BULLETIN OF THE 
DEPARTMENT OF 
SECONDARY-SCHOOL 
PRINCIPALS 


OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


Issued Five Times a Year 
January, March, April, May, and December 


MARCH, 1935 
Serial Number 55 








BULLETIN NUMBER 55 


TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION 
NUMBER 


Proceedings of the 
Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the 
Department of 
Secondary-School Principals 


of the National Education Association 


ATLANTIC CITY, NEW JERSEY 
February 26 and 27, 1935 











Published by 
THE DEPARTMENT OF 
SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 
OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 
5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago 


Entered as second-class matter November 15, 1934, at the post office 

at Chicago, Illinois, under the Act of August 12, 1912. Acceptance for 

mailing at special rate of postage, provided for in Section 1103, Act 
of February 28, 1925, authorized November 15, 1934.- 


$2.00 $2.00 a Year 



































Proceedings of the 
Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the 
Department of 


Secondary-School Principals 
of the 


National Education Association ~ : 


at 


ATLANTIC CITY, NEW JERSEY 


on 


February 26 and 27, 1935 


~—a~, 


TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION 
NUMBER 


Va 


Edited by 


H. V. CHURCH 
Secretary of the Association 


Published by the Department, 1935 




















CONTENTS 


PAGE 
Officers of the Department.................-----.---..--eceeeeeeeeeeeeeereeeee viii 
Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting.................... 1 


THE FIRST GENERAL SESSION 


Introductory Remarks, Calvin O. Davis, Professor of Sec- 


ondary Education, University of Michigan.................... 2 
“The First American Secondary School,” Joseph L. Powers, 
Head Master, Boston Public Latin School...................... 4 


“The Philosophies That Have Guided Secondary Education 
During the Past Three Hundred Years,” George M. 
Wiley, Assistant Commissioner of Education, State 
Department of Education, Albany, New York.............. 15 


“Great Leaders of Secondary Education,” William John 
Cooper, Professor of Education, George Washington 


University, Washington, D. C......00220000.22.222-2----2eeeeeeeee eee 21 
“Three Hundred Years of Education for Girls,” Mrs. Lucy 
L. W. Wilson, Lecturer, Temple University.................... 25 


THE SECOND GENERAL SESSION 


“The Unique Character of Secondary Education To-day,” 
William McAndrew, Editorial Department, School and 
Society, East Setauket, N. Yu. u...................cccceeeneeeeeceeneecees 32 


Ballot, National Honor Society.............2......0....cccccce-eeeeeeeeeeeeees 40 


“What the Private Secondary Schools Are Contributing to 
American Life To-day,” Burton P. Fowler, Head Mas- 
ter, Tower Hill School, Wilmington, Delaware.............. 42 


“Responsibilities of Public Secondary Education in Our 
Age of Leisure,” R. D. Lindquist, Director of the Uni- 
versity School, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 50 


“Forces That Are Handicapping Secondary Education To- 
day,” J. B. Edmonson, Dean of the School of Educa- 
tion, University of Michigan.......................0......eccceeeeee--= 59 


Vv 








THE THIRD GENERAL SESSION 






PAGE 
“The Historical Development of Secondary Education in 
America,” Charles H. Judd, University of Chicago...... 68 














“The Philosophy Which Must Guide Secondary Education 
Today,” Thomas H. Briggs, Teachers’ College, Colum- 
BU III 5. ccissorncincsssineicecomiensdelscemiacieeilbbaiobeuedenahatacadaces tices 79 






“The Financial Policies Which Must Be Worked Out for 
Secondary Education,” Sidney B. Hall, Superintendent 
of Public Instruction, Virginia................20..2...022222220222-.-- ‘ 










“The Public and the Program of Secondary Education,” 
George F. Zook, Director American Council on Edu- 
UII; <s-scscssiniccaieshpseedyanpesiscadiminses beads eum ated Read 









THE FOURTH GENERAL SESSION 


“Three Hundred Years of the Secondary-School Curricu- 
lum,” George S. Counts, Teachers College, Columbia 
CII. cisinicnitncsnsccsinsissshnbitinnsleceitiaduhmatasah timieiatanah abies cad 111 







“Three Hundred Years of Changes in Teacher Training for 
Secondary Schools,” William A. Wetzel, Emeritus 
Principal, Central High School, Trenton, N. J............... 







“Three Hundred Years of Method,” Hari] R. Douglass, Pro- 
fessor of Secondary Education, University of Minne- 
DON ike chcic cee ees Ce RN ee SNR NON See Me iets 136 










“The High-School Teacher Then and Now,” Annie Carle- 
ton Woodward, President, National Council of Admin- 
istrative Women in Education...............22..002....-22...-. 148 


THE FIFTH GENERAL SESSION 


“Third Annual Report of the Committee on the Orienta- 
tion of Secondary Education,” Thomas H. Briggs, 
Teachers’ College, Columbia University.......................... 155 

“Education and Democratic Society,” Elbert K. Fretwell, 

Professor of Education, Teachers’ College, Columbia 

University ............ sastishicrcadbililets Siicaatotsidiasnieslagietlaiaiaciasaiaa mail 158 















vii 





Meeting of Nominating Committee, Feb. 26, 1935.............. a 
I a Seisctisiindenstciccenaniitedncitaiem ini iaiiilinniidiina baton 166 
National Honor Society Meeting of the Council.................... 169 
pg SEER CERNE ee See a Nee OEE Renney 172 
Statement of Securities Owned Dec. 31, 1934........................179 








THE OFFICERS OF THE DEPARTMENT 











President: HARRISON C. LYSETH 
State Supervisor, Secondary Education, 
Augusta, Maine 







First Vice President: WILLARD N. VAN SLYCK 
Principal High School, 
Topeka, Kansas 













Second Vica President: M. G. JONES 
Principal High School, 
Huntington Beach, California 


















EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 


CHAS. F, ALLEN 
Principal of West Side High School, 
Little Reck, Ark. 


K. J. CLARK 
Principal Murphy High School, 
Mobile, Ala. 


OscAR GRANGER 
Principal Haverford Township High School, 
Upper Darby, Pa. 














NINETEENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION 


of the 


Department of 
Secondary-School Principals 


of the 


NATIONAL 
EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


The nineteenth annual meeting of the Department of Sec- 
ondary-School Principals met in Atlantic City, New Jersey on 
Tuesday and Wednesday, February 26 and 27, 1935. 





THE FIRST GENERAL SESSION 


The first session of the nineteenth annual meeting of the 
Department of Secondary-School Principals was called to order 
by President Charles F. Allen, Supervisor of Secondary Edu- 
cation, Little Rock, Arkansas, at 9:50 A. M. in the Vernon 
Room, Haddon Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey. 


Mr. Allen read the resolution of Harold Ellsworth War- 
ner, Principal of Hine Junior High School, Washington, D. C., 
which set the work of the Tercentenary Celebration in process. 
The President then introduced the general chairman of the 
Tercentenary Celebration, who read his introductory address. 











DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 


CALVIN O. DAVIS 
Professor of Secondary Education, University of Michigan 
and 
Chairman of the Tercentenary Planning Committee 


Members of the Department of Secondary-School Principals 
and Friends: 


Members of the Department of Secondary-School Principals 
to express myself in the form of language made memorable by 
our illustrious Lincoln. 


Fifteen score years ago this month our fathers brought 
forth on this continent America’s first secondary school, con- 
ceived in religious reverence and dedicated to the proposition 
that learning is an essential element to the perpetuity of a free 
democracy. 


Now we are engaged in a great educational controversy 
testing whether that theory, or any similar theory so conceived 
and so dedicated, can permanently endure. We here to-day are 
met in a great gathering of the friends and supporters of that 
theory. We have come together in Atlantic City to initiate an 
elaborate tercentenary celebration in honor of that first school 
and of the principles for which it stood. It is altogether fit- 
ting and proper that we should do this. 


But in a larger sense we cannot fittingly commemorate the 
event that has given rise to the occasion. The brave men and 
women who have labored long and faithfully in our secondary 
schools throughout the past three hundred years have already 
consecrated the principal of free public education far above 
our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note 
nor long remember what we say here this week, but it can 
never forget what the patient teachers and farsighted admin- 
istrators have done throughout three centuries to make the 
secondary schools of our nation what they are to-day. It is, 
therefore, of paramount importance for us of the present gen- 
eration to be dedicated here to the great unfinished work which 
they who have gone before have thus far so nobly advanced. 
It is rather for us to be dedicated here to the great task re- 
maining before us: that from these honored pioneers we take 















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 3 


increased devotion to that cause for which they gave such a full 
measure of faith and energy and application; that we here 
highly resolve that the early educational leaders and their de- 
scendents shall not have striven in vain to make a secondary- 
school education available to every normal boy and girl in the 
land; that liberal culture for all shall, under God, have a new 
birth of freedom; and that high schools of the people, by the 
people, and for the people shall not vanish from this country. 


Mr. Davis then introduced Principal Harold Ellsworth 
Warner of Hine Junior High School of Washington, D. C., 
who was greeted with applause. 


The general chairman then presented Mr. R. M. Robinson, 
chairman of the Publicity Committee, who came forward and 
received his plaudits. 


Mr. Davis at this juncture presented Joseph L. Powers, 
Head Master of Boston Public Latin School, Boston, Massa- 
chusetts, who read his paper, The First American Secondary 
School. 























DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


THE FIRST AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOL 


JOSEPH L. POWERS 
Head Master, Boston Public Latin School. 


Last Friday the nation laid aside its ordinary routine and 
spent a day of contemplation; its annual tribute of honor and 
reverence to its first great leader. Our thoughts reached back 
over an interval of about two centuries—to 1732—to a time 
when this land was a British colony, loyal and contented. The 
notion of an independent American nation had not yet entered 
men’s minds. Life was primitive and hard. Civilization held 
its footing along a narrow strip of the Atlantic seaboard; be- 
yond that lay unexplored wilderness. 

That is a long backward look. To us, those are indeed 
ancient days. And yet in 1732 the Latin School was a vener- 
able institution to the people of Boston; for it had been their 
school and that of their forefathers for almost a century. 

Here, then, is an institution with a unique history, and 
an unbroken one; a public institution from the very start; but 
a living witness, not only of our whole national history, but 
of the entire development of the life of our people in this land. 

Let us get some kind of picture of the founding of that 
first public school. To begin with, Boston was just a handful 
of rude dwellings, huddled about a thatch roofed, mud walled 
church. A meeting of the men of the hamlet had been called, 
in the church, to discuss and transact whatever business was 
of common interest. In the course of the meeting, it was de- 
cided to start a free school. There was no ceremony about it. 
They didn’t call upon Governor Winthrop to proclaim that the 
people of Boston were establishing something new, something 
unknown in the world up to that time. That is exactly what 
they WERE doing; but it seemed to them just the natural 
thing to do in their situation. The old Town Records simply 
say: “On the 13th of the second month, 1635—Att a General 
meeting upon publique notice—it was—generally agreed upon 
that our brother Philemon Pormort shall be intreated to be- 
come scholemaster for the teaching and nourtering of children 
with us.” 

Bear in mind that it was hardly five years since the first 
boatload of Puritans had sprung ashore on that little peninsula. 





















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


Life was still anything but secure. They were far away from 
their homeland, on the edge of an unknown wilderness. Fam- 
ine, pestilence, an attack by natives, cauld wipe them out before 
help could come to them. And they calmly laid their plans 
for the education of their children. Try to find a parallel in 
all history. They weren’t concerned about an elementary 
school, mark you. It’s a commentary on the cultural level of 
those people, that they could apparently leave instruction in 
reading to the parents. They founded a school for the teach- 
ing of Latin and Greek. 


How many children were “with them” then we don’t know; 
probably very few. From 1635 to 1645, at any rate, the school 
was held in the homes of the Masters. We have little informa- 
tion about Pormort. There is nothing that shows his qualifi- 
cations beyond the fact that such an influential and scholarly 
man as the Rev. John Cotton must have approved of the choice. 
Pormort was probably a young man; for he and his wife Sus- 
anna had been received as members of the First Church in 
1633 and we have the record of the birth of their son Lazarus 
in 1634. He didn’t hold the position of Schoolmaster for much 
more than a year. He would probably never have been chosen 
had the town fathers realized that he was already infected with 
the liberal views of Anne Hutchinson. He joined a little group 
that left Boston and set out into the unknown—really exiles— 
to found a settlement of their own at Exeter. 


The Mastership was then conferred upon Daniel Maude, 
who we know was a man of culture; for he was Master of 
Arts from Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was a man well 
along in life, for he had attended that college about twenty- 
five years before John Harvard and John Milton. Savage, in 
his History of New England, asserts that in those early days 
there were as many Cambridge and Oxford graduates in these 
settlements as in any population of equal size in any part of 
England. Those Puritans were people of intelligence and vis- 
ion. And while probably no thought of throwing off political 
allegiance to England had occurred to them, they knew that 
they were planting a colony whose future was entirely in its 
own hands. Such men as they would realize that a project 
like theirs necessitated trained leadership—spiritual as well as 
temporal—and intelligent codperation on the part of the whole 
group. That called for education beyond the mere rudiments. 
















































DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


In their experience, too, politics and religion had been inex- 
tricably and painfully tangled; and they looked upon the Bible 
as the rule of life as well as of faith. Not only must the min- 
istry be properly trained to preach and counsel, but they must 
be able to read the Scriptures in the Greek and the Latin 
texts. 


So, from the very founding of the school up to the time of 
the Revolution, Latin and Greek, with, of course, exercise in 
the use of the mother tongue, made up the bulk of the instruc- 
tion. The boys learned “writing and ciphering,” too; but after 
the first few years, they attended a separate school for these 
subjects, so that the classical atmosphere of the Latin School 
was left untainted by such utilitarian pursuits. 


The first school building, as such, was erected in 1645, on 
the north side of what is now School Street, at the rear of 
King’s Chapel. The site is about the corner of the lawn of the 
City Hall; and it is fairly accurately marked by the statue of 
one of the School’s most famous sons, Benjamin Franklin. The 
street for many years labored under the cumbersome name of 
Latin-Grammar-School Street; and it was infested by Latin 
School boys for two hundred years. The first four Latin School 
houses were built there; and the first two on the site just men- 
tioned, and the third and fourth directly opposite. 


If we are of sufficient interest to the people three cen- 
turies hence, they will be able to find ample records of us and 
our doings—unless perchance these should be obliterated by 
some Mongolian or other invasion. For we have, I hope, 
learned our lesson. Those worthy Puritan fathers, though 
they builded for permanence, didn’t plan sufficiently for our 
convenience. Isn’t it a remarkable thing—and remarkably un- 
fortunate—that although Ezekiel Cheever, who ruled the 
School from 1670 to 1708, was without question the most not- 
able teacher of the Colonial days, and his Latin “Accidence” 
was the authoritative textbook for years after his death, we 
haven’t any idea what he looked like; except that he wore a 
long, pointed, white beard, and that the slow, ominous stroking 
of that beard was a timely signal for all boys to “stand clear” ? 


The highly dramatic period of the School’s history was, of 
course, the years just preceding the Revolution. Boston was 
really the fountainhead of the revolutionary movement; the 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 7 


people were full of the spirit of liberty, and the feelings of the 
people were naturally reflected and indeed crystallized in the 
School. This was true despite the personal influence of the 
Head Master. John Lovell filled that office from 1734 to 1775 
—41 years—‘“the pride of Boston’s parents and the terror of 
its youth.” He was a firm adherent to the cause of the King. 
But his family was typical of many Boston families in those 
heart breaking times. For his son James, his assistant in the 
School, was as ardent a patriot as the father was a loyalist. 
Picture the schoolroom: the two desks in diagonally opposite 
corners; at the one the father, far along in years, stern and 
uncompromising, preaching loyalty to the Crown and to the 
old order of things; at the other, the son, young, alert, magne- 
tic, enthusiastic, glowing with the new spirit of patriotism. 
You can imagine how tense the atmosphere must have been 
in that room. 


From the time that the British came to occupy the town, 
in 1768, the School was at the focus of all the activity and 
excitement. Diagonally across the Street stood the headquar- 
ters of Gen. Haldimand, who commanded under Gen. Gage. 
As perhaps you know, School Street slopes up towards Tre- 
mont; and Beacon Street, which continues School beyond the 
intersection, is very steep up to where the State House now 
stands. That was a perfect coast. Now it was the custom 
of the boys, in winter, to bring their sleds to school and park 
them in the yard. When Master Lovell dismissed school with 
his usual “Deponite libros!” there would be a stampede of 
boys with sleds up to the top of the hill; then sled after sled 
would whisk down Beacon Street, flash across Tremont, and 
on down School to Cornhill. Tremont and School Streets made 
a dangerous intersection even in those days. 


Well, this procedure annoyed General Haldimand’s ser- 
vant, who proceeded to throw plenty of ashes on the coast. 
There is a letter dated January 29, 1775, which tells us what 
followed. “The lads made a muster and chose a committee to 
wait upon the General, who admitted them, and heard their 
complaint, which was couched in very genteel terms, complain- 
ing that their fathers before ’em had improved it as a coast 
from time immemorial, etc.’ He ordered his servant to repair 
the damage, saying that he had trouble enough with Boston 
men, and wouldn’t have any with Boston boys. He “acquainted 














DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


the Governor with the affair, who observed that it was im- 
possible to beat the notion of Liberty out of the people, as it 
was rooted in ’em from their childhood.” That was the first 


victory of the Revolution. 


Harrison Gray Otis was one of the boys in school at that 
time. He was accustomed to come, from home in the morn- 
ing, up Tremont Street to School. On the morning of the fol- 
lowing 19th of April, so he writes, he found Tremont Street 
choked with soldiers, under arms and ready to march, so that 
he couldn’t pass. He learned that they were Percy’s brigade, 
about to start for Lexington. We can picture how his coat- 
tail must have stood out behind him as he raced back and 
around by Cornhill and up School Street to carry the exciting 
news to his schoolmates. And as he burst into the school- 
room, there was Head Master Lovell standing at his desk, his 
face flushed with indignation. ‘“‘War’s begun, and School’s 
done,” he announced, ‘“‘Deponite libros!”” And thus occurred 
the only break in the School’s history in these three centuries. 
For not until after the British evacuated Boston the next year 
were classes resumed. 


But John Lovell had a daughter, too; and though she was 
the object of the attentions of one of Gage’s ordnance officers, 
she was a patriot like her brother James. When the British 
attacked Bunker Hill, orders came to the Battery in Boston to 
bombard the redoubts. It was then discovered that all the 
six-pounder cannon had been supplied with twelve-pound balls! 
It may have been just coincidence, but there has always been 
the suspicion that the fine hand of Judith Lovell could be 


traced in it. 

John Lovell must have regarded his long life’s work as a 
failure. Both his children were rebels. The feeling of the 
school had turned definitely against him. And he must have 
almost choked with rage when he heard that five of his old 
boys had signed their names to that infamous Declaration of 
Independence. 

The trying days came to an end for Boston. Henry Knox, 
another Latin School boy, by means of oxen and sledges, 
brought on over the mountains from Ticonderoga, a long pro- 
cession of artillery and planted it on Dorchester Heights, en- 
abling Washington to force the evacuation of Boston by the 













PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 9 


British. And when Lord Howe sailed away down the Harbor, 
he had on board the two Lovells; the father his guest, the son 
his prisoner. 

For some forty years after the Revolution, the School 
went through a period of depression and disorganization. Per- 
haps that was to be expected. The Head Masters failed to en- 
list the respect of the pupils, and discipline was at a very low 
ebb. Parents were dissatisfied. The first School Committee 
was formed in 1809 and was at once put under pressure for 
“more easie and delightful methods” than those practised at 
the old School. That pressure, by the way, has never been 
entirely relieved to this day. One of the results of it was the 
founding, in 1821, of the Boston English High School, the 
first of its kind in the country, whose doors were opened to 
other boys than those college bound. But a more immediate 
result was the selection of Benjamin Apthorp Gould as Head 
Master of the Latin School. This was a happy choice. Gould 
was still a senior at Harvard, but took over his new work with 
youthful vigor, enthusiasm, and success. He restored order 
and scholarship. He began the modernization of the School; 
and many of its traditional practices—such as the classroom 
and public declamation—had their origin with him. He laid 
the beginnings of the School Library, which now comprises 
some 6,000 volumes, many of them rare and valuable. He 
abolished corporal punishment, issued regular reports to the 
parents, and placed squarely on them the responsibility of 
their son’s behavior. Gould resigned in 1828, to go into busi- 
ness, but he had given the School an impetus which has 
persisted. 

The School Committee exercised increasing authority over 
the conduct of the School, to the point where they nearly 
ruined the good work of one of the most capable Head Masters. 
Francis Gardner, 1851-1876, was a rugged, forthright sort of 
man, much loved and much hated, and one of the most re- 
nowned men in the Boston of his day. During the last six 
years of his regime, the Committee imposed upon the School 
an absurdly ambitious curriculum, aiming at “general culture.” 
This was done in the face of his vigorous opposition, and pro- 
duced what was described as “a mongrel university.” 

Shortly after Gardner’s death, Moses Merrill became Head 
Master. He succeeded in reorganizing the curriculum on a 


eee a 






























10 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 








sane but modern basis. While retaining the Latin and the 
Greek as the nucleus, he gave due emphasis to English, the 
modern languages, mathematics, science, and history. Since 
his time there have been only minor changes. He was looked 
up to as a man of high character and strong moral influence— 
a truly Mosaic figure. 

The Head Masters who have held office since 1900 many 
of you know. 

Arthur Irving Fiske, the peerless Greek scholar, the fric- 
tionless disciplinarian, diminutive of body but gigantic of 
soul. 

Henry Pennypacker, athlete and scholar, a Greek god in 
physique, rugged but gentle; a man in whose presence sham 
or subterfuge could not live. 


Patrick Thomas Campbell, sympathetic but just, humor- 
ous and kindly, the friend of every boy who ever came in con- 
tact with him; an educator sanely progressive; now Superin- 
tendent of Schools in Boston, to the great benefit of all con- 


cerned. 


In the pre-Revolutionary School, the subject matter was 
almost exclusively Latin and Greek. Every passage was a fine 
logical exercise, an exercise in the fundamental relations of 
ideas and the words and phrases used to express them. But 
the School taught more than Latin and Greek. it taught 
BOYS through the Latin and Greek. These were the instru- 
ments with which it moulded thoughts, convictions, habits, 
and character. The Master knew, as every real teacher knows, 
that there is no royal road to education; that any scheme 
which aims to lead a boy through fields of effortless delight, 
offering him only such matters as entertain him or rouse an 
immediate interest, is a delusion and a rank injustice to the 
boy. Mental drifting is easy and pleasant. Thinking—conse- 
cutive, logical thinking, is laborious. Boys and girls—and 
their elders—will resort to many expedients to avoid it. But 
they CAN learn by experience, if they WILL, that there is 
great satisfaction—as much kick, if you will—in facing a hard, 
even a disagreeable job, going through with it, and doing it 
right, as there is in making a desperate stand on the goal line. 
Life mixes the rough with the smooth; it often gives us 










PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 11 


rather more of the rough. If education is preparation for life, 
then hedonism is not a satisfactory educational philosophy. 

In the Latin School, ancient and modern, the subject mat- 
ter is never sugar-coated to make it seem more palatable than 
it really is; nor are the marks sugar-coated to lead the boy to 
think he’s brighter than he really is. It is there an accepted 
principle, that nothing is finished until it’s finished right. 

Has this school, with its classical curriculum, been on the 
wrong track all these years? In the last century of educational 
development and experimentation, the Latin School may be 
regarded as the “control.”” How have the results of the ex- 
periments compared with those of the control? 

The walls of the new auditorium are surmounted by a 
frieze made up of the names of eminent alumni; they are a se- 
lect list from a long roll of Latin School boys who have been 
outstanding in the political and civic life of city, state and na- 
tion. 
John Hancock, Signer of the Declaration of Independence. 
Samuel Adams, Signer of the Declaration of Independence. 
Benjamin Franklin, Signer of the Declaration of Inde- 


pendence. 
William Hooper, Signer of the Declaration of Independ- 


ence. 
Robert Treat Paine, Signer of the Declaration of Inde- 


pendence. 
John Leverett, President of Harvard College. 
Samuel Langdon, President of Harvard College. 
Edward Everett, President of Harvard College. 
Charles William Eliot, President of Harvard College. 
Cotton Mather, Noted minister in Colonial times. 
James Bowdoin, Governor of Massachusetts. 
James Lovell, Patriot. Usher in the School. 
Henry Knox, General and Secretary of War under Wash- 
ington. 
Christopher Gore, Governor of Massachusetts. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Philosopher, essayist, poet. 
Samuel Francis Smith, Minister. Author of “America”. 
Charles Sumner, U. S. Senator. Abolitionist. 
Wendell Phillips, Orator, Abolitionist. 
John Lothrop Motley, Historian. U.S. Minister to Aus- 


tria and England. 





* 


CR ner 


: ee 








silent 








12 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


John Bernard Fitzpatrick, Roman Catholic Bishop of Bos- 


ton. 

Henry Ward Beecher, Minister. Abolitionist. Teacher 
in the School. 

William Maxwell Evarts, Secretary of State. U.S. At- 
torney-General. 

Charles Devens, General. U.S. Attorney-General. 

Edward Everett Hale, Minister. Orator. Author. 

Francis James Child, Author. Editor. 

Samuel Pierpont Langley, Physicist. Pioneer in Aviation. 

Phillips Brooks, Orator. Episcopal Bishop of Boston. 
Teacher in the School. 

Henry Lee Higginson, Banker. “Boston’s First Citizen.” 

Edward Charles Pickering, Astronomer. 

Martin Milmore, Sculptor. 

Mathew Harkins, Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence. 


A full list of the alumni would read like a compendium of 
American History and American life. Obviously, even the old 
rigidly classical offering did not so narrow the outlook of these 
boys that they found themselves unequipped to deal with the 
problems of life in widely divergent fields. 


I wish at this point to quote from the Journal of the N. 
E. A. of December last: 


“Since the founding of the Boston Latin Gram- 
mar School in 1635, secondary education has passed 
through one transition after another, each essential 
in view of the growing needs of democracy. From 
the Latin grammar school to the academy to the free 
high school as we now know it, the story of secondary 
education is one of constant adaptation to changing 
needs. The adaptation must be continued and accel- 
erated if the secondary school is to keep abreast of a 
social scene changing with increasing rapidity and to 
play any significant part at the outposts of human 
needs. 


“Let the Tercentenary Celebration pay homage 
to the achievements of the past—they are magnifi- 
cent! But it is of infinitely greater importance that 
this occasion be utilized as a period of concentration 
on what is to be done with the secondary school to 
make it an ever more effective social tool. The people 
will decide, because the high school belongs to them.” 





PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 13 


A study of the effectiveness of high-school training is in- 
deed imperative at this time; for there is some doubt about it 
in the minds of the people who own them. The people will 
not be reassured if we go on the assumption that everything 
that’s new in education is therefore right and that everything 
that’s old is wrong. 


I would take issue with the implication here that the Latin 
School and similar schools are mere relics of the past—that 
they have outlived their usefulness. Our graduates enter col- 
leges over the whole length and breadth of the land, and main- 
tain themselves well. But from the very beginning our clos- 
est relationship has been with Harvard, which was founded 
one year later than the School. More of our boys go there 
than to any other institution; and we furnish about ten per 
cent of each freshman class. Our group enters consistently 
with a higher PERCENTAGE of honors in the College Board 
Examinations than does the group from any other school. 
This year, though the percentage of honors for all entrants 
was .16, a falling off for the schools in general, the Latin 
School boys made a new high of 40%. You can’t conclude 
from this that the School is simply a cramming place for the 
examinations. For every year the School gets a letter from 
Dean Leighton notifying us that the Latin School has a higher 
percentage of men on the Dean’s list than has any other school 
group. Significant, in this connection, is the fact that these 
boys are not largely pursuing in college the same subjects they 
studied at School. Not twenty per cent continue the Latin or 
Greek. They enter unaccustomed fields and do equally well in 
them. This is our experience over long years. Does this 
throw any light on the question of transfer value? 


The School has never felt that the purpose of its training 
is immediate utility. Its studies are not expected to function 
directly in the activities of the community, nor to be directly 
related to the activities of any particular profession. We are 
old-fashioned in our educational views; so hidebound and moss- 
backed as to harbor the conviction, in spite of what the psy- 
chologists tell us, that there is such a thing as mental train- 
ing, that it is possible to develop trained intelligence. 


We find ourselves unable to subscribe to the thesis that 
the secondary school of the future is going to solve our econ- 















14 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





omic and social problems by incorporating in the curriculum 
the multiple, complex activities of the life round about. In 
the first place, it simply can’t be done. The field is too broad. 
Our social, industrial, and economic institutions are in a state 
of flux; no one could be found qualified to teach them with 
authority. Have our bankers and business men shown them- 
selves reliable guides in their own special fields? 


Then what is the way out? Is it possible for the second- 
ary school so to “teach and nurture the children with us” that 
these many have a better chance of keeping their feet, and 
their heads, and their bearings, in the mists and the turbu- 
lence of the next decade or two? How can they be prepared 
for an indefinite future? It seems to me that the only train- 
ing that can be depended upon under such conditions is that 
which cultivates habits of hard work, of hard thinking, of con- 
centration; which develops and nourishes ideals of truth and 
honesty and loyalty and service and coéperation and reverence. 


That has been the goal of Latin School teaching for the 
past three centuries; and that will be its goal, God willing, for 
the next three centuries. 


Assistant Commissioner George M. Wiley of the Univer- 
sity of the State of New York, Albany, New York, followed, 
reading his paper, The Philosophies that Have Guided Secon- 
dary Education During the Past Three Hundred Years. 














Sil AEs allt la REED oS me oe 














PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


THE PHILOSOPHIES THAT HAVE GUIDED SEC- 
ONDARY EDUCATION DURING THE PAST 
THREE HUNDRED YEARS 


GEORGE M. WILEY 
Assistant Commissioner of Education 
State Department of Education 
Albany, New York 


(An Abridgement) 


It is difficult to probe the philosophy of a people. The 
slogans of ancient movements or even of modern phantasies 
are not sufficient. To understand adequately the philosophy 
of education in any age we must bring into perspective the 
fundamental thinking underlying all basic social institutions 
of the period. 


The first half of this three hundred year period witnessed 
little, if anything, that pointed toward our modern conception 
of popular education, and only within the last half century has 
secondary education assumed any widespread social signifi- 
cance. 


Education is always made up of many factors, of which 
the school is only one. In colonial America the school was for 
a long time a relatively small factor. The home with its du- 
ties and responsibilities for children as well as for parents, 
with its manual tasks essential in a pioneer age, with its strict 
observance of the Sabbath, and with its stern religious instruc- 
tion, exercised a powerful influence in the training or educa- 
tion of the youth. 


At the close of the first century of secondary education in 
America we find that very little change had occurred in the 
subject matter of the grammar schools. The forest wilderness 
was still at the very edge of the clearing about the log cabin 
or only a short distance from the small settlement. The few 
wealthy and more prosperous families patronized the gram- 
mar schools, but popular education even in the elementary 
level was far from being realized, and the establishment of 
grammar schools even in such a fostering colony as Massa- 
chusetts was evaded by the large majority of towns. In fact, 





15 








3 





16 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


for the century and a half or during the almost entire period 
of the grammar school it recognized only one function. 


After presenting the curriculum for the Boston Latin 
School in 1789, Inglis says that “little change had developed” 
within the entire colonial period. It was still “composed ex- 
clusively of the study of Latin and Greek.” 


Within a narrow compass, however, these schools ren- 
dered a most outstanding service in the preparatory training 
of superior young men for the ministry. But notwithstanding 
this contribution of the grammar schools, a century which 
witnessed witchcraft, the whipping post, religious persecution 
and superstition, and banned joyousness from life, could not 
possibly develop a charter for childhood. 


There were movements under way at the beginning of our 
national era which were to gather momentum within a few 
decades out of which came the prophecy of public elementary 
and secondary education for all the children of all the people. 
There were of course many, doubtless the great majority, who 
felt that if schools were maintained, let them be supported by 
the churches, by the parents of the pupils, by wealthy patrons, 
or by the various societies. On the other hand the theory of 
popular democracy was beginning to take root. Some vision 
of the fundamental relationship between the new theory of 
democracy and popular education was appearing at least in 
the great minds of many of the leaders of the country. Wash- 
ington’s statement in his Farewell Address in which he em- 
phasized the importance of “institutions for the general diffu- 
sion of knowledge,” Jefferson’s vision that welfare depended 
largely upon the education of the people without regard to 
wealth or birth, John Jay’s insistence that knowledge must be 
the soul of a republic, Madison’s belief that popular govern- 
ment without popular information may be a tragedy—these 
expressions indicate the broad social philosophy which made 
up in part at least the very corner stone of the new govern- 
ment. Seldom is there to be found a better illustration of a 
philosophy of social and political life pointing toward a broad 
educational policy as the only insurance for mutual social re- 
sponsibility and individual opportunity. 

The academy was rapidly displacing the grammar school 
and becoming more and more numerous in the various parts 














PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


of the country. The academy was in one sense a protest 
against the narrow, formal curriculum, the emphasis on Latin 
and Greek, in the grammar school which as late as the begin- 
ning of the nineteenth century showéd the introduction of no 
new subjects of study. But how easily did the academy yield 
to the traditional influences of its predecessor the grammar 
school, and to the commanding authority of the college. Nev- 
ertheless the curriculum of the academy became much broader ; 
it offered science, mathematics, music, and other courses. 
While the academies soon became largely college preparatory 
in character, the demand for more general courses and prep- 
aration for the “real business of living’”’ resulted occasionally 
in positive progressive steps, again prophetic in character. 

The growth of the academy during the first half or three- 
quarters of the nineteenth century was significant. It insured 
a broader base for secondary education than had previously 
obtained. However, the gradual development of a social con- 
sciousness carried with it an increasing demand for free public 
secondary education and resulted in the rapid growth of the 
public high school. 

Among the powerful forces which exerted large influence 
in this movement toward a new social philosophy was the atti- 
tude of labor, the growing consciousness on the part of work- 
ers in the factories which were found in rapidly increasing 
numbers in the growing industrial communities. While the 
spinning jenny and the power loom brought trade and an ap- 
parent prosperity, long working hours and impossible living 
as well as working conditions were commion everywhere. 
Women and children were being sacrificed on the altar of ma- 
terial gain. The revolt against these conditions moved slowly 
but surely. Some laws were passed to better the working peo- 
ple, hours were shortened, but especially do we note the grow- 
ing interest being shown in the welfare and in the rights of 
children. Knight says that “the early labor forces helped to 
overcome some of the inertia and indifference and selfishness 
of the time and to stir up active interest in public schools. * * 
This awakening of a class consciouness appeared as the first 
clear demand that human rights be placed above property 
rights or at least on an equal footing with them, and that edu- 
cation be considered a proper activity of a properly consti- 
tuted government.” 


17 



















18 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





Another significant movement in America which has pro- 
foundly influenced our social philosophy and thereby aided in 
making more democratic our system of secondary education is 
seen in the westward trend toward new frontiers. It is quite 
possible that the real meaning of American democracy did not 
become dynamic in our social thinking until this great trek 
was well under way. 


The fusion of the youthful pioneer spirit of the West and 
the older conservatism of the East, when focused upon our in- 
creasingly difficult social and economic problems, brought to 
the entire country a new conception of the social significance 
of widespread free public secondary education as an essential 
element in the realization of the ideals of American social de- 
mocracy. At the close of the century when we were reaching 
the end of the western frontier, we were also witnessing the 
beginnings of the greatest scientific advancement which the 
world had ever witnessed. 


The growing complexity of our social and economic life 
has made necessary an increasingly complex secondary-school 
curriculum. It is the challenge of our social philosophy which 
explains two important developments of secondary education 
in America during the past few years. The first of these is 
the far greater attention that is being given to individual dif- 
ferences. The approach to this problem must be not only sci- 
entific but eminently sympathetic. The second is the increas- 
ing importance of social studies as a basic feature of the cur- 
riculum throughout both junior and senior high-school levels. 
This trend is noted in the recent National Survey of Secon- 
dary Education, and has also been given great impetus 
through the report of the Commission on the Social Studies of 
the American Historical Association. 


If it is the function of the secondary school to serve so- 
ciety, then the subjects of study and the materials of instruc- 
tion must be determined by the contribution which they make 
toward the realization of this aim. This must mean the devel- 
opment of the best in each individual, a respect for and inter- 
est in the rights and welfare of others, and regardless of creed, 
a reverence for the Infinite. . 


There is encouraging evidence that these fundamental 
principles of individual and social life are being accepted. 





























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 19 


Fundamental changes in curriculum offerings necessary to 
bring this about are being worked out. Definite steps in these 
directions are found in the secondary-echool curriculums 
throughout the country. 


The readjustments now being made in the secondary 
school stress the necessity for a closer relationship between the 
school and the community. This means that the social studies 
are being given major consideration. The social studies lab- 
oratory which is all about us is now for the first time becoming 
a dynamic phase of secondary education. As we look into the 
progressive schools of to-day we see a large place which this 
subject is beginning to play as a basic common denominator 
for all pupils in all secondary schools whatever may be their 
later objectives in life. Anything less than this is unthink- 
able in the schools of a social democracy. 


Social responsibility and individual character cannot be 
considered apart from each other. In the final analysis the 
type of social order which a community or a commonwealth 
may attain will depend upon the character of the individual 
citizens. As stated in that epoch-making report of 1918: 

In a democratic society ethical character be- 
comes paramount among the objectives of the secon- 
dary school. Among the means for developing eth- 
ical character may be mentioned the wise selection of 
content and methods of instruction in all subjects of 
study, the social contacts of pupils with one another 
and with their teachers, the opportunities afforded 
by the organization and administration of the school 
for the development on the part of pupils of the sense 
of personal responsibility and initiative, and, above 
all, the spirit of service and the principles of true 
democracy which should permeate the entire school 
—principal, teachers, and pupils. 

Even though we stand at the threshold of a greater to- 
morrow, this program very appropriately pauses to pay trib- 
ute to those who have gone before. Notwithstanding much of 
the iconoclastic treatment of the philosophy of our fathers, 
they did believe in the fundamental principles of democracy. 
We cannot lose sight of some of the sterling qualities in the 
men of yesterday even though we see clearly in perspective 
some of the limitations of the social and economic order in 
which they lived. Many of the blessings of American civiliza- 









20 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


tion of the moment, and even in the midst of difficulties they 
are manifold, are due not to our own wisdom but rather to the 
generations preceding—to those outstanding institutions, the 
home, the church, the school, to the devotion of fathers and 
mothers, who were never selfishly individualistic in their phi- 
losophy but who gave of themselves and of their means with- 
out stint that their children and their children’s children 
might come into a better social heritage. 

If we meet the problems of to-day with the same sincerity 
and with the same devotion to high ideals shown by those who 
have gone before, we shall continue to insure increasingly bet- 
ter opportunities for our children and by this means help to 
make possible a better society for to-morrow. 


President Allen at this time appointed the nominating 
committee. 


New England group: Paul E. Elicher, Newtonville, Mass- 
achusetts; H. Dean Pearl, Burlington, Vermont; Milton D. 


Proctor, Portland, Maine; Robert H. Earley, Wallingford, 
Connecticut. 


Middle States and Maryland: John H. Tyson, Upper 
Darby, Pennsylvania; L. H. Strough, Niagara Falls; H. A. 
Smith, Washington, D. C. 

Southern: W. L. Spencer, Montgomery, Alabama; Mary 


V. McBee, Charleston, South Carolina; M. E. Ligon, Lexing- 
ton, Kentucky; Homer L. Garrett, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 


North Central: John D. Hull, Springfield, Missouri; A. E. 
MacQuarrie, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Neal M. Wherry, Law- 
rence, Kansas; L. A. Fulwider, Freeport, Illinois; Edgar G. 
Johnston, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

Western: L. E. Plummer, Fullerton, California; G. N. 
Kefauvre, Stanford, California; George H. Geyer, Westwood, 
California. 


Chairman Davis introduced William John Cooper, Pro- 
fessor of Education of George Washington University, Wash- 
ington, D. C., who read his paper, Great Leaders of Secondary 


Education. 





PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 21 


GREAT LEADERS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 


WILLIAM JOHN COOPER 
Professor of Education, George Washington University 
Washington, D. C. 


(An Abridgement) 


Great leaders of secondary education may be teachers, ad- 
ministrators, or others outside of secondary schools whose 
work directly influenced those schools. Now in America, it 
happens that the first great leader of secondary education was 
an actual teacher of boys who gave his long life to classroom 
experience with them. Ezekiel Cheever, sixth head master 
of the Boston Public Latin School, was born in London, Janu- 
ary 25, 1614, and came to Boston in 1637 only seven years 
after its settlement. He taught in New Haven, Ipswich, and 
Charlestown, before he became Master of the Grammar School 
at Boston. The methods which he employed can only be imag- 
ined from a few extracts left. They are exemplified probably 
in his Accidence’ and are portrayed more at length by Na- 
thaniel Hawthorne. In Grandfather’s Chair he takes a peep 
into a schoolroom on a winter’s day. He sees the bright blaze 
of fire from the fireplace, sees the clouds of smoke come out 
into the room and slowly settle upon the wall and ceiling. He 
imagines Cheever teaching a group of boys and pictures two 
of them getting a caning from the master for playing in school. 
There is not much to be said for a master whose life’s work 
was teaching the rudiments of Latin. Nearly two centuries 
later, Charles William Eliot, President of Harvard University, 
wrote an inscription on Cheever for the First Church in Bos- 
ton as follows: 

“For seventy years, the skillful, diligent, faithful 
teacher of Greek and Latin to young New England 
Puritans. He taught also by precept and example, 
independence of spirit, piety, honor, reasonableness, 
and joy in earnest work.” 


The standard bearer of this period (eighteenth century) 
is that American born genius in many fields, Benjamin Frank- 
lin. Especially broad-minded was he in education, and in 
1743, he drew up proposals for a new secondary school, a 


1A short textbook on Latin grammar. 














22 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


pamphlet entitled Proposals Relating to the Education of 
Youth in Pennsylvania which was distributed to selected fam- 
ilies with an invitation to subscribe to the new school. Over 
five thousand pounds was subscribed. “Instruction in the Pub- 
lic Academy in the City of Philadelphia began in 1751 with 
its three departments, the Latin School, the English School, 
and the Mathematical School”. This school was most popular 
and grew so rapidly that in 1779 its charter was revoked and 
a new charter for it issued under which the University of 
Pennsylvania has developed. From this school the academy 
movement in Massachusetts and other states began. So Ben- 
jamin Franklin, who was never a schoolmaster, is the second 
great leader in secondary education. 


We cannot go into the southern group of colonies or states 
without a pause for the work of Thomas Jefferson, “father of 
the University of Virginia” as the epitaph on his monument, 
written by himself, has it. As early as 1739 he introduced 
into the Assembly of Virginia a measure calling for a set 
school system to meet the needs of all children. It proposed 
dividing the states into hundreds with a schoolhouse in each, 
supported by the people. Secondary education was provided 
for in an organization of three or more counties which were to 
cooperate. At the head of the system was to be the university. 
This measure did not pass the legislature but Jefferson spent 
his last years working for its passage. 


We are now well into the academy period and there are 
some teachers in its early days that may not be overlooked. 
The second principal at Phillips Exeter Academy was Dr. Ben- 
jamin Abbot. He was immediately called to Phillips Exeter 
upon graduation from Harvard. Virtually as head from that 
time, he was actually elected principal in 1790 at the then 
regal salary of 133 pounds, 6 shillings and 8 pence. The 
“science of boys” was well known to him. He was a tall man, 
finely proportioned, graceful in every movement and his pupils 
long remembered the sweet and gentle dignity of his expres- 
sion. While he punished thoroughly, a culprit was restored 
to all his privileges when the punishment was over. The fa-- 
ther of Lewis Cass had a conference with Abbot before send- 
ing Lewis to him. Abbot finally took the boy on trial and the 
experiment was entirely successful, his father remarking upon 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


one occasion: “If Lewis was half as afraid of the Almighty as 
he is of you I should never have any more trouble with him.” 


The third period in American secondary education may be 
said to begin in Boston in 1821. In that year the English 
Classical School opened its doors. “There was need for a new 
type of secondary school which should involve the newer con- 
ceptions of the aims and methods of secondary education as ex- 
emplified in the academy and at the same time fulfill the re- 
quirements of a public institution.” Six years later the state 
of Massachusetts enacted the law of March 10, 1827 which is 
the real beginning of the high-school movement. With this 
law, and re-enforced by court decision of which the Kalamazoo 
Case is the most important, the high school began a century 
of success. Into the mess of the curriculum and the relations 
to the colleges the Committee of Ten found itself engaged in 
the 1890’s. 


The Committee of Ten recommended in its report not 
only the newer subjects to the curriculum but reduced the time 
given to some subjects and recognized the secondary-school 
subjects as properly beginning earlier in the grades. Thus the 
fourth period of American secondary education is said to begin 
with this report. The person who is here recognized as the 
leader of this period is Alexander James Inglis, a teacher in 
high school and college and the author of the outstanding book 
on the high school at this time. He was born of Scotch Irish 
stock at Middletown, Vermont, in 1879, and was educated in 
Wesleyan (Connecticut) University. He spent a year in Rome 
and then taught Latin at Horace Mann School in New York 
for some eight years, preparing three textbooks during this 
period. He did his graduate work taking his Ph. D. in 1911 
and spent the next year as head master of the Belmont School 
in California. In 1912, he entered college work in Rutgers 
University and became Assistant Professor of Education at 
Harvard in 1914 and in 1919 Professor of Education. He 
died in 1924. He made several educational surveys and wrote 
the book on Principles of Secondary Education. He was instru- 
mental in doing much of the hard work on the Cardinal Prin- 
ciples of Secondary Education. At Harvard University, as a 
memorial, an annual lecture is given by some outstanding 
leader in secondary education each year on some phase of sec- 
ondary education. Thus, we close this topic, Great Leaders of 


23 





3 







24 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


Secondary Education, as we opened it, with the story of a 
teacher who was active in his field to the day of his death. 


Mrs. Lucy L. W. Wilson, Lecturer, Temple University, 
read her paper, entitled Three Hundred Years of Education 


for Girls. 














PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


THREE HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION FOR 
GIRLS . 


Mrs. Lucy L. W. WILSON 
Formerly Principal, South Philadelphia High School for Girls, 
now lecturer, Temple University. 


(An abridgement) 


When this topic was proposed to me, two reasons for ac- 
ceptance immediately presented themselves. One was Woody’s 
A History of Women’s Education in the United States; the 
other, the fact that in my own person I had actually exper- 
ienced the last hundred and thirty years of such education.* 


Colonial Education in New England.—Early educational 
opportunities for girls in my revered and beloved New England 
were as infrequent as in the South, and very much more oc- 
casional than those in the Central Colonies. The reasons for 
these differences soon became clear. They were due to differ- 
ences in religion, in nationality, in the traditional attitude to- 
wards women, and in geographic conditions. In New England 
there was an incessant demand for women’s physical labor. To 
read the Bible daily was as much mental improvement as most 
women had time for, even had it been believed that women’s 
minds were strong enough for other learning. Even in this 
reading, women were compelled to accept authority and were 
forbidden to think for themselves. 


During this period any education, beyond the most ele- 
mentary reading, and sometimes writing, taught in the same 
school, could come only through individual initiative ability, 
determination, and effort. That there were Abigail Smiths, 
Margaret Winthrops, Mercy Warrens, Anne Bradstreets, 


1My personal contact with education before my birth was due to the 
fact that in spite of a difference of fifty years in our ages, I had been 
intimate with my father’s four sisters, all of whom had been graduated 
from the Troy Female Seminary. I had been intimate, too, with a fine 
and intellectual great-aunt, who had attended school in Miss Pierce’s 
famous kitchen, the birthplace of Litchfield Academy. I had been inti- 
mate also with my mother, who, though born and brought up in Ver- 
mont, had been sent to Bishop Doane’s famous school, St. Mary’s Hall, 
Burlington, New Jersey, at the age of thirteen. She had been gradu- 
ated in four years, but had returned for a post-graduate fifth year. In 
addition to these contacts with New England and the Central States, my 
first year of teaching was in a seminary in the South. 


25 





rH 
















26 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





Phyllis Wheatleys, and others, is remarkable. They owed 
little or nothing to formal education; everything to them- 
selves. 


And yet higher education in the United States began in 
New England. 


In the determined struggle to secure higher education for 
the boys, little opportunity was permitted to the girls. The 
dame schools which they were allowed to attend were organ- 
ized primarily to prepare small boys for grammar or town 
schools. Girls were not admitted to the town schools for more 
than a hundred years—and even then, only in the smaller 
towns, for a few hours daily, for short terms, when boys were 
few in number, or else were dismissed (on the Thursday half 
holiday, for example). And in these schools girls were per- 
mitted to study only elementary English, seldom a language, 
and never Latin. 


The Society of Friends, believing that all humans pos- 
sessed the inner light, had already accepted the concept of 
complete equality between races, between social groups, be- 
tween the sexes. To no one, said they, man or woman, educat- 
ed or uneducated, could be denied the privilege of speaking. 
Nevertheless, they believed in education, and early established 
schools for boys and girls, stressing not only moral, religious, 
and intellectual teaching, but also practical training, for the 
girls as well as for the boys, including apprenticeship. 


The most significant schools for girls in the central col- 
onies were those established by the Moravians. One of these 
began in Germantown in 1742. Seven years later it was trans- 
ferred to Bethlehem. At first it was a boarding school for 
Moravian girls only, but finally, in 1785, it was thrown open to 
girls of all denominations. It is now the Moravian College for 
Women, proud of its development from a religious private 
school to the first secondary school exclusively for girls in 
what is now the United States. 

Private schools for girls were more numerous in the Cen- 
tral Colonies than in New England because of easier living 
conditions. They were organized by “adventuring” masters” 
and mistresses, who taught, of course, whatever their patrons 
wanted. These adventure schools were the forerunners of the 
academies and seminaries that later became dominant. These 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 27 


schools supplemented the instructions given in the elementary 
schools organized by the Dutch, the Germans and the Swedes 
that offered little more than reading, writing, and religion. 


In the South, except for apprentice and charity schools, 
there was practically no education for the poorer boys or 
girls. But in the families of the wealthy, the tutor often in- 
structed the girls as well as the boys. The women in well-to- 
do English families brought with them the habits of volumin- 
ous letter writing and journalizing,—an important factor in 
their further education, whether they lived in the South, in 
the Central Colonies, or in New England. 


The Great Awakening: Academies and Seminaries.—And 
now the dawn of the new day began to break. The right of a 
girl to higher education had been recognized. An opportunity 
to attain it—if she could pay for it—was offered in many 
schools. Benjamin Rush, DeWitt Clinton, Emma Willard, Mrs. 
Phelps, Catharine Beecher, and many other eminent men and 
women were eloquently preaching this new concept of educa- 
tion for women. All over the United States academies and 
seminaries were being established, for girls alone and for boys 
and girls together. The Female Academy of Philadelphia, in- 
fluenced largely by the Moravian School in Bethlehem, was the 
first to be incorporated (1792). 


The seminary as an institution for secondary education 
dominated the nineteenth century. There were as many such 
institutions in the West as in the East. This was initially due 
to the adventurous energy, enthusiasm and ability of that most 
gallant lady, Catharine Beecher. She felt that the West, too, 
must be saved, that education was the open road to salvation, 
and that the role of women in it was even more important than 
that of men. 

In the South, the story of the establishment of schools for 
girls, seminaries, and academies, differs little from that of the 
North, except that they persisted there longer than in the 
North, because of the earlier foothold in the North of public 
schools. 

Briefly,—before the Civil War, female seminaries, aca- 
demies, or collegiate institutes were to be found in almost 
every state in the union. They declined in number after the 
War, but this decline did not mean a decline in educational 














DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





28 


opportunities for women. Public high schools, normal schools, 
and colleges more than took up the slack. 

The greatest seminaries, for example, Troy, Salem, Hart- 
ford, Ipswich, Mount Holyoke, Milwaukee, were brave pioneers, 
demanding financial backing and endowment, adequate build- 
ings and equipment, democratic faculty organization, and a 
curriculum broad and deep. Out of their achievements evolved 
the women’s colleges. 

Academies were first organized exclusively for boys. The 
idea came from Benjamin Franklin’s proposals Relating to the 
Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, a deservedly famous and 
very remarkable document, proposing a school “which should 
promote the welfare of its students when they should go forth 
to the duties of an active life.” It provided for a well equipped 
building, “a garden, orchard, and a field or two” (for sports, 
the study of husbandry and science), and a library. Above 
all, Franklin advocated, with detailed provisions, an extraor- 
dinarily wise and modern curriculum. Two years later, in 
1751, with money pledges from the city and its citizens 
amounting to nearly $25,000, the Philadelphia Public Academy 
opened its three schools, a Latin School, an English School, 
and a Mathematics School. The Academy eventually devel- 
oped into the University of Pennsylvania. 

Later the Phillips family established Andover (‘to learn 
them [the pupils] the great end and real business of living”’’) 
and Exeter. Many other academies were opened in rapid suc- 
cession. By the middle of the nineteenth century there were 
about six thousand of various kinds scattered all over the 
United States. The unsurmountable difficulty was to find 
enough teachers capable of carrying out Franklin’s magnifi- 
cent plan. Before his death, he himself protested against the 
treatment accorded the English School. This and other schools 
reverted to much of the faulty curriculum and methods of the 
earlier Latin Schools. Briggs’ comment is important and vital, 
particularly in view of present conditions in secondary educa- 
tion. He says, “But the failure to carry out the revolutionary, 
though sound, program as presented by Franklin, is the first 
great tragedy of secondary education in America. Unfortun- 
ately, it is not the last. The failure resulted naturally, of 
course, because there were no provisions for developing de- 
tailed plans of procedure, for converting to the new philosophy 








ee a i 























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 29 


teachers who were saturated with tradition, and for guiding 
them by supervision to appropriate practices.” (Italics mine). 


Democracy Knocks: The Public High School.—The first 
public high school for girls was established in Worcester in 
1824, three years after the opening of the English Classical 
School for boys. It was followed two years later by a girls’ 
high school in New York. In the same year Boston opened 
a girls’ high school on the monitorial or mutual instruction 
plan. It was closed two years afterwards, however, because 
of its enormous popularity! It was not possible to accommo- 
date nearly all who applied for admission, and, in spite of the 
economy of the monitorial system, there was not public money 
enough to provide the larger and better accommodations 
needed. 


Six years after the opening of the English High School, 
Massachusetts passed a law making’ public high schools man- 
datory. Other states followed with similar laws, tardily, 
sometimes with reluctance, and often without the compulsory 
clause. Eventually, however, the public high school became 
an integral part of our tax supported public school system. 
There are now about 25,000 such institutions scattered 
throughout the United States. Of them we may well be proud. 
Not only are they indigenous, but they are our own unique 
contribution towards the evolution of genuinely democratic 
education. 


The objectives of the first and subsequent high schools 
for girls have been epitomized by Woody as follows: “first, an 
extension of the range of girls’ education supported by the 
public; second, increased social usefulness on the part of wom- 
en; third, specific preparation for teaching in the lower 
schools.” Preparation for college, an important objective in 
boys’ high schools, dating all the way back to 1635, did not 
function in the schools for girls until many years had elapsed, 
for the quite obvious reason that no colleges were ready to 
receive them. Emma Willard, indeed, did not favor a college 
education for women. She wished instead to reform the sem- 
inary by emphasizing substantial subjects rather than accom- 
plishments. Catharine Beecher, on the contrary, urged an- 
other institution, to be organized on the same lines as the col- 
leges for men. 




















30 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


The idea of coeducation was developing slowly. In 1837 
four girls were admitted to Oberlin. Antioch, however, was 
not opened until 1852. Elmira, the first real College for Wom- 
en, (if we except the Georgia Female College and that of Mary 
Sharp in Tennessee), was established in 1855, followed ten 
years later by Vassar, and then, after another ten years’ in- 
terval, by the almost contemporaneous Smith and Wellesley. 
In the meantime, Michigan, Wisconsin and other state univer- 
sities were opened to women as well as to men. Cornell fol- 
lowed the movement toward coeducation initiated by Oberlin. 


Girls are now successfully prepared for college in the 
many coeducational high schools as well as in the few remain- 
ing high schools for girls. Of these latter there are now only 
about a hundred, four-tenths of one per cent of the whole num- 
ber! 


The long fight is won. There is now equality of educa- 
tional opportunity all along the line, both for girls and women, 
—in this country, at least. The battle must be waged along a 
new front. It must be fought for all youth, with the high 
school as the principal battlefield. 


Again the words of Catharine Beecher ring out: “Salva- 
tion must come chiefly through education, and woman’s part 
in education is more important than that of man.” 


The light thrown on the development of education of 
women makes us consider that there may be some truth in 
the last word of What Every Woman Almost Knows, by Mrs. 
Norris: “Give us another hundred years, gentlemen. Give 
us a little more time to clean up the house and fill the lamps. 
Help us to outlaw war, prostitution, drunkenness, illness, pov- 
erty, dirt, crime, slums. You'll see!” 


















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 31 


THE SECOND GENERAL SESSION 


At 2:40 P. M. the President of the Department, Mr. 
Charles F. Allen, called the session to order and at once intro- 
duced President L. W. Reese of the National Association of 
High-School Supervisors and Directors, with which organiza- 
tion a joint program for the afternoon had been planned. Then 
the President presented Mr. Willard N. Van Slyck, Principal 
of High School, Topeka, who introduced William McAndrew, 
who spoke without manuscript to the subject, The Unique 
Characteristics of Secondary Education. 








32 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


THE UNIQUE CHARACTER OF SECONDARY 
EDUCATION TO-DAY 


WILLIAM MCANDREW, 
Editorial Department, School and Society, 
East Setauket, N. Y. 


Ladies and Gentlemen: 


When in the course of human events a program commit- 
tee selects the title but leaves the content of an address to the 
choice of the speaker, the result must surprise many. 

Some participants in this program would select as the 
unique character of American high-school education to-day its 
democratic urge upon all youth, bright or stupid, to partake 
of the offerings. This is unique as compared with the persist- 
ing policy of most European countries to select the ablest for 
the high-school grade and to create an intellectual elite. Our 
present service is unique as compared with the usage common 
in the earlier days of the older men here. The high school 
used to insist that its business was to train leaders. It as- 
sumed the right to select those whom it considered possessing 
the traits which could be developed into guidance of other men. 
But it had no classes for teaching leadership. It had entrance 
examinations sifting out of the crowds of children those whom 
it considered, because of higher standing in elementary stud- 
ies, likely to become leaders by pursuing high-school subjects. 
The parents of such youths as were excluded by this policy 
resisted paying taxes for the privilege of having their own 
children led by the arbitrarily selected offspring of other men. 
Leonard Koos, indefatigible tabulator of high-school objectives, 
had, twenty-five years ago, to put leadership at the top of the 
column of things which the high-school men said they intended 
their graduates to obtain. In his later lists, made up again 
from the expressed purposes of those directing secondary edu- 
cation, Dr. Koos had to put leadership well down at the bottom 
of the record. High-school education to-day is unique in that 
it is adjusting itself to serve all children from about eleven 
years of age and upwards. It is less selective, less aristocratic,- 
more universal, here, than elsewhere or than it was. 

It is unique in that it is willing, now, to teach any respect- 
able subject from Hebrew to hog-raising. 





PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 33 


If paper and pencil should be passed to you for recording 
what you regard as the unique character of education to-day, 
the number and variety of purposes would be amazing and 
commendable. Absence of a national high-school program, 
freedom given to local school districts by most of the states, 
have made secondary education in America unique in what 
some commentators call an educational chaos and others a 
facile adaptation to a diversity of needs. 


Unable, because of temporal and intellectual limitations 
to cover the many uniquities of high-school service, your ser- 
vant will discuss only one: the amazing failure of it to do that 
for which it was set up. 


By the year 1786 it was the conviction of thinking Ameri- 
cans that the experiment agreed to on the fourth of July, 
1776, was a failure. A revolution costing much blood and 
treasure had broken the bonds attaching us to a monarchial 
rule. A decent respect for the opinion of mankind had led us 
to declare that we were setting up a new government founded 
on the proposition that men are by nature equally entitled to 
certain rights including life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness 
and the duty of changing government when it fails to insure 
these rights. The government we formed was fizzling out. 
Massachusetts and New Hampshire had indulged in armed re- 
bellions. New York and Connecticut had threatened bloodshed 
in the settlement of their state boundary. Georgia and South 
Carolina were ready to shoot each other for navigation rights 
in the Savannah River. It looked as though Pennsylvania 
would send troops into the Wyoming Valley to take it away 
from Connecticut. Spunky Rhode Island was exciting Massa- 
chusetts by charging’ that sister commonwealth higher duties 
on goods of the Bay State than Little Rhody placed on imports 
from England. New Jersey was hating New York harder and 
harder because of the Empire State’s tariff regulations. Thir- 
teen jealous commonwealths without tranquility had failed to 
establish a nation. There was no union. Great masses of the 
people believed that things were run in the interests of the 
rich. Lawyers and bankers were bitterly hated. The failure 
to work for a common cause, a defect that had nearly wrecked 
the Revolution by the desertion of whole regiments, had made 
the land an easy prey to any Spanish, French, or British con- 
queror who might have attacked in succession one or more of 





34 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


these thirteen states. There was a widespread fear of dicta- 
torship backed by ex-soldiers clamoring for money. The as- 
semblage that met in Philadelphia on the fourteenth of May, 
1787, was of men who had intimate knowledge of the needs of 
their fellow citizens. Manfully they set to work to build a 
nation. After four months of discussion, dispute, and com- 
promise, America had another declaration of principles. 


We know that in reaching the decision of July 4, 1776, 
there was disagreement and compromise on details of the 
reason for rejecting British rule. As to the general principles 
of government subscribed to: equal rights, consent of the gov- 
erned, duty to change government when it fails to meet the 
people’s needs, I can find no record of dispute. The Congress 
espoused the statement of aims unanimously. In reaching 
the decision of Sept. 17, 1787, the frame of government was 
the subject of bitter disagreement, not without disgusted and 
angry withdrawal from the convention by eminent members. 
But here, also, the purposes of the nation: more perfect union, 
justice, tranquility, defence, general welfare, and that liberty 
which insures blessings, were formulated by a committee and 
agreed to by the entire convention without a question. 


Hearing, as we do now, so much incitement to worship 
the constitution as if it were a sacred table handed down by 
the Almighty, it is startling to read in the annals of its own 
time the frank confessions of its framers that it was only an 
experiment. Washington’s expressed opinion was one of 
doubt. Hamilton repudiated the whole plan. Jefferson insist- 
ed that there should be a new one every seven years. Import- 
ant organizations now urge the schools to teach it as an eternal 
unchanging law like those of the Modes and Persians. 

In view of the fact that the great purposes of American 
government were unanimously approved by the founders while 
the machinery was questioned by many undoubted patriots, it 
is a unique character of American secondary education that it 
has devoted more attention to teaching the form of govern- 
ment than to enquiring how the spirit of it: equality, union, 
justice, domestic peace, defence against enemies of the people, 
general welfare, and the blessings of liberty can be made 
secure. 

Education was in the picture early in the second revolu- 
tion that resulted without bloodshed in the adoption of the 





PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 35 


Constitution: a confirmation of the rights of citizens as out- 
lined in the Declaration, a restatement of obligation as ex- 
pressed in the preamble of the constitution and its first ten 
amendments. ° 


In 1913 Mr. Henry R. Evans collected and the Federal 
Bureau of Education printed “Expressions on Education by 
American Statesmen.” In 1926 Allen Oscar Hansen completed 
and the Macmillan Company published “Liberalism and Amer- 
ican Education in the Eighteenth Century.” It is a study of 
the old books and pamphlets of statesmen and publicists bearing 
on the ways by which the principles of representative democ- 
racy shall be secured. The gist of these proposals by hundreds 
of respected Americans recorded in both books is that the edu- 
cation accepted before 1776 must be so changed as to make 
civic efficiency its preponderating aim. A concentrated ex- 
pression of this accepted belief is in Washington’s farewell 
address to the people of the United States. Irving shows that 
Hamilton wrote the passage. Washington adopted it as his 
own. Often have you heard it. Maybe you have swallowed 
it whole without analysis. Here it is again: 


“In proportion as the structure of a government gives 
force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion 
should be enlightened. Promote, therefore, as an object of 
primary importance institutions for the general diffusion of 
knowledge.” 

I ask you what is the whole meaning of this pronounce- 
ment? 


What does the general diffusion of knowledge mean? In 
Washington’s often quoted letter to Governor Brooke of Vir- 
ginia he says “universal education ought to be adopted in the 
United States.” 

What knowledge does Washington say should be gener- 
ally, that is, universally diffused? Knowledge that enlightens 
public opinion. 

On what? On those things in which public opinion is 
recognized as a force because of the structure of government. 
Was our government conceived as intended to get its power 
from public opinion? All the founders so held. Our structure 
of government is that of representatives selected to carry out 
public opinion. 








36 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





Is this a fair translation of Washington: we should have 
universal education devoted to politics, politics meaning gov- 
ernment? I see no other interpretation. 


How necessary is it? “Of primary importance.” Not 
the army, the navy, the courts, the post office, the roads, the 
rivers, the harbors rank higher. This, surely, is an American 
idea. No other head of a nation had ever so reasoned. The 
hundreds of statesmen whose views are given by Evans and 
Hansen in the books I mentioned agree in this that public 
education in this republic must be devoted to the diffusion of 
knowledge of politics. So commonly accepted was this as the 
American purpose that the first United-States law making any 
mention of education, the Ordinance of 1787, declaring that 
“schools and the means of education shall forever be encour- 
aged,” gives the reason: “for good government and the happi- 


ness of mankind.” 

All this might be nothing more than a recital of interest- 
ing fact and opinion of a century and a half ago were it not 
that the proponents of this revolutionary doctrine of education 
pushed their ideas into provisions that committed the schools 
to this revolutionary policy and to corresponding revolutionary 
action. 

The States, one after another, passed laws requiring ev- 
erybody, whether or not he had any children, to pay taxes for 
the support of public schools. Opponents of this surprising 
proposal to make the Browns pay for the education of Jones’ 
children urged that this would be taxation without representa- 
tion. The answer to that weighty objection was the promise 
that the schools were not to be run for the benefit of the chil- 
dren but for a more perfect union, the promotion of justice, 
domestic tranquility, defence from outward and inward en- 
emies, general, not children’s welfare, and the blessings of 
liberty. That is, to train citizens in politics. 

This, in short, is the history of the American Idea of pub- 
lic education. The United States was the first nation in the 
world, so far as I can find out, to be founded on a declaration 
of principles. It was the first to select education as the means 
of getting those principles to function. It was the first-to 
make the education of all the people an obligatory payment for 
people without children. It was the first to :aake attendance 


on school compulsory. 














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aS SF TRAN eepe, 





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4 
4 
tf 
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37 





PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


All this is old stuff to you. Review of it is for the pur- 
pose of reminding us what a startlingly unique character of 
American high school education to-day lies in the failure of 
high schools to perform the main duty for which they were 
set up. High-school failure to justify the taxing of persons 
who for themselves or for their children get no benefit from 
these costly institutions is a unique fact. 


Why do I select high schools? Why say so little of other 
grades? Because it is pretty generally realized that the high- 
school age is the time when youth are well into the intelligence 
capable of understanding the civic ideals. 


So far as I can find from the study of courses and the 
recorded results, the high-school teaching of more perfect 
union, means of better distribution of justice, promotion of 
tranquility instead of endurance of bloody civil strife, defence 
against public enemies who squander or steal the people’s 
money, devotion to general welfare instead of to selfishness, 
protection of freedom of thought and speech, duty of opposing 
government which fails to insure the people’s rights has been 
side-stepped in every school I know of. So far from an en- 
lightened public opinion as a force, a power, too many com- 
petent judges say we have a citizenry of political morons. 
New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, all the American mu- 
nicipalities pay enormous sums for high schools which sedu- 
lously eschew all study of local misgovernment in their own 
localities. Cincinnati citizens organize to clean up their gov- 
ernment. Asked how many high-school teachers came into 
the campaign, the school managers do not know of any. The 
Seaburys, the Steffenses, the Bakers, who uncover the corrup- 
tion of municipal government declare that it is in your town, 

county, and village also. What high-school teacher knows 
whether this is true or not? Set up and forever encouraged 
to secure good government, what high-school faculty knows 
whether the government closest to it is good or bad? In three 
hundred years of high-school life in America who can show 
that it has not been three hundred years of puttering? The 
first half of the period was, of course, a time when the domin- 
ating theory of life was the division of mankind into an upper 
and a lower class. For the fortunate let there be schools of 
polite learning; for the others, enough education to read the 
scriptures and compute with shillings and pence. In the mid- 











DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





38 


dle of these three hundred years there came to the nation out- 
side of school the great overturn of political thought and the 
contemporary call for an education devoted to codperative ex- 
tension of the rights of man. Said Noah Webster, “the school- 
master thinks the Revolution is over. For him it has not yet 
begun.” 


Who am I to rake up these old fault-findings against high- 
school education? A miserable sinner, a high-school teacher 
of Latin and Greek who believed and preached the comfort- 
able doctrine that if I drilled boys and girls on the syntax of a 
dead language and on the proof of facts about triangles and 
with the manipulation of x and y, their minds would be sharp- 
ened to such an edge that as to cut through any problem. What 
mentors did I choose to guide my service? The wonderful 
men who had thought out a scheme of education for maintain- 
ing and strengthening a republic. Not I. The lamp to my 
path was a smudge fed by elderly fuddy-duddies who devised 
the entrance requirements to their colleges isolated from needed 
service to the country. By historic fact, by logical theory, by 
the source of my wages I was obligated to teach a better union, 
justice, peace within our borders, defence from enemies within 
as well as without, general (not my pupils’) welfare, and lib- 
erty. Instead I thought myself consecrated to a pre-revolu- 
tionary, aristocratic, isolated concept of education, to wit: 
scholarship. What is it? Scholarship. It bakes no bread. 
It feeds no millions out of work. It may be used to keep youth 
busy, to delight old age, to ornament prosperity, to comfort 
adversity, a pleasure at home, no hindrance abroad, compan- 
ionship by night, and in travel and in the country. Scholar- 
ship! It must be forever encouraged for the happiness of 
mankind. Did not our first mention of education in any na- 
tion-wide law say education should forever be encouraged for 
the happiness of mankind? It is there in the record. But it 
comes second, not first. “Schools and the means of education 
shall forever be encouraged for good government and the hap- 
piness of mankind.” With this mandate before us for the 
second half of our existence in America we of the high schools 
have put stress on the second and less vital part of the com- 
mandment. With our scholarship and our innumerable high- 
school dances, dramatics, athletics, picnics, and amusements 
we have not found much time for organizations to study and 









at tte Sefe att Oe. 





39 







PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 





improve the government of our own town, its economy, its 
honesty, its efficiency. In our child-centered school we seem 
to be better organized to cultivate selfishness than to serve the 
general welfare of the community that is paying the bills. All 
of the records of investigations I have seen report an appalling 
absence of recognition of community responsibility by high- 
school pupils, teachers, and principals. 


This is no reprimand for them. I have brought no tone 
of blame into this recital. It is an account of what those who 
proposed education as a public charge said it should do and ‘J 
what they promised in order to get the tax laws passed. We 
are enquiring as to the workout of that American idea and 
the fulfillment of that promise. 


There is a significant thing about this whole business that 
must not be overlooked even though my narrative is near your 
tiring point. The proponents of American public education 
expected and declared that the people, not the teachers, rule. 
The people were to make the Educational Revolution and main- 
tain the schools for general welfare and good government; that 
is for politics. It is the people, through their representatives, 
the school boards, that have allowed education to remain more 
an organization for delight and for promotion of selfish desire 
of each beneficiary to better himself than it has been encour- 
aged for justice, general welfare, and the original proposi- 
tions. Instead of insisting that the schools teach politics as 
they were set up to do, school boards in numerous cases have 
forbidden the teaching of politics. I do not know of a single 
case in which a school board has risen to its plain American 
duty and reprimanded or discharged a teacher for failure to 
teach politics. On the contrary, everyone knows of instances 
in which the amazingly absurd spectacle has been seen of a 
teacher being reprimanded or discharged for doing that which 
Washington, Jefferson, and all those responsible for making 
education a public charge said the teacher should do. 


The way out of this educational mess is organization. 
School boards have not led education along the intelligently 
laid-out American road. School boards are not going to do 
it. High-school people and school superintendents are grow- 
ing increasingly conscious of the absurdity and hypocrisy of 
taking the money of'a republic to perpetuate an education 














































40 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


which retains so much as ours does of the monarchy from 
which it sprang. Organization to show the people why educa- 
tion should perform its original political function, organiza- 
tion to remake the courses of study so as to give politics the 
preponderant place, organization to protect teachers put in 
jeopardy by unenlightened school boards will hasten the edu- 
cational revolution the founding fathers planned. 


To say that education has not realized the expectations 
of the statesmen who made it a public charge is merely to 
speak simple truth. To so direct American education that it 
shall make the promise of its original promoters its plainly 
preponderating purpose is, as I see it, the only course open to 
honest men and women who accept as teachers the money 
taken from the whole population taxed not as parents but as 
citizens. These people were lured into consenting to tax sup- 
ported high school by assurance that this scheme would in- 
sure good government. To deny that education can do this 
seems to me a retreat into cowardice, indolence, and despair. 


To march courageously into the campaign of realizing the 
hopes of the wonderful men who originated the American idea 
looks like an adventure with all the thrills of glory. Oh, my 
beloved, What a chance! What a chance! 


The program was interrupted to call on Principal M. R. 
McDaniel, Oak Park and River Forest Township High School, 
Oak Park, Illinois, President of the National Honor Society. 
Mr. McDaniel made a brief statement of the status and growth 
of the National Honor Society. The following ballot was then 
passed on. 


BALLOT 


COUNCIL MEMBERS 
OF THE NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY 


Vote for only four. Mark out ail others. 


C] W. L. SPENCER 
Supervisor of Secondary Education, Alabama 


[] JOSEPH ROEMER 


Director of Demonstration School, 
Peabody School for Teachers, Nashville 























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 41 


LOUIS E. PLUMMER* 


Principal, Union High School and 
Junior College, Fullerton, California 


RODNEY D. MOSIER 
Principal Senior High School, Uniontown, Pa. 


H. V. KEPNER* 
Principal West High School, Denver, Colorado 


H. B. JOHNSON 
Principal, Senior High School, Eugene, Oregon 


FLOYD E. HARSHMAN 
Principal, High School, Nutley, N. J. 


V. M. HARDIN 
Principal, Reed Junior High School, Springfield, Missouri 


OSCAR GRANGER 


Principal, Haverford Township High School, 
Upper Darby, Pa. 


ROBERT BURNS 
Principal, High School, Cliffside Park, N. J. 


R. L. BUTTERFIELD 
Principal, Benjamin Franklin High School, Rochester, N. Y. 


L. W. BROOKS* 
Principal, Wichita High School North, Wichita, Kansas 


Pun Oooo Be oOo oOo 


*Present members of Council. 


President Allen and Mr. McAndrew each told his best 
story, the ballots were collected, and the presiding officer, Mr. 
Van Slyck, introduced Head Master Burton P. Fowler, Tower 
Hill School, Wilmmgton, Delaware, who read his paper, What 
the Private Secondary Schools Are Contributing to American 
Life To-Day. 



















42 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





WHAT THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOLS 
ARE CONTRIBUTING TO AMERICAN 
LIFE TO-DAY 


BURTON P. FOWLER 


Head Master, Tower Hill School 
Wilmington, Delaware 


Uncertain as the future of the private secondary school 
may be, its past is one of glorious achievement; its present is 
significant. 


Although we live in a day of militant democracy, there is 
wide disagreement as to the need or effectiveness of private 
education. During the first two hundred years of American 
beginnings, there was no such disagreement. From the time 
of the Boston Latin School exactly three hundred years ago to 
the close of the Civil War period when the academies reached 
their climax, the private school played the leading réle in the 
educational drama. As recently as 1890, nearly one-third of 
all the pupils in secondary school were enrolled in private in- 
stitutions; and even in 1900 the proportion was about one- 
quarter. 


While the revolutionary changes of the present century 
have reduced this percentage of pupils enrolled in private sec- 
ondary schools to less than ten per cent and have profoundly 
altered the functions of the private school, the fact remains 
that the number of private secondary schools has actually in- 
creased from 1632 in 1890 to 2760 in 1930. 


It is an interesting fact that despite the amazing increase 
in high-school enrolment since 1900, the American high school 
still sails on an uncharted sea. It is without compass or goal. 
This is no reflection on the public high school, since no country 
has ever before undertaken the education of its entire adoles- 
cent population. Nevertheless, no adequate statement of objec- 
tives for secondary education has yet appeared; its curriculum 
is still a patchwork of tradition and innovation; high-school 
teachers are as a group without suitable professional training; 
and high-school pupils are for the most part without valid, 
driving purposes. 




















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 43 


These deficiencies are not cited as criticism; they are 
probably the inevitable result of the heterogeneity of a rapidly- 
mounting high-school population that already comprises over 
one-half of the adolescents of high-school age. 


Most private secondary schools, it is true, are equally or 
even more deficient. In equipment and teaching staff they fre- 
quently fall far below our best public high schools. A sig- 
nificant proportion, however, have in the past and are to-day 
concentrating on special functions with a degree of energy and 
vitality not found in any but a handful of our best high 
schools. These special functions may be described in a word 
as religious, college preparatory, and experimental. 


I am not endeavoring to defend private schools, as such, 
but rather to justify their status quo. Every good American 
should look forward to the time when the support of public 
education, both by money and public opinion, will permit the 
public high school to serve the highest and most varied needs 
of the whole community. Every good American should sub- 
scribe to that historic statement by John Dewey: “What the 
best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the 
community want for all its children.” 


This means that no private school can justify its exist- 
ence by furnishing to a limited few an opportunity which may 
be the duty of the State to provide to all. If small classes 
are desirable in a private school, they are equally desirable in 
a public school. If a country day school is one solution to the 
problem of the artificiality of city life, then public high schools 
should be located in the country. If some pupils benefit by the 
life of a boarding school, then such an opportunity should not 
be limited to the well-to-do. If the graduates of some of the 
private preparatory schools find readier access to first class 
eastern colleges, then as good preparation should be available 
in the public institution. 


If a considerable proportion of parents believe that there 
can be no adequate, character-building curriculum without 
regard for religion, then the public school must give due con- 
sideration to this belief. 


No school in America worthy of the name should justify 
its existence on the grounds of exclusiveness or special privi- 




















44 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





lege. Unfortunately such justification, if one is to believe the 
advertisements of some private schools, is not uncommon. 


Democracy in action, however, is not and never will be 
Utopian. Its very imperfections are the badge of its virtues. 
If democratic leadership were expert, the mass of citizens 
would no longer need to think. Its characteristic method of 
muddling through is the very means by which the citizen 
grows and participates. As Fisher Ames, the fiery young sen- 
ator from Massachusetts, said over a hundred years ago in 
contrasting a democracy with a monarchy, “A monarchy is 
like a beautiful full-rigged ship that sails proudly out of the 
harbor. All goes well until it strikes a rock and goes to the 
bottom. Democracy, on the other hand, is like a raft. It never 
goes very fast, nor very far, nor does it sink, but, damn it, 
your feet are always in the water.” 


Judging by the tragic retrenchment in secondary educa- 
tion during the past four years, it looks as if the American 
high school might suffer not only from “wet feet” but “pneu- 
monia” for some time to come. 


In the interim, then, between the realistic problems of the 
present and the final fulfillment of the American Dream, it 
would seem that the private school will continue to play a 
minor but significant role, a rdle which I think should not be 
regarded as competitive but supplementary to and codperative 
with its public school neighbor. 


The Supreme Court has, as you all know, recognized the 
fundamental right of the private school to exist in a democ- 
racy by its famous ruling on the Oregon law of 1922, which it 
unanimously declared to be unconstitutional. 


“We think it entirely plain that the Act of 1922 
unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents 
and guardians to direct the upbringing and education 
of children under their control. As often heretofore 
pointed out, rights guaranteed by the Constitution 
may not be abridged by legislation which has no rea- 
sonable relation to some purpose within the compe- 
tency of the State. The fundamental theory of lib- 
erty upon which all governments in this Union re- .- 
pose excludes any general power of the State to 
standardize its children by forcing them to accept in- 
struction from public teachers only. The child is not 
the mere creature of the State; those who nurture 




















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 45 


him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled 
with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for 
additiona] obligations.” 


But the right to exist does not alone justify existence. 
The question is not, has the private school a right to exist, but 
can it make any characteristic contribution to democracy 
which gives it a valid place in the American educational 
scheme. 

The distinctive contribution which the private is making 
to American education is the product of its freedom of action. 
Whether it be the limited, controlled, and even questionable 
freedom of the parochial school and the preparatory school, 
or the experimental freedom of the progressive school, such 
freedom of action, be it good or bad, is more characteristic of 
the private school than it is of the public school, which at best 
must be subject to the standardizing forces of political con- 
trol. I maintain that such freedom of action under the rea- 
sonable minimum of supervision which the State has a right 
to exercise over any and all educational institutions, is a 
healthy stimulus to progress. It is, in my judgment, a con- 
sideration which gives the private school not only a right to 
exist but probably assures it a fairly permanent place. 

Let us examine the validity of each of the three distinc- 
tive contributions which have been claimed for the private 
school: the religious, the preparatory, and the experimental. 
Like all educational aims, these three are frequently overlap- 
ping, yet each in itself may be dominant in a given school. 


First: The Religious Aim. By the implicit restrictions 
of the Federal Constitution, formal religious instruction can 
not be given in public high schools; and it is by no means es- 
tablished in all communities that time can legally be taken 
from the regular school day for the supplementary religious 
instruction by the church. Yet a very considerable number of 
the powerful religious denominations claim as their right un- 
der a democratic government that their children’s secular 
and religious education shall be unified and continuous; that 
even under the most liberal legislation the religious instruc- 
tion of our young people is fragmentary and inadequate. With 
equal insistence the parent who is an experimentalist in re- 
ligion denies the right of the public school, with its conven- 
tional religious observances, to indoctrinate his children. 




















46 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


Therefore, in the absence of any scientific data as to the value 
of religion in building character, the State can hardly deny its 
citizens this fundamental right of religious freedom. 


SECOND: The Preparatory Aim. Of the three kinds of 
freedom which have been cited as legitimate goals of the pri- 
vate school this is doubtless the most transitory. There is no 
good reason why public high schools can not be as selective 
and efficient in preparing pupils to meet existing college en- 
trance requirements as the most high-powered preparatory 
schools. The fact remains, however, that under existing con- 
ditions the boy who wishes to enter one of the half-dozen lead- 
ing eastern colleges in this country is heavily handicapped in 
most of the public high schools. No further proof of this fact 
is needed than the large proportion of private school graduates 
that constitute the freshman classes in these institutions. De- 
plorable as such a situation may be, the fact must not be min- 
imized that most of our great private preparatory institutions 
from 1635 to 1935 have been conspicuously successful in col- 
lege preparation. Here, from the point of view of freedom, 
the shoe is on the other foot. The public high school has been 
freer than the preparatory school from the strangle-hold of 
college admission requirements. The freedom of the private 
school has been rather that of the parent in choosing the 
school, than that of the school in preparing the boy. The pri- 
vate school of the future will, in my judgment, have to shake 
off its chains of college preparation if it is to survive. As Dr. 
Thayer of St. Mark’s once said: “That school which is first to 
make public announcement that it does not exist for the prep- 
aration of boys for college, will be the first to lead the inevita- 
ble trend of the private school in the next half century.” The 
preparatory school, then, represents a paradoxical kind of 
freedom. It is free to accept one kind of slavery! 





THIRD: The Experimental Aim. The modern notion of 
experimentation in education is not of the guinea-pig variety. 
Few schools, fortunately, will ever have entire freedom to put 
its pupils in a test tube. Children have a right even to be pro- 
tected from parental theories. But tremendous good has re- 
sulted in this country as in every country from, the fact that 
groups of thoughtful parents who have become dissatisfied 
with the standardized curriculum of their local schools and 


























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 47 


who have been unable to combat the forces of reaction in these 

schools, have been able to pool their resources and organize a 
school which seemed to them more adequate than local taxa- 
tion could support. Such famous day schools as Francis Par- 
ker, Ethical Culture, the laboratory schools of our universities, 
and many other excellent country day schools have not only 
served to provide a high type of educational opportunity for 
thousands of our most promising children, but also have been 
beacon lights that have inspired with new vision an equal num- 
ber of ambitious teachers, teachers who were not permitted 
the slightest deviation from the routine of their own class- 
rooms until they could point to the successful organization and 
achievements of these pioneer schools. American democracy 
needs above everything else variety in its educational pro- 
cedures, since democracy of all types of society and govern- 
ment is the most intrinsically experimental. Our great public 
schools are becoming more and more the centers of significant 
experimentation, and desirably so, but there will be for some 
time to come receding frontiers which only the more adven- 
turous teachers and parents will dare to explore. Incidentally, 
it should be pointed out that some of our best public schools 
which have encouraged experimentation are located in such 
carefully restricted suburban residential districts, that they 
are in a very real sense hardly more democratic than our best 
and more liberal private schools. 

To-day we are coming more and more to regard progress 
as synonymous with experimentation. In all fairness, how- 
ever, we should not overlook the fact that in public education 
experimentation has never been regarded with widespread fa- 
vor. Many, if not most, of the conspicuously successful inno- 
vations in the field of elementary education had their origin 
in the small, private, experimental school. Such wild and rad- 
ical ideas as the use of projects, a more unified curriculum, in- 
dividual instruction, personality adjustment, emphasis on the 
fine arts, creative activities, and many others were first dem- 
onstrated to be practicable in the progressive schools during 
the decade after the World War. Fortunately to-day the word 
“progressive” belongs as much to the public school as to the 
private school. 

These changes just referred to, however, have concerned 
primarily the elementary school. What shall we say of the 












46 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


Therefore, in the absence of any scientific data as to the value 
of religion in building character, the State can hardly deny its 
citizens this fundamental right of religious freedom. 


SECOND: The Preparatory Aim. Of the three kinds of 
freedom which have been cited as legitimate goals of the pri- 
vate school this is doubtless the most transitory. There is no 
good reason why public high schools can not be as selective 
and efficient in preparing pupils to meet existing college en- 
trance requirements as the most high-powered preparatory 
schools. The fact remains, however, that under existing con- 
ditions the boy who wishes to enter one of the half-dozen lead- 
ing eastern colleges in this country is heavily handicapped in 
most of the public high schools. No further proof of this fact 
is needed than the large proportion of private school graduates 
that constitute the freshman classes in these institutions. De- 
plorable as such a situation may be, the fact must not be min- 
imized that most of our great private preparatory institutions 
from 1635 to 1935 have been conspicuously successful in col- 
lege preparation. Here, from the point of view of freedom, 
the shoe is on the other foot. The public high school has been 
freer than the preparatory school from the strangle-hold of 
college admission requirements. The freedom of the private 
school has been rather that of the parent in choosing the 
school, than that of the school in preparing the boy. The pri- 
vate school of the future will, in my judgment, have to shake 
off its chains of college preparation if it is to survive. As Dr. 
Thayer of St. Mark’s once said: “That school which is first to 
make public announcement that it does not exist for the prep- 
aration of boys for college, will be the first to lead the inevita- 
ble trend of the private school in the next half century.” The 
preparatory school, then, represents a paradoxical kind of 
freedom. It is free to accept one kind of slavery! 


THIRD: The Experimental Aim. The modern notion of 
experimentation in education is not of the guinea-pig variety. 
Few schools, fortunately, will ever have entire freedom to put 
its pupils in a test tube. Children have a right even to be pro- 
tected from parental theories. But tremendous good has re- 
sulted in this country as in every country from the fact that 
groups of thoughtful parents who have become dissatisfied 
with the standardized curriculum of their local schools and 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 47 


who have been unable to combat the forces of reaction in these 
schools, have been able to pool their resources and organize a 
school which seemed to them more adequate than local taxa- 
tion could support. Such famous day schools as Francis Par- 
ker, Ethical Culture, the laboratory schools of our universities, 
and many other excellent country day schools have not only 
served to provide a high type of educational opportunity for 
thousands of our most promising children, but also have been 
beacon lights that have inspired with new vision an equal num- 
ber of ambitious teachers, teachers who were not permitted 
the slightest deviation from the routine of their own class- 
rooms until they could point to the successful organization and 
achievements of these pioneer schools. American democracy 
needs above everything else variety in its educational pro- 
cedures, since democracy of all types of society and govern- 
ment is the most intrinsically experimental. Our great public 
schools are becoming more and more the centers of significant 
experimentation, and desirably so, but there will be for some 
time to come receding frontiers which only the more adven- 
turous teachers and parents will dare to explore. Incidentally, 
it should be pointed out that some of our best public schools 
which have encouraged experimentation are located in such 
carefully restricted suburban residential districts, that they 
are in a very real sense hardly more democratic than our best 
and more liberal private schools. 


To-day we are coming more and more to regard progress 
as synonymous with experimentation. In all fairness, how- 
ever, we should not overlook the fact that in public education 
experimentation has never been regarded with widespread fa- 
vor. Many, if not most, of the conspicuously successful inno- 
vations in the field of elementary education had their origin 
in the small, private, experimental school. Such wild and rad- 
ical ideas as the use of projects, a more unified curriculum, in- 
dividual instruction, personality adjustment, emphasis on the 
fine arts, creative activities, and many others were first dem- 
onstrated to be practicable in the progressive schools during 
the decade after the World War. Fortunately to-day the word 
“progressive” belongs as much to the public school as to the 
private school. 

These changes just referred to, however, have concerned 
primarily the elementary school. What shall we say of the 


















48 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 








secondary school? Well, nothing very startling has yet hap- 
pened anywhere in our high schools. There has been much 
moving around of the furniture, many new subjects have been 
added, and a considerable degree of vitality injected through 
extra-curriculum activities. That is just the trouble. Too 
much of the change that has occurred in our secondary schools 
has been precisely that, too extra-curriculum. We are now 
entering the period, I hope, of true curriculum reform. How 
many secondary schools are there even to-day that have gone 
to the root of this problem? It may be significant, all the 
same, to point out that in the three or four major experiments 
in secondary education now being conducted on a nation-wide 
basis private school leadership is playing a conspicuous part. 
The Aikin Commission on School and College Relations and 
the Thayer Commission on the Secondary-School Curriculum 
are two excellent examples of a coéperative attack on this ma- 
jor problem by public and private school leaders. Just as in 
the field of higher education we do not regard, democratically 
speaking, private enterprise as a serious educational disad- 
vantage, but rather as a sign of wholesome codperative en- 
deavor, so in the field of secondary education, great good may 
come from a feeling of mutual respect between worthy edu- 
cational] institutions striving for a common goal. 

No reference has been made to such other real contribu- 
tions of the private school as the relief of over-crowding in 
public schools. In many communities the closing of private 
schools would throw a heavy burden on the already over- 
taxed resources of the public schools. Nor has reference been 
made to the service that has been rendered the maladjusted 
or handicapped child by giving him a better chance in the 
smaller classes of the private school. 

In conclusion, one point should be made emphatic, that 
regardless of any possible need for private schools which per- 
mit of comparative freedom of action in religious instruction, 
in college preparation or in experimentation, regardless, I say, 
of such desirable ends, there is no justifiable place in any 
American school for snobbery, be it social or intellectual. Such 
a condition is a menace to any safe conception of democracy. 
For that reason, the best private schools have recognized their 
obligation, and should continue to expound the idea to make 
possible, by liberal tuition grants, the inclusion of pupils rep- 











49 





















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


resentative of all social strata. The private school should be 
inclusive rather than exclusive. Furthermore, from my own 
experience in public high schools, I know that this problem is 
not solely that of the private secondary school, since special 
type high schools, too rigidly differentiated curricula, ability 
grouping, and racial prejudice can be as destructive of the 
democratic ideal as differences in economic status. 


What is the future of the private secondary school in this 
country? It is wholly unpredictable. If the forces that just 
now seem bent on the undermining of public education suc- : 
ceed, it may flourish as never before. This would be a catas- 
trophe. If, however, the American public keeps its faith in 
the power of education to re-vitalize and give direction to our 
historic democratic ideals, demanding that every individual 
enjoy educational opportunity according to his needs and ca- 
pacities, the private school may become increasingly unneces- 


sary. 


R. D. Lindquist, Director of University School, Ohio State 
University, Columbus, Ohio, read his paper, Responsibilities 
of Public Secondary Education in an Age of Leisure. 

















50 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





RESPONSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC SECONDARY 
EDUCATION IN OUR AGE OF LEISURE 


R. D. LINDQUIST 
Director of the University School, Ohio State University, 
Columbus, Ohio 


It may seem improper for a speaker to quarrel with the 
subject once he has accepted the responsibility for discussing 
it, but I find myself compelled to do just that—to question the 
assumption that we are living in an age of leisure and to ex- 
press doubt as to whether there is any point to discussing The 
Public School’s Responsibility in an Age of Leisure. There 
would be just as much point to discussing the schools’ respon- 
sibility in an age of plenty, and most of us are pretty certain 
that there would be no point at all in discussing that for the 
very simple reason that this is not an age of plenty. It is an 
age of want and misery and lack of many of the essentials of 
life. When we use the phrase we mean, of course, that poten- 
tially this is an age of plenty, i.e., we have the productive ma- 
chinery and the raw materials to create an age of plenty. But 
that is not saying that we have either the wisdom or the dispo- 
sition to do so; hence it is only a half truth to say that we have, 
even potentially, an age of plenty, for certainly the lack of wis- 
dom and of disposition are quite as important lacks as would 
be a shortage in raw materials or in machinery. In fact it is, 
if anything, more difficult to generate and direct these human 
abilities and dispositions to codperate, in the interests of the 
common good, than it is to get machinery and raw materials in 
abundance. 


And so with this topic, “An Age of Leisure.” It is as- 
sumed that those who use it have reference to the fact that 
some men work eight hours a day where they once worked 
twelve, and that one man who is working can produce as much 
of material goods in an hour as he once did in an entire day. 
Such facts create idleness but not necessarily leisure. 


Last week Mr. Leon Henderson, economic adviser for the 
governnient, submitted a report in which he made public the 
fact that whereas, in 1930—four years ago—250 men finished 
100 motor blocks in a given time, 19 men can now finish 250 














PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 51 


blocks in the same time; that a new photo-electric inspecting 
machine dispenses with ten to twenty human inspectors; that 
the labor cost of $4.00 on a door in 1929 has been reduced to 
15c; that the labor cost of $3.00 on body framing in 1929 has 
dropped to 30c, hand finishing from $3.00 to 20c; that if used 
full time, an automatic buffer machine in a hardware plant re- 
places 150 men; that one unskilled man can operate a certain 
measuring and inspecting device to check piston play that once 
required the services of three skilled men. And so it goes— 
150 men displaced here, three skilled men displaced there. But 
certainly it would be ironical and unbecoming in your presence 
to speak of their displacement and idleness as leisure. And to 
talk to these displaced men about leisure, would be as though 
some sardonic god were to hold up before hungry men tempt- 
ing dishes and then snatch them away from their grasping 
reach. Certainly an organization such as ours committed to 
humanitarian work, to improving the conditions under which 
people live, can not be party to dramatizing through its ter- 
centenary program so cruel and inhuman a joke as that which 
the genii “industrialism” is now playing on the human race. 
Would such joking amuse the 10,000,000 unemployed and their 
millions of dependents, the one-fourth to one-fifth of our popu- 
lation which is now harassed by worry as to where the next 
meal is coming from. Or would it divert the millions of em- 
ployed whose hold on their jobs is so precarious and tenuous 
that fear of losing it hangs over them like a pall darkening 
even their idle hours. Or would it comfort and sustain the 
3,000,000 boys and girls between the ages of 16 and 21 who 
are reported by the Federal Children’s Bureau as unemployed 
and out of school to say to them, “Come now, you live in an age 
of leisure. Take your ease, relax and enjoy yourself.” Most 
of them are probably in families already hit by unemployment. 
What they want most is some chance to help their families. 
They are worried by the fact that there is not enough to eat 
and that clothes are needed. Many, in desperation, have left 
home, unwilling to take food where there is not enough to go 
around. Possibly it would help them if we set up signs along 
the roads which they tramp, footsore, in search of food and 
shelter—signs reminding them of the fact that this is an age 
of leisure. 

I hope you will pardon me if I seem bitter about this mat- 
ter and that you will believe that the bitterness grows more 

















DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





52 


from a feeling of shame and helplessness than from any dispo- 
sition to assess blame or to point accusingly at any one else. 
I hope, also, that you will pardon me if I turn from a consider- 
ation of what seems to me a myth—an age of leisure—to a con- 
sideration of a related but nevertheless quite a different topic, 
namely, the School’s Responsibility in an Age of Economic In- 
security. I justify this change in part on the ground that if 
we successfully cope with our responsibility in an age of eco- 
nomic insecurity, we shall probably bring about an age of lei- 
sure. Be that as it may, however, the real problem is inse- 
curity, not leisure. And concerning that problem I wish to 
speak briefly. 

What then is the public schools’ responsibility in an age 
of idleness, of widespread destitution, and of general economic 
and social insecurity? That question has been so extensively 
discussed and so much more ably answered than I shall be able 
to answer it that I cannot promise you any new lights. All I 
can do is to record a conviction and urge to action along lines 
that are already fairly well seen. 

There are current several wrong answers to this question 
of the school’s responsibility. It should be emphasized that the 
answers given vary with the present security of the individual 
or group making it, with the interest which he has in public as 
distinguished from private or group welfare, with the faith 
he has in the common man to help solve intelligently these so- 
cial and economic problems. 

First, may I speak of the group which believes that the 
school has no special responsibility in an age of insecurity. 
According to them its responsibility is, in every age, to teach 
the three R’s, to transmit undefiled by reflection or analysis or 
criticism, the racial experience. They, of course, show their 
ignorance of the educative process when they assume that the 
racial heritage can be thus transmitted, unchanged, from gen- 
eration to generation. They say, in effect, that we should not 
modify the educational experiences to meet changing social 
conditions. They would not introduce health service or dental 
hygiene or recreation or art or music or social science or any 
of the many other extensions of educational experience. These- 
things are fads and frills; they are not properly education, to 
include them disperses unprofitably the energies of children, or 
it makes them dependent and sycophantic, or it weakens the 




















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 53 


moral fibre of the parents by assuming responsibilities, which 
are properly and as they prefer to think, inherently the re- 
sponsibility of the individual parent. 


Representative of such a group of view is the Secretary 
of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, who last week before the 
Senate Finance Committee opposed social security legislation 
on the grounds that it weakened the moral fibre of our people. 
Granted that he is honest and sincere in his belief and granted 
that he thinks he has considered all the facts in the situation, 
with the realism, of which he and his group boast, isn’t it con- 
ceivable that he may be wrong in the assumption that cerebra- 
tiun underlies his conclusion? 

Those who believe thus are; in the main, those for whom 
economic security is no longer a problem. They wish to pro- 
tect that which they have. It is easy to understand why they 
thus seek to protect their cherished possessions, but why they 
should justify it, in the face of widespread misery and injus- 
tice, is quite another matter. One would have more respect 
for them if they charged it, to its true cause, i.e., the grasping, 
acquisitive, selfish drives of man and let it go at that, but when 
they try, sanctimoniously to justify it on moral grounds as be- 
ing good for the race, and when they profess to do it in the 
public interest, one experiences shame that men who would be 
strong and masterful should stoop to such a stupid evasion. 
For certainly it can not be in the public interest that children 
and future citizens should starve or freeze or have their edu- 
cational opportunities curtailed or that they should grow up in 
homes supported by a dole. If it is so good for the morale and 
so valuable in developing moral fibre, why do they not pre- 
scribe it as part of the training for their own children? Why 
do they not prescribe joblessness as a curative for their own 
moral deficiencies? 

A second point of view is held, often times, and strangely 
enough,by the same general group that holds the first point of 
view. Those who hold it believe that the school’s responsibil- 
ity in an age of insecurity, as in every other age, is to inocu- 
late thrift, respect for property and law, vocational skills, and 
health habits. They too claim to be public-spirited and social- 
minded. And on the surface their claim seems to have some 
merit. For thrift under certain conditions undoubtedly is de- 
sirable and so are health and safety; and respect for law and 














54 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


order has merit providing the law is just and in the public in- 
terest, but when one notes that the Bankers Association 
through its Committee on Propaganda spread thrift education 
and saving through our school systems, that a leading life in- 
surance company fostered health education and casualty in- 
surance companies safety education, and that manufacturers 
and the United States Chamber of Commerce were the real 
drive behind a Federal program of Vocational Education, one 
questions the disinterested nature of their zeal for public wel- 
fare. Why shouldn’t these pressure groups, if they really are 
public-spirited, concern themselves with the extension of edu- 
cational experiences other than those that promise to bring a 
material reward to them. One could have more faith in the 
real magnanimity of their protestation if the manufacturers 
association and the chambers of commerce were equally active 
in promoting legislation that extended the period of education, 
that reopened closed schools, that guaranteed a high type of 
teaching personnel by providing salaries that would attract the 


most competent people. 


Many other minority groups effect in a similar way the 
learning experiences which we provide in schools, and they all 
profess to do it in the interest of public welfare and general 
social security, but it is security, which, when we examine it, 
turns out to be security for the small group that advocates the 
procedure, and not security for all. And to the influence of 
these powerful, socially respectable defenders of private and 
class rights as opposed to public rights, we educators are very 
susceptible. Witness the returns to a questionnaire circulated 
recently among ........ superintendents of schools. One ques- 
tion in it was this, “Would you advocate including in school 
books material that called into question the adequacy of our 
present system of laws and regulations governing economics 
and political activities.” To this question 81% of these edu- 
cators replied “No”. In other words they would advocate hav- 
ing youth’s understanding of the political and economic system 
it is about to help manage consist of half truths, and result in 
a belief that the system under which 10,000,000 are unem- 
ployed and other millions in distress is a good system and not 
in need of change. Can such an attitude be justified on the 
part of a public servant? When are we going to learn that we 
are public servants and that as educators it is our business to 




















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 55 


throw light on all that concerns public welfare, so that the in- 
terests of that public may be adequately conserved. If there 
are minorities whose special interests cannot stand the light 
of day we must refuse, and by concerted effort, if necessary, to 
let pressure from that quarter suppress the light. May I re- 
peat that we are public servants and not the servants of a 
group or class. It is passing strange that as public servants 
we should have to battle for the right to serve all. It is to be 
regretted that we have become so inured to serving the few 
that this larger responsibility, when seen in all its implications 
strikes us as something new and strange and fearful. But on 
our decision on this point hinges all else that we do as educ- 
cators. Our decision as to whether our responsibility is to 
public welfare or to group or class welfare determines the so- 
cial orientation of the school, and that in turn determines the 
quality of the education which children receive there. We 
have had a good deal of futile discussion concerning indoc- 
trination, but the fact is that what we as administrators do in 
teacher selection, faculty organization, book purchase, curric- 
ulum development, equipment purchases determines the re- 
sponses which children have a chance to make, and hence their 
education. By far the greater part of the educational experi- 
ences of children consist of unconscious adjustment to ar- 
rangement which we make. Granted the desirability of hav- 
ing as many of these experiences as possible in the nature of 
deliberate thoughtful adjustments, it still is a fact and must 
continue to be so that these deliberate adjustments can never 
make up the whole or even a very large part of the child’s edu- 
cative experiences. We can and do in many places press for 
an extension of the field of deliberate and thoughtful adjust- 
ments for we believe that therein lies the real possibility for 
growth. In fact, upon our success in extending the area of 
thoughtful pupil participation will rest whatever claim we may 
make to progress in education. And yet we cannot blink the 
fact that even under the most zealous and enlightened leader- 
ship the bulk of his educational experience will consist of ad- 
justments—many of them unconscious to arrangements which 
we make and through which we largely predetermine the out- 
come. 

Since this is true, it becomes a matter of tremendous im- 
portance whether the social orientation of the school be one of 














56 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


concern for the general welfare or concern for class and group 
welfare. That is the touchstone by which is measured the va- 
lidity of our position as public servants. Upon the decision 
which each man makes on this point and upon his intelligence 
and zeal in carrying out his decision depends the importance of 
his contribution to economic and social security. Taking un- 
equivocally the position in behalf of public and general welfare 
seems to me to be the very heart of the school’s responsibility 
in an age of insecurity. 


It is one thing to take this position in Atlantic City and 
quite another thing with respect to its demands upon both 
courage and intelligence in our respective spheres of profes- 
sional responsibility. To him who is earnest in his desire to 
uphold the Constitution of the United States and to help build 
a state with reference to the general welfare I can only sug- 
gest that he scrutinize both his civic and professional ideals 
and activities to see whether or not they square with the ideal 
of general welfare or whether they are dominated by loyalty to 
selfish or narrow group interests. Such a scrutiny if courage- 
ously and intelligently made by the 1,000,000 teachers in the 
United States would effect tremendously our social and eco- 
nomic security. It would effect them because it would motivate 
and direct our activities as citizens. Also it would effect school 
legislation, school buildings, curriculum, equipment, supplies, 
books, school organization. 


Some progress has been made in our attitudes and activi- 
tives in both these areas. Some of the pronouncements and 
actions of this convention bear tribute eloquently to that fact. 
We are seeing more clearly and accepting more courageously 
than ever before our responsibility as citizens. No longer do 
vested interests frighten us, at least not as much as they once 
did, with the demand that we keep out of politics. 


In our professional activity in secondary schools, there is 
a growing body of evidence that we are taking as a point of 
departure not the ideals of a class dominated society but the 
needs of children. 


There is an encouraging accumulation of evidence to the 
effect that the secondary school is getting down to business. 
We are beginning to recognize that adolescent boys and girls, 
overwhelmed with many problems incident to growing up, can 




















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


and must be helped by the school to deal more intelligently 
with those problems. In fact, we are becoming convinced that 
there is no responsibility greater than that of helping them 
more intelligently to direct their own lives and that whatever 
measure of ability and confidence we can give them to lead in- 
dependent, intelligent lives constitutes the greatest contribu- 
tion we can make educationally. 


We recognize that children need to and want to know 
more about the problems incident to group life in school, home 
and community so that they may make intelligent adjustments. 
The functions of group living, such as transportation, commu- 
nication, production, exchange, government impinge upon 
their lives and call for interpretation. We at least dare to call 
this interpretation along with its contemporary and historical 
implications social science and we teach it unblushingly in 
place of formal courses in ancient history and medieval his- 
tory. The presentation of those courses as unrelated units was 
as though a dramatist undertook to interpret Hamlet and spent 
all his time lecturing to the audience about the beauty of the 
stage sets and never got around to discussing the action or to 
presenting the play itself. And after all it’s the play that mat- 
ters. 


We realize that the child needs and wants to know more 
about himself as a psycho-biological organism and that the 
safest place for him to get this information is from those who 
specialize in understanding this organism, the physiologist and 
the psychologist, and we are more and more making use of 
them to render this service rather than permitting the child to 
pick up garbled information from playmates and untrained 
adults. We do this because we believe that actively function- 
ing intelligence with access to pertinent facts is a surer guar- 
antee of sanity and balance and spiritual security under the 
stress of biological urges than are myths and half truths and 
threats, and we are daring to call this search for truth, science, 
and to substitute it for the memorizing of classifications of 
flora and fauna. We have at last come to value and to use as 
an indispensable educational asset the perfectly natural curi- 
osity which the child -hhas concerning life processes. We even 
strive to keep alive this questioning, inquiring attitude, realiz- 
ing that great scientists are great because they have been of 
too hardy a stock to permit school routine and regimentation 


57 











58 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


to kill their spirit of wonder and inquiry. There is evidence 
that science teaching in secondary schools is beginning to con- 
cern itself with the conservation of curiosity and with the de- 
velopment in children of skill and confidence in using labora- 
tories and libraries and teachers in finding answers to their 
questions. 


We are, in short, recognizing quite frankly that if chil- 
dren are to recreate the world and be qualified to live in it as 
it is recreated they must understand it, and in that frank rec- 
ognition there is real hope for secondary education and for 
the world that is to be. 


Out of this activity of educators in helping adults to un- 
derstand the world and to refashicn it in the interest of the 
wider good as well as out of their activity in helping the grow- 
ing generation to understand their world and to desire to re- 
make it there is hope indeed. We move falteringly and waver- 
ingly, it is true, but there is evidence that we are beginning to 
consolidate our forces and the next decade should witness sub- 
stantial progress. 


Dean J. B. Edmonson, University of Michigan, read his 
paper, Forces That Are Handicapping Secondary Education 
To-Day. 























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 59 


FORCES THAT ARE HANDICAPPING SECON- 
DARY EDUCATION TO-DAY 


J. B. EDMONSON 
Dean of the School of Education, University of Michigan. 


A review of recent educational literature—particularly the 
year-books, special studies, and investigations, as well as the 
pronouncements of regional and national committees—fur- 
nishes convincing evidence that numerous recommendations 
have been made for significant changes in secondary educa- 
tion. The imposing list of committees in the recent bulletin 
entitled National Deliberative Committees furnishes additional 
proof that leaders have concerned themselves with desirable 
changes in secondary education. In spite of all of this activity, 
when we examine the present programs of secondary educa- 
tion as found in senior high schools it is obvious that most of 
the findings and recommendations in these reports have re- 
ceived scant consideration and as a result have failed to modify 
practice except in a few scattered school systems. Because 
of the striking differences between the pronouncements of 
educational groups and the actual practices in our schools, it 
is most appropriate to raise questions concerning the forces 
that actually prevent senior high schools from making the 
recommended adjustments. 


The well-known fact that we have two opposing forces in 
the field of secondary education is a further reason for review- 
ing the forces that are handicapping our secondary schools. 
One of these forces is concerned with maintaining traditions. 
Certain of the obstacles to change are a result of the strength 
and activities of the traditional group and would, from the 
standpoint of the friends of the traditional point of view, be 
considered as aids to a good cause. The other force has been 
concerned with producing change through the addition to the 
curriculum of new subjects which seem to be socially worth 
while, and through the adoption of new methods of instruction 
which seem to be better suited to the heterogeneous groups 
found in our classrooms. It should be clearly recognized that 
our senior high schools are the center of the fight between the 
traditionalists and the advocates of new curriculum materials 
and new instructional procedures. It is my belief that school 

















60 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





administrators and supervisors of instruction are, in general, 
allied with the group that favors changing from the tradi- 
tional. But the obstacles to change are strong as well as num- 
erous. 


By some persons the mention of these forces will be in- 
terpreted as an effort to present the various alibis that the 
senior high schools might offer for failure to make adjust- 
ments and changes to comply with the recommendations of ex- 
perts. But whether these are considered as alibis or as genu- 
ine handicaps it is my opinion that there are many more ob- 
stacles in the path of the change in senior high schools than 
are faced by any other unit in our educational system. It is 
commonly known that there are few forces that would pre- 
vent the elementary school from making significant changes 
in the curriculum, in teaching procedures, or in general or- 
ganization; for the elementary school enjeys a large measure 
of self-direction. The junior high school has always enjoyed 
large freedom. It has always been looked upon as an appro- 
priate unit for educational experiments and a spirit of experi- 
mentation has dominated the junior high schools in most areas. 
There is plenty of evidence to indicate that liberal arts colleges 
can make significant changes without loss of prestige, even 
when this means fundamental changes in organization, curri- 
culum, and teaching procedures. In fact, the North Central 
Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools has gone so far 
as to revise the standards for the accrediting of colleges in 
such a way as to allow generous freedom to colleges in the 
matter of any type of experimentation that a college may wish 
to undertake. 

When attention is turned to the situation of the senior 
high school one finds that as a result of the operation of a 
variety of forces, the freedom granted to other units in our 
educational system is not enjoyed by the senior high school. 
In my opinion the senior high school enjoys less independence 
in the control of its program than any other unit. It has been 
appropriately described as the “dependent child of the educa- 
tional family.” When any change is proposed affecting the 
senior high school such questions as the following are always 
raised: How will the colleges react to the proposed change? 
Will the proposed change be acceptable to the various state, 
regional, and national standardizing agencies? Will the pro- 























61 





PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


posed change violate any of the numerous state laws that gov- 
ern the curriculum of the senior high school? Will the pro- 
posed change arouse the opposition of the conservative ele- 
ment in the community? These questions are seldom raised 
when changes are proposed in our elementary schools, our 
junior high schools, or our colleges. Why is this? The answer 
is found in the greater freedom from obstacles to change that 
these various units enjoy. 


The most potent force handicapping secondary education 
is lack of freedom to plan in terms of the basic facts on which 
the program of secondary education should be built. This 
lack of freedom is created by a variety of pressures. 


In the first place the secondary schools feel the pressure 
of state legislatures more than other units. According to our 
American theory of educational organization, each state 
through its legislature has the responsibility for establishing 
and maintaining the school system. The legislature of a state, 
therefore, has large authority to determine the details of the 
curriculum. A study of the statutes of the states reveals 
numerous requirements affecting the curriculum of the sec- 
ondary schools and requiring courses in nature study, physio- 
logy, state history, physical education, civics, and numerous 
other studies. No one can question the legal right of the state 
to demand emphasis on instruction in any subject that the 
state legislature believes is desirable from the standpoint 
of public welfare. In my opinion, however, it is not good 
educational policy for the state to enact specific legislation 
regarding instruction in any school subjects. Such regulations 
should be framed by the state educational authorities and made 
in the light of full knowledge of the problems involved. The 
present legislation relating’ to instruction in specific school 
subjects tends to make it very difficult for senior high schools 
to make needed adjustments to changing social and economic 
conditions. 


A second source of pressure that restricts the freedom 
of the senior high school is the part played by the state and 
federal subsidies in the making of the secondary-school cur- 
riculum. A certain amount of work in agricultural, home 
economics, and the industrial arts has been introduced into our 
senior high schools, partly because of new educational demands 











62 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


and partly because of a desire to secure financial aid. In some 
instances the regulations governing such grants of money in- 
terfere with the freedom of the professional leadership and 
tend to commit the school to policies which do not allow ex- 
perimentation that might lead to change. It would be very 
interesting to know how many schools would discontinue in- 
struction in subjects that are now aided by state and federal 
funds if these funds were suddenly withdrawn. 


In the third place, pressure on the senior high schools is 
exercised by the colleges through their entrance requirements. 
A review of these requirements shows evidence of the enact- 
ment of protective legislation for English, foreign languages, 
mathematics, physics, chemistry, ancient history, and a few 
other academic subjects. These subjects are the so-called 
“most favored” ones. The college entrance requirements tend 
to place in an advantageous position in the curriculum of the 
schools those subjects that are highly valued by college facul- 
ties. Students submitting units in any of these favored fields 
are given more considerate treatment than students submit- 
ting units in the newer fields of work. This can be illustrated 
by reference to the social studies. It would appear that the 
college faculties interested in the social studies had made lit- 
tle effort to secure protective legislation for their subjects, 
with the result that the social studies in the senior high school 
do not have a recognition comparable with that now extended 
to mathematics, the foreign languages, and some of the 
sciences. The opinions of secondary-school leaders indicate 
that the social studies would receive increased emphasis if, in 
framing the curriculum, the schools felt free to disregard 
college entrance requirements. A similar change would doubt- 
less occur in other fields if the pressure of college entrance re- 
quirements were removed or greatly lessened. 

A fourth source of pressure that has restricted freedom 
is the activity of certain private agencies and societies con- 
cerned with having a particular point of view impressed on 
high-school students. These agencies and societies have some- 
times so greatly influenced state legislatures that the legisla- 
tures have actually passed laws relating to the curriculum. 
Much of the legislation relative to instruction in physical edu- 
cation, civics, state history, and other studies may be traced 
to the zeal of small groups of persons who have not trusted 




















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 63 


the teachers to determine what should be taught and have 
resorted instead to mandatory legislation. These organiza- 
tions have sometimes sought through pressure on local school 
authorities or state boards to gain dominance for their point 
of view. 

A fifth source of pressure that has prevented change in 
secondary education is the excessive emphasis that the stand- 
ardizing agencies have placed on quantitative requirements 
governing such matters as credits, the length of recitation 
periods, the requirements for graduation, and the content of 
specific units. In spite of the splendid contribution of the state 
and regional standardizing agencies, it must be conceded that 
these agencies have tended to exercise a restrictive influence 
on senior high schools. The recent creation of a national com- 
mission to propose new criteria for the accrediting of second- 
ary schools is a courageous admission that former standards 
have not been altogether helpful and have tended to handicap 
the senior high schools. 

In all probability there are other pressures that interfere 
with a desirable degree of freedom for the senior high school. 
In view of these pressures it is not surprising to find that the 
teachers have very slight influence in determining the curri- 
culum of the senior high school; the curriculum has been large- 
ly determined by a considerable number of pressure groups 
such as the college entrance bloc, the state subsidized bloc, the 
legislative bloc, the special interests bloc, and the standardiza- 
tion bloc. In the elementary school the principals and the 
teachers have a considerable voice in determining what should 
be taught in the interests of the children. In the junior high 
school the teachers and the administrators have come to have 
a major influence. In college the faculties are free to revise 
and to change the curriculum in terms of changing opinions 
relative to the educational needs of students. The grim de- 
termination with which college faculties will fight for freedom 
in instructional matters is in striking contrast to the action 
of these same college faculties in denying secondary-school 
teachers a comparable degree of freedom in the matters of 
instruction on the secondary-school level. If freedom is so 
necessary for the protection of the interests of college stu- 
dents, it would seem desirable that secondary-school teachers 
enjoy comparable discretion in dealing with their pupils. As 











64 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


a matter of fact, the senior high-school teachers and adminis- 
trators are reduced to the impossible condition of having been 
deprived of much of their freedom to plan in terms of the 
educational interests of pupils. 


The foregoing pressures or forces that tend to restrict 
freedom in our senior high schools are aided by certain other 
obstacles to change, according to the testimony of a selected 
group of secondary-school leaders in the North Central terri- 
tory. The testimony of this group points to eleven obstacles 
of serious import. These I will mention without comment in 
this paper because my study in which these are presented has 
been published in the North Central Association Quarterly.' 


The obstacles are as follows: 

1. The fact that many secondary-school teachers are the 
product of colleges that do not give major attention to the 
training of teachers. 

2. The lack of an expert jury that will blow away the 
chaff and reveal the grain of truth for the classroom teacher. 

3. The fragmentary character of research studies deal- 
ing with learning and the lack of basic, integrated studies of 
the school subjects. 

4. The high-school teachers’ lack of training in experi- 
mentation. 

5. The quantitative rather than qualitative character of 
the standards for high-school accrediting. 

6. The lack of funds for modifications of the school pro- 
gram. 

7. The statement of college entrance requirements in 
terms of certain patterns of units rather than in general meas- 
ures of ability. 

8. The teachers’ lack of ability to apply the results of 
research except as it is organized by authors in the form of 
textbook material. 

9. The failure of teacher-training institutions to intro- 
duce the results of research into the required professional 
courses. 

10. The lack of understanding by teachers of the Ameri- 
can philosophy of secondary education. 

11. The smallness of the audience to which the results of 
research are made available. 


1North Central Association Quarterly, VII (June, 1932), 16-22. 























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 65 


One might be justified in concluding from a hasty examin- 
ation of the foregoing obstacles that it is a hopeless task, to 
attempt any significant changes in our secondary schools. 
There is some evidence to support the opinion that our senior 
high schools are faced with so many insurmountable obstacles 
to change that some new type of unit will have to be developed 
to replace the present senior high school if adjustment to new 
demands becomes imperative. 

Unless certain of these obstacles can be removed, I can 
see very little hope that our senior high schools will prove 
equal to the task of providing a type of training suitable to 
the needs of the unselected group of adolescents who are cer- 
tain to want some type of instruction above the level of the 
junior high school. I believe secondary-school principals 
should fight against the unwarranted interference of various 
blocs with the freedom of high schools. Unless freedom in re- 
organization can be secured for the senior high school I can 
see very little chance that the school will be able to make 
needed adjustments to changing educational demands. At 
present it is impossible for a senior high school to modify its 
program of work without taking account of the question of 
state and federal subsidies, the college entrance requirements, 
the legislative enactments, and the demands of strong’ private 
interests in society. One result of this situation is that we 
now have a program of work in our senior high school which 
is totally inadequate for a large fraction of our high-school 
population. A principal of a large school in one of our Michi- 
gan cities has assured me that 60 percent of the pupils could 
not with any hope of success pursue the curriculum as it is now 
organized, placing, as it does, major emphasis on college pre- 
paratory courses in English, mathematics, sciences, languages, 
ancient history, and similar older studies. It may be that the 
present insistence on curtailment in the school program, to- 
gether with the present demand for the admission of larger 
numbers of pupils to our senior high schools, may force hind- 
ering groups to abandon some of the traditional points of view 
and practices and thus open the way for a new period in which 
more rapid adjustment will be made to new conditions. 

For fear that this paper may have too heavy a tinge of 
pessimism I wish to cite trends which indicate that conditions 
are improving. In college entrance requirements there is a 











66 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


trend toward greater flexibility and less rigidity in the matter 
of patterns of work. The growing realization on the part of 
the public that the secondary-school program must be modified 
in the light of new demands is also an encouraging develop- 
ment. The recent action of the five regional standardizing 
agencies in setting up a national committee to revise the re- 
quirements for accrediting secondary schools is likewise a 
very hopeful sign. Much should also be made of the increased 
determination of secondary-school leaders to develop better 
agreement as to the aims and objectives of secondary educa- 
tion. If these various encouraging trends and movements can 
be given adequate support, I am convinced that the more ser- 
ious obstacles to change in our secondary schools will largely 
disappear, and the senior high school will then enjoy a freedom 
of action comparable to that enjoyed by other units. Until this 
takes place, however, the senior high school is in much the 
same situation as the youngest child in a large family who has 
a plentiful supply of older brothers and sisters, two grand- 
mothers, and a half-dozen uncles and aunts, all of whom are 


greatly concerned to insure that the child is properly protected 
against facing its own problems and making its own decisions. 


It is my opinion that the Department of Secondary-School 
Principals would render great service to public education if it 
gave its support to proposals designed to free the senior high 
school from the excessive outside control that has developed 
in recent years and thus paved the way for reorganization and 
reconstruction in terms of the findings and recommendations 
to be found in the numerous reports in the field of secondary 
education. How to do this should be a challenging assign- 
ment to a committee of the Department. 


The chairman announced that L. W. Brooks, H. V. Kepner, 
Louis E. Plummer, and Joseph Roemer were elected as mem- 
bers of the Council of the National Honor Society. 














PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 67 


THE THIRD GENERAL SESSION 


The third session of the Department of Secondary-School 
Principals was a joint meeting with the Department of Super- 
intendence in the Ballroom of the Auditorium at 8:15 P. M., 
Tuesday, February 26, 1935. 


The program opened with chorus singing. Executive Sec- 
retary S. H. Shankland, of the Department of Superintendence, 
presided. 








68 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SECON- 
DARY EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


CHARLES H. JUDD 
University of Chicago 


More than one hundred graduates of Cambridge and Ox- 
ford universities were among those who settled New England 
before 1643, the date at which Puritan immigration prac- 
tically ceased. Added to these were a number who had at- 
tended English universities but had not graduated. The total 
of highly educated men was perhaps 130. There were, in all, 
some four thousand families in New England at the time with 
which this tercentenary is concerned. It appears, accordingly, 
as the result of a simple calculation, that for every thirty fam- 
ilies there was a university man. Not only so, but these uni- 
versity-trained men were for the most part pastors of 
churches, occupying positions of the highest influence in the 
communities in which they lived. There were others also in 
those earliest settlements who had crossed the Atlantic be- 
cause of their devotion to high ideals. Rev. William Stough- 
ton in his election-day sermon in the year 1668 described the 
people who had come to New England by saying: “God sifted 
a whole Nation that He might send choice Grain over into 
this Wilderness.” 

It is little wonder that such people thought of the mainte- 
nance of educational institutions as one of their first obliga- 
tions. As the record states in their own reverent words: 

“After God had carried us safe to New England, and wee 
had builded our houses, provide necessaries for our liveli- 
hood, rear’d convenient places for God’s worship, and settled 
the civill government: One of the next things we longed for 
and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to 
posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the 
churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.’’? 

Three hundred years have passed since the town of Bos- 
ton, moved by the desire to perpetuate learning, voted on 


1John Langdon Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Har- 
vard University, I, 207. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Charles William 


Sever, 1873. 
2New England’s First Fruits. London, 1643. Reprinted in Collec- 


tions of the Massachusetts Historical Society, I (1792), 242. 








| — mest Ae 


=" 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 69 


April 13, 1635, that “our brother Philemon Pormont, shall be 
intreated to become scholemaster, for the teaching and nour- 
tering of children with us.”' That brief record is all that is 
today known of the movement to establish a school in 1635. 
The exact date on which the proposed school actually opened 
is uncertain. The records show that a subscription for a 
school was raised by certain richer inhabitants of Boston at a 
meeting held August 12, 1636. Other records tell of a school 
established by a vote of the town of Charlestown on June 3, 
1636, and of a school organized in the town of Dorchester in 
1639. In due time, the New England colonies dotted their 
sparsely settled territories with schools, not many in number 
but all devoted to keeping alive the traditions of education, 
which were among the most cherished ideals of the people. 


The records are meager and obscure with regard to the 
content of instruction in the earliest days of the Boston school 
which later became the Boston Latin School. Doubtless its 
organization and curriculum, like those of the other schools 
of the same period, were patterned as closely as possible after 
the schools of England, where learning was at that date mainly 
the privilege of the upper classes, especially of the clergy. 
Certain it is that, when Harvard and Yale were established, 
they and the schools that prepared boys to enter them were 
classical schools. 


In addition to the classical schools, the New Fngland col- 
onies established schools for the common people. In 1647 the 
General Court of Massachusetts ordered that a school of the 
type which afterward came to be known as the common school 
be maintained in every community where there were fifty 
householders. The order which provided for the establish- 
ment of common schools also provided for grammar schools 
in the larger centers of population, in communities with at 
least one hundred householders. 


It is not the function of a sketch as brief as this must be 
to trace in any detail the vicissitudes through which the lower 
and the higher schools passed. At the celebration of the two 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Bos- 
ton Latin School held in 1885, Phillips Brooks, himself a grad- 


1Boston Town Records, 1634-1660, p. 5. Boston: City of Boston, 
1881, 








70 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


uate of the school, commented on an occurrence which took 
place in 1711, a little less than a century after the founding 
of the school. He said: 


“Some innovators, restless spirits who were not satisfied 
to leave things as they were, had made inquiries and found 
that in the schools of Europe boys really learned Latin, and 
learned it with less of toil and misery than here. And so they 
sent a memorial to the town house which recounted, to use its 
curious words, that ‘according to the methods used here very 
many hundreds of boys in this town, who by their parents 
were never designed for a more liberal education, have spent 
two, three, and four years or more of their early days at the 
Latin School, which hath proved of very little or no benefit to 
their after accomplishment’.’”! 


The division of the youthful population into those who 
wanted a classical education and those who, in the language of 
the protestants of 1711, “were never designed for a more lib- 
eral education” grew more and more pronounced during the 
eighteenth century. Not only in Boston but in other centers 
the classical curriculum encountered opposition. Practical 
courses in navigation, accounting, and like subjects were de- 
manded and secured either in the schools or through private 
instruction. The sharper and sharper division between the 
American youth who wanted practical education and those 
who were satisfied with the classical curriculum borrowed 
from the Old World had a two-fold result. First, it led to the 
development of the academy ; second, it led to the creation of an 
entirely new kind of school for the common people. These 
two series of changes must now be outlined. 


The movement to provide more liberal forms of education 
for youth gave rise to the academies. There were a few of 
these institutions in the early years of the eighteenth century. 
In 1743, Benjamin Franklin, that leader in American thought 
whom a recent biographer has described as the first civilized 
American, formulated a plan for the organization of an educa- 
tional institution of higher grade than the common school 
which was not to be dominated by the classical tradition.” 


1Phillips Brooks, An Oration at the Celebration of the Two Hundred 
and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Foundation of the Boston Latin School, 
April 23, 1885, pp. 43-44. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1885. 


























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 71 


Franklin was an unsparing critic of the system of higher edu- 
cation which existed in his day. He saw the necessity of a 
new type of instruction for boys interested in practical com- 
mercial and industrial pursuits. : 


In 1749 Franklin published a document to which he gave 
the title: Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in 
Pensilvania. A passage from this document which gives an 
explicit account of the curriculum of the proposed liberal 
academy, especially with regard to its treatment of foreign 
languages, is as follows: 


“All intended for Divinity should be taught the Latin and 
Greek; for Physick, the Latin, Greek and French; for Law, 
the Latin and French; Merchants, the French, German, and 
Spanish: And though all should not be compell’d to learn 
Latin, Greek, or the modern foreign Languages; yet none that 
have an ardent Desire to learn them should be refused; their 
English, Arithmetick, and other Studies absolutely necessary, 
being at the same Time not neglected. 


“If the new Universal History were also read, it would 
give a connected Idea of human Affairs, so far as it goes, 
which should be follow’d by the best modern Histories, par- 
ticularly of our Mother Country; then of these Colonies; 
which should be accompanied with Observations on their Rise, 
Encrease, Use to Great-Britain, Encouragements, Discourage- 
ments, &c. the Means to make them flourish, secure their Lib- 
erties, &c. 

“With the History of Men, Times and Nations, should be 
read at proper Hours or Days, some of the best Histories of 
Nature, which would not only be delightful to Youth, and fur- 
nish them with Matter for their Letters, &c. as well as other 
History; but afterwards of great Use to them, whether they 
are Merchants, Handicrafts, or Divines; enabling the first the 
better to understand many Commodities, Drugs, &c. the sec- 
ond to improve his Trade or Handicraft by new Mixtures, Ma- 
terials, &c. and the last to adorn his Discourses by beautiful 
Comparisons, and strengthen them by new Proofs of Divine 
Providence.”? 


1Benjamin Franklin’s Proposals for the Education of Youth in Penn- 
sylvania, pp. 27-29. Ann Arbor, Michigan: The William L. Clements 
Library, 1927. 








72 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


The academy which Franklin proposed was established 
in 1751. It afterward became the University of Pennsylvania. 
The influence of Franklin’s views on education was by no 
means limited to this single institution. During the last dec- 
ades of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nine- 
teenth century many liberal academies were organized. Their 
curriculums represented a compromise between that of the 
Latin school and the freer program of more practical studies 
which Franklin described as needed by boys who were to take 
their places in society as men of many callings. 


No account of secondary education in the United States 
is complete which does not give full recognition to the acad- 
emies. By 1850 there were 6,085 such institutions with 12,260 
teachers and 263,096 pupils. They can properly be described 
as people’s colleges. They received the young men and women 
from the towns and from the open country and gave them ad- 
vanced educational opportunities which the local schools did 
not offer. The academies were in some cases aided by the 
states but were in general private schools. They were often 
organized and supported by religious organizations. Some- 
times they were endowed institutions. They commonly 
charged tuition. Whatever their form of organization, they 
represented the ambition of a democratic people to provide 
youth with a liberal education. Liberal education meant to 
the America of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- 
turies not a restricted classical education but that broader type 
of education which the active imagination of Franklin had pic- 
tured in his document of 1749. It was through the academies 
that a new definition of secondary education became familiar 
to the people of the United States. 


Even the academies, however, were at times criticized be- 
cause of their leanings toward aristocracy. In 1795, Samuel 
Adams, as governor of Massachusetts, issued the following 
warning: 

“It is with satisfaction that I have observed the patriotic 
exertions of worthy citizens, to establish Academies in vari- 
ous parts of this Commonwealth. It discovers a zeal highly 
to be commended. But while it is acknowledged, that great 
advantages have been derived from these institutions, per- 
haps it may be justly apprehended, that multiplying them, 








ff a= 2 ae ees 


Ss ct# 2 Oo 




















73 





PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


may have a tendency to injure the ancient and beneficial mode 
of Education in Town Grammar Schools. The peculiar ad- 
vantage of such schools is, that the poor and the rich may de- 
rive equal benefit from them; but none excepting the more 
wealthy, generally speaking, can avail themselves of the bene- 
fits of the Academies. Should these institutions detach the at- 
tention and influence of the wealthy, from the generous sup- 
port of town Schools, is it not to be feared that useful learn- 
ing, instruction and social feelings in the early parts of life, 
may cease to be so equally and universally disseminated, as it 
has heretofore been?’ 


At this point the discussion must go back to the second 
series of changes referred to earlier, namely, the changes 
which brought forth on this continent a new kind of educa- 
tion for the common people. While the Latin schools were 
being supplemented, and in an important sense replaced, by 
the academies, the schools for the common people were devel- 
oping in accordance with the spirit of the new civilization that 
was spreading westward from New England. Every com- 
munity in Massachusetts of fifty householders had been or- 
dered by the law of 1647 to organize a common school. In 
Massachusetts, in obedience to this law, and later in other 
colonies and states, in imitation of the example of Massachu- 
setts, pioneer towns and villages organized common schools. 
There is one important point which must be kept clearly in 
mind if one is to understand the relation of these schools to 
American history. The common school was not like the school 
which is known today as the elementary school. To the com- 
mon school of the early history of this country went not only 
little children but also young people far beyond fourteen years 
of age. The younger pupils commonly attended school in the 
summer, and the young people of the community well advanced 
toward their majority went to school during the winter 
months, when they were released from farm labor. 


Many are the stories of struggle of the teachers who tried 
to control the young people in the common school. That school 
was not merely a place where the intellectual arts were culti- 
vated ; it was a place where the problems of law and order had 


j 
1Jndependent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser, June 4, 1795. 








74 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


to be solved in such a way as to deal effectively with young 
people who were learning that freedom releases the individual. 

The American common school developed as a clear ex- 
pression of the conception which frontier communities had of 
free popular education. No one can understand what has hap- 
pened in American education since the war between the states 
who does not recognize the fundamental significance of the 
fact that the early native American school, the common school, 
was a school for adolescents as well as a school for younger 
children. 


The common school underwent a transformation in the 
three decades following 1840. Horace Mann of Massachu- 
setts, Henry Barnard of Connecticut and Rhode Island, Cal- 
vin E. Stowe of Ohio, and John D. Pierce of Michigan, recog- 
nizing the shortcomings of the ungraded common school and 
guided by the example of the German Volksschule, organized 
the elementary school, the eight-year school with which all the 
members of the present generation are familiar. In so doing, 
these reformers reduced the common school of the United 
States to an institution which deals only with younger chil- 
dren, children of less than fourteen years of age. 


For a short period, while the common school was chang- 
ing into an eight-year elementary school, the academies satis- 
fied fairly well the needs of the adolescents of the nation. As 
has been pointed out, the academies were for the most part tui- 
tion schools. At first, the common schools also often extracted 
small payments, or so-called “rates,” from their patrons, but 
the common schools moved steadily in the direction of provid- 
ing free education for all the children of the communities, that 
is, they became tax-supported schools. It was inevitable that 
sooner or later the question should be raised: Why are the 
young people of more than fourteen years of age to be ex- 
cluded, as they were not in earlier days, from free public 
schools? 


The fundamental conception of a common school open to 
all the young people of the community was not abandoned by 
the people of this nation when their educational leaders organ- 
ized the eight-year elementary school. Nor did the privately 
established and privately controlled academies ultimately sat- 
isfy the ambitions of these people. The spirit which prompted 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 75 


the inhabitants of this new country to establish and defend the 
principle of political equality also dictated that whatever edu- 
cation communities were able to provide for the young people 
should be provided in a democratic way for all. When the 
common school became the elementary school restricted to 
eight years, the American people showed their pioneering 
genius by creating a new kind of school, one which was not 
patterned after the European Latin school, one which did not 
accept the limitations of the academy, one which must be 
thought of as the direct descendant of the native American 
common school—the school which grew up in frontier com- 
munities and included both little children and young people 
beyond fourteen years of age. The high school of the United 
States is the unique invention of a democratic people. Even 
before the war between the states the restricting influence of 
the imported eight-year elementary school was here and there 
being combated by extensions upward of this school. New 
England towns in many cases refused to limit elementary 
schools to eight years and added a ninth year as a regular part 
of their organization. Large centers of population both in 
New England and in other parts of the country went further 
and organized union schools that carried education beyond 
the rudimentary level. 


This tercentenary celebrates a notable date in the his- 
tory of American civilization. It is fitting that there be rec- 
ognition of the significance of the action of 1635. It is even 
more fitting that there be understanding and full recognition 
of the fact that, as the years have passed since 1635, there has 
come an extension of the ideal of general education which no 
Puritan could have envisaged in his most ambitious dreams of 
intellectual and social opportunity. The movement to establish 
a school in Boston did, indeed, foreshadow the development at 
a much later date of the high schools of the United States, but 
the immediate parent of the American high school is the com- 
mon school, which in the pioneer communities of the New 
World gave to all the young people the best education that the 
resources of those communities could afford. American free 
public high schools began to be organized in the years follow- 
ing the war between the states in direct response to the de- 
mand of this nation for a continuation of the education of all 











76 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


young people beyond fourteen years of age, the limit set by the 
reconstructed eight-year elementary school. 


In a series of brilliant researches, the results of which 
are published in recent issues of the School Review, Burrell 
and Eckelberry have traced the opposition which the new free 
public high schools encountered in the courts and in educa- 
tional discussions during the years when they were beginning 
to flourish, especially between 1873 and 1885. 


These authors review in detail the litigations in the vari- 
ous states which resulted from the attempt to restrict free 
public education to the elementary school. They summarize 
this phase of their investigation as follows: 


“The earliest case was begun probably in 1871, and the 
latest was decided in 1893. The supreme courts of seven 
states, principally in the Middle West, dealt with the high- 
school question. The Kansas court dealt with it twice and the 
Illinois court three times. With the exception of Charles H. 
Otken v. J. S. Lamkin (1879), every case grew out of opposi- 
tion to the high school. With the partial exception of Henry 
Rulison et al. v. Frances S. Post (1875), all the decisions were 
favorable to the high school. If we may assume that the opin- 
ions of the courts do, in a broad way, reflect dominant public 
opinion, the decisions would seem to indicate that throughout 
this period opposition to the free public high school, while 
strong and active, represented the view of the minority.”* 


The same authors point out that such educational leaders 
as Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University, and 
William G. Sumner, the famous and influential teacher of soci- 
etology at Yale University, opposed the free public high 
school, maintaining that the obligation of the state to provide 
free schooling is fully met by the elementary school. They 
summarize this phase of their investigation as follows: 


“The greater part of the discussion concerning the cost 
of high schools seems to have occurred between 1875 and 1880, 
and the effect on the laboring classes of extensive education 
was most seroiusly discussed during the ten years beginning 
1876 or 1877. In both these cases the evidence agrees with 


1B. Jeannette Burrell and R. H. Eckelberry, “The High-School 
Question before the Courts in the Post-Civil-War Period,” School Re- 
view, XLII (April, 1934), 265. 























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 77 


reasonable expectations, since the depression covered the years 
1873-78, while the gathering strength of the trade unions and 
the opposition to them date from the late seventies. Opposi- 
tion from those interested in academies and private schools 
and discussion of the problem of religious and moral instruc- 
tion were prominent from about 1884 or 1885. This line of 
argument may have represented a final desperate mustering of 
forces by private-school and religious interests against the in- 
creasingly powerful public institution.” 


Anyone who is disturbed by present-day attacks on free 
public high schools should acquaint himself with the historical 
facts reviewed by Burrell and Eckelberry. Every single ob- 
jection to these schools which is offered to-day by taxpayers’ 
associations and by ultra-conservative critics was formulated 
and urged sixty years ago. In spite of all objections, there 
has been during the past six decades a steady upward expan- 
sion of American education. It must be evident to the dis- 
criminating student of the national spirit of the United States 
that the foundation of universal free public education above 
the elementary level is as sure and safe as the foundation of 
this republic. 

It has been the good fortune of many of us in this assem- 
bly to have observed with our own eyes the expansion of the 
high schools of this country during recent decades. We have 
seen the pupil population of these schools expand until now it 
is more than 60 per cent of the total adolescent population. We 
have seen the curriculum grow in response to popular demands 
until now the meager offerings of the classical curriculum are 
eclipsed. We have seen the wholesome reorganization at the 
lower and upper levels of the high school. The new secondary 
schools include junior high schools in their lower grades and 
junior colleges in their upper grades. We have seen the build- 
ings in which the schools of the country are housed brought 
into line with the commodious and hygienic buildings in which 
industrial and commercial concerns carry on their operations. 
Can anyone think of all these changes as expressions of mere 
caprice? One hears the suggestion made by critics of Ameri- 
can high schools that these schools go back to the Old World 


1B, Jeannette Burrell and R. H. Eckelberry, “The Free Public High 
School in the Post-Civil-War Period,” School Review, XLII (November, 
1934), 674. 











78 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


exclusiveness which admitted only a few to the opportunities 
of education above the elementary level. This suggestion is 
made at the very time when everywhere in Europe the strug- 
gle is on to raise the common people to a social and educational 
level to which before the World War they were never allowed 
to rise. One hears complaints about the addition of new and 
vital instruction, such as instruction in the social studies, in 
science, and in practical subjects, to the limited curriculum 
made up of the subjects which some persist in describing as the 
“good old subjects.” 


To all objections raised by carping and penurious critics 
of the secondary schools of this country, there is one brief an- 
swer, and that answer is adequate. The American people have 
at all times, from the earliest days down to the present, ea- 
gerly desired and eagerly provided for the young people of 
the land education which is not limited to any social class or 
to eight years of elementary schooling. Devotion to the ideal 
of universal free education suited to the exacting demands of 
modern civilization brought forth in the United States a 
unique type of secondary education. The history of this na- 
tion guarantees the continued expansion of the secondary 
schools and of the whole educational system of the United 
States. The spirit which led to the organization of American 
high schools in the period following the war between the states 
and following the depression of 1873 is still alive and will 
overcome the obstacles which confront education in these trou- 
bled times. The people of the United States are seeking a 
fuller understanding and use of the human and natural re- 
sources of the country. They are adding to the program of 
secondary education a program of popular education for 
adults. The educational system of the United States will end 
its ministrations to the individual only when the individual 
ceases to desire the opportunity of improvement for himself 


and for his offspring. 























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 79 


THE PHILOSOPHY WHICH MUST GUIDE 
SECONDARY EDUCATION TO-DAY 


THOMAS H. BRIGGS 
Teachers College, Columbia University. 


The popular mind is skeptical of philosophy, conceiving it 
as “unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.” Unfortun- 
ately too much of what is called philosophy does seem to be 
characterized by the definition that William James so wittily 
gave. But there can be no doubt that everyone, each within 
his own competence, should develop and consciously organize 
orderly, consistent, and integrated attitudes based on funda- 
mental truths, beliefs, and ideals. This, in whatever degree 
perfected, is his philosophy. It is true that only a relatively 
few of mankind take the trouble to burrow down to all the 
necessary truths and to relate them to clearly defined ideals, 
thus developing an integrated attitude that is consistently 
held. It is true that fundamental principles and ideals are 
neither used nor demanded by the majority of those who do, 
and within restricting limits do acceptably, the work of the 
world. But it is also true that those who attempt to influence 
the large programs for the future must themselves have a 
directive philosophy. 

Many of the educational workers with myopic vision have 
apparently felt it sufficient merely to find what the facts are. 
Relying on incompletely considered maxims and lacking in- 
tegrated attitudes growing out of ideals, they have made a 
fetish of facts. “The truth is mighty” they say, but it prevails 
slowly, and not at all unless related to a problem. A fact or 
even an aggregation of facts has little or no real meaning 
apart from a problem of a principle. Truth can prevail only 
as its relations are known. “The truth shall make you free” 
only if one recognizes it as it affects and is affected by other 
truths which together indicate what should be done to achieve 
something that is desirable. Certainly one cannot become free 
without truth; but he can possess many truths unrelated to 
problems and uninterpreted by principles and still be utterly 
fettered by tradition and ignorance. 

If, as Plato once said, philosophy begins in wonder, then 
certainly it is developed by desire. And desire should not be a 











80 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


reflection of immediate personal need or of a narrowly con- 
ceived and temporarily held belief. It should grow from a 
clear consciousness of principles as fundamental as may be 
found, modified to conform to facts, basic to ideals, and so 
consistent with each other that together they make an inte- 
grated foundation on which may be erected a unified program 
of any number of harmonious parts. Any person’s philoso- 
phy, therefore, is in part an expression of what he desires. 
Always growing, it is never grown. But at any stage it fur- 
nishes a means of making his decisions sound, if his principles 
are sound and his application logical, consistent, if he applies 
his principles uniformly, and determining of all of his atti- 
tudes and actions. 

“The philosophic mind can 

take no middle ground.” 


My philosophy holds that in a democratic civilization edu- 
cation is an essential function and an essential instrument of 
society. Formerly it was and far too often in the present it 
still is considered as a benevolence; whereas it is, or it should 
be, an assured beneficence, not to the individual only, but to 
the supporting society as well. When considered a benevol- 
ence, it is on a shaky foundation; when a proved benefit to the 
necessities of the State, it will have the same support as other 
essential instruments. 

It may be fairly assured that society is concerned with its 
own interests, with its perpetuation, and with its improve- 
ment, in order that the individuals who compose it may be 
maximally free and happy. This desideratum is too important 
to be left to chance. It is too vital to the happiness of the peo- 
ple who compose society, to the individuals for whom society 
becomes coherent, for it not to be sought as consistently and as 
skilfully by education as can be made possible by professional 
foresight and ingenuity. Although there are many agencies 
that can and do affect the ideals and the actions of individuals, 
the only one that society controls is the schools. It is common 
sense, therefore, that society should use the schools to achieve 
the perpetuation of such modes of living as it has approved 
and to prepare youth so that in maturity they can effectively 
propose or understandingly evaluate what is proposed by oth- 
ers for the improvement of these modes of life. Not merely 
this, it should use the schools to make individuals as potent as 























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 81 


they can be for convincing others of what seems superior and 
of translating each proposal into appropriate action. 


The basic function of education, is, therefore, to make 
youth better disposed and better able to contribute to the bet- 
terment of society, either by participating with their maxi- 
mum. effectiveness in the accepted modes of life or by perceiv- 
ing other and better modes, which they are active to convince 
their fellows are superior. The principle now being elabor- 
ated, it will be seen, is far from justifying a static society. It 
assumes that changes will constantly be needed and that as 
they are needed they should be made. But changes should first 
be approved by adult society and then taught to youth along 
with the justifying reasons. It would be the acme of folly for 
society to maintain schools for perpetuating and promoting its 
ideals and then to permit any individual teacher to use his 
strategic position for indoctrinating youth with ideals hostile 
to those approved by the majority of the supporting public. 


Thus conceived, education is of such importance that so- 
ciety not only must support it, society must control it and in- 
sure that every youth comes under its influence. If private 
schools of any of the several kinds are to continue, it follows 
that they cannot be allowed to be wholly independent. It is 
essential that they be controlled at least to the extent of insur- 
ing that they likewise contribute to the perpetuation and the 
promotion of the interests of society as the public have decided 
them to be. 

Because of the importance of education thus conceived, it 
should be compulsory for all youth not to any arbitrarily fixed 
age, but to the extent to which each individual is competent to 
profit by its offerings that he may grow in power and in desire 
to contribute to the betterment of society. It is inevitable that 
some individuals will reach the point of educational satura- 
tion before society is ready to provide them work by which 
they can become self-sustaining and contributory to the wel- 
fare of others. In that situation society must substitute pro- 
tection for education. It is inconceivable that it should be 
willing for such youth to be left to selfish exploitation or to 
uncontrolled influences that may undo the most important 
previous achievements of the schools. What the best forms of 
such protection should be we do not as yet know with any 
degree of certainty. 











82 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


It has been objected that the conception of education as an 
instrument of society to perpetuate itself and to promote its 
own interests unfairly restricts the individual. In a very nar- 
row sense this may be true. Society very generally attempts 
to restrict any individual from acting with such selfish idiosyn- 
crasy that he interferes with the welfare or happiness of his 
neighbors. It assumes that the privileges of enjoying the com- 
panionship and contributions of others carries with it obliga- 
tions. If one is not willing to accept such obligations, he has 
the alternatives of living a solitary life, so far as that be pos- 
sible, or of being made to conform in essential matters. In a 
large sense the objection is not at all sound, for society can 
profit only as the individual profits, and it is generally recog- 
nized that any individual will grow best by developing the pow- 
ers derived from nature and from experience. The worth and 
dignity of any person are most enhanced not by attempting— 
vainly, as a rule—to mold him according to the ideas of tra- 
dition, but by developing him according to his own inclina- 
tions and the possibilities of nature. We are learning so rap- 
idly to identify and to respect individual potentialities that 
society can soon—can even now, perhaps—share positively in 
the decision as to what kinds of education any individual 
should have or may be permitted to have. It is neither sane 
nor safe to leave the matter wholly to the incompletely in- 
formed and selfish judgments of parents or to the immature 
judgments of the youths themselves. 


This principle that education provided and controlled by 
society should be so organized as to insure the maximum con- 
tribution to human welfare and progress has been generally 
accepted in theory. It has not, however, been potent, as as- 
suredly it must be, in determining the kind of education that 
is given. The reason for this failure is simple. There exists 
no clearly formulated and generally accepted statement of the 
ideals and the consequent activities that are maximally good 
for our democratic society. It is true that there are some 
commonly approved principles of democracy, but they usually 
are expressed in slogans or maxims from which the edges of 
meaning have been worn by long and thoughtless use, and also 
there is vague and undefined agreement as to what is good. 
But if education is to cease being a benevolent luxury, if it is 
to become an assured beneficence to society, the ideals of de- 























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 83 


mocracy and the activities that insure their approximation 
must be far more definitely understood and far more practi- 
cally approved by the thinking public as essential. A laissez 
faire education is a luxury and an expensively wasteful one. 
On the other hand, an education based on the ideals of de- 
mocracy and assuring the perpetuation and the improvement 
of the kind of society that it demands is anserious business, 
an undertaking that must have abundant support and wise 
direction if democracy is to be successful. 


The philosophy that should direct secondary education 
to-day holds also that education should be concerned with all 
of the complex of every individual. Hitherto it has attempted, 
almost exclusively, to train the mind. When it was generally 
believed that the mind was a sort of compound organism, the 
parts of which could be so exercised by the performance of 
difficult and disagreeable tasks that it would be effective in 
any situation, however novel, the challenge seemed a relatively 
simple one. But with new knowledge of the mind the chal- 
lenge has become far more complex. Despite more than a 
generation now of the new psychology, there is an astonishing 
residuum of faith, among both the lay and the professional 
public, in “mental training,” and continually there are still 
made new proposals for teaching which on analysis prove to 
base on the discredited belief. The fact that education of this 
kind if successful at all is materially effective with only a 
small fraction of even the minority that continue in school to 
adulthood singularly fails to discourage the traditionalists. 
Certainly we should train the mind to the maximum of possi- 
bility, but with equal certainty we should realize the limita- 
tions of all methods, salvage the best that is in them, and 
invent new ones that are more assuredly and more generally 
successful. We must abandon in practice the attempts “to 
train the mind” as a whole by abstractions divorced from ac- 
tual realities. 


Every individual consists of far more than intellect. 
Every part of his complex—the physical, the aesthetic, the 
emotional, and the moral—is important to himself and also 
to the society of which he is a part. Education of the physical 
was tardily accepted as a part of our obligation, and even yet 
it has not gained in the opinion of the public, in which can be 
included a majority of the teachers, the respect traditionally 








84 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


accorded the “intellectual subjects.” Education of the aesthe- 
tic, though in the field of music alone it has recently made 
gratifying progress, is still widely considered to be a “fad” or 
a “frill,” both derogatory terms without the respectable sanc- 
tion of accurate definition. Education of the emotions has not 
yet got out of the stage of theory. Though certainly of high 
importance, it has not been sufficiently accepted in the educa- 
tional program to develop specific objectives, approved techni- 
ques, or assured results. And education for character with 
its subsequent improved conduct is after centuries of verbal 
emphasis just about where it started. As Mark Twain said 
about the weather, we talk a great deal about it, but nobody 
does anything. This citation of neglected phases of education 
is not for the purpose of condemnation, but rather for the pur- 
pose of indicating what must be done in the future. It is only 
just to state that educators are increasingly concerned with 
both the theory and the practice of them all. If only research 
would contribute to a constructive program, there is little 
doubt but that they would gradually become an integral part 
of the new curriculum. 


The philosophy that should control secondary education 
in the future demands far better definitions than we now have 
—or, certainly, than we now practically and consistently use. 
A definition should first of all be clear, so that everyone can 
without mistake understand it. A consideration of many 
definitions that have been proposed would seem to indicate that 
they were formulated to impress by obfuscation rather than 
to convey clearly perceived thought. A good definition should 
also be sound in that it uses the pertinent facts of life and 
psychology and accords with the accepted ideals of society. It 
should be comprehensive, including all the complex of every 
individual and concerned with all of the good life. It should 
be adaptable, so that it will apply to every condition, old or 
new, to every place, and to every time. And it should be prag- 
matic—that is, causing the one who accepts it to do some- 
thing, to do something different from ordinary practice, with 
assurance of a sanction which original approval of the defini- 
tion carries. By these criteria many proposed definitions 
should be tested, and one that passes the test should be accept- 
ed or invented by every educator who has any ambition for or 
expectation of leadership. 





4 


























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 85 


A handicap under which education too generally at pres- 
ent labors is that many teachers do not have the habit of 
thinking for themselves and on the basis of approved theory 
of proposing novel subject-matter and methods. Too many 
wish to be told by some assumed “authority” exactly what to 
do, and other of more independent competence decide between 
two results of empiricism without the essential direction of an 
integrated philosophy. There can be no effective break with 
what is useless or bad in tradition and there can be no intelli- 
gent pioneering without the constant stimulus and direction 
by sound definitions and an integrated philosophy. 


The following definition, so simple in statement as to lack 
the impressiveness of the language of pedaguese, is proposed 
as meeting all the requirements of the criteria. The first duty 
of education is to teach people to do better the desirable things 
that they are likely to do anyway. Another duty is to reveal 
to them higher activities and to make them both desired and 
maximally possible. This is believed to be clear, sound, com- 
prehensive, adaptable, and pragmatic. Objection to this defini- 
tion may be made because it requires anyone who attempts to 
use it to make many decisions for himself. But that is pre- 
cisely one of its advantages: it furnishes freedom and insures 
growth through the assumption of responsibility. Decisions 
must be made, and it is only by attempts to make them, seek- 
ing all aid necessary, that any teacher can grow toward inde- 
pendence and toward leadership. It is thus that the substan- 
tial progress of education can be assured. 


This definition at first seems to apply only to subject-mat- 
ter. But reflection will show that it applies equally well to all 
elements of education. Certainly it applies to methods of 
learning and of teaching. There is little justification of con- 
tinuing in schools methods that will seldom or never be used 
afterward in life. In classrooms, as a rule, one who knows the 
answers asks questions of those who are suspected of not 
knowing them. In life, on the contrary, the one who is ignor- 
ant and wants to know asks of those who are presumably in- 
formed. This illustrates how commonly used methods persist- 
ing from tradition continue to violate common sense. The 
definition also applies equally well to conduct. If it is practi- 
cally accepted, there will be a consequent diminishing in 
schools of conduct requirements which are of value chiefly for 








86 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


administrative convenience and fail to make the optimum 
contribution to the education which will determine what later 
free conduct will be. 


Pragmatic application of this definition will, of course, 
be without prejudice to anything new or to anything old. 
There is a common attitude which holds suspect anything that 
comes from the past, as if the long empiricism of civilization 
had learned nothing of value. And there is another common 
attitude which holds more than suspect anything that is novel, 
as if the ingenuity of man could invent nothing good unknown 
to the past or appropriate to new conditions of the present. 
Both attitudes are equally unfortunate. In Flexner’s fine 
phrase, “nothing should be unproved.” What of the past is 
good by sound criteria should, of course, be retained, and what 
by the same criteria is good from all proposed in the present 
or future should be incorporated into the program of the edu- 
cation of to-day and to-morrow. 


It is, or it should be obvious that application of the fore- 
going principles and definitions necessitates education for both 
vocational and avocational effectiveness. The former type has 
for three reasons been handicapped: (1) It is novel to the 
American school program, (2) It is costly, and (3) It has so 
far been overambitious. It is true that some forms of voca- 
tional education, notably for clerical occupations, have been 
offered in many schools for a long time; but it can fairly be 
maintained that they never gained in the popular mind the un- 
proved prestige of the traditional academic studies. Under 
the pinch of economy vocational education is easily squeezed 
out of the program, or at least squeezed to smaller proportions. 
They lack popular defense in that only a minority of the adult 
population has consciously profited from such training. More- 
over, much of vocational education attempts to furnish more 
than actual work in the trades demands. In their ambition to 
train leaders the schools have an unnecessarily large program, 
with the result that the majority of youth have not been taught 
to hew wood or to draw water better than they would ordinar- 
ily do. If the schools would ascertain what the actual demands 
in the trades are and provide first of all courses satisfying 
their primary demands, at the same time revealing higher ac- 
tivities and encouraging the more able to seek the training for 
performing them acceptably, the problem would have a sound 


























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 87 


beginning of solution. Moreover, the handicaps previously 
mentioned would in large measure disappear. 


Probably most of secondary education is and should be 
contributory to intellectual efficiency and happiness. In the 
past this has been generally accepted as a principle; and in 
the future it must be accepted with assurance of satisfying 
results. Many of the criticisms recently directed at secondary 
and at higher education emanate from people who have failed 
to get from history, English, foreign languages, the sciences, 
and mathematics anything that they have later used with 
any degree of frequency for producing intellectual satisfac- 
tions, on their jobs or outside them. With the increase of 
leisure resulting from economic changes the importance of 
education for avocational pleasures is generally recognized, 
and many proposals have been made for consequent changes 
in the curriculum. Unfortunately, the prevailing conception, 
even among educators, of leisure-time activities is that they 
are primarily hiking, games of various kinds, creative work 
that is more or less artistic, and improved association with 
one’s fellows. These are, of course, all good, common in the 
lives of all people, and improvable by education. What has 
been unfortunately overlooked is that the most common and 
the most satisfying of all activities are those of the intellect. 
The education of the future must train youth to develop in- 
tellectual interests, in any fields whatever, that are numerous, 
varied, and deep, develop such interests so that they are strong 
enough to continue by their own strength and enthusiasm long 
after the formal school ceases to have any direct authority for 
compulsion. The possession of lively intellectual interests is 
the best evidence of one’s having attained a liberal education. 
The new curriculum will consist not so much of novel subject 
matter as of powerful and irradiating enthusiasms which al- 
ways satisfying are never satiated. Only those with such :in- 
terests and enthusiasms can truly teach or should be permitted 
to teach. 


The philosophy that will control the secondary education 
of the future is not greatly concerned with matters of organ- 
ization and of administration. These are, of course, import- 
ant, but they have and can have meaning only as they contri- 
bute to educational objectives derived from such principles 
as have been presented. A school is organized that it may be 

















88 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 





administered; it is administered that it may be instructed. 
There is no other justification for either organization or ad- 
ministration. When the objectives of secondary education 
are clearly defined, then and only then shall we know how to 
determine what types of organization are best and how schools 
can be most efficiently administered. 


In this paper nothing has been said about secondary edu- 
cation as an agent for bringing about a new social, political, 
economic, and religious order. The problem is too complex to 
be discussed here. But a careful consideration of the princi- 
ples that have been presented will reveal all that is essential 
for its solution. It is for the whole adult population in a demo- 
cracy to decide what sort of order is desired. When it has 
done that with any degree of completeness it should obviously 
use the schools to bring about what it has approved. If it is 
wise, it will at the same time have the schools reveal other 
types of society and of politics and of economics and of reli- 
gions, all of which will be considered fairly in preparation for 
understanding and for contribution as adults to the better- 
ment of what we have. If there is to be indoctrination—that 
is, influence tending in some one direction, a type of indoctrin- 
ation that is inevitable for most youth in most problems,—it 
should be that which is determined by the ideals of democracy. 
It cannot be safely left to anyone with a license to teach who 
thinks he has a superior idea because in some matters he is 
in the minority. 


The philosophy sketchily proposed is based on the assump- 
tion that education is an essential and potent instrument for 
preserving democratic society and for constantly providing 
the means of making it better. For this reason society must 
support education and control it in all of its forms. It must 
provide such differentiation as will make each and every in- 
dividual maximally able and maximally disposed to contribute 
to society, continuing educational opportunities or protection 
until each youth is able to take his place in society as a self- 
supporting and codperating individual. To assure this, educa- 
tion must be concerned with all the complex of every person, 
the intellectual, the physical, the aesthetic, the emotional, and 
the moral. It must give him the foundations of vocational ef- 
ficiency and develop in him for his avocational life intellectual 


























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 89 


interests that are numerous, varied, deep, and strong enough 
to provide progressive satisfactions. 


Thus briefly to present the philosophy that should direct 
the secondary education of the future is a staggering chal- 
lenge, greater even than to know what the philosophy should 
be. With a humility resulting from long attempts to come to 
conclusion I have done the best that I could in the allotted time. 
The presentation is incomplete, in places it is doubtless to 
some unnecessarily abstract and obscure, and to others it prob- 
ably lacks something that they would supply. But some such 
basic principles are surely needed as we get ready to plan the 
new secondary schools that will have greater responsibilities 
than ever before for making the new State a better place in 
which to live and in which to make a living. What has been 
proposed may serve as the material out of which a more com- 
plete and a more adequate philosophy can be developed. 











90 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


THE FINANCIAL POLICIES WHICH MUST BE 
WORKED OUT FOR SECONDARY EDUCATION 


SIDNEY B. HALL 
Superintendent of Public Instruction, Virginia. 


Introduction.—Unanimity of opinion and practice in re- 
gard to policies for financing public secondary education is no 
more to be expected than unanimity of opinion in regard to 
the policies of the federal government in financing its relief 


program. 

A comfortable attitude on the part of educators might 
be that of the kind of neutrality observed by the Irishman 
who said he was neutral because he didn’t give a hoop who 
licked Germany. We, likewise, might say that if public edu- 
cation is financed we don’t care who finances it. Unfortun- 
ately, however, we cannot escape the responsibility of help- 
ing to formulate such policies. 

In the past few years a vast amount of constructive 
thinking has been done in this important field. Probably the 
crystalization of this thinking may be found in the National 
Survey of School Finance, sponsored jointly by the United 
States Office of Education and the American Council on Edu- 
cation and published in three volumes.' Through these im- 
portant volumes and through the Report of the National Con- 
ference on the Financing of Education? we have been pro- 
vided with studies which shed much needed light on the gen- 
eral problem of finance. 

The topic which I have been asked to discuss deals with 
the financing of secondary education, and I am not sure wheth- 
er this circumscription simplifies or complicates my task. 
The attempt to discuss the problems concerned with the fin- 
ancing of secondary education as distinct from the financing 
of elementary education, inevitably leads to certain issues of 
a non-financial nature on which there may still be come diver- 
sity of public opinion. These issues involve such important 
social questions as the following: 


1“National Survey of School Finance”, U. S. Office of Education. 
2Report of “Conference on Financing Education”. Held under the 
auspices of the Joint Commission on the Emergency in Education. 























91 





PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


1. Shall the admission to public high schools be restrict- 
ed or shall we provide for all-comers? 


2. Through what ages and (or)-grades shall free public 
secondary schooling be provided? 


3. What special and vocational education shall society 
provide on the secondary level? 


These and many others of similar nature are large social 
questions which must be determined by public opinion before 
the full scope of our financial problems can be ascertained. 
Fortunately an excellent and thorough presentation of these 
and other issues has recently been prepared by the Commit- 
tee on the Orientation of Secondary Education of the Depart- 
ment of Secondary-School Principals of the National Educa- 
tion Association. 


The discussion presented in the tentative report of this 
committee seems convincing as to the desire of the public to 
have all-comers accepted by the public high schools except 
those grossly abnormal cases for which special institutions 
are or should be provided. In other words, all the children of 
all the people must be cared for in secondary schools as in’ 
elementary schools. The increase of the secondary-school 
population by six hundred and fifty per cent between 1900 and 
1930 and by a still greater rate since then, is one bit of im- 
‘ portant evidence that society has accepted the theory of uni- 
versal secondary education. The economic tendencies as ex- 
pressed in child labor laws and in the employment practices 
of big industries are now forcing’ the acceptance of this theory. 
An interesting contrast to this democratic policy is presented 
in studies being made by Fletcher Harper Swift, under the 
auspices of the University of California, of “European Policies 
of Financing Educational Institutions.” In these studies the 
fact that secondary education is still for privileged classes is 
made very evident. 

In regard to the second problem, the discussion seems 
equally convincing that secondary education must be consid- 
ered as embracing two grades beyond the usual twelfth or 
senior year of the high school, and that all of those who, in 
the opinion of school authorities, can profit thereby shall be 
provided for through the fourteenth grade. While it must be 
recognized that only a few school systems have yet provided 











92 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


free secondary education as extensive as this, the need for 
doing so is definitely with us. 

The responsibility of society for providing vocational 
training both before and after employment so “that each in- 
dividual may be able to procure a position and advance in it” 
is also established in the report of this committee, although 
it definitely denounces “the impossible, unnecessary, and un- 
wise ideal of providing complete and highly specialized voca- 
tional training.” 

If the position taken by the Committee on the Orienta- 
tion of Secondary Education in regard to these issues may be 
considered acceptable to our public, we may lay at least this 
much foundation for discussion of finance. 

There are certain other non-financial questions which are 
of a less public nature, but which have a bearing directly or 
indirectly on the cost of secondary education if not the policies 
of financing it. I refer to such questions as: 

1. The desirable size of high schools. 

2. The desirable size of high-school classes. 

3. The extent to which departmentalization shall be per- 

mitted or encouraged in high schools. 

4. The preparation of teachers for secondary-school work. 

5. The certification requirements for teachers. 

Other factors affecting cost on which the profession has 
not come to any general agreement might be mentioned, but a 
discussion of such factors is impracticable here. 


Two pertinent issues of a general public nature, coming 
directly under the category of finance, are the following: 

1. Can the public afford to provide free universal second- 

ary education? 

2. To what extent shall the various governmental agen- 
cies accept the responsibility of supporting secondary 
education? 

The people of the United States show great faith in and 
favor for public education, but their faith seems to have em- 
braced the idea that the virtue of teaching is its own reward 
—or that Heaven will provide salaries for the teachers. 

It is hard to believe that any one can face the contrast 
between the expenditure in the United States for tobacco, 


























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 93 


candy, cosmetics, etc., and those for public education without 
realizing that we can amply provide for a much more gener- 
ous program of both elementary and secondary education with- 
out making public education an unreasonable burden on so- 
ciety. Is it not reasonable to suppose that we can at least 
provide as much for public education as for luxuries and per- 
haps a little more? Would any good citizen maintain that to 
ask for one-fourth as much for public schools as we spend on 
automobiles is unreasonable? Even one-fourth as much for 
schools as for passenger automobiles would call for only a five 
per cent increase in school funds. 

Any type of educational program the American public 
may desire can be easily financed. The problem is one of 
making the need felt and not of inadequate wealth. One of 
the twenty-eight monographs comprising the National Survey 
of Secondary Education is entitled “Interpreting the Second- 
ary School to the Public.” The ideas and plans of this bulle- 
tin need to be carried out rather completely. 

The issue of “To what extent shall the various govern- 
mental agencies accept the responsibility of supporting sec- 
ondary education?” has become an exceedingly live one in the 
past four years, although it was brought into prominence 
through the report of the Educational Finance Inquiry Com- 
mission (13 volumes, 1923) over ten years ago, and has been 
treated in more than 5,000 studies as shown by the “Biblio- 
graphy on Educational Finance,” published in 1932 as one 
volume of the National Survey of School Finance. 

The National Survey of School Finance has issued another 
volume “State Support for Public Education,” which repre- 
sents an extensive and intensive study of the aspect of the 
issue.. The discussion of federal support for education has 
been rather clearly defined recently by the National Advisory 
Committee in its report, “Federal Relations to Education.” 

Since all three of our governmental agencies, the local 
school division, the state, and the federal government, are 
already participating in the support of sceondary education 
(the federal government through the work in agriculture, 
home economics, trade, industrial and commercial education), 
there is no issue as to the propriety of each of these agencies 
participating, and the issue centers about the extent of this 
participation. 











94 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


Probably no two states are similar in regard to the con- 
ditions which affect this matter. A prosperous industrial 
state like Massachusetts, in which the local school divisions 
have always carried a large share of educational costs, pre- 
sents a very different problem from a state like Virginia 
where most of the local school divisions are rural counties with 
little taxable wealth other than farm land, and often farm 
land which is in a very depleted state of production. In Massa- 
chusetts an adequate school program seems to be possible with 
a relatively small amount of aid from the state treasury, 
whereas Virginia schools, outside of the larger cities, are ab- 
solutely dependent on state funds. 


When we consider the matter of the differences between 
the states in regard to the per capita provision for elementary 
and secondary education a most startling contrast is present- 
ed, as is well known. In New Jersey, for instance, the aver- 
age annual per capita cost of secondary education is $160, 
whereas in Virginia it is $45, and in Arkansas $43. These 
arresting contrasts suggest the fact that some states are in 
much greater need of federal aid than others, and that if our 
national ideal of equality of opportunity is to have anything 
more than lip service some effort to bring the educationally 
weaker states nearer to the educational level of the stronger 
states through federal aid is quite inevitable. 


The preceding discussion is merely a background for the 
consideration of the financial policies suggested in the title of 
this address. The title covers a very broad area of thought 
and leaves the writer in a very difficult position. Time will 
not permit full and complete treatment of all possible policies 
that should be considered in connection with the broad field 
of secondary education and its financial policies. It, therefore, 
becomes necessary to select certain broad and rather com- 
prehensive policies and deal with them, recognizing that furth- 
er consideration is necessary for detailed treatment within 
the broad policies being considered. 


The Responsibility for Secondary Education.—Since edu- 
cation on the elementary and secondary levels may te safely- 
assumed as desirable for all the children of all the people, and 
since it is in keeping with the democratic ideal of America 
that equal educational opportunity on these two levels be open 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 95 


and free to all, it seems defensible to say that the responsi- 
bility for making elementary and secondary education uni- 
versal and free rests upon: (1) The local communities, (2) 
The state government, and (3) The federal government. 
Therefore, the purpose of the remainder of this paper will be 
to indicate briefly the financial responsibility of: (1) The 
local community, (2) The state, and (3) The federal govern- 
ment, in providing equal educational opportunities for all the 
children of America. 


The Local Community.—It is the conviction of the writer 
that much harm will come to education when the intimate 
relationship between schools and patrons is disturbed by an 
outside authority. In order, therefore, to preserve and main- 
tain local initiative, local interest and local resourcefulness for 
education, it seems desirable to make the local community re- 
sponsible for those phases of the secondary-school budget 
which are more or less non-professional, yet which will safe- 
guard interest and support. That is to say, the local commun- 
ities should be held responsible for the construction of build- 
ings, general operation and maintenance, supplies and equip- 
ment, transportation, and such other items of the secondary- 
school budget as may be regarded as non-professional. In 
addition, the localities should be extended the privilege of 
supplementing teachers’ salaries in keeping with the ability 
to pay and educational zeal. 


In placing this responsibility upon the localities, it must 
be borne in mind that many questions of policy will arise. 
Some of them are: (1) What type buildings shall be con- 
structed? (2) What type equipment shall be bought? (3) 
To whom shall transportation be furnished? Under what 
conditions? and (4) What amount of insurance and what kind 
of insurance shall be carried? 


The State’s Responsibility——The state’s responsibility is 
very clear. If the purpose of education is the perpetuation 
and recreation of society, and if the school is society’s formal 
institution for realizing this end, it follows that the state 
should furnish the necessary financial support to make this 
possible. This can be done best by having the state establish 
and support a minimum educational program on both the 
elementary and secondary levels. Such a program will nat- 














96 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


urally be built around the teacher and the child to be taught 
or around instructional costs. It may be done either on the 
basis of the number of teaching units necessary, or in terms 
of the individual student. In either case you arrive at the 
same end, namely, having the state furnish the funds neces- 
sary to provide appropriate instruction to the students con- 
cerned. 

In placing this responsibility upon the state, it should be 
recognized that policies governing such a program must be 
worked out. Some of the questions on which policies must be 
decided are: (1) What shall be the teaching load? (2) What 
shall be the teacher’s salary? (3) What curriculum shall be 
offered? (4) What preparation must the teacher have? and 
(5) How many years of schooling shall be offered at public 


expense ? 


The Federal Government’s Responsibility—In the final 
analysis, when you refer to the locality, the state, and the 
federaf government, you are referring to the same individuals 
all the time. Nevertheless, there are aspects of local, state, 
and federal responsibility that become rather definitely local, 
or definitely state or federal. For example, the locality ob- 
viously is anxious to have good buildings because of the en- 
hanced values to local property. The state is anxious to per- 
petuate and recreate itself and hence is most interested in in- 
struction. On the other hand, the federal government recog- 
nizes that the boy or girl reared and educated in one commun- 
ity may finally live and contribute to society in some far re- 
moved state or community. The boy educated in far off Cali- 
fornia may ultimately reside in New Jersey. Accordingly, 
the federal government has the same interest that the state 
has except on a much broader scale. This naturally leads to 
the federal government’s helping to maintain an equal edu- 
cational opportunity for all the children in America. 


The National Advisory Committee on Education after de- 
voting a complete volume to the federal government’s respon- 
sibility for education, summed it up by saying, “The under- 
lying idea is that, in matters of education, the various Ameri-- 
can governments should supplement and reinforce each other 
in a unified development of all the educational processes which 
are socially needed to foster the evaluation of our democratic 


























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


institutions, to perpetuate the spirit of our civilization, and 
to give each citizen his utmost chance.” 


This being the case, and in view of the wide discrepancies 
in the abilities of the several states to provide an adequate 
educational program, it is inevitable that the federal govern- 
ment should assist in supporting a program of equal educa- 
tional opportunity for all the children of America. As said 
before, it is apparent that the well-being of every section of 
the United States is dependent upon the provisions for educa- 
tion made in each of the several states. 


Much discussion and debate has taken place as to the re- 
sponsibility of the federal government for education. A re- 
view of the literature on this topic reveals very definitely a 
gradually increasing attitude of favor to the matter. How- 
ever, the age old question of federal control and state’s rights 
constantly crops up. It has been suggested that it is neither 
necessary nor desirable that any federal agency should enter 
to control the expenditure of money made available to the sev- 
eral states.: This same authority adds, “All that can be re- 
quired is an audit that will establish the fact that the money 
granted by the federal government has been used for the pur- 
pose for which it was appropriated.” 

Even if this solution is not satisfactory to those who may 
favor federal control, it would not be impossible to handle fed- 
eral support of education in such way as to obviate federal 
control entirely. 

It seems feasible that “The American people are justified 
in using their federal tax system to give financial aid to educa- 
tion in the states.2- Although there is not adequate data now 
available to solve this problem immediately, it does appear that 
the recently appointed National Tax Committee, headed by Mr. 
Morgenthau, might be able to include this as a part of the 
problem which his committee is to study. If the federal gov- 
ernment could by serving as the collecting agency for taxes, 
make appropriations to the several states on some objective 
basis, in terms of definite needs and abilities as revealed 
through the establishment of satisfactory minimum educa- 
tional programs in each of the several states, thus leaving the 


1$trayer, George D., “Federal Responsibility for the Support of 
Education”. School Management, December, 1934, page 53. 
2National Advisory Committee, “Federal Relations to Education”. 


97 











98 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


question of control to each state, there would be no reason for 
fearing federal control. In this connection, however, national 
policies determining need and ability to pay, on an objective 
basis, must be worked out and accepted. 


Taxation.—Permeating the whole problem of financing 
secondary education is the question of taxation. In this con- 
nection the writer believes that the problems of taxation are so 
intricate and involved that a rather clear line of demarcation 
exists between the tax expert on the one hand and the profes- 
sional educator on the other. 

In the opinion of the writer, it is the duty of the educator 
to formulate the full and complete details of the educational 
program necessary to serve any particular community, state 
or nation. After formulating such a program, it is still the 
duty of the educator to defend and promulgate it. The edu- 
cator should also be prepared to codperate with the tax expert 
and the fiscal officers in general in finding the necessary reve- 
nues to finance such a program. However, it is, at the same 
time, the firm conviction of the writer that the tax expert 
should be held responsible for finding and providing the neces- 
sary sources of revenue for financing the program. 


If the educator has really prepared and brought to the at- 
tention of the public in general a defensible and workable pro- 
gram, the public will, generally, pay the necessary taxes. Such 
a program must be predicated upon the fact that all waste in 
education has been eliminated and all possible leaks in loss of 
revenue have been stopped. 

In addition to the financial policies considered in connec- 
tion with the responsibility of the locality, the state, and the 
federal government for education, consideration must be given 
ultimately to such questions as: (1) Shall funds be earmarked 
for education? (2) Shall school people name and advocate cer- 
tain forms of taxation or shall they merely point out possible 
sources of revenue? (3) Shall funds be earmarked specifically 
for secondary or elementary education? and (4) Shall school 
boards be fiscally independent? 

The foregoing questions clearly indicate that certain poli- 
cies with reference to taxation and financing in general must 
be formulated in order to finance properly secondary education 
or even education in general. 


























After long experience in the financing of educational pro- 
grams, it has become rather obvious to the writer that there 
should be no earmarking of funds for any purposes whatso- 
ever under governmental control. Qn the other hand, it is 
very clear that all sources of revenue which produce funds for 
governmental purposes should be pooled into one general treas- 
ury, and, in turn, allocated by the proper authorities of the 
state or nation to the several governmental functions in terms 
of their relative values and services rendered. That is to say, 
all moneys collected for governmental purposes should be ap- 
propriated out of the general treasury to the several govern- 
mental functions after these functions shall have been rated in 
terms of their relative value and services to the public. In 
order to do this, it will be necessary to have a very careful 
process of planning and budgeting prior to the meetings of 
the controlling body which usually performs the function of 
making appropriations. In these preliminary conferences, 
such as a budgeting committee would hold, the relative rank 
and value of any governmental function can be clearly brought 
to the attention of the budget-making body in terms of its 
value and services. The recommendations of such a body can, 
in turn, be included in the appropriation bill which ultimately 
will be presented to the legislative body making the appropria- 
tions to the various governmental functions. 


In concluding, let me repeat that policies for the financing 
of the upper years of the public school or secondary-education 
program, must be worked out in terms of definite responsibili- 
ties being recognized and accepted by the local communities, 
the state, and the federal government. The acceptance of such 
a series of policies would insure a rather complete and satis- 
factory financial plan for guaranteeing equal educational op- 
portunity to all the children of America. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 99 








100 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


THE PUBLIC AND THE PROGRAM OF SECON- 
DARY EDUCATION 


GEORGE F. ZooK 
Director, American Council on Education. 


Had one listened to much of the public clamor relative to 
economy during the last five years it would have been easy to 
conclude that all education, including secondary education, was 
quite unpopular. Certainly the high schools, latest addition to 
the family of popular education and attended by only one-half 
of the age group which they serve, came in for extended cri- 
ticism. 

Yet, as is always the case if you listen to only one bell, you 
hear only one sound. Moreover, the deepest, most thoroughly 
accepted feelings of a people are not so frequently paraded in 
the newspapers or on the public platform. It is the exceptional 
that makes headlines for the papers, not the underlying cur- 
rents of society. 

Hence we must look to the statistician’s handbook rather 
than to the newspaper to find out what people really want. The 
moment we do that we find that the people have spoken in clear 
and unmistakable terms. Prior to 1905 only 10% of the young 
people of high-school age were actually enrolled in high school; 
in 1915 it had increased to 20%; in 1921 to 30%; in 1923 to 
40% ; in 1930 to 5114%; in 1932 to 57.9%, with a total enroll- 
ment of 5,592,872. It is estimated that in 1935 there will be 
7,169,000, or 70.4% of our young people of high-school age 
enrolled in the secondary schools. Surely in all the field of 
social policy there is no more remarkable demonstration of 
popular faith than we have in the secondary schools unless it 
is the added fact that they have been demanded not merely in 
centers of population but in sparsely settled areas. The report 
for 1930 shows that 16,601 high schools of less than 200 enroll- 
ment dot the land. From this fact we are justified in conclud- 
ing that popular zeal for the establishment of high schools has 
considerably outrun popular wisdom in their organization. 

The present tremendous popularity of the secondary 
schools may well cause those who are in any way engaged in 
secondary education the deepest concern. The innumerable 























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


problems raised by this new social trend should be approached 
with a soul-searching professional responsibility. 


For it is to be remembered that the people of the United 
States are looking’ to the secondary schools as the great popu- 
lar agency of light and hope. To be sure, as is usual, one does 
not often find so deep an aspiration expressed orally or in pub- 
lic print. Even more seldom does one find any extended analy- 
sis on the part of the public of the particular services which 
it expects the secondary schools to render. 


Yet I am convinced that this opinion is not only there but 
that we can learn a great deal from it. In fact, while most of 
us, as a result of recent events and perhaps personal contacts, 
have less respect for business men as business men, we have 
far greater respect for them as plain citizens who sincerely 
wish to make their contribution toward the solution of our com- 
mon problems. 


I am, therefore, attempting the extremely difficult task 
of looking into the public mind to extract from it, if I can, a 
few of the most deep-seated aspirations it has relative to the 
secondary schools. As usual they are simple but they are 
fundamental to the preservation and development of American 
life. 


First of all let us take one of the simplest purposes which 
parents are asking the schools to perform, namely, the custody 
of their sons and daughters as they are developing into young 
manhood and young womanhood. Economic conditions and 
legal provisions are conspiring to deny to young people, while 
there is so much unemployment among their elders, the op- 
portunity to work in business before they are eighteen years 
of age. In actual practise the age restriction is often several 
years beyond 18. 

Under these circumstances it is a distinct relief to anxious 
parents to know that there is an institution usually within 
easy reach where active and even troublesome young offspring 
can be lodged for a substantial portion of the day. If they are 
less interested in their studies than they might be there is 
often no great concern because after all so long as young peo- 
ple are in school they are in fairly safe company. 

But there is a far deeper vein running through the popu- 
lar mind than what amounts to the mere custodial aspects of 


101 











102 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


secondary-school life. There is a vague appreciation that the 
normal experiences of young people are limited less to the 
home than formerly and more to the community which is in- 
creasing in size and complexity. Moreover, the small number 
of social agencies of the past, such as the church, now share 
with a host of other social organizations the interests and at- 
tention of young people. Where there is new-found and ex- 
tended freedom there is danger, and few parents there are who 
are not looking’ anxiously for any character building agency 
which will help to carry their sons and daughters through the 
critical period of their lives. I am confident that there is no 
other agency to which they turn more hopefully than the sec- 
ondary schools. A few may scoff and certain members of Con- 
gress may shy, as they did recently at a small expenditure in 
the District of Columbia for character education, but deep in 
their hearts the people of this country very much prefer to 
support schools rather than jails. So then, all schools, particu- 
larly the secondary schools, are a great investment in char- 
acter education to which they are looking with mingled hope 
and apprehension. They appreciate what we are doing but 
even where through neglect they themselves nullify our efforts 
in the home they want us to do better in helping to bring up 
their children. 


There is another deep-seated aspiration which parents 
have for their children. They want them to have a chance to 
earn a better living. Strong men and weary mothers will deny 
themselves their own opportunity to live a modest cultural life 
in order that they may provide their sons and daughters with 
that education which they hope will enable them to live in com- 
fort and even in affluence. The high school is the great popu- 
lar avenue through which most of them hope to realize this 
ambition. Notwithstanding the progress of the last twenty- 
five years I believe that the public has less faith that we ac- 
complish what is expected of us in this field than in the realm 
of character education. After all they know that other agen- 
cies, including the home, have a deep responsibility for develop- 
ing among young people proper moral and spiritual qualities. 
The same situation does not obtain in vocational education.. 
Instead of surrendering only a part of the responsibility as in 
the field of character training the home has, in most instances, 
given up completely its former responsibility in vocational 




















training. Not even a farmer’s son can learn on a well con- 
ducted farm all that he ought to know about his vocation. 


I believe, therefore, that the lay public, a large part of 
which now has sons, daughters or other close relatives en- 
rolled in the secondary schools, is saying to us in unmistakable 
tones that the secondary school system should be so modified 
as to fit young people more definitely to take up some useful 
occupation. At the same time every father or mother knows 
that it is next to impossible for young’ people to learn all that 
they should know about technical processes and labor condi- 
tions except on some actual job or under conditions as closely 
resembling the normal situation as possible. 


During the last quarter of a century there has been an 
undoubted tendency throughout most forms of technical and 
professional education to unite in some kind of combination 
subject matter training and actual experience. For example, 
no one now thinks of graduating a prospective doctor who has 
not had two years of clinical experience and often a fifth year 
of interneship in a hospital. The education of a nurse is a 
combination of practical experience and class work. A school 
of dentistry without extensive clinical facilities for its students 
would be a joke. A large part of the work of a library school 
is identical with much that is done by these same young people 
after they graduate and are regularly employed. Prospective 
teachers in the schools test themselves out in practise schools 
and usually wish they had had more such practical experience 
before they begin as regular teachers. The codperative courses 
in engineering have spread throughout the country. 

From these and many similar examples I think that we 
may easily conclude that the public wishes us to continue an 
educational tendency—the soundness of which is now so clear- 
ly evident—and to do everything we can to combine all forms 
of vocational and technical education offered in high school 
with actual experience in the industry, on the farm or in any 
establishment to which high-school graduates go for employ- 
ment. To accomplish this objective we must have, of course, 
not only a change of educational policy among high-school 
teachers and educational administrators, but a willingness on 
the part of industry and business to accept the social respon- 
sibility of providing these opportunities for practical exper- 
ience to young people without exploitation. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 103 





104 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


Next I believe that the American people are looking some- 
what apprehensively to the high schools for that type of train- 
ing which will prepare young people to respond intelligently to 
their duties as citizens in our democratic form of government. 
They realize vaguely that it is not merely a matter of the bal- 
lot box on election day but more that subtle, yet very real 
process of the formulation of public opinion on matters of 
public consequence. Can we as educators reassure the people? 
What more do we need to do in this important field of second- 
ary school work? 

This summer it was my good fortune to view with in- 
creasing interest in one city after another in Italy and Ger- 
many groups of young men who went swinging down the 
street, eyes forward, shoulders erect, ardent disciples of a new 
day. There is high purpose there, enthusiasm, a sense of in- 
dividual importance in the program and group action which 
seems to throw all our efforts at developing morale in class- 
room or out into disconcerting relief. 

Fresh from such a sight I called one day at the office of 
an important national official in Berlin. Without realizing 
any too well to whom I was talking, I confessed in the usual 
way our concern in America relative to the character of second- 
ary education, especially as to whether we could rely on our 
secondary schools to prepare men and women to carry on a 
democratic form of government. As quick as a flash he leaned 
across the desk and, looking me straight in the eye, said a bit 
indulgently, “Well, you people in America ought to know by 
this time that democracy won’t work. We tried it in Germany 
and we know. Democracy always means ineffective adminis- 
tration, slow action and personal insecurity. It means that you 
are attempting to raise the level of the average up to the best. 
Nobody—not even you Americans—can do that. Hence, in 
Germany we are reducing sharply the enrollment in the uni- 
versities and in the secondary schools and we are confining 
our educational efforts above the elementary schools to that 
small number of young’ people who are needed as leaders in the 
several walks of life, who alone have capacity for leadership 
and, hence, ability to govern.” ss 

Did you ever have a responsible person representing a 
great foreign nation put up to you so squarely what he be- 
lieved to be the futility of democracy? Let us not be deceived. 





an se 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 





These people in Italy, Germany, and Russia disagree violently 
with one another on most everything except that each country 
believes deeply that it has a form of government far superior 
to democracy. Is there not enthusiasm there? Is there not 
morale highly developed there? ‘Who,” said one of my friends 
sadly a few days ago, “is enthusiastic about democracy ?” 


I have an abiding faith in democracy and in the ability of 
our schools and colleges to prepare young people and adults to 
practice it. But I am aware of the difficulties which my Ger- 
man friend pointed out so incisively. As I came away from 
that interview the thought kept coming back and back, What 
can a democracy develop not so much as “a moral substitute 
for war” but rather as a substitute for marching? For it must 
be remembered that the great demonstrations of morale in 
Germany and Italy have largely been developed outside the 
classroom. To these people they are not merely symbols of 
national unity and purpose, they are living’ expressions of 
their form of citizenship training. What have we to substitute 
for it? 


Can we truthfully say that the average program of citi- 
zenship training in school or college, no matter what you sever- 
ally choose to include in it, has life to it? Is there enthusiasm 
there for democracy as an ideal? If we cannot develop morale 
in the practise of democracy among young people while they 
are impressionable and idealistic, what can we expect of them 
when they grow old and cynical? Isn’t it clear that we need 
to do something about it? 


It is a hard job. Some program of national objectives im- 
posed from above, some form of centralized action to attain 
them, and some form of citizenship training to participate in 
them all seem very simple and quickly secured in a centralized 
form of government. The processes of democracy, depending 
as they do on the mass, are slow in formulating objectives and 
slow in execution. We cannot deny the difficulties. 


May I proceed to what I believe to be the solution? I 
once had the task of selecting a professor of sociology. I made 
up my mind that I did not want a man who would teach this 
important aspect of citizenship education from the textbook. 
Therefore, I made arrangements to employ him on a half-time 
basis at the university, leaving him free to spend the other 


105 











106 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


half of his time in contact with and research for the several 
welfare agencies in the city. Before the new professor had 
been at work very long I noticed an unusual student interest 
in sociology. Students began going down town to interview 
various city and civic agencies in order to secure information 
for term reports. It was apparent that there was an enthus- 
iasm about the work in sociology which was based first on the 
vital approach of the teacher and secondly on the opportunity 
which the students had to come into contact with another as- 
pect of life as it was being lived this time on the social plane. 
I verily believe that this experience can be repeated with profit 
in all of the social studies and that if done it would go a long 
way toward developing a more vigorous interest in these fields 
of work. 

I predict further that when students come thus more fre- 
quently into contact with the living issues of life they will for- 
sake some of those ephemeral and inconsequential interests 
which have absorbed their time and energy in years gone by. 
Even now one can feel pulsating through the schools and col- 
leges a seriousness of purpose and a will to come to grip with 
the realities of life more than I can recall at any previous time 
in recent history. We may, indeed, be at the beginning of a 
youth movement in America. 

A youth movement is one of the best means by which a 
nation may express its national ideals and purposes. “A true 
youth movement,” declared Secretary Wallace recently, “must 
be a new, vital, adventurous approach to the potentialities of 
the coming age.” Ina centralized form of government such a 
movement can be concentrated into a single organization such 
as the Facisti in Italy. By capitalizing on the natural enthus- 
iasm, high purpose, and patriotism of youth there is engen- 
dered a degree of morale which one seldom witnesses except 
when a great national cause is at stake. 

In a democracy, on the other hand, a youth movement can- 
not consist of a single platform of principles and policies. Even 
those who profess to believe in indoctrination often disagree 
among themselves. It is significant that no one has yet writ- 
ten a series of specific goals for a democratic society which 
were generally acceptable and which were not out of date in 
a few short years unless they were so general as to be claimed 
by almost any form of government. No, the youth movement 




















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 107 


in America, resembling all movements in our national history, 
will be a constant clashing of different philosophies out of 
which from time to time come those precious desiderati that 
ultimately make democracy wiser and more stable than its 
centralized contemporaries. 


It follows that in a democracy a youth movement must 
consist not of a single organization, not of a lone avenue of 
expression, but of many. There are, indeed, almost innumer- 
able processes by which we reach conclusions. It is not enough, 
therefore, that students in schools and colleges should have 
more frequent opportunity to come into actual contact with 
life as it is being lived on the social plane while they are yet 
students. These students must have their several avenues of 
expression, their means of joining themselves together in or- 
der to participate as do older citizens in that eternal process 
so basic in a democratic form of government, namely, the for- 
mulation of public opinion. Here they will discuss, debate, and 
resolve on matters of public moment. They will make many 
mistakes which is based on honest purpose and high resolve 
relative to social affairs. Out of innumerable expressions of 
this character comes ultimately the solution of problems and 
a morale that is safer and sounder than that now seen in any 
centralized form of government. 

It would perhaps be difficult to prove but I believe that 
the young people of this country are unconsciously yearning’ 
for more avenues of expression and more opportunities for 
actual participation in the processes of our government. I am 
confident, furthermore, that the people generally are beginning 
to feel that nothing short of these contacts with actual civic 
situations while young people are still in school will ever be 
any more satisfactory as a preparation for citizenship than 
is the teaching of a vocation or a profession in the vacuum of 
a classroom. 

Next I believe that the public wants to share the facilities 
of the high school with their children. In order that I may 
make myself clear may I point out that in small communities 
and in the open country the school was formerly a community 
center used by adults for a great variety of social and civic 
purposes. In some places this situation still obtains, but in 
most instances where primitive school houses may still be 
seen from an automobile passing rapidly over a well paved 





108 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


road, as is the case in thousands of communities throughout 
this country, most forms of community life have been supple- 
mented by cheap commercial amusements. I am convinced 
that the public is vaguely conscious of a great void in its set- 
up and that it wishes ardently to undertake new forms of com- 
munity life along modern lines; and finally that it desires, as 
in earlier days, to center these efforts around the school. 


Except in the more progressive communities such efforts 
are all but impossible for the simple reason that the school 
building and its grounds are constructed and laid out in such 
a way as to serve only the needs of young children. If to 
these could be added an auditorium, recreation facilities, a 
social room, demonstration materials, and many other facili- 
ties of interest to adults, I believe that especially the consoli- 
dated high schools could become effective centers of adult edu- 
cation, recreation, and social life. Such a high school takes 
on new meaning for aunts and uncles as well as for the parents 
themselves, because they too have something to enjoy and be 
proud of. Who can doubt but that any high school which is 
also a community center possesses a degree of public confidence 
and support on which it may rely in time of distress and trou- 
ble? 

Finally I believe that the public is expecting us to take the 
lead in reorganizing secondary schools in order that they may 
better serve the various demands now being made on them. I 
realize that at first this may seem like a very doubtful state- 
ment because we have altogether too many examples where 
backward laymen have prevented school consolidations and 
have been content with primitive school conditions. Neverthe- 
less to my mind there are other currents of public thought rela- 
tive to our high schools which do not always find themselves 
eloquently set forth. I have already said that the public is not 
fully satisfied with high schools as character building agencies 
in training for citizenship, and with their efforts in the field of 
vocational education. These and other considerations point 


to the fact that the public has considerable doubts relative to 
the quality of performance in high schools. In many instances 
these doubts revolve around the personalities of high-school 
teachers and administrators. 

On the other hand, there is now more frequently the deep- 
er realization that small high-school units are expensive and 














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eh il 
ih nh ae 











sanndaith i Sinai beeen eae 











PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


no more likely to be effective than local justices of the peace 
or township road systems. A very ordinary citizen can ap- 
preciate the fact that a small high ‘school cannot become a 
community center and that it cannot at once prepare young 
people for a classical college and for a variety of vocations, 
including farming and auto mechanics. To the public, there- 
fore, it is becoming evident that if appropriate attention is to 
be given to the varying needs of the community and of individ- 
ual students high schools should be organized into units which 
are large enough to carry on a number of activities and courses 
of study economically. In the beginning of this process of 
school consolidation there are always very vocal critics just 
as there were in the case of roads, but after the change is made 
they soon give way to a deep and widespread sense of satis- 
faction. We should not, therefore, even in times of depression 
cease firing in the long battle to secure the consolidation of 
high schools into units large enough to be both effective and 
economical. 


My friends if I have at all divined the public mind relative 
to what it is expecting of the high schools much remains yet 
to be done. The public is expecting us to take leadership rela- 
tive to the solution of these problems. The public will follow 
that leadership though not hurriedly and with some question- 
ing. The stake is of the utmost consequence. We should lose 
no time in responding to the challenge. 


The session adjourned at 10:20 P. M. 


109 











110 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


THE FOURTH GENERAL SESSION 


The fourth session of the Department of Secondary-School 
Principals was a joint meeting with the Department of Secon- 
dary Education. The meeting was called to order in the Ver- 
non Room, Haddon Hall, at 9:55 A. M., by the President of the 
Department of Secondary-School Principals, Mr. Allen, Super- 
visor of Secondary Education of Little Rock, Arkansas, who 
presented Mr. Lewis, and immediately the First Vice-Presi- 
dent of the Department of Secondary-School Principals, Harri- 
son C. Lyseth, State Supervisor of Secondary Education, Au- 
gusta, Maine. The latter at once introduced Mr. George S. 
Counts, Editor of The Social Frontier, who read his paper, 
Secondary-School Curriculum Changes During the Past Three 
Hundred Years. 














PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 111 


THREE HUNDRED YEARS OF THE SECOND- 
ARY SCHOOL CURRICULUM 


GEORGE S. COUNTS, 
Teachers College, Columbia University 


The precise content of the first secondary-school curri- 
culum organized within the present borders of the United 
States is shrouded in uncertainty. The difficulty arises from 
two considerations. In the first place, no historian seems to 
be absolutely sure where or when the first secondary school 
was founded; and in the second place, no record appears to be 
extant of just what was taught in any one of the earliest sec- 
ondary schools at the time of its origin. Fortunately the in- 
decision of the scholar has been removed in part by the action 
of practical men. Apparently the organizers of this confer- 
ence have assumed that the Boston Latin School was our first 
secondary school and that it was founded in 1635. For this 
cutting of the Gordian Knot, I am grateful. 

Unfortunately these same people have not told me of what 
the first curriculum of the first secondary school consisted. 
And the researches of the historian fail to correct the defic- 
iency. About all we know with certainty is that on April 23, 
1635, the citizens of Boston voted “that our brother, Philemon 
Pormont, shalbe intreated to become scholemaster for the 
teaching and nourtering of children with us.”” Whether Broth- 
er Pormont responded affirmatively to the entreaty and, if so, 
what materials of instruction he used in that memorable year 
of 1635 to teach and nurture the children of Boston, are not 
found in the record. In fact we are not even told the ages of 
the children to be brought under his care. 

Our knowledge of the curriculum of the American sec- 
ondary school of three hundred years ago, however, extends 
much farther than the foregoing would indicate. The colon- 
ists, being for the most part Englishmen, brought to the new 
world the educational ideas and practices then current in the 
homeland. These ideas and practices are fully documented. 
Also, from the records of colonial settlements which followed 
Boston in the establishment of secondary schools something 
can be learned. Then there are the entrance requirements of 
the early colleges, notably those of Harvard for the year 1642, 








112 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


which indicate rather clearly what was expected of the pre- 
paratory institution. From all of these sources and others we 
may infer that the secondary school began its career on the 
North American continent with a curriculum dominated by 
Latin and hospitable to Greek, with some grudging recognition 
of the demands of the vernacular. In addition to various La- 
tin and Greek grammars and exercises the pupils studied Cae- 
sar, Cicero, Tully, Virgil, Cato, Ovid, and Horace, Xenophon, 
Homer, and the Greek Testament. Even in their play they 
were urged to use the Latin language. The institution was 
appropriately named the Latin Grammar School. It was open 
only to boys, it required all pupils to pursue the same program 
of study, and it had a single clear-cut purpose—preparation 
for college. 


The curriculum of the public high school to-day bears lit- 
tle resemblance to that of the Latin Grammar School of three 
centuries ago. A recent study of the programs of the senior 
or four-year high school for the year 1930-31 in 148 cities 
ranging in size from 2,500 to 20,000 inhabitants and well dis- 
tributed over the country shows the character and extent of 
the changes. According to this study, there were listed in the 
high schools of these 148 cities 419 distinct courses.' Leading 
the great divisions of subject matter was neither Latin nor 
Greek, but commerce with 56 separate courses. English and 
home economics followed with 50 courses each. Then came 
social studies with 39, science with 38, industrial arts with 35, 
art with 32, mathematics with 25, music with 23, history with 
21, teacher training with 19, agriculture with 15, physical edu- 
cation with 9, and foreign language with 7. While this list 
taken by itself fails to reveal the actual emphasis in the pro- 
gram, the foreign languages being far more important than 
the assigned figure indicates, it nevertheless presents a fairly 
authentic picture of the situation. Truly a strange picture 
when viewed through the eyes of the seventeenth century. 


The complete story, however, is not told by reciting the 
subjects to be found in the course of study. Quite as import- 
ant, according to some opinion, is the program of student ac- 
tivities lying outside the formal curriculum—subject clubs, 


1A. K. Loomis, Edwin S. Lide, and B. Lamar Johnson, The Program 
of Studies, National Survey of Secondary Education, Bulletin, 1932 No. 
17 (Washington, 1933), 1383. 

















113 





PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


avocational clubs, student government, school service organi- 
zations, honorary societies, social groups, student publications, 
literary clubs, music organizations, and numerous athletic 
organizations and activities. In four secondary schools in 
the Chicago region there were found 248 different activities 
for the period 1925-1930. Practically all of these activities 
were entirely absent in the Latin Grammar School. More 
than that, they would have been frowned upon as unworthy 
and even sinful by the schoolmaster in the days of Ezekiel 
Cheever. 


As the student of secondary education contrasts the cur- 
riculum of the Latin Grammar School with the curriculum of 
a progressive public high school of 1935, he can only wonder 
that the one could have evolved out of the other. There is 
crowded into that contrast three hundred years of educational 
history, of pedagogical experimentation, of growth and ex- 
pansion of the secondary school. But even that does not close 
the account. In that contrast is recorded three centuries of 
the history of the American people—the crossing of the Atlan- 
tic, the struggle to gain a foothold in the new world, the 
battle to live in a strange environment, the development of a 
simple commercial capitalism, the achievement of political in- 
dependence from the mother country, the founding of the na- 
tion, the march across a continent of fabulous natural riches, 
the spread of extreme doctrines of economic individualism, the 
rise of the common man to political power, the growth of 
science and technology, the secularization of thought and inter- 
ests, the advance of industrial capitalism, the closing of the 
frontier, the conquest of mechanical energy, the decline of 
agriculture and rural life, the appearance of a closely interde- 
pendent society, the trend toward concentration of wealth and 
property in a small class, the emergence of the United States 
as a world power, and the precipitation of the American people 
in our time into a profound economic and cultural crisis which 
embraces in growing measure the entire civilized world. All 
of these factors and forces besides many not here catalogued, 
have left their imprint on the secondary-school curriculum. 
Education in every one of its divisions is but an aspect of the 
evolving culture. 


At this point I might proceed to repeat in detail the well- 
worn account of the development of the secondary-school cur- 











114 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


riculum from the Latin Grammar School to the public high 
school of our day, telling of the decline of the classics, of the 
emergence and fortunes of each of the great divisions of sub- 
ject matter: mathematics, modern foreign language, natural 
science, English history, social studies, art, physical education, 
and vocational subjects, of the changing policies and practices 
regarding the organization and administration of the total 
program of studies. But this would be unprofitable. It has 
been done already by many competent students, and far more 
completely than it could be done here in a brief paper. My al- 
lotment of space and time would scarcely permit the mere 
listing of even the more important changes occurring during 
these three centuries. I have consequently decided to limit my 
remarks to the elaboration of a few thoughts about the changes 
which have taken place in the curriculum since Brother Por- 
mont was invited by the citizens of Boston to undertake the 
task of “teaching and nourtering” their children. What I 
have to say will be in the nature of a social interpretation of 
the secondary-school program in America. 


The curriculum of the Latin Grammar School will be 
taken as a point of departure. Concerning its origin nothing 
will be said. It was brought to America by the English set- 
tlers, as they brought the English language, English manners, 
English tools and weapons, English institutions, and English 
ideas and doctrines of the age. It was part and parcel of the 
transplanted culture and shared the fortunes of that culture 
in the new environment. It was organically related to the 
structure of the society that the first colonists endeavored to 
transport across the Atlantic. 


It must be kept clearly in mind that conceptions of democ- 
racy and even the institutions of capitalism were practically 
unknown to the first settlers on the Virginia and Massachusetts 
coasts. Although distintegrating forces were already at work, 
the expectation of both leaders and led was the founding of a 
society after the inherited English model, essentially feudalis- 
tic in character, with land held very generally under lease 
from an overlord, and with the graduation of ranks charac 
teristic of the mother country. According to Thomas Jeffer- 
son Wertenbaker, even in New England, where freehold own- 
ership of land was common, society in the seventeenth cen- 




















115 





PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


tury manifested a clear class structure.' At the top were 
clergymen, Englishmen of gentle birth, and wealthy mer- 
chants. Then followed in order skilled artisans and freehold- 
ers, unskilled laborers, indentured servants, and, at the very 
bottom, Indian and negro slaves. While the higher orders of 
English society were rarely represented in America and while 
social mobility was much greater here than on the other side 
of the Atlantic, these several ranks were very real, carrying 
definite status and well-defined privileges. Thus, a member 
of the ruling aristocracy was addressed as lady or gentleman 
and the artisan or freeholder as goodwife or goodman. Repre- 
sentatives of the three lower orders were usually addressed by 
the Christian name alone and were rarely admitted to political 
citizenship. Also, as Mr. Wertenbaker says, “the gentleman 
was permitted to adorn himself with articles of dress forbid- 
den to the goodman; the goodman wore others which were 
withheld from the day laborer or the servant.”? In Connecti- 
cut in 1676 thirty-eight women and thirty young men were 
called before the magistrates for “wearing silk, some for long 
hair and other extravagancies,’’* in a word, for living beyond 
their station. 


It was in such a society that the Latin Grammar School 
flourished. While we know little about the social origins of 
the boys attending this institution in early colonial times, it 
may be confidently assumed that they came from the upper 
ranks of the population. We do know, moreover, that the cur- 
riculum prepared very specifically for Harvard College which 
in turn was engaged in equipping young men to discharge the 
duties of the most important branch of the aristocracy, the 
clergy. We also know that the number of pupils must have 
been infinitesimally small. At the close of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, according to Ezekiel Cheever, the attendance at Harvard 
amounted to only “forty or fifty children, few of them capable 
of edification by such exercises.” 


But powerful forces were at work in the colonies, as well 
as in the whole western world. The transplanted culture 
withered under the impact of the strange environment. What- 


1Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, The First Americans (New York, 
1929), 72-73. 
2Ibid., 73. 
3] bid., 74. 











116 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


ever the impulse driving men and women across the Atlantic, 
having arrived in the new world they at once came under its 
molding influence. First of all, they had to make a living, and 
on the terms dictated by the conditions in America: fighting 
Indians, pushing back the forest, and cultivating the soil with 
crude implements. All of this bred a practical temper in the 
people and generally compelled them to recast their standards 
of value. Even Pastorius, perhaps the most learned man in 
the colonies at the opening of the eighteenth century, a man 
who employed eight languages in keeping his diary, admitted 
in melancholy mood that “never have metaphysics and Aris- 
totelian logic . . earned a loaf of bread.” 


The American colonies also though perhaps somewhat 
belatedly, came under the spell of that influence which in the 
words of Preserved Smith is the greatest “of all the elements 
of modern culture, as of all the forces moulding modern life” 
science.* The spirit of rationalism invaded the sacred pre- 
cincts of theology, organizations with avowedly secular pur- 
poses were established from Salem to Savannah, the Free Ma- 
sons spread lodges through the country, the works of Sidney, 
Locke, Cumberland, and Pufendorf were widely read, and in 
1743 Benjamin Franklin was instrumental in founding the 
first American Philosophical Society. Printing advanced, 
newspapers and journals appeared, interest in painting, 
drama, and music increased, men engaged in political specula- 
tion talked about the indefinite perfectability of man and all 
human institutions, and concluded that happiness here and 
now on this earth is a worthy goal of endeavor. The follow- 
ing excerpt from an article appearing in the Virginia Gazette 
in 1737 and reprinted six years later in the American Maga- 
zine of Boston reveals the temper of the age: 

The World, but a few Ages since, was in a very poor 
condition, as to Trade, and Navitation. Nor, indeed, were 
they much better in other Matters of useful Knowledge. 
It was a Green-headed Time, every useful Improvement 
was bid from them; they had neither look’d into Heaven 
nor Earth; into the Sea, nor Land, as has been done since. 


They had Philosophy without Experiment; Mathematics 
without Instruments; Geometry without Scale; Astron- 


1James Truslow Adams, Provincial Society (New York, 1928), 114. 
2Preserved Smith, A History of Modern Culture (New York, 1930), 


I, 17. 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 117 


omy without Demonstration. . . They went to Sea with- 
out Compass; and sail’d without the Needle. They view’d 
the Stars without Telescopes; and measured Latitude 
without Observation. . . They had Surgery without Ana- 
tomy, and Physicians without Materia Medica. ... As 
for Geographic Discoveries, they had neither seen the 
North Cape, nor the Cape of Good Hope. .. . As they 
were ignorant of Places, so of Things also; so vast are 
the Improvements of Sciences, that all our Knowledge of 
Mathematics, of Nature, of the brightest Part of humane 
Wisdom, had their Admission among us within the last 
two Centuries. . . . The World is now daily increasing 
in experimental Knowledge, and let no Man flatter the 

Age with pretending we are arrived to a Perfection of 

Discoveries.' 

At this same time profound changes were taking place in 
the colonial economic and social order. The Indian was re- 
treating, the population growing, land values rising, wealth 
increasing, technology advancing, commerce developing, man- 
ufactures appearing, towns growing and general economic se- 
curity improving. In a word the European settlers and their 
descendants, or at any rate the more shrewd, ambitious, and 
fortunately placed among them, had learned how to live and 
prosper in the new world. Men were beginning to realize 
dimly that the North American continent was fabulously rich 
and provided unparalleled opportunities for the accumulation 
of material possessions. Particularly through trade and land 
speculation were fortunes acquired. 

This development in America was of course but part of a 
larger movement which had been gathering momentum for 
several centuries in the western world. It signalized the birth 
of a new economic order and the rise of new men to power. 
“In one sense,” says Harold J. Laski, “the fundamental event 
in the seventeenth century is the emergence of the middle class 
into political significance.”* And it was this class that was ap-~ 
pearing in America, amidst social, economic, and natural sur- 
roundings peculiarly favorable to its growth. No powerful 
feudal aristocracy barred its way to power and the richest 

continent in the world was just waiting to be exploited. 

During the first half of the eighteenth century in New 
England new names, not listed among the early leaders and 


1[bid., 273. 
2Harold J. Laski, “The Rise of Liberalism,” in the Encyclopaedia of 
the Social Sciences (New York, 1930), I, 107. 








118 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


1ounders, appear on the roster of public and influential men: 
Brown, Waldo, Morris, Rutter, McCall, Potts, and others. The 
ministry declines; leadership passes to business enterprise. 
Young men intended for the church turn aside to civil life: 
Stoughton, Gridley, and Stephen Sewal in Massachusetts and 
Gurdon Saltonstall Jr. and Johnathan Trumbell in Connecti- 
cut.!. Merchants like Thomas Brattle and Robert Calef oppose 
successfully in the intellectual realm the authority of New 
England’s most eminent clergyman, Cotton Mather. The 
lawyer enters the political arena and forms an alliance with 
landowners and large capitalists, an alliance that remains 
practically unbroken down to our own day. Along with this 
rise of a new social class to power appear appropriate political 
ideas and doctrines, parliamentary government, economic in- 
dividualism, and liberalism. Benjamin Franklin, born in 1706 
and dying in 1790, epitomizes in his life, works, and thought 
the social transformation in process. In his Advice to a Young 
Tradesman Max Weber finds the “true spirit of capitalism.” 
And the Declaration of Independence and the Wealth of Na- 
tions, both published in 1776, place in imperishable documents 
the thought, aspirations, and social outlook of the emergent 
age. 


It was in this great revolutionary epoch that the Ameri- 
can secondary-school curriculum underwent the most profound 
changes in its history. Whether the institutions responsible 
for the inauguration of these changes were called grammar 
schools, English schools, English Grammar schools, or academ- 
ies seems to be a relatively unimportant matter. The fact is 
that from the beginning of the eighteenth century there were 
some opportunities in the colonies for the study of each of the 
great divisions of subject matter now taught in the high school, 
even including strictly vocational subjects such as surveying, 
navigation, and bookkeeping. These opportunities, moreover, 
were opened to some extent to girls as well as to boys. It is 
apparent therefore that the century which gave birth to the 
academy was the really creative century during the three hun- 
dred years under consideration. It fashioned a program and 
a philosophy which have remained in fundamentals unaltered 
down to the present day. The changes, the additions, the sub- 


1James Truslow Adams, op. cit., 236. 




















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 119 


tractions, if the extra-curriculum activities are expected, have 
been minor in character. 


The underlying philosophy of the eighteenth century pro- 
gram merits examination. It was at bottom the philosophy 
of capitalism. Repudiating primary allegiance to both church 
and state, it was essentially private in orientation, as well as 
in control and support, and conceived of life in individualistic 
terms. The fact that Franklin was so closely associated with 
the development of the academy is extremely significant. As 
already pointed out, he symbolized in a remarkable way the 
rising capitalistic order. The great object of the new curricu- 
lum of English, modern foreign language, mathematics, 
science, history, geography, and strictly vocational subjects 
was clearly to help the individual to achieve a successful career 
in a competitive world. And it was assumed, in accordance 
with the philosophy of the period, that the social welfare would 
be safeguarded and promoted most fully, if only each individ- 
ual would devote himself assiduously to the advancement of 
his own interests. The primary function of education therefore 
was to equip the individual to pursue this role. 


The account, however, cannot be left here. There are 
three other factors which must be brought into the picture: 
the rise of political democracy, the westward movement of the 
population, and the development of industrial capitalism. It 
is of course recognized that the capitalism of Benjamin Frank- 
lin, was primarily commercial in character. 


The rise of political democracy was one facet of the em- 
ergence of the middle class. At any rate, through the molding 
influence of the frontier and other forces at work in America 
and Western Europe, from John Klise, the son of an indentured 
laborer who battled for popular rights with Cotton Mather, 
to Thomas Jefferson and John Taylor, equalitarian social doc- 
trines developed into a powerful American tradition. The 
War of Independence particularly served to spread such doc- 
trines in America, contrary to the desires of certain well-born 
leaders. “The mob begin to think and to reason,” observed 
Gouverneur Morris in 1774. “Poor reptiles! it is with them 
a vernal morning; they are struggling to case off their winter’s 
slough, they bask in the sunshine, and ere noon they will bite, 











120 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


depend upon it. The gentry begin to fear this.”' And they 
did bite, or at least snap at their betters in the turbulent times 
immediately following the war. County conventions in New 
Hampshire and Massachusetts in 1784 and 1785 even went 
so far as to declare “that the state senate should be abolished 
and that all property should be held in common.”? But in the 
Constitutional Convention the aristocratic and propertied 
classes recaptured the citadels of power. 


In the years that followed a concerted effort was made to 
hold back the forces of democracy. The Hamiltonian group 
apparently hoped to establish a monarchy on the English model 
and introduce the ranks and titles of English society. In a 
Fourth of July oration Timothy Dwight of Connecticut de- 
clared that the object of democracy was “to destroy every 
trace of civilization in the world, and force mankind back into 
a savage state.”* Even Daniel Webster opposed universal 
white manhood suffrage. But the people would not be thwart- 
ed. The men of the frontier, combining with the poorer 
classes in the East, and under the leadership first of Jefferson 
and then of Jackson triumphed in 1800 and 1828. Thereafter 
all the trappings of aristocracy dropped away and even aris- 
tocrats when engaged in politics assumed the dress and man- 
ner of democracy. Webster now “apologized in public because 
he had not been born in a log cabin.’* And the public high 
school, a free academy, made its appearance. The state thus 
placed its resources behind a type of secondary education de- 
signed to enable the individual, if not too poorly situated, to 
climb out of the lower orders and into the ranks of actual, 
though not professed, aristocracy, an aristocracy which as- 
sumed more and more the character of a plutocracy. 


The full development of the high school, however, was re- 
tarded by the relative simplicity of the economic and social 
structure. The great masses of the population was engaged 
in farming of a relatively self-contained type and were conse- 
quently living under pre-capitalistic conditions. Society was 
predominantly agrarian in form and outlook. Then there 
was the westward movement of population which gave a spe- 


- 


1Arthur Meier Schlesinger, New Viewpoints in American History 
(New York, 1928), 76. 

2Jbid., 80. 

3Jbid., 84. 

4] bid., 89. 























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 121 


cial orientation to the American people. Until the closing of 
the frontier in 1890 the great opportunities for youth lay, not 
in factory, shop, and counting house, but beyond the Alle- 
ghany mountains in the basin of the Mississippi and on to 
waters of the Pacific. And a tradition of going west was es- 
tablished among the youth of the country which persists even 
to this day, more than a generation after its foundations have 
been destroyed. Since the life on the frontier and on the farm 
made few demands upon book learning, a sufficient motive 
for high-school attendance was lacking. So, while there was 
marked development of the academy in the middle of the cen- 
tury, the expansion of secondary education awaited the ex- 
haustion of free land. 


The nineteenth century also witnessed the rapid rise of 
a contrary force, industrial capitalism. For a time the pull of 
this new force upon youth was more than balanced by the pull 
of the frontier. But gradually, as technology advanced with 
ever more rapid stride, the relative strength of the contending 
forces was reversed and industry assumed the dominant role 
in the life of the nation. New occupations appeared, divided, 
and subdivided indefinitely, and displaced free land as the great 
magnet of youth. Since the more desirable of these occupa- 
tions required systematic preparation beyond the level of sim- 
ple literacy, the road to success lay increasingly through the 
secondary school. Emphases in the curriculum shifted to keep 
pace with the march of industrialism. Certain old divisions 
were expanded, as others were contracted, and any subject 
that might be expected to help some youngster to success, ac- 
cording to the standards of the time, was welcomed into the 
program of studies—even salesmanship and advertising. But 
the underlying social and educational philosophy remained in 
basic positions the philosophy of mercantile capitalism of the 
early eighteenth century, tempered by such partial efforts at 
reconstruction as the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Educa- 
tion. 


To-day capitalism, both in its mercantile and industrial 
phases, seems to have run its course; and the cycle beginning 
with the rise of the academy appears to be closing. Out of the 
strongly individualistic economy of Franklin’s day, in which 
capitalistic enterprise was confined largely to trade, has come 
a highly industrialized economy marked by close integration 








122 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


and interdependence. In fact under the drive of technology, 
fostered by individual enterprise, there has emerged an econ- 
omy which is essentially collectivist in nature. If this is true, 
as I believe it is, we face to-day in the secondary-school curri- 
culum problems quite as crucial as those which our fathers 
faced two hundred years ago. The controlling principle of 
promoting individual success in a competitive world will have 
to give way to one of advancing the social welfare in a highly 
cooperative order. But these speculations have to do with the 
future. My assignment was to tell of the past. 


The chairman introduced Principal Emeritus William 
Wetzel, Central High School, Trenton, New Jersey, the author 
of the paper entitled, Three Hundred Years of Changes in 
Teacher Training for Secondary Schools, which was read by 
Howard D. White, Assistant Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion of the State of New Jersey. 





















123 





PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


THREE HUNDRED YEARS OF CHANGES IN 
TEACHER TRAINING FOR SECONDARY 
SCHOOLS 


WILLIAM A. WETZEL 
Emeritus Principal, Central High School 
Trenton, New Jersey. 


In tracing the history of secondary education in the United 
States it is customary to speak of three eras. The first is 
marked by the Latin Grammar School, which continued 
through the first half of the eighteenth century; the second by 
the academy, which has come down to modern times, but had 
the field practically to itself until about the middle of the nine- 
teenth century; the third by the public high school, which, 
though it existed before the middle of the nineteenth century 
did not really began to spread throughout the country until 
1890. 

The origin of the early Latin or Classical School lay in a 
desire “to promote the welfare of the Church and Common- 
wealth”. 

The primary motive of the General Court in Massachu- 
setts in creating a system of township schools by passing the 
act of 1647 was to circumvent “that old deluder Satan”, one of 
whose chief projects was said to be to keep men from the 
knowledge of the Scriptures. 

The promoters of the Academy, of whom Benjamin Frank- 
lin was one, disapproved of the extreme emphasis placed on the 
classical languages by the Latin Schools, and proposed a more 
practical program of education. Concerning the program of 
studies Franklin said (Proposals Relating to the Education of 
Youth in Pennsylvania) that it would be well if the youth 
“could be taught every Thing that is useful, and every Thing 
that is ornamental. But Art is long and Their time is short. 
It is therefore proposed that they learn those Things that are 
likely to be most useful and ornamental’’.? 

Franklin’s proposals were extensive and undoubtedly 
timely. Present day critics of the “elaborate” secondary- 


1Kandel—History of Secondary Education, p. 111. 
2Mulhern—A History of Secondary Education in Pennsylvania, 
p. 178. 








124 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


school program would derive little support from a study of 
Benjamin Franklin’s program of secondary education. 

However, it cannot be said that the academy dealt a death 
blow to the study of foreign languages. Even Franklin was 
compelled to compromise by stating in his program that “all 
intended for Divinity should be taught the Latin and Greek; 
for physick the Latin, Greek, and French; for Law the Latin 
and French; Merchants the French, German and Spanish.” He 
added that while all should not be compelled to learn Greek, 
Latin, and the modern foreign languages, “yet none that have 
an ardent Desire to learn them should be refused.” The for- 
eign languages survived the attack of the academicians and to- 
day are still probably commanding more pupil hours in many 
high schools than can be justified by their actual worth to the 
pupils studying them. 

One could readily devote the entire time allotted to this 
paper to portray the magnificent character of some of the early 
schoolmasters who presided over the Latin schools and acad- 
emies. For profound scholarship, great professional zeal, in- 
defatigable energy, and deep religious convictions these men 
set a worthy example to the modern schoolmaster. 

I present a brief sketch of the first headmaster of Phillips 
Academy at Andover. He is not entirely representative of all 
the early schoolmasters, but still he is more or less typical of 
his time.’ 

Eliphalet Pearson graduated from Harvard College in 
1773 and became the first headmaster at Andover in 1778. He 
was a man of deep scholarship; like many of the early school- 
masters, he was especially well versed in the languages. He 
was a master of Hebrew, Syriac, and Coptic, as well as Latin, 
Greek, and French. On Exhibition days at Andover, when the 
trustees were present in state, he addressed the boys in “son- 
orous Latin”. He left the principalship of Andover to become 
Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages at Har- 
vard University. 

He was a man of firm religious beliefs, a brilliant preacher, 
and the author of a treatise upon psalmody. He was the 
founder of the Divinity school at Andover and for one year 
filled the chair of Professor of Sacred Literature. 


1For the facts of this sketch I am indebted to Mr. Claude M. Fuess, 
the present headmaster at Andover. 




















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 125 


He held his own among men of the world. He was a skilled 
mechanic, an excellent agriculturalist, and a shrewd business 
man. He was a good musician. It is said that in church his 
nostrils expanded like those of a war horse as he led with his 
deep bass voice the hymn to the tune of Old Hundred. He was 
an excellent performer on the cello, and is said to have made his 
own musical instrument. 


As a schoolmaster he was “austere and cold in manner, 
more accustomed to exact obedience than to inspire affection”, 
stern, inflexible, and inclined to be dogmatic. This quality of 
dogmatism seems to have been common among the early 
schoolmasters, and traces of it may frequently ‘be found even 
in the modern schoolmaster. Possibly the reason is first that 
he deals constantly with children and secondly that he devotes 
so much time to imparting the learning of past ages, which he 
considers a closed book. 


Even in the briefest kind of treatment of my topic one 
must pause to pay respect to the great constructive statesmen 
in the field of public education. Among these Horace Mann of 
Massachusetts, Henry Barnard of Rhode Island, and Thaddeus 
Stevens of Pennsylvania, loom large. Passing reference should 
also be made to Charles W. Eliot, Mary Lyon, and James M. 
Greenwood, who are typical of many teachers to whom the sec- 
ondary schools owe much of their professional spirit. 


Then again one may not disregard the great contribution 
to the improvement of the training of secondary-school teach- 
ers made by the Teachers Colleges. At Teachers College, Col- 
umbia University, men like Julius Sachs, Thomas H. Briggs his 
successor, John Dewey, William H. Kilpatrick, and Edward L. 
Thorndike; and at the University of Chicago Henry C. Morri- 
son and Charles H. Judd stand out prominently in the picture. 


For want of time I am compelled to place in one miscella- 
neous paragraph reference to the great influence over the pro- 
fessional attitude and practices of teachers in the early days, 
of the reading circles where books like Brooks’s Methods of 
Teaching, Page’s Theory and Practice of Teaching, White’s Ele- 
ments of Pedagogy and School Management were studied, and 
of the county institute where men like Oscar T. Corson from 
Ohio and Henry Houck from Pennsylvania held forth. In gen- 











126 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


eral whether it was a textbook or a platform lecture, back of it 
was a great teaching personality. 

A full treatment of my topic would also require that I 
trace the history of the introduction of those subjects which 
like music, art, home economics, and manual training, came in 
under the name of special subjects but which to-day have 
earned the right to full membership in the circle of secondary- 
school subjects. But both lack of space and lack of facility of 
research from the desk of a busy urban high-school principal 
prevent the treatment of this topic. 

With considerable satisfaction, however, I record the fact 
that the training of home economics teachers, which at first 
was confined to developing skills in cooking and sewing, has 
been broadened to include foods and nutrition, textiles, and 
clothing, home art, and in general the whole field of homemak- 


ing. 

Still another interesting bypath in exploring the general 
field of the training of secondary-school teachers would lead 
one to trace the history of such special topics as guidance, tests 
and measurements, and educational psychology, all of which 
have been introduced within the memory of most of us. 


It seemed best, however, to devote most of the time allot- 
ted to me to trace the history of the training of public high- 
school teachers, as demand for this training is reflected in the 
certification regulations of the various states. The source of 
most of my information is a questionnaire submitted to the of- 
fice of each of the forty-eight state superintendents of public 
instruction. My facts are just as reliable as the replies to the 
questionnaire. In this summary, however, Tennessee, Georgia, 
Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, Colorado, Ari- 
zona, and Oregon are missing because no replies were received 


from these states. 

The states generally established training schools for teach- 
ers early in their history. Vermont was the first to establish 
such a school, in 1823. Delaware followed in 1835, Massachu- 
setts in 1839, and New York in 1844. The interest in public 
education in the states formed out of the Northwest territory 
is forecast in the Ordinance of 1787, which declared that 
“schools and the means of education shall forever be encour- 
aged”. One of the early state normal schools to be established 





el 














PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 127 


was the one at Ypsilanti, Michigan, in 1849, which has contin- 
ued as a potent factor in the training of teachers until the pres- 
ent time. However, the normal schools in apparently every in- 
stance were planned distinctly to train elementary-school 
teachers. It would be interesting to know why for so many 
years professional training was considered essential for ele- 
mentary teachers, but not necessary for high-school teachers, 
and why even to-day it is not considered necessary for college 
teachers. 

In the history of state regulations concerning the certifi- 
cation of teachers, three states are conspicuous. Rhode Island, 
the state founded by Roger Williams, the state known from its 
beginning for its liberal tendencies, for its defense of the demo- 
cratic ideals of freedom of the individual, was the first state to 
undertake a state-wide regulation concerning the certification 
of teachers. The Rhode Island Act of 1800 provided that “no 
person shall establish or direct as master or preceptor, any 
school or academy of instruction in reading, writing, grammar, 
or mathematics, unless he shall be a native or naturalized citi- 
zen of the United States and be approved by a certificate in 
writing from the town council of the town in which he shall 
teach”. 

Several observations are interesting at this point: first 
that the law applied to all teachers whether in public or in pri- 
vate schools; secondly that the direct certificating agency was 
a local agency; and thirdly that there was no differentiation 
between the certification of elementary and the certification of 
secondary-school teachers. These last two features were fol- 
lowed in all the states and continued until comparatively recent 
times. There are still teachers in some of our high schools 
whose sole legal authority to teach rests upon a local certifi- 
cate. 

As early as 1845, under the influence of Henry Barnard, 
an act of the legislature authorized the Commissioner of Public 
Schools of Rhode Island to issue a state certificate. But local 
appointing agencies were so jealous of their powers as to con- 
fine their selection of teachers to those candidates who were lo- 
cally certificated. Consequently there were few applicants for 
state certificates. 

It probably was not accidental that the second state to 
regulate the granting of teachers certificates was Ohio, the 














128 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


first state to be formed out of the new Northwest territory. 
The date was 1821. 


William Penn in his “Frame of Government Constructed 
for the Colony of Pennsylvania’, which included what is now a 
part of Delaware, indulges in some wholesome opinions con- 
cerning the foundations of a free people. Any government, 
says Penn, is “free to the people under it, when the laws rule 
and the people are a party to those laws.” “Governments”, 
says Penn, “like clocks, go from the motion men give them. 
That, therefore,” he concludes, “which makes a good constitu- 
tion, must keep it, viz.: men of wisdom and virtue, qualities, 
that because they descend not with worldly inheritances must 
be carefully propagated by a virtuous education of youth.”” 
It is not surprising therefore that with this liberal background 
Delaware should have been the third state to enter the field of 
regulating by state authority the granting of teachers’ certifi- 
cates. The date was 1829. 


No tendency toward a typical training of secondary-school 
teachers can be discovered until the beginning of the present 
century. The law in general placed the responsibility of deter- 
mining fitness upon local agencies—in some cases a town com- 
mittee, in others the county superintendent, in others a com- 
mittee appointed by the County Court, and in one state (Texas) 
the county judge himself, on the basis of an oral examination. 
Under these circumstances it is easy to understand, especially 
when one remembers the extraordinary demand for high- 
school teachers during the last forty years due to the rapid in- 
crease in the high-school enrolment, that the quality of fitness 
of secondary-school teachers varied with the locality. It 
ranged all the way from less than the equivalent of high-school 
graduation through graduation from an academy or normal 
school to a college degree. 


The Barnard Act of 1842 in Rhode Island probably went as 
far as any regulation of that time, to dictate a general state 
policy. The statute forbade the issuing of a certificate, whether 
local or state, “‘unless the person named in the same shall pro- 
duce evidence of good moral character and be found on exam- 
ination, or by experience, qualified to teach the English lanh- 


1William Penn. Frame of Government Constructed for the Colony 
of Pennsylvania, 1682. 


























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 129 





guage, arithmetic, penmanship, and the rudiments of geogra- 
phy and history, and to govern a school.” 


Beginning with the twentieth century, the state began to 
exert a stronger influence over the training of secondary-school 
teachers. 


Here again Rhode Island led the procession. In 1898 the 
State Board of Education became the exclusive agency for cer- 
tificating teachers for public-school service. The State Board 
could certificate on examination or on satisfactory evidence of 
qualification, and could determine the qualification for eligi- 
bility. 


This regulation cut the groove for practically every state. 
The only exception of which I know is the state of Massachu- 
setts, which has no system of state certification. 


An illustration of the way in which the state began to as- 
sert its authority is my first certificate issued by the State of 
Pennsylvania. This certificate issued in 1895 on the basis of 
college graduation authorized me to teach or to supervise any 
subject which I had studied in college. No professional train- 
ing was required. Since my position as supervising principal 
demanded contact with the common branches and since I had 
not studied these in college, it was necessary to support my 
state certificate with an additional certificate covering the com- 
mon branches, issued by the county superintendent on exam- 
ination. This kind of state certificate was in vogue in Penn- 
sylvania until 1922. 


Another illustration of the gradual extension of state con- 
trol over the certification of teachers is a supplementary state 
examination in certain subjects, partly professional, given to 
holders of the highest grade of county certificate. Such was 
the third grade state certificate issued in New Jersey for which 
an examination in psychology was necessary. 


In New Jersey at the beginning of this century the high- 
est grade state certificate was granted without examination 
and authorized the holder to teach, supervise or administer 
any thing in the whole gamut of public instruction. 


In general, requirements for a state secondary-teacher’s 
certificate could be met in any state up to 1900 by college grad- 








130 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


uation from a standard four-year college or university. From 
1900 to approximately 1915, stray requirements to pass addi- 
tional state examinations in certain professional subjects like 
the school law, or the secondary-school program of the state, 
or educational psychology, began to appear. During all this 
time in increasing numbers state boards were given the powers 
granted to the Rhode Island Board in 1898. But the various 
state boards were slow to assert supreme authority. 


Solitary instances of differentiation between the elemen- 
tary and the secondary certificates appeared in the latter half 
of the nineteenth century. In general the secondary certifi- 
cate required an examination in more and higher branches. 
For example, Missouri in 1865 required two additional subjects, 
higher mathematics and science, for a high-school certificate. 
But beginning with about 1915, state boards began to assume 
complete control of the certification of teachers, and to differ- 
entiate clearly between elementary and secondary teachers’ 
certificates. The year 1915 may be said to mark the beginning 
of the professionalization of the occupation of teaching. Year 
after year up to the present time the field of training has been 
more clearly defined. 


The following has been the general trend. At first college 
graduation was assumed to be sufficient evidence of academic 
fitness to teach any high-school subject. The custom of is- 
suing blanket certificates on the basis of college graduation has 
been generally discontinued.! The state of Utah presents the 
anomalous situation of requiring college academic training in 
specific subjects and then allowing blanket certification. In 
Utah, for example, a teacher may have a major preparation in 
chemistry and minors in physics and biology, and then be al- 
lowed to teach Public Speaking or Latin.’ 


The requirements for professional training were intro- 
duced gradually in the different states. The candidate was at 
first required to include in his college course a minimum num- 
ber of hours of work in secondary education. This requirement 
varied from evidence that the candidate “had work in aims and 
methods of secondary education and practice teaching” 
(Delaware), to a specification of certain required subjects, like 
principles of secondary education and the philosophy of second- 
ary education. 





























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 131 


The next step was to require adequate academic prepara- 
tion in at least one major college subject and one or two minor 
subjects. 


The almost universal requirement for a secondary school- 
teacher’s certificate to-day is as follows: (1) College gradua- 
tion from a standard four year college or university, (2) The 
systematic study of a major subject to the extent of 24 to 30 
semester hours, and one minor subject with approximately 12 
to 18 hours, or two minors with correspondingly fewer hours, 
and (3) Courses in education varying from six to 18 semester 
hours. 


Some states allow a wide latitude in the choice of the 
courses in education. The demands of other states are fairly 
rigid. New Jersey is an example of the latter. In a total of 
18 semester hours in New Jersey, only three semester hours 
are in the elective class. 


A few states demand a common college training in addi- 
tion to the major and minor requirements. California and 
Florida require evidence of knowledge of the Constitution of 
the United States. Indeed, California requires a special brand 
of knowledge of the Constitution which must be obtained in a 
California teacher training institution unless the candidate can 
run the gauntlet of a state examination in this subject. Ala- 
bama sets a definite list of core subjects as follows: English 
Grammar and Composition, 6 semester hours; English Litera- 
ture, 6 semester hours; Social Studies, 12 semester hours; 
Science, biology recommended, 6 semester hours; General Psy- 
chology, 4 semester hours. 


New Jersey states its core requirements in more general 
language as follows: 12 semester hours in English Language 
and Literature, 12 in Social Studies and 6 in Science. 


As far as I could learn California is the only state that 
requires one full year of graduate work beyond college grad- 
uation for a secondary-school teacher’s certificate.' 


1California, Main, New Hampshire (until 1936), Vermont, Michi- 
gan, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Idaho, Kansas, New Mexico, Utah, and 
Louisiana still issue blanket certificates. 

2The Utah State Board of Education in an official circular strongly 
recommends that so far as possible teachers be required to teach only 
those subjects in which they have either a major or a minor. 














132 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


One of the latest innovations in the extension of the train- 
ing of secondary-school teachers is a regulation to go into 
effect in the state of New York in September, 1935. 


Under this regulation New York will grant a five year 
provisional certificate on the basis of the usual number of 
semester hours in academic and professional courses. But re- 
newal of the certificate at the end of five years is conditioned 
on the completion of 15 semester hours in approved courses 
beyond the minimum preparation required for the provisional 
certificate. The regulation further provides that the certifi- 
cate may be renewed for successive ten year periods only on 
the completion of six semester hours of advanced work in 
each instance. 


I express the hope that in the exaction of these additional 
hours due consideration will be given to the need of growth 
in scholarship as well as in professional training. Many com- 
munities tried during the last twenty years to improve the 
quality of secondary-school instruction by offering a bonus for 
the completion of advanced courses. But my judgment is that 
this resulted in too many master’s degrees in pedagogy and 
not enough in subject matter. 

Some states still certificate junior high-school teachers on 
less than four years of college work. But the distinct tendency 
is to consider junior and senior high-school teachers in the 
same class. 

In general state boards have ceased to grant certificates 
on examination’ and will grant certificates only on evidence 
of courses taken in accredited institutions. This leads me to 
say that the influence of the regional accrediting agencies in 
elevating the standards of secondary-teacher training has been 
very great. Their lists of accredited higher institutions of 
learning are respected by state boards and their requirements 
for admission to the list of accredited high schools have ele- 
vated considerably both the academic and the professional 
training of secondary-school teachers in the United States. 


From the time that state boards of education assumed 
complete control of the certification of public school teachers, 


1After July 1, 19835 New Jersey will require an additional year of 
professional training of those graduates of liberal arts college whose 
undergraduate work did not include the required courses in education 
and practise teaching. 




















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 133 


and differentiated clearly between elementary and secondary 
certificates, the state normal schools began to extend their 
courses to four years, to change their title to state teachers 
colleges, and to make a bid for the training of high-school 
teachers. This has resulted in some competition between the 
new normal school and the liberal arts college in this field of 
teacher training. 


In my judgment neither institution is prepared to monop- 
olize the field, and each may be a tonic to the other so long as 
we have on the one hand schools like the liberal arts College 
for Women at the University of Pennsylvania, and on the other 
hand State Teachers Colleges like the one recently established 
at Montclair, New Jersey. 


In conclusion I submit the following critical summary of 
the present situation in the training of secondary-school teach- 
ers as I see it. 


1. That, while we call ourselves a democracy, we do not 
insist that every prospective secondary-school teacher, regard- 
less of the subjects which he expects to teach, should be thor- 
oughly grounded in the underlying principles of democracy 
and should be instructed as to how these principles can be car- 
ried over into a democratic school. This means much more 
than a study of the Constitution of the United States. Some 
one has said that democracy cannot be learned where it is not 
lived. The curriculum, differentiation, class management, pro- 
motion, discipline, graduation, all these must be understood 
and interpreted in terms of democracy. 


Here at present lies our greatest weakness, in my judg- 
ment, in the preparation of secondary-school teachers. 


2. That every teacher, regardless of the subject taught 
should have a training in the social sciences, sufficiently wide 
to enable him to make a scientific approach to the solution of 
the many problems now confronting us. 


Not academic freedom but a much wider social, political, 
and economic outlook, and a stronger scientific attitude are 
needed by the secondary-school teacher to-day. Bond issues, 


1New Hampshire and Idaho (unless certified by state institution) 
require an examination in state school law and program of studies or 
Course of Study. Wisconsin and Kansas still issue certificates on 
examination, 














134 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


amortization charges, war debts, in their relation to tariffs, 
illustrate sufficiently what I mean. 


3. That since English composition has to do primarily 
not with the production of literary essays but with the organ- 
ization and expression of thought, and since the organization 
and expression of thought is a prime activity of every teacher, 
training in the art of teaching pupils how to organize and ex- 
press thought should be part of the professional training of 
every prospective secondary-school teacher. Such training 
would go far to abolish much loose-jointed thinking on the part 
of both teachers and pupils which is now being countenanced 
in our high schools. 


4, That we should more generally recognize the princi- 
ple of a core curriculum in the professional training of our 
secondary-school teachers. State boards of education have a 
responsibility here, but the greater responsibility rests upon 
the teachers college... It seems to me that the number of 
courses of education in teachers colleges has been needlessly 
multiplied. One institution listed during the current year 
784 courses in education. To list them in my judgment is to 
condemn them. What we need is fewer but more “beefy” 
courses in education, and a more general recognition of the 
principle of the core curriculum. 


5. That candidates for the teaching profession should 
be much more carefully selected by both state and private 
teacher training institutions, and since young teachers are 
very likely to teach as they have been taught, the prime con- 
sideration for the privilege of teaching the courses in the 
core curriculum should be a strong and able teaching person- 
ality. 

6. Finally, that since the need for intelligent educational 
leadership is imperative, and since the field to be covered is 
so wide, five years of training beyond the secondary school, 
plus one year of cadet training with possibly a bare living 
wage, should be considered a minimum amount of time to be 
devoted to the training of secondary-school teachers. 


o 


1The latest programs of some of the teachers colleges show a strong 
tendency in this direction. 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 135 


At this juncture Principal H. V. Kepner of West High 
School, Denver, Colorado, invited the members to come to Den- 
ver to the mid-summer meeting of the Department of Secon- 
dary-School Principals. y 


Mr. Harold R. Benjamin, assistant Dean of the School of 
Education, University of Minnesota, read the paper of Harl R. 
Douglass, Professor of Secondary Education, University of 
Minnesota. This paper was entitled, Changes in Methods of 
Teaching Secondary Schools During the Past Three Hundred 
Years. 











186 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


THREE HUNDRED YEARS OF METHOD 


HARL R. DOUGLASS \ 


Professor of Secondary Education 
University of Minnesota. 


(An Abridgement) 


The written history of education is largely a story of 
school organization and curricula, of administrative control 
and financial support, of legislation, and of statistics. Descrip- 
tions of the process of instruction seem to be avoided entirely 
or given minor emphasis. Yet fortunately here and there in 
fragments, in biographical materials concerning the work of 
outstanding masters and in memoirs of former pupils, may be 
found materials for reconstructing some portions of the story 
of educational method. 


The Latin Grammar School Period 


Our Pilgrim forefathers were pious people, and it was in- 
evitable that their secondary schools should be characterized 
by the spirit of severity, conformity, and obedience which was 
characteristic of their faith. In the Latin Grammar School, 
the master was supreme. Parents submitted their children 
to him in humble expectation of violent discipline. Life itself 
to these grim men was a matter of mental and physical hard- 
ship, partly self-willed. Better that a child’s body should be 
bruised and his spirit broken than that his soul should be lost 
through indulgence in mortal pleasures. Punishments were 
not bestowed entirely, nor perhaps in large part, for infrac- 
tions of discipline, but for the failure or inability to learn. 
While among the incentives to study employed were the hope 
of approval, the pride in achievement, and some confidence in 
the value of learning, the most dynamic and universal stimu- 
lant was fear of the wrath of the master. 


With notable exceptions, the masters of the colonial period 
were even more than their successors of to-day primarily hear- 
ers of lessons rather than instructors. In truth, they did but 
little else than hear recitations, save deliver grief to those 
who learned not well or diligently. 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 137 


In spite of the partiality towards punishment, order was 
not the order. Pupils were kept at unattractive and discour- 
aging tasks, for which they had reeeived little or no prepara- 
tory instruction, it being in fact thought good pedagogy to 
have them labor long in self-teaching. Diseouraged and tired 
they sat at uncomfortable seats for the very large portion of 
the long school day of seven to nine hours, which obtained in 
those times, engaging in various activities to make life suffer- 
able between short and infrequent recitations. 

After a primitive fashion individual differences were not 
neglected. In fact, in most of the early schools, progress and 
recitations were entirely a matter of the individual who worked 
alone at his own rate and was called upon occasion sometimes 
with one or more other pupils, though usually by himself, to 
“back his book,” which consisted in handing his book to his 
instructor and reciting to him. The adaptation of instruction 
to individual differences was little developed. There was, in 
fact, little instruction to adopt. The mediocre or slow child 
however did not suffer long. He was soon brow—and other- 
wise beaten into withdrawal. Even were he the normal pupil 
his way was not pleasant. The boy of parts was however, then 
as now, the joy and consolation of his teacher, who proudly 
ascribed to his powers of teaching the results of the boys in- 
herited capacities and diligence. 

It is not difficult for one to understand, even granting the 
high intellectual and religious determination of these self- 
willed exiles and in spite of the occasional master possessing 
true human leadership and understanding along with scholar- 
ship, that the Latin Grammar school with its classical curri- 
culum and such wasteful methods, left more lasting scars upon 
the heart than learning upon the mind. It did not spread 
rapidly, nor become a permanent institution. Yet unfortun- 
ately it yielded, to plague secondary education of succeeding 
generations, a heritage of methods that have persisted in the 
blood through all these generations, though in slowly decreas- 


ing virulence. 


The Academy Period. 
The new institution, while naturally similar in some way 
to its parent, the Latin Grammar School, was also dissimilar 
in several important ways. The memory and drill method was 





138 | DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


carried over to experience a partial surrender to those forces 
battling for understanding before memory. The question and 
answer method, however, had become in the early academy 
period almost the universal recitation procedure. Texts in- 
tended for school.use were written in catechetical arrange- 
ment and the answers learned off with the questions as cues. 


The perfectly logical reaction against a perfectly universal 
and stupid concentration upon the formal ability to repeat 
words, little understood if at all, was, no doubt, the result of 
several causes. The battle against verbalism made by Pestal- 
lozzi was certain to reach the secondary-school masters event- 
ually, though delayed and in attenuated strength. The trend 
towards object teaching contributed its quota. A trend in 
this direction might well be expected as a natural concomitant 
or consequent of realism reaction against formal classicism 
in England, Scotland, Germany, and elsewhere, and the intro- 
duction of the numerous newer and practical subjects in 
science, English, social studies, vocational and other fields, sub- 
jects taught with a real view to use in life, rather than for 
personal cultivation and ornament alone. 


The lecture or telling method, so little used in the Latin 
Grammar school and so much used in European secondary 
schools, began to play a somewhat larger part and with the 
development of classes, instruction began to find its way into 
every classroom along with recitation and unsupervised study. 
The use of visual materials, object teaching, and other means 
of stimulating vivid and clear learning experiences, given 
powerful acceleration by Comenius, Pestallozzi, and those 
whom they influenced, grew noticeably throughout the nine- 
teenth century to bloom in full flower in the twentieth. The 
development and spread of science went far to popularize the 
idea of learning through sense impressions. 


As schools became larger and pupils attended more regu- 
larly, class organization was effected. The monitorial system 
of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, fevered and 
abated, but served the very valuable purposes of demonstrat- 
ing the possibility of educating a much larger proportion of 
young people and of demonstrating the possibilities of giving 
serious attention to improved methods of class management. 
In addition not to be minimized, it gave great impetus to this 











LOE DN Sn ny Ts er nas a 











PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 139 


classification of pupils, and to the idea of teaching groups as 
units instead of by individuals. 


Homogeneous grouping began ‘but got no further than 
beginnings until the latter part of this century, though as 
early as 1820, Gould reports the sectioning off after a few 
weeks of competition the best 12 or 15, the next best 12 or 
15, and so on so that instruction may be better adapted to 
them. 


In the colonial period prodigal and lavish attention had 
been given to the development of linguistic skills. In the aca- 
demy of the nineteenth century its place in the sun was shared 
with a rapidly growing brother idol, the memorization of in- 
formation. Learned definitions couched in impressive vocabu- 
lary and elaborate scientific classifications far beyond the 
needs, interests, and capacities of the pupils, along with his- 
torical details, absorbed the energies of teacher and pupil. 


To be sure, it was claimed that the development of char- 
acter, qualities of obedience, habits of persistence at difficult, 
unpleasant and meaningless tasks, were certain and would gen- 
eralize and carry over into all walks of life. Much was made of 
this philosophy, which condoned the relentless tyranny of the 
masters and rationalized their failure to feel responsibility 
for the development or use of more challenging and interest- 
ing and more effective methods of instruction. 


There were, it must not be overlooked, those forerunners 
of the modern doctrine of interest and effort who preached or 
practiced the theory that better results were obtained, if 
methods and materials could be adapted so as to arouse inter- 
est in the learning activity on the part of the learners with- 
out recourse to compulsion. These nonconformists, however, 
did not often record their views in print and we hear little 
about them other than casual reference to some master or some 
plan giving emphasis to interest. Though we are not permitted 
to know how numerous those who practise such principles ac- 
tually were, it is certain that they were a pitiful minority. 


Through the academy period, the use of fear, humiliation, 
and physical punishment persisted as a very important incen- 
tive to application, but in gradually diminishing degree, until 
by the beginning of the second half of the century, corporal 
punishment was used with few exceptions only for infractions 














140 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


of authority and discipline, and sarcasm and humiliation for 
defects in achievement were beginning to be employed less 
frequently by the more temperate and better poised teachers. 


Emulation and rivalry became more generally appealed to, 
though a small minority objected largely on the grounds of 
its effect on social attitudes. It became quite customary to 
rank pupils frequently in the order of their supposed achieve- 
ment, to seat them accordingly, or to write their names upon 
blackboards in such order, and to award prizes and other recog- 
nitions of achievement. 


In this period, following the organization of schools into 
classes, lectures were employed much more frequently, both 
in regular instruction and as extra-class intellectual activities. 
Lecturing was not prominent as a regular means of instruction, 
however, except in the sciences. They were employed quite 
frequently in connection with religious and moral instruction 
at daily chapel assemblies. 


Instruction was constantly aimed at “filling the mind” and 
little effort was made to influence conduct more directly except 
as a “well-filled” and as a well-disciplined mind would properly 
govern behavior. Considerable incidental effort was expended 
in attempts to instill certain virtues, but these were confined 
largely to religious attitudes and to ideals which reinforced the 
prevailing philosophy of instruction—such as industry, per- 
sistence, patience, pride in thoroughness, and the like. Little 
attention was given to the generalization of these ideals in 
all walks of life. 


Quite in contrast with earlier, crowded schools, not or- 
ganized into classes, the later academy became a school of 
quiet. The buzz of mumbling voices was no longer charac- 
teristic of the classrooms and the study halls that developed 
as schools became larger and as the memorization of ideas 
tended to supercede verbatim memorization. In fact, grow- 
ing out the same philosophy of discipline, the pin-drop room 
of the latter half of the nineteenth century became the ideal 
and approximately the type. 


The typical academy and early high school was a small 
school and classes were usually small. Oral quizzing therefore 
made less important the giving of frequent written examina- 
tions and rendered less necessary the use of daily written 











PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 141 


homework. Heavy teaching loads of six or seven classes a 
day precluded the expenditure of much time upon written 
work. Written examinations were employed quite universally, 
nevertheless, though more generally as periodic or final exam- 
inations over large units of subject matter. As was the case 
in the preparation for instruction, little time was spent in 
preparing examinations or in the study of their improvement. 
That was to be the contribution of the succeeding century. 


The Transition. 


The latter half of the nineteenth century marks the transi- 
tion from the academy to the high school as the predominent 
and typical secondary school of the country. During this half 
century, a few trends in method should be noted. The con- 
tinued relaxation of the application of corporal punishment to 
slow and unwilling youngsters was, no doubt, a result of the 
growth and spread of humanitarian ideas among the people 
generally. The individual method was by this time completely 
replaced by the class method. The general outline of instruc- 
tional procedure has become well standardized and consisted 
of two phases. Class recitation and assignment, very largely 
nothing more than oral or written testing, was usually con- 
cluded with a hasty measuring of the dose for the morrow. 
Various methods of reciting were developed—the topical meth- 
od, the Socratic method of questioning, the writing out of solu- 
tions to problems or answers to questions on the blackboard, 
used especially in mathematics and elementary foreign lan- 
guages. The requirement of written assignments to be handed 
in developed noticeably in this period. There was a trend 
away from the extreme emphasis upon memorization of words, 
even though right up to the beginning of the present century 
there were many teachers who required the memorization not 
only of ideas, definitions, and other aggregations of words, 
little understood or not understood at all, but the verbatim 
memorization of textbook content even of exercise material for 
drill. With the increased number and pedagogical quality of 
secondary-school textbook and the continued inadequate pre- 
paration of teachers now needed in much larger numbers, it 
was but natural that little attention was given to the presenta- 
tion and explanation of materials. Fallacious ideas as to the 
possibilities of developing virtues in the pupils by compelling 











142 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


them to be self taught were still widely enough accepted to 
make such a practice respectable. 


The other half of the organization of learning-teaching 
carried on in out of class periods was, and is now in many 
schools, a daily preparation of assigned lessons by the pupils, 
supervised only to the extent of insuring application and order. 
This period also saw the use of the formal Herbartian steps 
with their unfortunate abuses spread to many secondary 
schools for temporary reign. 

The arguments of Herbart for character education were 
also ignored by those who a generation after his death resur- 
rected his writings, even though it was in education for per- 
sonal character and social morality and in preparing young 
people to live properly in organized society that he was primar- 
ily interested in. Both the elementary-school technicians and 
secondary-school subject matter specialists, as well as the 
leaders in pedagogical thinking, passed over what was more 
dear to Herbart and chose to select and emphasize the treas- 
ures of lesser fineness, namely, the basis for a device for the 
organization of instruction. Like those of the great supermen, 
who have founded new religions, the apostles and exploiters of 
Herbart’s ideas seized upon the most concrete, distorted it from 
its original significance, and then proceeded to formalize and 
standardize it as a sort of ritual for all manner of learning 
situations. Success came to be judged more by the ability to 
shape every lesson into the procrustean mold rather than by 
the ability to teach by whatever methods seemed most effec- 
tive in view of the materials to be learned and the learners to 
be taught. 

This apparently immortal tendency to worship at the 
shrine of formalized routine and ceremony did much to pervert 
and divert the splendid contributions of Pestallozzi and Her- 
bart and is still vigorous to-day as may be witnessed by the at- 
tempts of various individuals and their satellites and superfi- 
cial converts to popularize recipes for formalized teaching 
techniques. 


o 


Modern Method. 


The twentieth century has witnessed a many-sided and 
withering attack upon the old standard daily recitation lesson- 























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 143 


hearing concept of teaching. Unsuspected by the great mass 
of teachers who hail them as recent contributions, new devel- 
opments are directly traceable to- great leaders at least as 
ancient as Plato, but more directly and more heavily from 
Comenius, Rosseau, Pestallozzi, Herbart, and their contempor- 
aries and disciples. 

Chiefly under fire were the following features of nine- 
teenth century heritage. 

1. The failure to appreciate the importance of directing 
and making most effective out-of-class learning activities of 
the pupils. 

2. The wastefulness of the daily lesson-hearing class reci- 
tation. 

3. The inadequacy of the standard class method as a 
means of adopting instruction to differences among pupils in 
abilities, interests, and needs. 

4. The unsocial training resulting from the individual- 
istic pupil-pupil and pupil-teacher relationship and the relative 
lack of group codoperative activity in the recitation system. 

5. The failure to correlate instruction around centers of 
application and interest in a life-like manner as in problems 
and projects. 

6. The daily “spoon-feeding” assignment which did not 
adequately provide for pupil initiative and for the unification 
and correlation of various daily sections of the subject mat- 
ter. 

7. The indefiniteness of the conventional assignment and 
the inadequate preparation given pupils for effective study. 

8. The inability to measure accurately and objectively 
the progress of the pupil. 

9. The tendency to focus attention upon words rather 
than upon idea and meanings. 

10. The failure of teachers to supplement the dry textual 
outlines with telling and with related reading. 

11. The irrational overemphasis upon multitudinous pet- 
ty facts, too numerous to learn and for the most part quick- 
ly forgotten. 

12. The untoward effects of the harsh, tyrannical, fear- 
inspiring class methods upon mental hygiene and the develop- 

ment of personality. 











144 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


Constructive outgrowths of the dissatisfaction with the 
old order has blossomed in profusion within a few decades. 
Beginning shortly after 1900 the supervised study in various 
movements has spread throughout the country, particularly 
since 1915. Much less time is given to recitation and much 
more attention to directing the study efforts of the pupils. 
Beginning with a double period of ninety minutes and the re- 
cite-study sequence, it is passing through a lengthened fifty- 
five to sixty minute period of flexible divisions to various 
forms of large unit assignments or “contracts.” 


The strictly individual relationship of teacher to pupil 
has given much ground to various types of more social pro- 
cedures, several of which were stigmatized with the term “so- 
cialized recitation.” More lately, the more dramatic types 
involving student chairmen have come to be used only as 
occasional devices, while the various forms of group discussion 
and coéperation study and work on projects has spread stead- 
ily in daily practice. 

The development of the field of individual psychology, ac- 
celerated so vigorously by the contribution of mental tests 
and the concepts of mental age and the I. Q., has given tremen- 
dous impetus to developing better provisions for individual 
differences. Efforts to meet this need have given us scores 
of devices and plans, the value of which has shifted more re- 
cently from administrative plans such as the multiple track 
schemes, “double tillage,” and other promotional devices, to 
instructional techniques such as indeterminate or different- 
iated assignments, adaptations of special assignments, ques- 
tions, and other class exercises and responsibilities to individ- 
ual interests and abilities. The opportunities of the study 
periods in supervised study for assistance according to the 
needs of individuals and suggestions for additional activities 
for the more able have been recognized more widely with 
greater experience. 

The use of visual and auditory aids and other realia have 
developed beyond the dreams of the teacher of the nineteenth 
century. In addition to a more widespread use of the simpler 


things such as pictures on paper, maps, slides, objects, labora- 
tory apparatus, and models, schools are to-day employing in 
large numbers, though far from universally, motion pictures 


and radio devices. 


The revolt from verbalism, breaking forth 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 145 


sporadically since Comenius, has in the twentieth century 
really overturned the oppressors of understanding, and teach- 
ers are in numbers almost large enough to constitute a major- 
ity really addressing themselves seriously to the task of in- 
struction. 


The dreams of Pestallozzi, Herbart, and John Dewey of 
social and character education through the schools now seem 
nearer to reality than ever before, though they are far from 
realization. Nevertheless, the increasing tendency to inter- 
pret education in the light of increasing needs for social virtues 
is encouraging. The receding influency of college preparatory 
and disciplinary objectives couched in terms of subject matter 
information and skills, has made it possible for teachers to 
have at least a faint appreciation of the importance in educa- 
tion of ideal attitudes, interests, tastes, and social habits and 
concepts. These are matters no less of method than of ma- 
terials. The increasing waste from crime, political dishonesty, 
and economic cannibalism have brought us face to face with 
the needs for these new values, and it is difficult to see how 
even school people can fail to see their significance. 


Beginning about 1910 the spread of new ideas in making 
tests more valid and objective has passed through the stage 
of commercially distributed standard tests into that of locally 
constructed objective tests. This new development has at 
once been a blessing and a hampering influence upon teaching. 
While furnishing means of more accurate measurement by 
which teaching procedures may be better evaluated, tests have 
tended to become objectives rather than means, especially 
when employed to evaluate the efficiency of teachers and of 
schools. 

Closely related to the improvement of testing has been the 
increased use of controlled experimentation as a means of 
evaluating techniques—strictly a modern development. This 
scientific approach to the problem of judging the merits of 
proposed procedures has not been as fruitful of definite con- 
clusions as was hoped for ten or fifteen years ago. Yet it has 
thrown much light upon the relative efficacy of various plans 
in contributing to such educational outcomes as can be meas- 
ured—chiefly information and subject matter skills. It con- 
stitutes a most promising improvement over the prevailing 
forensic approach and has already served to bring into serious 














146 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


question the somewhat extravagant claims of the proponents 
of various new teaching plans or techniques. 


All of these newer trends in teaching which characterize 
the twentieth century revolution emphasize pupil initiative and 
responsibility, the importance of experiencing success rather 
than failure as necessary to mental hygiene and the healthful 
development of personality. They respect the self-confidence 
and intellectual and emotional integrity of the individual. 


They are also radical realism, “learning by doing,” “all 
learning through sense impressions,” “understanding before 
memorizing,” and many other such expressions voiced in prev- 
ious centuries, by the forerunners of the revolt, have become 
principles of practice as well as of theory to-day. 


Through all these more recent developments in method, 
one may easily discern the trend toward more friendly, codp- 
erative, sympathetic pupil-teacher relationship. Even in spite 
of the accretion of millions of pupils from the lower levels of 
economic status and intellectual ability, discipline has become 
less and less a crucial problem, a convincing testimonial to the 
new relationship between instructor and instructed. 


The great advances in secondary-school method may be 
largely accounted for as a result of the increased attention to 
psychology and method as an essential in the training of sec- 
ondary-school teachers. The establishment of departments of 
education in colleges and universities, formal requirements of 
minimum professional training, the development of many and 
increasingly better books on methods, the growth of groups, 
clubs, and organizations, local, regional, and national for the 
study and exchange of ideas on method, general and special, 
the development of special method journals—all these have 
sped up the contributions to method and the spread of new 
ideas. 


Surely, we have come a long way in three hundred years 
in method in the secondary school. The cowed little boy who 
labored eight or nine hours a day in the old Latin Grammar 
school to puzzle out the English equivalent and constructions 
of Latin and Greek materials unintelligible to him, even irr 
translation , who had no text or at best a poor thing pedagogi- 
cally, and who learned only from a master familiar with no 
pedagogical principles but those of industry and fear, who 














PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 147 


















probably was not able even to hope for modern realia, sympa- 
thetic teaching, effective explanation, opportunities for self- 
expression, and such unheard of things, would require consid- 
erable time to recover from the bewilderment of transition to a 
modern American secondary school. Whether he would grow 
more rapidly in desired directions we cannot objectively prove. 
We may be certain that he would be happier and that school to 
him would not seem, as it did even in those days when child- 
hood outside of school as well was given little recognition, a 
horrible business to be got through quickly. 


Miss Annie C. Woodward, Teacher in the High School, 
Somerville, Massachusetts, read her paper, A Teacher in the 
High School, Then and Now. 











148 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


THE HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER THEN AND NOW 


ANNIE CARLETON WOODWARD 
President, National Council of Administrative Women 
in Education 


Next to the child, the teacher is of the most vital import- 
ance to the school world. As far back as one can read for in- 
formation you will find that the teacher is at the very heart of 
education. He is the nearest to the young people and the near- 
est to the home. 

It is, therefore, most fitting at this time, when attention 
is being attracted to the three hundredth anniversary of sec- 
ondary education, that consideration of the teacher be on your 
program. 

From the colonial laws of Massachusetts I find that “when 
any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families, 
they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof to be 
able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the Uni- 
versity.” In the records of the town of Boston, under date of 
April 13, 1635, we find this entry in the handwriting of the 
venerable elder of the First Church, Thomas Leverett, “Like- 
wise it was then generally agreed upon that our brother Phile- 
mon Pormort shall be interested to become schoolemaster for 
the teaching and nourtering of children with us.” He accepted 
the trust, and was supported partly by donations of liberal 
friends of education, and partly by the income of a tract of 
land assigned to him at Muddy River. When Mr. Pormort 
ended his labors is not stated, but in 1660 is the following rec- 
ord: It is also agreed on that Mr. Woodmansey, the school- 
master, shall have fiftye pound p, ann, for his Teaching ye 
Schollers, and his proportion to be made up by ratte.” In 
1666, “Mr. Dannell Henchman assist Mr. Woodmansey in the 
Grammar Schools and teach the children to wright the Yeare 
to begine the 4th of March, 65.” 

It is said of these men teachers that they had the right ap- 
plication of the great task before them, that of teaching. They 
were men blessed with Christian manliness and sterling worth, 
with religion a dominant element in their characters. While 
the sole aim of the high school was to prepare for college, the 
other schools had different purposes. 


























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 149 





One reason given by our wise fathers for the education of 
the young was, that “Satan” had a “strong hold of ignorance,” 
and the establishment of schools and general instruction would 
tend to counteract the influence of that “ould deluder.” 


Samuel Moody, thirty years a teacher, graduated from 
Harvard College as did many of the early instructors. It was 
said of him that he was a thorough Greek and Latin scholar, 
and prepared for college many a student who became cele- 
brated in after life. Francis Gardner graduated from Har- 
vard, and was an instructor for more than forty years. It is 
said that he probably fitted more pupils for college than any 
other teacher in New England. He prepared with great labor, 
a dictionary of the Latin language which has been extensively 
used in many high schools. He was another devoted and effi- 
cient teacher who secured the love and affection, not only by 
his pupils, but of scores of friends. 


Even in this long ago teachers were dealing with the prob- 
lem of discipline. Let me give you what they said, “We teach- 
ers, especially of Boston and Vicinity, are living in trying 
times. In the present excited state of public sentiment upon 
the subject God than to man, and remembering that but a few 
short years, at most, will pass away, ere we shall reach that 
better land where all unjust human judgments will be re- 
versed, and righteous verdicts alone rendered.” In another 
old book I found that “school discipline is to train up young 
people in the way in which they should go; in other words, to 
make them good men and women; to so train their minds, edu- 
cate their hearts, and discipline all the faculties of their na- 
tures that they. will become, in after years, blessings to them- 
selves and to society.” 

In frequent places there were strong expressions as to the 
kind of person that should be employed as a teacher. This 
statement interested me very much, so I want you to hear it. 
“A teacher’ character, his self-possession, watchfulness, gen- 
eral bearing, expression of the eye, tone of the voice, his sym- 
pathy, patience, cheerfulness, charity, are all effective instru- 
ments of discipline. He should be just; if possible, pre-emi- 
nently just; reasonable in all his requirements; never arbi- 
trary, but always decided; gentle, but unyielding; firm, but 
mild; in short the more of the Christian virtues he can em- 
body, the better disciplinarian he becomes. Love should be the 











150 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


main element in the discipline of every school. A teacher who 
cannot secure the affections of a very large majority of his pu- 
pils, is unworthy of his position.” 


Perhaps one of the most celebrated of the early teachers 
in the writing school and high school was Ezekial Cheever who 
taught seventy years, making his school “famous in all the 
country.” He became a high-school teacher at the age of fifty- 
six and bore a high reputation for learning among the colo- 
nists. Much learning was fostered by the severe disciplinari- 
ans. It is said of one that when the undiligent scholar failed 
in recitating he would be asked in no soft voice, “What is the 
reason for your failure, native stupidity or culpable negli- 
gence?” If the boy acknowledged his culpable negligence he 
was immediately flogged, while the one wise enough to lay the 
blame for his failure to his native stupidity would be let off 
with no more comment. Such were the days of the application 
of the rod. It has been said of some of our strongest pioneer 
leaders that “beneath an exterior of yielding effacement ran a 
streak of hardened steel. They never changed their mind.” 
One of the teachers whose work is most highly commended was 
an ingenious soul. He conveived an idea of how to get the 
most out of his boys, physically as well as mentally. In the 
rear of his home he had a garden which he was able to keep 
beautifully cultivated at no expense to himself. His system 
was devised on the basis that it was a reward of merit. Light- 
hearted boys would weed and hoe in the hottest of days, pre- 
pare and carry wood for his fireplace as well as many times 
even bottling his cider. 


After years of leadership by the men teachers it was 
deemed possible for women to teach in the high schools as they 
had done very well in the dame schools and writing schools. 
With more preparation it was found that they could teach the 
upper grades. A published criticism states that, “A man’s per- 
sonality as a teacher counts. A woman teacher has no person- 
ality; therefore, a man teacher should be paid a good deal 
more.” Elsewhere it is written, “The women teachers with big 
pay do not marry. They save their money and leave it to the 
universities that have enuff.” Fancy women teachers saving 
their money? and especially for the purpose of endowing uni- 
versities. However, one cannot say that there is a more 


worthy cause. 




















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 151 


Some of you will be interested to note a statement of later 
date which reads, “Women are equal to men in teaching, and 
superior to them in forming the tastes and manners of their 
pupils. Few members of our school boards would dissent from 
this opinion, and yet the compensation given to women bears 
no comparison with that given to men.” Would our present 
school boards agree with this statement? There have been 
many evidences of progress in our educational system,—we 
look for one in this direction. 


In the census of 1870 it appeared that there were two 
hundred thousand teachers in the public schools of the United 
States, and of these one hundred and nine thousand were 
women. The proportion of men and women was about equal 
then. Nine years later in Massachusetts, according to the re- 
port of the United States Commissioner of Education, there 
were one thousand one hundred eighteen male, and seven thou- 
sand three hundred and ninety female teachers in the public 
schools,—the former receiving the average of $75.64 and the 
latter $33.04 per month. In other words there were six times 
as many women getting less than half as much as the men. 
Has this change been made because our school boards believe 
that women are “superior in forming the tastes and manners” 
of their young people or because they wish to save money? 


Teacher preparation always has been and always will be 
a great need, not only to obtain the subject matter, methods of 
teaching, and practice teaching, but to have developed a fine 
character, a high sense of public duty, and a loyal professional 
spirit. ‘As is the teacher, so is the school,” and so “as compe- 
tent teachers cannot have bad schools, the incompetent cannot 
have good ones.” 


Teachers to-day are fortunate because they can attend 
summer sessions at college and universities, take courses dur- 
ing the year, or attend excellent training schools. Many op- 
portunities are open for their advancement and the progres- 
sive teacher seeks it because she wants to become profession- 
ally trained, skilled in the technic of teaching, possessed of suf- 
ficient scholarship to have a philosophy of education and an 
appreciation of the meaning of professional ethics. 


On the whole, the teacher of to-day is better trained, bet- 
ter equipped, better supervised, and more efficient than the 











152 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


teacher of yesterday. Her successor in the future will be bet- 
ter still. The public schools of our country shall not go back- 


ward. 


And to you teachers of to-day,—Love, faith, and patience, 
—these must be thy graces, and in thine own heart let them 


first keep school. 






























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 153 


THE FIFTH GENERAL SESSION 


The fifth meeting of the convention of the Department of 
Secondary-School Principals was called to order by the presi- 
dent, Mr. Allen, at 1:25 P. M. in the Vernon Room of Haddon 
Hall. 


Superintendent W. W. Haggard of Joliet Township High 
School and Junior College, Joliet, Illinois, read and explained 
the amended constitution. The report was accepted and the 
constitution was adopted. 


Principal A. E. MacQuarrie of Washburn High School of 
Minneapolis, Minnesota, read the following statement and 
moved that the resolution be adopted. 


One of the most effective and enriching phases of the 
teaching of social science in the American high schools has 
been the intelligent use of the daily newspaper and the current 
periodical. 


The repeal of liquor legislation has been followed by the 
lowering of standards by publishers and the acknowledgment 
by the heads of great advertising bureaus that the virgin field 
of youth is to be exploited for liquor advertising profit. I am 
told by unimpeachable authority that nothing will be barred in 
the advertisers’ effort to break down the inhibitions of youth 
and build up a sales demand for booze. Love of physical fit- 
ness and fair play are to give way to false sophistication and 
cheap smartness. 


Aroused by the effrontry of those formulating the cam- 
paign and disgusted by those publications who for profits are 
willing to open their columns to the most vicious campaign 
ever directed against youth, I wish to present the following 
resolution and move its adoption. If approved by this organi- 
zation, I ask that it be submitted to the Department of Super- 
intendence and all affiliated organizations to register their ap- 
proval and codperation. 


Resolved: That we, the members of the Department of 
Secondary-School Principals, mindful of our responsibility to 
the millions of youth entrusted to our care do adopt the follow- 
ing resolution: 








154 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


1. Every member of this organization is urged to do his 
part to protect our youth against the proposed liquor adver- 
tising campaign. 

2. That we exclude all publications containing liquor ad- 
vertising from use in our high schools. 

3. That we call attention of our public-spirited and 
American-minded citizens to the viciousness and unfairness of 


an advertising program that for profit would destroy the 
most valuable product of American education, the character of 


our youth. 


Amended to refer to the Executive Committee of the De- 
partment of Secondary-School Principals. Amendment car- 
ried and the resolution was referred to the Executive Commit- 


tee. 


The President, Mr. Allen, then introduced the chairman 
of the session, Principal H. P. Miller of the High School of At- 
lantic City. The chairman presented Mr. Thomas H. Briggs, 
who read his report of the Committee on Orientation of Sec- 


ondary Education. 
























































PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 155 


THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 
ON THE ORIENTATION.OF SECONDARY 
EDUCATION 


THOMAS H. Briacs (Chairman) 
Teachers College, Columbia University 


Since its latest report of progress made to you a year ago 
at Cleveland, your Committee on the Orientation of Secondary 
Education has held two meetings, each five days in length. At 
the former the revised discussion of the issues was considered, 
and it was decided to put this out as a tentative report for 
the primary purpose of securing criticisms and practical sug- 
gestions from the field, especially as to the soundness and com- 
pleteness of the presentation and as to means of implementa- 
tion. 


Consequently, after the chairman of the Committee had 
spent practically all of his summer vacation in editing the 
reports, an edition of 1500 copies was printed, but not pub- 
lished, for distribution early in the fall. Partly in response 
to the invitation issued at this meeting a year ago and partly 
from extensive correspondence later, some sixty groups of es- 
pecially interested and competent people undertook to discuss 
the report and to submit their reactions before the middle of 
March. Some returns have already been received. All of the 
criticisms and suggestions will be carefully considered; and 
they are expected to be of material help in the final revision. 


Since the distribution of these tentative reports there has 
been a steady flow of requests for copies. Some have wished 
them for their own professional information, some for aid in 
solving problems of moment, and some for use in the training 
of teachers or administrators. Most of these requests unfor- 
tunately had to be denied, partly because this edition was in- 
tended for the very definite purpose of securing criticisms that 
would aid the Committee, and partly because the limited edi- 
tion was promptly exhausted. All who in response to the in- 
vitation issued here last year requested copies for use with 
discussion groups were supplied. 


At the meeting of the Committee held at Lake Placid in 
October the special functions of secondary education were dis- 














156 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


cussed. Subsequently, following the plan used for developing 
the issues, each function was assigned to one member of the 
Committee who undertook to give it special study and to draft 
a tentative report incorporating the ideas and agreements ex- 
pressed by all members in the previous discussion. These ten- 
tative reports will be discussed, after being considered individ- 
ually beforehand, at the April meeting, which will be held at 
Asheville. 


The wisdom of the plan to hold two extended meetings 
a year at some place entirely away from distractions of normal 
or of abnormal kinds has been abundantly justified. Thus un- 
interrupted discussions can be carried on day and night, and 
full consideration of every pertinent point is assured. The 
members of the Committee have all been faithful and highly 
helpful. In addition to the time required for attendance on 
the meetings, they have devoted many days and nights to study 
of the problems before the Committee and to writing up the 
parts of the report assigned to them. 


The handicap to the plan is that every member of the 
Committee is recognized as of such competence that he has 
been drafted to other duties outside those of his regular job. 
A mere enumeration of their outside obligations would be as- 
tounding. Most of these are too important to be refused and 
too pressing to be procrastinated. However, no one wishes to 
give up membership on a committee that is attempting so fun- 
damental a contribution to secondary education. In conse- 
quence of the pressure, Mr. Paul Diederich, of the Ohio State 
University, has been engaged to act as secretary at the Ashe- 
ville meeting and subsequently to edit for later publication the 
reports submittted there. 


The Committee will, unless unforseen complications arise, 
complete within the three years the task that is assumed. This 
it will do well within the original appropriation, probably 
without using any of the funds so generously appropriated by 
this Department, and have a reserve to pay for at least a part, 
if not all, of the publication of the reports. Although it will 
complete its task on time, no one should expect it to solve all 
the problems of secondary education. There will still be much 
left to do. But the reports should make an important contri- 
bution to the theoretical foundations on which the future 
structure will be built. 


























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 157 





We are and should properly be grateful to the Carnegie 
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching for the financial 
aid that has made the work of this Committee possible. But 
munificent as the grant was, it is much smaller in its total 
than the cost of the time contributed by the members and 
granted by their employers. I wish thus formally to recog- 
nize and to acknowledge the contribution made by boards of 
schools and of universities in permitting the extended ab- 
sences from duties for which the members of the Committee 
are employed that they might share in this important piece of 
work. Every member returns to his job from. each meeting 
with better insight and renewed competence for whatever pro- 
fessionally he may be called on to do. 


Unless expectations are defeated, we are at the beginning 
of tremendously large projects both by the Government and 
by private groups for improving the care and education of 
youth. Without contributions such as your Committee is at- 
tempting to make these projects cannot be substantially 
based. It is peculiarly fortunate that you made possible this 
work which was opportune in time and will, we hope, be high- 
ly valuable in results. 


The Chairman, with an appropriate story of elephant 
and peanuts, presented Elbert K. Fretwell, Professor of Edu- 
cation, Teachers College, Columbia University, who read his 
paper, The School and Democratic Society. 











158 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


EDUCATION AND DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY 


ELBERT K, FRETWELL 
Professor of Education 
Teachers College, Columbia University 


Out in Missouri when I was a boy, a neighbor of our fam- 
ily had a three-year-old chestnut-sorrel colt. This colt by 
breeding and by action in the pasture showed the possibility of 
making a real five-gaited saddle horse. As a result, instead of 
sending this colt with the other three-year-olds to plough in the 
fields, this neighbor sent him to Mexico, Missouri, to the best 
of all the saddle horse trainers with the result that our neigh- 
bor had a champion saddle horse. He put the colt to practicing 
under expert leadership what he was capable of becoming. 


The idea that I want to emphasize to-day is a familiar one 
to members of this association: If you want to develop quali- 
ties of democratic citizenship, arrange a favorable situation 
for practicing these qualities and make the practice emotion- 
ally and intellectually satisfying to the one doing the practic- 
ing. 

Education, as certain of our psychologists have pointed 
out, is based on man’s wants and it is the business of education 
to improve these wants and to improve man’s ability to satisfy 
these improved wants. “Democracy,” as one of the ablest of 
our philosophers pointed out at a meeting of this organization 
eleven years ago, “may be defined as a social organization that 
aims to promote codperation among its members and with 
other groups on the basis of mutual recognition of interests.” 
It is the privilege, the purpose, and the business of education 
in a democracy to fit people to live in a democracy and at the 
same time to make democracy a fit place in which to live. Self- 
governing is inherent in the scheme of a democracy. “Self- 
government as an administrator,” as Carl Schurz long ago 
pointed out, “is subject to criticism for many failures but it is 
impossible to overestimate self-government as an educator.” 

At the present time we are reminded on the right that it 
is the business of education to reflect society and exhorted on 
the left to have the school reform society. Now most people 
probably have a sufficient sense of social responsibility not to 
try to burn down the house which they, on their own applica- 

















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 159 


tion, are engaged to plan, construct, improve, and protect. 
Whatever the conditions of life at any time, probably every 
thoughtful teacher or parent sees, or has seen, the school as a 
means of a better to-morrow for the pupil, son or daughter, 
and for society. “That learning may not be buried in the 
graves of the fathers” has been an ideal for the school for 
nearly three hundred years. The breadth of learning, or learn- 
ings, has been increased but the ideal remains that the hope of 
a democratic society lies in an intelligent people educated so 
as to have a sense that individual opportunity and social re- 
sponsibility are one and inseparable. 


Between these conflicting ideas that the school shall reflect 
society and that the school shall reform society, possibly there 
may be another idea. There seems to be general acceptance of 
the belief that the pupils in our secondary schools are citizens 
of the school now, that they have rights and duties, privileges 
and obligations now, that the best proof we have that they will 
be good citizens to-morrow is that they are good citizens to- 
day. There seems to be a psychological basis for training up 
a child in the way he should go. 


If the school wishes to reflect the best in present society 
and utilize this best of the present as one means of building a 
better to-morrow, the school should recognize itself as a social 
organization. In promoting codperation among its members 
on the basis of a mutual recognition of interests, the school 
frequently is, and always can be, an improvement on the so- 
ciety that some persons wish the school to reflect. If the school 
is to have any real effect on society, it is going to have this ef- 
fect through the ways its pupils think, feel and act to-day and 
to-morrow. The school as a social unit should organize itself 
so that it can govern itself. This idea is not new. Sixteen 
years ago the president of this association in his opening ad- 
dress, said: “I believe it is supremely important that princi- 
pals and teachers recognize student participation (in govern- 
ment) as a principle underlying proper training in democratic 
thought, feeling, and action and not as a device for getting de- 
sirable work done.” There should be in the school of course the 
subject matter and the teaching to the end that the pupil 
can know the history, the facts, and the theories of social 
organizations taught as accurately and dispassionately as pos- 
sible. (It is probably impossible to prevent indoctrination. So 

















160 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


far as I know, in some five or six years of formal graduate 
study I cannot recall a class in which any energetic instructor 
failed to attempt “to instruct in learning, principles or doc- 
trines,” that is, to indoctrinate.) 

Knowledge, subject matter, seems not enough. The pupil 
desires to share increasingly in directing himself. Education 
begins with what the individual wants to do. It is generally 
accepted that the pupil shall share increasingly in selecting the 
time, place, amount, and character of his knowledge-work. It 
is not so generally accepted that he shall share increasingly in 
having a favorable opportunity in a social group to participate 
in the government of himself and his group. He should have a 
chance with expert guidance to share in planning the group 
life in school as a means of his own education to-day and so 
that he can plan and have the technique for executing his plans 
in his to-morrow. As teachers, we have long been recognized 
as having the ability to suppress undesirable traits, but we 
have much to learn in how to bring out the positive virtues. 


This living, planning, acting to-day on the part of the 
pupil in building for to-morrow is not limited to any special 
phase of the school. It can exist in such activities as: select- 
ing, organizing and assigning subject matter and method of 
work, in making class assignment, in questioning and testing, 
in organizing traffic, home-room guidance, planning assem- 
blies, selecting leaders; in setting up and carrying on schemes 
of pupil participation in government and in community con- 
tacts. While the extra-curriculum activities because of their 
freedom have many advantages in this field, these activities 
have no monopoly on this living to-day so as to insure a better 
to-morrow. It should be recognized that chaos resulting from 
lack of organization is not freedom. It seems that it is possi- 
ble in some so-called enlightened schools for the pupils to get 
in each other’s way so much that there is no freedom. There is 
little chance for freedom without organization. 

There is need for planning to develop the organization 
that serves the needs of the group. It is here that the pupil 
should be engaged in planning and executing plans for the 
common good as a means of his own education. It will be nec- 
essary to work out and put into effective practice ways which 
at the time are best ways for accomplishing desired ends. If 
the pupil is whole-heartedly engaged in such activities, he will 





























PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 161 


quickly learn that the social organization that he helps work 
out, exists to serve his and his fellows’ needs. He is sure to 
resent any idea that he exists primarily to serve the needs of 
the organization he has helped build. It is but a step from 
this understanding of social organization to the idea that the 
state exists for man and not man for the state. 

A school that is well organized so as to promote individual 
and group freedom is sure to have engaged both pupils and 
teachers in group planning for the common good. This plan- 
ning and the following executing is the very essence of educa- 
tion. Such a school has a home-room organization where a 
teacher and a relatively small group of pupils work out their 
common life in the school. Here is planning for the individ- 
ual, for the small group, for the class, and for the whole school. 
Here is helpful guidance by the home-room sponsor, the 
teacher, or by pupils who know, for those who have not yet 
learned how to proceed in selecting what to study, how to 
study, how to meet school regulations, and generally how to 
live and act as a citizen of the home-room and of the school. 


This school that engages its citizens in planning for the 
common good will have some scheme of merging all these small 
home-room groups into a whole school organization. This will 
probably be some form of a pupil-teacher council composed of 
elected representatives from all of the smaller groups. This 
all-school organization with expert guidance can receive ideas 
from the smaller groups, refer ideas to these groups for dis- 
cussion or decision. This two-way channel must be kept open 
if this form of organization is to succeed. There will be com- 
mittees for traffic in and out of the building, for assemblies, in 
fact for all phases of the school life, but all forms of pupil 
participation in government head up in the pupil-teacher coun- 
cil. 

In such a school as we are considering there will be clubs 
for all pupils who desire membership. No matter how mod- 
ern, how progressive the school, there is a healthy desire on 
the part of the pupils for an organization of their own. If 
this opportunity for belonging to clubs is denied to the school, 
the pupils outside of the school will organize clubs of their own. 
If all the so-called extra-curriculum activities of to-day were 
curricularized, by to-morrow or the next day youth would 
move out to a new frontier and set up, secretly or openly, or- 














162 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


ganizations of its own. The fraternity problem in high schools 
is due originally not to some perversity of youth but to the ab- 
sence of a socially constructive program on the part of the 
school or to the idea that the whole school is made up of what 
is formally taught and tested and on which promotion is based. 


At the present time youth needs more than anything else 
emotional stability. This stability comes from belonging to a 
group where he is wanted and to which he can render service. 
Outside of the school this group is ideally the home; inside the 
school it is usually the club. 


This school that is learning, or has learned, how to plan 
its group life, has a school assembly that is interesting, in- 
structive and emotionally satisfying. Here the finest achieve- 
ments of the school, or of its individuals, or groups, are recog- 
nized and celebrated. Here is presented the school’s best mu- 
sic in its various forms. In assembly are found the finest prod- 
ucts of class or club. Problems affecting the welfare of the 
whole school are discussed. The whole assembly is conducted 
with dignity. Contrary as it may be to the opinions of some of 
us, youth likes, respects real dignity. Assemblies should be 
beautiful in conception, beautiful in detail, and emotionally 
satisfying. 

The commencements, like the assembly, will present the 
finest achievements of the school and especially of the senior 
class. Commencements, like assemblies, will grow out of the 
life of the school. 

School publications, whether curriculum or extra-curricu- 
lum, will reflect the school at its best. The newspaper will help 
the school to know itself and help the community to understand 
the school. This school will not expect its pupils to get out a 
publication for which it does not provide the necessary train- 
ing on an educative basis. 

Perhaps a sufficient number of the school’s extra-curricu- 
lum activities have been cited to indicate what a school can do 
in this one phase of its life to be “a social organization that 
aims to promote codperation among its members and with 
other groups on the basis of a mutual recognition of inter- 
ests’; hence, a democracy. 

The high-school principals have many difficulties in de- 
veloping this democratic high school. For example, practi- 











PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 163 


cally all high-school principals desire teachers who have had 
definite educative training for advising some one or more of 
the school’s extra-curriculum activities. Only about one-fourth 
of the teachers’ colleges that are producing these high school 
teachers are attempting to provide this phase of the training 
that high-school principals demand. Though important, this 
is but one of the difficulties. 

This school, organized for freedom, is a collective body 
without being collectivistic. The whole school and all the mem- 
bers of the school are trying to think up ways for improving 
the school, to find ways for contributing to the common good. 
Pupils and teachers are trying to learn how to live in a demo- 
cratic society and to make this society, in school to-day and 
out of school to-morrow, a fit place in which to live. 

The real business of the school is not to reflect society 
though to a great extent this reflecting will take place. Nor is 
it the business of the school to build a new society. However, 
through the thinking, feeling, and acting of the members of 
the school we work for improvement of society. We strive 
through the school to help realize increasingly the ideals of 
democratic society. The real business of the school is to help 
the individual and the group link up individual and group op- 
portunity and social responsibility. The best proof that the 
pupil will have the knowledge, the attitude, and the skill to 
build a better society to-morrow lies in the fact that, with the 
right kind of guidance, but not too much, he is practicing here 
and now the qualities of a good citizen in the democratic so- 


ciety of which he is a living part. 


Chairman Miller interrupted the program for an interlude 
of music by a piano trio of young ladies from Atlantic City 
High School. 

The chairman then turned the gavel back to the Presi- 
dent, Mr. Allen, who introduced Mr. M. R. Robinson of The 
Scholastic, who made a brief report of the Publicity Commit- 
tee of the Tercentenary Celebration. 

Mr. R. L. Sandwick, member of the Finance Committee, 
and Principal of Deerfield-Shields Township High School, 
Highland Park, Illinois, gave some excerpts from the financial 
report and made some comments. Moved and seconded that 


Mr. Sandwick’s report be adopted. Carried. 

















164 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


President Allen asked for the report of the Nominating 
Committee. The chairman of this committee, Principal J. D. 
Hull, of Springfield, Missouri, made the following report: 
MEETING OF NOMINATING COMMITTEE FEB. 26, 1935 
Present: 

Wm. H. Bristow, Pennsylvania—Middle States Assoc. 

Robert H. Earley, Connecticut—New England Assoc. 

Paul E. Elicker, Massachusetts—New England Assoc. 

L. A. Fulwider, Illinois—North Central Assoc. 

V. M. Hardin, Missouri—North Central Assoc. 

J. D. Hull, Missouri—North Central Assoc. 

Theodore Kambour, Vermont—New England Assoc. 

M. E. Ligon, Kentucky—Southern Assoc. 

A. E. MacQuarrie, Minnesota—North Western Assoc. 

Louis E. Plummer, California—California Assoc. 

Milton D. Proctor, Maine—New England Assoc. 

W. L. Spencer, Alabama—Southern Assoc. 

L. H. Strough, New York—Middle States Assoc. 

John H. Tyson, Pennsylvania—Middle States Assoc. 

Neal M. Wherry, Kansas—North Central Assoc. 


Mr. Hull was elected chairman. 
Mr. Elicker was appointed secretary. 


After considerable discussion it was decided that merit 
with some attention to geographical distribution should deter- 
mine the basis for nominations, rather than the succession of 
officers from one vice-presidency to another and to presidency. 
The merits of system of succession, however, were recognized, 
but should not, ever, become mandatory for a nominating com- 


mittee. 
The following nominations were made by unanimous ac- 


tion of the committee: 

President—Harrison C. Lyseth, State Supervisor Secon- 
dary Education, Augusta, Maine. 

First Vice-President—Willard N. Van Slyck, Principal 
High School, Topeka, Kansas. 

Second Vice-President—M. G. Jones, Principal High 
School, Huntington Beach, California. . 

The two members of the Executive Committee: 

K. J. Clark, Principal Murphy High School, Mobile, Ala- 


bama. 





a ee 






















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 165 


Oscar Granger, Principal Haverford Township High 
School, Upper Darby, Pa. 


Respectfully submitted, 


PAUL E. ELICKER, Secretary, 
of Nominating Committee. 


On motion of Chairman Hull the report was adopted. 
President Allen then tendered the gavel to President-elect 


Lyseth, who pledged his best endeavors to the advancement of 
f the Department. f 





President-elect returned the gavel to President Allen. He 
i at once recognized Mr. E. D. Martin, who invited the Depart- i 
ment to meet in Houston, Texas, in 1936. 


} Principal H. P. Miller proffered a vote of thanks to those 
who worked to make this program a success. This suggestion 
H was carried by a unanimous vote. 


President Allen invited the incoming officers to platform. 


President Allen then adjourned the session. 


(The papers presented at the Research session will be 
printed in Bulletin No. 56, April, 1935.) 











166 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


CONSTITUTION 
OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL 


PRINCIPALS OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION 
ASSOCIATION 


ARTICLE I—NAME 
The name of this organization shall be the Department of 
Secondary-School Principals of the National Education Asso- 
ciation. 


ARTICLE II—AIM 
The aim of this department shall be the advancement of 
secondary education by providing a clearing house of discus- 
sion bearing upon the problems of administration and super- 
vision, by encouraging research, by upholding acceptable 
standards, by fostering professional ideals, and by formulat- 
ing a working philosophy of secondary education. 


ARTICLE III—MEMBERSHIP 
SECTION 1—The membership in the Department of Secon- 
dary-School Principals shall consist of two classes: active and 
associate. 


SECTION 2—All individuals shall be eligible to active mem- 
bership who are members of the National Education Associa- 
tion and who are engaged in administrating supervision, and 
teaching secondary education, upon payment of the annual fee 
of $2.00 to the executive secretary. 


SECTION 3—Members of state organizations of secondary- 
school principals shall be eligible to active membership in the 
Department of Secondary-School Principals, by the payment 
of the annual fee of $1.00 to the executive secretary. 


SECTION 4—All other persons interested in secondary ed- 
ucation, who are members of the National Education Associa- 
tion, shall be eligible to associate membership upon payment 
of the annual fee of $2.00 to the executive secretary. 


SECTION 5—Only active members shall have the privilege 
of voting or holding office. 














































SECTION 6—AII members, both active and associate, shall 
receive the publications of the Department. 


ARTICLE IV—OFFICERS 


SECTION 1—The elective officers of the Department shall 
be a president, a first vice-president, and a second vice-presi- 
dent. 


SECTION 2—The president and the vice-presidents shall 
hold office for one year. 


SECTION 3—The executive committee shall consist of the 
officers, the retiring president, and three other members each 
elected for a term of three years. At the first election, one 
member shall be elected for only one year and one other for 
two years. The executive committee shall be representative 
of junior high schools, the several types of senior high schools, 
and junior colleges. 


SECTION 4—The executive secretary shall be selected by 
the executive committee; his duties and compensation shall be 
determined by the executive committee. 


ARTICLE V 


SECTION 1—The president shall, sixty days in advance of 
the annual meeting, ask each of the state associations of the 
Department of Secondary-School Principals to name a repre- 
sentative who shall then be appointed by the president as a 
member of the nominating committee. 


SECTION 2—Eighteen members of the nominating com- 
mittee shall constitute a quorum with not fewer than three 
from each of the following regional associations of colleges 
and Secondary Schools: New England Association of Colleges 
and Secondary Schools, the Association of Colleges and Sec- 
ondary Schools of the Middle States, the Association of Col- 
leges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States, the North 
Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, the 
Northwest Association of Secondary and Higher Schools, and 
the Western Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. 
Any lack in the representation herein provided shall be filled 
by nomination from the floor. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CiTY MEETING 167 








168 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


SECTION 3—The nominating committee so constituted 
shall meet following its selection and after electing a chair- 
man, shall prepare a list of candidates for the several offices, 
to be submitted to the Department at its final business meet- 


ing. 


ARTICLE VI—FINANCE 


The president shall appoint, subject to the approval of 
the executive committee, two members who shall, with the exe- 
cutive secretary, constitute a board of finance to act in the 
capacity of trustees, to have custody of the funds of the De- 
partment, to have same properly audited, and to submit an- 
nually a report to the Department. Bills shall be paid by the 
executive secretary upon the authorization of the president. 


ARTICLE VII—MEETINGS 


SECTION 1—The Department of Secondary-School Prin- 
cipals shall hold two meetings yearly. The regular annual 
meeting shall be held at the time and place of the meetings of 
the Department of Superintendence of the National Education 
Association, unless arranged for otherwise by the executive 
committee of the Department. 


SECTION 2—The second meeting of the Department shall 
be held at the time and place of the annual summer meeting 
of the National Education Association. 


ARTICLE VIII—AMENDMENTS 


The Constitution may be amended by a two-thirds major- 
ity vote of those present and voting at the annual mid-winter 
meetings. A proposed amendment must be submitted in writ- 
ing at the preceding annual meeting, or must be submitted in 
printed form to all members of the Department thirty days 
before the annual meeting. In case the latter method is used, 
such amendment must receive the approval of the executive 
committee before it can be printed and sent to the members 
of the Department. 


- 


ARTICLE IX 


Robert’s Rules of Order shall govern in all meetings of the 
Department. 











PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 169 


NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY MEETING OF 
THE COUNCIL 


Haddon Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 
Sunday, February 24, 1935. 


The National Council met at 6 P. M. 


Present: Members Allen, MacQuarrie, Mathews, Mc- 
Daniel, McKown, Plummer, and Church. Absent: Members 
Brooks, Kepner, and Struthers. of 


On motion of member Allen, second MacQuarrie, the 
resignation of Alice Ball Struthers was accepted. 


The terms of the following members of the National 
Council close: Brooks, Kepner and Plummer; also the un- 
expired two-year term of member Struthers. 


The following ballot was prepared and approved: 


BALLOT 


COUNCIL MEMBERS 
of the 
NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY 
Vote for only four Mark out all others 
[_] W. L. SPENCER 


Supervisor of Secondary Education, Alabama 


[ ] JOSEPH ROEMER 


Director of Demonstration School, 
Peabody School for Teachers, Nashville 


[_] LOUIS E. PLUMMER* 


Principal, Union High School and 
Junior College, Fullerton, California 


[] RODNEY D. MOSIER 
Principal, Senior High School, Uniontown, Pa. 


CJ H. V. KEPNER* 
Principal, West High School, Denver, Colorado 


[1] H. B. JOHNSON 
Principal, Senior High School, Eugene, Oregon 


[] FLOYD E. HARSHMAN 
Principal, High School, Nutley, N. J. 














170 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


[_] V. M. HARDIN 


Principal, Reed Junior High School, Springfield, Missouri 
[-] OSCAR GRANGER 

Principal, Haverford Townhip High School, 

Upper Darby, Pa. 

[] ROBERT BURNS 

Principal, High School, Cliffside Park, N. J. 
[] R. L. BUTTERFIELD 

Principal, Benjamin Franklin High School, Rochester, N. Y. 
[] L. W. BROOKS* 

Principal, Wichita High School North, Wichita, Kansas 





*Present members of Council. 

On motion of member MacQuarrie, second Mathews, the 
Council adjourned to meet Monday, February 25, at 12:30 
P.M. Carried. 


MEETING OF THE COUNCIL 
Haddon Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 
Monday, February 25, 1935. 

The Council met at 12:30 P. M. 

Present: Members Allen, Kepner, MacQuarrie, Mathews, 
McDaniel, McKown, Plummer and Church. Absent: Mem- 
ber Brooks. 

Moved by Member McKown, second Plummer, that a com- 


mittee be appointed by the President to investigate the manu- 
facture of the emblems and report to the Council. Carried. 


Moved by Member Allen, second Mathews, that all high- 
school principals be circularized warning such of pseudo 
honor societies. Carried. 

Moved by Member MacQuarrie, second Allen, that state 
chairmen of promotion be appointed by the several members 
of the Council. Carried. 

On motion of Member MacQuarrie, second Kepner the 
Council adjourned to meet Tuesday, February 26 at 5:00 P. M. 
Carried. 











PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 171 


MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL 
HONOR SOCIETY. 


Tuesday, February 26, 1935. 


The National Council met in Haddon Hall at 5:00 P. M. 
Present: Members Kepner, MacQuarrie, Mathews, McDaniel, 
McKown, Plummer and Church. Absent: Members Allen, 
Brooks and Roemer. By unamimous vote member McDaniel 
was elected president; and Member Church was elected sec- 
retary. 

The assignment of states to members for the purpose of 
promotion was discussed and approved. 


On motion of member Plumber, second MacQuarrie, the 
returns of the referendum on the subject of state conventions 
were viewed as so slight in majority as to preclude the an- 
nouncement of a definite policy in regard to them. Carried. 


It was agreed that at the next February meeting a dis- 
cussion panel should be on the program. 


On motion of member MacQuarrie the Council adjourned. 

















172 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


AUDITOR’S REPORT 
For the year ended December 31, 1934 


February 16, 1935. 


To the Finance Committee, 
Department of Secondary-School Principals, 
National Education Association. 


Dear Sirs: 


At your request I have audited the records of Mr. H. V. 
Church, Treasurer of the Department of Secondary-School 
Principals of the National Education Association, located at 
5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, for the year ended 
December 31, 1934, and I hereby submit my report, together 


with the following exhibits and schedules: 


Exhibit A—Condensed Statement of Receipts and Disburse- 
ments for the year ended December 31, 1934. 


Exhibit B—Balance Sheet as of December 31, 1934. 


Exhibit C—Statement of Profit and Loss for the year ended 
December 31, 1934. 

Schedule 1—Statement of Securities Owned as of December 
31, 1934. 


Exhibit A 
DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 
NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


Condensed Statement of Receipts and Disbursements 
for the year ended December 31, 1934 


Balance of cash on hand January 1, 1934 $ 1,096.56 
Received during year: 
ie tila aenaselaceiieamiiainls iibidl $ 4,885.59 
Sale of bulletins ...........................-...----- 323.71 - 
I ieee nieces cinta 629.33 
Honor Societies ..................cccccccccsesseeeseee 34,485.23 
405.50 


Consumers’ Research ............--...--.--+<---- 














PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 173 


Interest on bonds and securities.......... 1,129.21 
Securities called ................2222--....c---00000 3,754.00 
Carnegie Endowment Grant ................ 3,000.00 
Sale of magazines ........................- ay en 507.10 
Insurance premiums ....................--.-.--- 5,954.86 
Total cash receipts......................--.--- $55,074.53 
$56,171.09 
Disbursed during year: 
i ai alia ai a al $ 70.60 
PE ee I nT eI ee 61.13 
SENIIIITIEy v’sscnsilensies ci staieeiesdsasvnicitidaiaatetabicniinataila 47.86 
Express and drayage ....................----+--- 3.04 
Consumers’ Research ....................----.--- 283.50 
EOE EO TE 252.80 
Safety deposit box rental ...................... 6.60 
Miscellaneous .......................0c0..0000eee00--+ 10.95 
Honor Societies ...........................00-000000- 29,309.97 
a vee 2,751.45 
i lal dlccaiacall 613.40 
Carnegie Commission .......................--- 3,440.78 
pL LS ee ee Re Oe 5,870.65 
Bonds purchased ...............----...-.---------- 11,393.18 
Total cash disbursements................-- $54,115.91 
Balance of cash on hand December 
31, 1934: 
ENT LER $ 2,047.02 
I aie 5 isisineceiciitebeaseltnasipiamindenil 8.16 $ 2,055.18 





Balance of cash on hand at January 1, 1934 was accepted 
as correct, having been verified in connection with the audit of 
the year 1933 and certified by the First National Bank, Chi- 
cago, Illinois as on hand December 31, 1933. 


All cash received was supported by duplicate records, 
numbered consecutively and showing from whom received and 
for what purpose. Amounts were distributed to columns 
headed dues, honor society, interest, etc. Duplicate receipts 
were checked as to amounts and distribution, and all numbers 

















174 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


were accounted for. Deposits to the First National Bank, Chi- 
cago, Illinois, showed that all funds received were deposited 
regularly except for small items of cash or currency which 
were placed in a petty cash fund. The total placed in this fund 
during the year under audit amounted to $269.76 and this was 
accounted for by small cash disbursements supported by requi- 
sitions duly signed, or by deposits to the bank. 


Disbursements are made by check except for small cash 
disbursements from the petty cash fund, amounting during the 
year under audit to $206.55. All disbursements, whether by 
cash or check, are supported by requisitions signed by both the 
president and the treasurer. Original requisitions are at- 
tached to cancelled checks together with other data supporting 
payment, and filed in the office of the Department. Duplicate 
requisitions are retained by the president until the end of the 
year and then turned over to the finance committee to be used 
by the auditor in checking disbursements. 

All data described above was test-checked by the auditor 
and seemed to prove that disbursements were properly au- 
thorized, and were made to the persons and for the purposes 
set out in the records. 

To prove the balance of cash on hand in the First National 
Bank, Chicago, Illinois at December 31, 1934, a certificate was 
obtained from the Bank. This certificate stated the balance to 
be $2,079.33. Five checks totalling $32.31 were outstanding at 
December 31, 1934 and deducting this total from the balance 
certified to by the bank leaves $2,047.02, the balance of cash on 
hand in the First National Bank as shown by the books. 


The balance of $8.16 was verified in connection with the 
examination of the petty cash fund. 




















PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


Exhibit B 


DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 
NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


Balance Sheet—December 31, 1934 


ASSETS 
Cash in bank .................. wvaeedambaseieeseaiinis $ 2,047.02 
I hiicicthicsedineiscirateiocadncieelass 8.16 $ 2,055.12 
Bille receivable ................2:.0ccccc.cccccessseosess $ 741.88 
Inventories: 
I oleate dacs tiabakiadbie laa 14,907.80 
Supplies: 
Honor Society. .................................... 2,990.77 
SI sc <isincscsssediniesiglinhditeionisebaiisial 448.33 18,346.90 
Securities at par: 
Real Estate loans |...............2222222.222220--+- $26,500.00 
Public Utility bonds .............................. 3,000.00 
Te init sieticecevrcrnen 556.34 
U. S. Liberty Loan 414’s 00... 3,000.00 
U. B. Tremere GaG W  .nv.ccnnccsccsnsncncesesss 4,000.00 
U. S. Treasury 314’s .......2.......2-..2--ccceee 5,000.00 
Be Ss ii Mie stints oscciasetierstlabacbaniailnai 7,000.00 
ee es i A ices sicesnnic ahem 2,825.00 51,881.34 
Furniture and fixtures (net of 
I issainicenrsntecmananin 308.17 
Ne I vinicnnccsinsnmiitiinuane $77,333.47 
LIABILITIES AND NET WORTH 
Sn II: sidssdiniincacricicipeatinioadeebeaeieed $ 644.26 
Net Worth January 1, 1934_.................2... $63,387.16 


Add-Profit for year 1934 (Exhibit C)..... 9,302.05 72,689.21 





Total liabilities and net worth.......... $73,333.47 


Referring to Exhibit B, cash in bank and in the petty cash 
fund have been commented on in connection with the state- 
ment of cash receipts and disbursements in Exhibit A. 


175 





























176 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


Bills receivable of $741.88 are supported by orders on 
hand December 31, 1934 for which payment had not been re- 
ceived. Most of these bills had been paid before the audit was 
made. 


The inventories as shown were accepted as correct with- 
out verification by the auditor. Mr. Church stated that they 
were compiled by actual count and valued at cost. 


Securities were examined at the vault of the University 
State Bank in the presence of Mr. Church and Mr. Reavis. 
They were checked against a schedule previously prepared 
from the records. All were found to be present and to corre- 
spond as to numbers and amounts with the schedule. 


At the suggestion of the auditor for the preceding year, 
Mr. Church set up an inventory of office furniture and fixtures 
at December 31, 1933. Annual depreciation of 10% on every- 
thing which is depreciated at the rate of 5% per year, was de- 
ducted from the opening balances and all additions were val- 
ued at cost. 


The bills payable of $644.26 were all paid during January 
1935. 


The profit for the year 1934 of $9,302.05 shown in the net 
worth section of the balance sheet is analyzed in the statement 
of profit and loss shown in Exhibit C on the following page. 


Exhibit C 


DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 
NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


Statement of Profit and Loss 
for the year ended December 31, 1934 


Loss Profit 
Honor Societies .............00..... $35,227.11 
Less—Expense : 
Inv. Jan. 1............ $ 2,032.81 
Add— 
Exp. for year.. 29,678.42 


$31,711.23 

















Less— 


Inv. Dec. 31.... 


MOO onc ate sels 
Less—Refunds .. 


Blanks ............---- 
Magazines .......... 
Less—Expense .. 


Consumer’s 


Research ........ 
Less—Expense .. 


Bulletins ............ 
Less—Refunds .. 


Less—Cost: 


Inv.—Jan. 1........ 


Add—Exp. for 


PRE | seidntececucuwes 


Less— 


Inv. Dee. 31.... 


2,990.77 28,720.46 





14,925.50 


2,751.45 


17,676.95 


14,907.80 


4,885.59 
29.00 


507.10 
376.55 


405.50 
283.50 


323.71 
18.86 


304.85 


2,769.15 





Carnegie Endow- 
ment ............---- 


Less—Paid Out.. 


Insurance ............ 
Less—Paid Out.. 


Conventions ........ 
Interest received.. 


Miscellaneous 
expense: 
Depreciation 


SE ON 
| NT oe 


3,000.00 
3,440.78 


5,954.86 


6,079.05 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


$ 2,464.30 


440.78 


124.19 


613.40 
























177 


$ 6,506.65 


4,856.59 
629.33 


130.55 


122.00 


1,274.21 











178 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


Express and drayage ........ 3.04 
Safety deposit box.............. 6.60 
Miscellaneous .................... 10.95 
Exp. on bonds pur............... 568.18 742.16 


Dept. Supplies—Inv. Jan. 1.. 280.78 
Inv. Dee. 31 448.33 167.55 


Net profit for year 
(| eae 9,302.05 





$13,686.88 $13.686.88 


In closing I wish to state that the records of your secre- 
tary-treasurer, Mr. H. V. Church, which I examined, are neatly 
and efficiently kept, and in my opinion, the statements shown 
here-in which were drawn from them give a true picture of 
the assets and liabilities of the Department of Secondary- 
School Principals as of December 31, 1934 and of the opera- 
tions for the year ended December 31, 1934. 


Also I wish to thank Mr. H. V. Church and the members 
of his office staff for the courtesy and codperation shown me 
throughout the course of the audit. 


Very truly yours, 


ANNE M. Lorp, 
Certified Public Accountant. 











PROCEEDINGS OF THE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING 


Schedule 1 


DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


Statement of Securities Owned December 31, 


Description 
934 Edgecomb Place Bldg. 614% due Aug. -, 1935 
UN MOOD” sii saliae stiches aise cs cesarean 
First Mortgage Real Estate Gold bonds on land and 
building at corner of Austin Ave. and Park 
Ave., Cicero, Ill. 6% due Aug. 15, 1936, No. 58 
Nos. 61, 62, 63, 70 and 73............-......-222000--20000-+- 
Leasehold Estate Gold bonds 6% due Jan. 15, 1936 
Nos. 27, 31, 34, 39, 40, 43, 44, 48, 49 and 72.... 
eR T  ciinkicccsittietclaankcteesbaiiidebdentanitaildabambinaiin 
First Mortgage Gold Notes 6% due Aug. 24, 1934 
} ET TOR EN EEN I ae INS ae 
Alamito Dairy Co. 614% due May 1, 1936 No. D-52 
Peoria Service Co. 614% due June 1, 1929 Nos. 
Pe Se ee iiisisisaiteinschichessesaniinsbicinieAidintiathdaialibiiint 
Presbyterian Church of Berwyn, Ill. Real Estate 
Gold bonds 6% due Nov. 1, 1935 Nos. 22, 23, 24 
U.S. 4th Liberty Loan bonds 4144.% due Oct. 1, 1933 
-38 No. E-02005275, F-02005276, G-02005277.. 
U. S. Treasury bonds 314% due Aug. 1, 1941 Nos. 
H-63577, B-72992, C-72993, D-72994, E-72995 
U. S. Treasury bonds 414% due 1947-52 Nos. F- 
0089126, H-00323738, J-00323739, K-00323740 
H.O.L.C. 3% due 1952 Nos. A.M.-67811-A, 411914- 
D, 411915-E, 421640-L, 421641-A, 311054-D, 
NE iininvinterieniceniinstetcaiiaiialiasiabiiniaiiiecatenns 
H.O.L.C. 234% due Nos. P-208267H...................... 
Nos. T-717617H, T-7176818J, T-717619K........ 
FRR: FP sicsisssoniteinintaditiiiiassndyivoniiottnnevininincees 
Nos. M-486281A, M-436282B ............................ 
Tax warrants—Cicero-Stickney Township High 
School, 6% due Apr. 8, 1933, No. 16210..$21.34 
due May 19, 1933, No. 9835.................... 25.00 
ie SD kniiichesnotstciimaiitalaa cite ica 50.00 


1934 


Amount 


500.00 
500.00 
5,000.00 


1,000.00 
1,000.00 


15,000.00* 
500.00 


3,000.00 
3,000.00 
3,000.00 


5,000.00 


4,000.00 


7,000.00 
25.00 
300.00 
500.00 
2,000.00 


179 





2 





180 DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


10131 
due June 16, 1933, Nos. 10498, 10499 
10500, 10501, 10502 
556.34 





$51,881.34