrative officers 225 times as compared to the ac- . count being given to classroom teachers in 155 instances. The first ranking plan in this division of the study shows that the teacher in charge checks a seating plat for attendance, places (a) in the square for the given day in a classbook, sends a re- port of this record to the attendance office at the end of the day where the class absence record is checked against the gen- eral attendance record for the day by an office clerk. The pupil later is held to account by the principal or an admin- istrative officer assigned to this duty by the principal. The second most common procedure is that of the teacher calling a roll of names in each class of the day, making a rec- ord of the absence on an individual class attendance card and marking each member of the class present or absent on the given day. A list of class absentees is then sent to the at- tendance office at the end of each period for checking. The classroom teachers then hold to account, the pupils who have been found to be class cutters. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 143 For the purpose of this paper we define partial absence as applying to the cases of those pupils who are excused from the school any time during a given day after they have been enrolled. One is concerned here with the procedures used for the disposition of such cases. They vary between wide limits. At one end of this scale is the school which gives no attention to attempting to keep track of such cases. These few apply the college plan which usually is, that if the pupil misses a given class three times, he must drop the class or be failed in the subject. The other procedure involves a close check, which usually is expected by the parents of the pupil. Prac- tically all schools follow the latter plan. In 399 schools the pupils who desire to leave the building during the day are required to get special permission to do so. Two hundred and thirty-seven schools make a list of those ex- cused and add it to the daily absence list, at the same time in- dicating the clock time at which the permission is given. This report is made available to those interested in the situation in 200 cases. Two hundred ninety-two schools record and report the reasons given for the requested permission. Two hundred seventy-seven schools provide such pupils with exit tickets. One hundred twenty-four schools have door monitors who check on those who exit. Seventy-three schools go to the trouble of having every teacher affected by the pupil’s leaving countersign this exit card before the pupil is eligible to leave. Two hundred fifty-six schools require that pupils bring back a regular excuse from home to the effect that the pupil did re- turn home or did carry out the reasons given for his missing part of the previous day. In a large majority of the schools reporting, we find then that a very careful check is made in the cases of these pupils who for one reason or another are given permission to leave the building during the school day. About 50% of the schools report that positive or negative attendance records of home room absence are kept in a teach- er’s class book. Approximately 25% list such absence on sin- gle sheets, one sheet serving for a given day only. Six pes 144. DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS cent list the names of those absent on a given day in a common notebook. Eight per cent use individual cards. Another 8% place home room attendance records in registers while a smaller percentage use sheets which serve for a week and a still smaller percentage use a larger sheet to record absence for a given month. The most usually accepted procedure involves: the use of a class book or register by the home room division teacher ; reporting daily absence from home room to central attendance office by individual daily sheets and the keeping of a dupli- cate attendance record, one to be in a home room loose-leaf ledger or record book and the other to be on the pupil’s per- manent record in the central office. This provides for ease in recording, simplicity in transferring and safety in having a duplicate record. The advantage of the home room ledger is to minimize the possibility of loss, whereas the record card lends itself to ease in filing and finding. Attendance taking time varies. Forty per cent of the schools reporting take attendance in the home room period be- fore the first class of the day. Ten per cent take it at the be- ‘ginning of the day and then again at the end of the day. It would seem that the time of taking attendance varies according to the organization of the school. If school has two sessions per day the check is made twice per day. If the ses- sion is continuous but has over-lapping shifts the attendance is taken at a time when all pupils are supposed to be on hand and if all the pupils are supposed to be present throughout the en- tire day, the home room period is at the beginning of the day. The method of taking attendance is done in one of four ways. The teacher calls the roll, checks a seating plat, has a pupil assistant perform these duties or the latter in addition to which the teacher checks the pupil report. Sixteen per cent use method number one. Sixty-one per cent use method num- ber two. Thirteen per cent have a dependable pupil perform this service. In the remaining 10%, the teacher checks the pupil assistant’s report. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 145 Certainly, if we have in mind the efficient use of the teacher’s time during the period devoted to home-room pur- poses, no teacher should ever be calling class rolls day after day. A seating plat for the group can be simply and speedily made out at the beginning of the semester. Pupils learn to find their places readily and enjoy having definite stations. We cannot conceive of any situation which might not lend itself to the development of a definite seating plan. Pupils enjoy responsibilities. That home-room group would be an extremely rare one if there could not be found some student who could be depended upon to take the class roll and make out daily reports concerning the same. All the teacher needs to do in this connection is to cast his eye over the group to determine the number of vacant places and then see that the number of absentees’ names correspond to this number. There is a rather definite trend to a class organiza- tion which would place in the hands of a dependable student, the business of taking care of the attendance in the home-room group, under the supervision of the teacher. A general list of each day’s absentees is made up in 304 of the schools reporting. A copy of this list is sent to each teacher in the early part of the day in 169 of these schools. Thirty-seven schools keep the general list in their home rooms. Two hundred forty-three lists show absence for a given day only, while 79 show the cumulative absence of the pupil to the given date. In 178 cases these absence lists are posted. The number of places of posting vary with the size of the school. Smaller schools post lists only in the office, medium large ones post lists on a bulletin board on each floor, while the larger ones have lists posted in each home room. The function of these posted lists is to serve for checking class ab- sence against all-day absence. They are also the basis of the work of the person or persons who make home contacts and general investigations of the pupil’s whereabouts. They fur- nish the data for permanent ledger records or individual card attendance files. 146 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS Two factors seem to be at work in the determination of policy, in this division of the study. In the larger schools of 3000 or more the attendance records are often kept in the home room. It has been found a simpler proposition involv- ing the principle of division of labor, to have this work done here. In a given home room ordinarily a relatively small number of class absence blanks would be received and a com- paratively small number of class absence blanks would need to be delivered by each class room teacher each day. From another point of view, if in the very large school, the absence of the entire school were assembled on a series of sheets, it would amount to several pages of material. Diffi- culty would arise in checking through a long list. The amount of labor involved in preparing and duplicating it, as well as the amount of paper used each day for such a purpose, would be large. In the event that it were necessary to check on the attendance of a given pupil following an inquiry from within or outside the building, this could be rather readily accom- plished by making a contact with the home room teacher. In schools of 500 or 1500 the practice is to assemble the lists of absentees in the office and then have the same posted. If during the day the need arises for determining the absence of a given pupil, a glance at the list by an office clerk would get the answer speedily. It is a simple and readily accom- plished task for the class room teacher or some dependable student designated by him, to check class absence against gen- eral absence for the day. In the medium large units, as for instance schools of 1500 to 3000, it is claimed that centralization of attendance in a specialized office makes for a high type of general efficiency. In the still larger schools it seems to be felt that the home di- vision or sponsor room plan, is better because of the necessity of multiplying the number of persons working on the prob- lems in a central place and that this then leads to a division of authority and a variation in handling similar types of cases. It would appear then that in the judgment of the prin- cipals involved, here is a situation in which size of enrollment governs the procedure. oR Ree rg menater sacs A minority of schools use a plan to show the cumulative absence of pupils. This is done by using the letter “p” to show presence and a number to show the cumulative absence of the pupil. A glance at the attendance page shows the total picture of the pupil’s attendance. Such a plan simplifies the writing of special reports on chronic absentees. A small but growing number of schools are installing the new filing systems* such as are used in many business houses. Program cards, on the back of which semester absence may be checked, are attached in binders having slots in them. These are arranged to lie flat or to hang from posts in such a manner as to have all names exposed. Colored celluloid clips are attached to those cards to indicate chronic cases, unfin- ished cases and the like. This plan increases speed and effi- ciency and further reduces the chances of cards being lost. The checking up of absence has to do with the procedures used on the pupil’s return; with the disposition of excuses if any are required; with the selection of policy to regain admis- sion to classes; with the determination of the legality of the excuse, with the authenticity of the signature and with the making up of time or work or both. Absence is followed up in 427 of the schools reporting. Three hundred seventy-four schools require the pupils to bring written excuses from their parents or guardians. It is expected that these excuses be presented as tickets of admis- sion after absence. Two hundred six schools, however, per- mit a day or so of grace for the presentation of the excuse. In chronic cases of pupils bringing excuses, 314 schools check the authenticity of signature. In the event that the parent is ab- sent or ill, 314 schools accept the pupil’s statement of the cause of absence. Only 38 schools permit pupils to write their own statements to account for absence. Three hundred sixty-seven schools file excuses for reference. Two hundred fourteen schools indicate that non-excused absentees are required to make up time and work which they miss. Only 128 schools (*The Remington-Rand Co.) PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 147 148 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS increase the amount of time which they require pupils to pay back as absence develops into the chronic stage. In order to have a uniform interpretation of excuses, those schools having special attendance headquarters with a teacher in charge, require that all excuses be presented at this office. If the excuses handed in are satisfactory, tickets of ad- mission to class are issued with or without a penalty. Those presenting questionable excuses are given temporary admit- tance slips and the case is further investigated. Fifty schools require that the required work be made up but nothing is said about just making up time. If the pupils do not make up the lost work, most teachers recommend that chronic absentees be dropped from class. A dozen principals indicate that the pupil must make up the work missed but that no credit is given for it, if the absence is unexcused. Seven principals in- dicate that they have had splendid results in dealing with the pupil only in accounting for absence. They believe this procedure is highly valuable in building for citizenship. Ten principals indicate that they penalize pupils by giving them detention periods until they bring overdue excuses. The requiring of written excuse for absence is almost a universal procedure. Generosity in the allowance of the small days of grace prevails. This seems to make for a good atti- tude on the part of the pupil. There is developing a move- ment to deal more and more with the pupil of high-school age as an individual rather than to contact his home, at least in the early stages. There are two prevailing schemes of this inside checking work. In the one the home-room teacher or sponsor teacher checks excuses and makes home contacts, and in the other this work is done by a special attendance teacher. The checking and filing of excuses indicates an alertness which is commendable. Wisdom is shown in the fact that most schools do exercise judgment in distinguishing between the treatments used. Character education appears to be in oper- ation when we note that penalties are relatively infrequent ex- cept in chronic cases. There is justification in having a pupil pay back to himself the time he has taken illegally. If this time can be fruitfully used in contact with a friendly teacher PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLEVELAND, OHIO MEETING 149 in the making up of back work the results are more valuable and the plan curative instead of punitive. In the following up of absence outside of the school, the office attendance clerk, the home-room teacher, and the assist- ant principal, followed by the attendance teacher, do the ma- jor amount of the work in the proportion of the following numbers: clerk 208, assistant principal 188, home-room teacher 180, and attendance teacher 131. In the later follow- up work the cases are put in the hands of the truant officer in 267 schools and the principal appears in the situation in 156 schools. In all 428 schools which report that they do follow up absence outside of school, an attempt is made daily to contact the home either by telephone or by a messenger to report the absence and to determine its cause. In 314 instances, the one who makes the home contact reports back to the school the same day. In cases of non-excused absence, the parent or guardian is directed to accompany the pupil on his return to school in 257 instances. In each of these instances a confer- ence is held involving the pupil, parent, and some administra- tive officer of the school in order to arrive at the cause of ab- sence and the solution of the problem. One hundred sixty- three principals report that they have found a written con- tract plan of value at the conclusion of this conference. Three hundred sixteen schools give the pupil one more chance by means of a conference with the head of the city attendance de- partment, before the case is taken to the juvenile court. In case of a necessity of filing charges in this court, it is reported that in 261 instances, the attendance officer files these charges and in 47 others, the principal is required to file these charges. About 100 schools report that they have never found it neces- sary to take any of their pupils before the juvenile court. It is to be noted that a high percentage of the schools feel the importance of keeping the parent in touch with the situa- tion and of getting his assistance. The visiting teacher move- ment is making considerable progress. There are now about one-fourth as many visiting teachers as there are truant offi- cers. Prompt reporting of those who make home contacts is 150 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS noteworthy. The wide-spread plan of asking the parent to come to the school in the solution of truancy problems, is sig- nificant. The frequent use of a written contract plan is indi- cated as being effective. When the efforts of the school teachers and the attend- ance department officer have failed to solve the attendance problem with certain youngsters, these latter people look about for help outside the school to try to find some person whose influence or guidance might have a peculiar appeal to the pupil. Some pupils occasionally have the idea that his teachers may be prejudiced or that his coming may be of some material advantage to the teachers. If he gets guidance from sources having absolutely no connection with the school, this point of view often disappears. Among those to whom calls for assistance are sometimes made are the pupil’s employer, the Sunday School teacher, the older brothers or sisters, the Y. M. C. A. or Y. W. C. A. advis- ers, the Boy or Girl Scout leaders, a designated Big Brother or Big Sister, and then of course the court official. Three hundred seventy-eight of the schools reporting in this study indicate that they have made use at different times of outside agencies in their attempts to solve obstinate ab- sence cases. In a smaller number of instances, the following individ- uals or organizations have helped: Guidance Bureaus, J. Y. M. A., Mother’s Pension Bureau, Emergency Relief, Children’s Bureau, Family Society, Children’s Protective Associations, part-time employers, Crime Prevention Bureau, classmates, Associated Charities, Home Welfare Worker, Mental Hygiene Clinic, and Jewish Board of Guardians. From the reports received, it appears that most all schools could profit by making a wider use of assisting agencies in the solution of pupil problems. These outside forces need not be contacted until the school and its various agencies have done what they can. However, the percentage of satisfactory as- sistance indicates that those of us who are not availing our-