YOUR ELEMENTARY HISTORY COURSE

To simplify it, organize it, and reduce its cost, use the Elson-MacMullan

FOUNDATION HISTORY SERIES

This is the only series that

1. Offers a complete course in history reading and study for elementary grades

a. Based on recommendations of the Committee of Eight.

b. Covering American History to the close of the Revolutionary War (Grade 4).

c. And from the formation of the Union to the present administration (Grade 5)

d. Also giving the European background to American History (Grade 6).

e. All in story form and biography.

2. Simplifies selection of supplementary history material for elementary grades in a series suited to the following arrangements

a. STORY OF OUR COUNTRY: BOOK I.-basal (Grade 4). STORY OF OUR COUNTRY: BOCK II.-basal (Grade 5). STORY OF THE OLD WORLD- basal (Grade 6).

b. STORY OF OUR COUNTRY: BOOKS I. AND II.-supplementary (Grades 4 and 5).

STORY OF THE OLD WORLD-basal (Grade 6).

3. Gives as results

Everyday Arithmetic

In this day of many and elaborate textbooks, a book that presents the subject of arithmetic in a sane, simple, and practical way stands out strongly.

The New Wentworth-Smith Essentials of Arithmetic

is notable because of what it omits. From it all topics bearing no practical relation to life. have been cmitted, all superfluous, elaborate and confusing material and faddish detail. What remains is a well-arranged, carefully graded and thoroughly usable course, presenting only absolutely essential features treated in a clear and interesting way.

GINN AND

COM

PANY

PRESS

Vol. LXXXIII.-No. 3

A. E. WINSHIP, Editor

It behooves us as schoolmen to face this question earnestly and squarely, without fear, without prejudice, and without delay. It strikes at the very root of things.

What is the animating principle of democracy and what do the ideals of democracy demand of the school? Democracy is based upon the belief in the common brotherhood of man. Το this central truth democracy owes its origin and from it must ever draw its motive, its inspiration, and its chief support. In the light of it the very idea of special privilege seems abhorrent. To those who appreciate this, no form of aristocracy seems permissible, or even tolerable, save that of character and service. As the ideals of democracy have gripped the minds of men, there has come a growing sense of the supreme worth of the individual and of the responsibility of society for the individual.

As applied to the field of education, the spirit of democracy demands equality of educational opportunity for all. It demands that every one capable of being educated, rich or poor, bright or dull, strong or weak, old or young, shall be given his fair and equal chance for the largest measure of self-development, that each individual shall have a chance to become all that he has the latent possibility of becoming. demands that no individual or group of individuals shall be sacrificed for the sake of any other individual or group of individuals.

Progress toward the realization of this ideal has been made in the past. The public school has been made free and accessible to all. With increasing energy, intelligence and efficiency the state itself protects each child in his right to attend school and sees to it that he is in fit condition physically to profit by the the instruction offered. Speaking generally, as fast as differences in individual aptitude, ability and need have been recognized, the task of modifying traditional courses and methods to meet these individual differences has been undertaken. The principle that schools supported by all must meet the needs of all has become fairly well established in theory. The great task now before us is to make this principle a living reality in all our schools from top to bottom. It is the chief glory of the public school system in this

.

country that as soon as a previously neglected group has been clearly differentiated an earnest effort has been made to meet the needs of that group. This fact accounts in part for the faith which the people have in the schools and for their willingness to grant ever increasing appropriations for their support. No greater calamity. could befall the nation than to have that faith shaken.

If the schools are to retain the unshaken confidence of the people they must offer equal educational opportunity to all the children of all the people. The enormously increased appropriations necessary to carry out the program which this involves will be forthcoming when the necessity for these appropriations is made clear and when the people understand the significance of the changes which make these increased appropriations necessary. It is for us who are charged with administrative responsibilty and who feel most keenly present educational shortcomings and needs to lead the way. It is not especially to our credit when the impetus for educational reform comes from without rather than from within the profession.

The discovery of previously neglected groups and the adaptation of school work to meet the needs of these groups have been carried farthest, perhaps, in the first six grades. In these grades the following types, each requiring its Own peculiar method of treatment, have come to be fairly well recognized: 1. The feeble-minded. 2. The over-age and the backward. 3. The anaemic, the tubercular and those otherwise physically defective. 4. The so-called incorrigible. 5. The brilliant.

While these groups are now recognized, few schools have yet made adequate provision for their proper care and education.

Great as are the problems of discovery and adaptation in the lower grades, these problems increase in number, complexity and difficulty in the higher grades.

Speaking broadly, what

is the actual situation today from the seventh grade through the high school? To what extent are the pupils in these grades getting a square deal? To what extent are the ideals of democracy being realized?

An eight year elementary course has no justi

fication in psychology, logic or history. The normal twelve-year-old child, having acquired a working knowledge of the tools of learning, demands fresh subjects of instruction, different methods of teaching, and more appropriate methods of discipline. The present waste of time, energy and opportunity in the seventh and eighth grades and the heavy losses due to withdrawal from school are due in large part to the fact that these legitimate demands of the adolescent have been ignored.

The change advocated is not one merely of name, not one merely of outward organization. To be effective it must be a very radical inward change of aim, of method, and of spirit.

William McAndrew, the organizing genius the organizing genius and until recently the animating spirit of the most democratic high school this country or the world has yet seen, recently made the following statement: "The statesmen who established our public education were largely forward-lookers. But the vanes on our schoolhouses have been set by breezes blowing out of antiquity. We have learned our trade by the study of old models. We have been loath to abandon what it has cost us time and money to acquire. Conservers there must be, but the exclusive business of preserving runs too much to dried fruits and to attics filled with canned goods."

The high school as at present organized and conducted is a highly selective institution and is by no means adapting itself to individual capacity and need. A study of sixteen large representative high schools, mainly in the Middle West, showed that an average of 28 per cent. failed in algebra, of 24 per cent. in geometry, 23 per cent. in Latin, 20 per cent. in chemistry, English, French and physics, and 18 per cent. in German; or a general average of 22 per cent. in all subjects. The same study showed that the percentage of failure among first year high school students was 31 per cent.; of second year students, 21 per cent; of third year students, 19 per cent.; of fourth year students, 13 per cent.; or a general average for the four years of 231

per cent.

raw

A factory that consigned to the scrap heap from one-third to one-fourth of all its material would soon have to go out of business, and the American secondary school must find a method of preventing this frightful waste of the nation's human material or confess itself pedagogically bankrupt.

our

That this waste can be very materially reduced without in the least sacrificing precious standards has been abundantly demonstrated in schools that have accepted full responsibility for the education of all young people, each according to his individual ability and need.

To cite but two instances, the great McKinley High School of St. Louis reduced its percentage of failure in four years from 17 per cent. to 7 per cent., and the high school at Westerly, Rhode Island, brought its percentage of failure. for the entire school down to 7.3 per cent.

The easy but brutal method of elimination as

the sole means of maintaining standards of scholarship should no longer be tolerated in any enlightened Christian community. This does not mean that teachers should be less scholarly. It does demand that they shall be more human. It does not mean that they shall teach subjects less. It does demand that they shall teach boys. and girls more. It does not mean a lowering of scholarly standards. It means a truer conception of what a high school is for and what we are for.

What would have become of the Standard Oil Company, if years ago it had decided that kerosene was the only product which it could, with dignity and with due regard to its high standards, manufacture from crude petroleum; that what was not good for kerosene was therefore good for nothing; had justified the wasteby pointing with pride to the excellence of its single product; and had maintained with asininestupidity that the using of waste material for the thousand and one purposes that it was good for, would lower the standard of the single product that it was not good for? How long would the public tolerate a hospital supported by all the people, for the benefit of all the people, if it arbitrarily decided that it would open its doorsonly to those possessing certain physical characteristics that happened to please the fancy of its board of directors, and maintained that all other types were beneath its notice?

Yet it seems to be left to the school to proceed in much this fashion. It is left to the school to select out of all the varied and multiform types of mind, each type of supreme worth in its way, each in dire need of education and training, each capable of being educated if the proper methods be employed, a few special types only for its favor, and to thrust forth or to neglect, which amounts to the same thing. all the rest. What right, for instance, has the school to say that if a pupil cannot master algebra, he shall not be allowed even to try to master anything else? If he cannot enter into the temple of learning through this one absurd little gateway, he shall not enter at all, even though there were a score of other doorways through which he might easily pass. Is any one so sure of the supreme importance of algebra, as now taught, that the possibility of all further training beyond the eighth grade should be made to depend absolutely upon ability in this single direction? Is this not trenching a little too far upon the province of divine wisdom? Educative material is as varied as the types of mind to be educated. It is for us to change our intellectual residence from some bygone age to the twentieth century and to organize the rich and varied educative material lying all about us and adapt it to meet twentieth century needs.

In view of the wide variation in ability among high school students, the need for some modification of the present method of whole-class instruction becomes perfectly clear. The bright waste time and fall into bad mental habits, while the slow are hurried over the ground at too

rapid a pace, fail to gain a clear understanding of the subject, fall behind and leave school. Pupils do not know how to study. They do not know because they have never been taught. They have not been taught because teachers have not had the opportunity of giving them instruction at the only time when it can be given effectively; namely, when the pupils are studying.

Ceasing the present over-emphasis of the written examination.

The written examination cannot produce scholarship, nor can it create a genuine interest in learning. As a stimulus to either teacher or pupil it is an instrument of questionable value. As a means for measuring scholarship, it is always crude, generally unfair, especially to to certain types of mind, and often totally misleading. It is an almost an almost insuperable obstacle to true teaching, especially the teaching of cultural subjects. A uniform system of written

should be substituted for an encyclopaedic treatment of many small topics; and the order of topics should be determined by the needs, capacities and interests of students." Or, as the commission on the reorganization of secondary education has put it: "The value of each subject is to be measured in terms of a changed

attitude of the pup.l toward life. If the student is changed helpfully by the pursuit of a given subject, that subject is good for him. If he is not changed helpfully, that particular subject is bad for him."

discussion.

cannot fail to be mechanical and arbitrary, no matter with what wisdom and consideration such a system may be administered. Under the insidious influence of such a system the tendency is in evitable that ideals of teaching will be lowered, rather than raised, that in the teacher's anxiety to reach the immediate and tangible goal of success set before her, all the higher and truer aims of teaching will be forgotten, and that the teaching of subjects for examination purposes will come to take the place of teaching boys and girls for the enlargement and enrichment of life.

I venture to believe that the announcement just made by our honored Commissioner of Education, that hereafter the emphasis will be shifted somewhat from set uniform examinations as a means of insuring progress to inspiring professional leadership and sympathetic

guidance, promises more for the genuine development and improvement of our great system of public education than any other that has come from the department in many years.

The recasting and rearrangement of subject matter to meet individual ability, aptitude and need.

To summarize from Parker in his "Methods of Teaching in High School": "Subject matter should be adapted to varying social needs; specific and relative values of topics should be carefully determined'; in the content subjects the intensive treatment of a few large topics

Every pupil must have expert and sympathetic guidance in the choice of subjects to be studied.

Here is a vast field as yet practically untouched. The great majority of pupils entering high school are as sheep without a shepherd. To be of any service, the adviser must know psychology and sociology in general; he must know in particular the mental, social and economic condition of the student whom he advises; he must know life; and he must have leisure, not only to give each case the attention which it deserves in the beginning, but to follow sympathetically thereafter the progress of each one of his charges.

The ideals of democracy must reign supreme in the hearts of all teachers. All changes of courses, of methods and of organization will be of no avail until equality of opportunity ceases to be a mere formula and becomes a religion; until the spirit of the Good Shepherd who careth for the sheep becomes the ruling spirit of the schools; until mere scholarship, of itself cold and forbidding, is warmed, transfused and transformed by a glowing passion for humanity in the making. There are already many such

The rest will be as loyal to the newer ideals as they have been to the old, when once they have seen the light. It is the immediate, the supreme task of educational leadership to make that light shine.-Address, New York State Teachers' Association.