[60] Measuring the Work of the Public Sc_Introduction to the scientific study of education

Education Survey. Published by the Survey Committee of the Cleveland

Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio, 1916.

[61] Proceedings of the National Education Association for 1915,

p. 256. Published by the Secretary of the Association, Ann Arbor,

Michigan, 1915.

CHAPTER XIII

PERIODICITY IN THE PUPIL’S DEVELOPMENT

RECOGNITION OF PERIODICITY IN PRESENT ORGANIZATION

Both the school curriculum and the general organization of the school

program in such matters as the length of class periods and the forms of

order required, reflect the fact that the pupil passes through distinct

periods or epochs in his physical and intellectual development. Each

of these epochs requires that a certain type of subject-matter be

used for instruction and that a certain type of school discipline

be administered. There is a progressive maturing of the pupil and a

corresponding broadening and deepening of the education which can

be given him. The general outline of this maturing process will be

reviewed in this chapter.

THE MEANING OF INFANCY

Before examining the changes which take place during school life,

it will be instructive to review the general matter which has been

discussed by John Fiske under the title “The Meaning of Infancy.”[62]

Writing from the point of view of the student of evolution, Fiske

calls attention to the fact that the period of infancy has gradually

lengthened with the increase in complexity of animal forms. The lowest

animals have practically no period of infancy. They begin their

independent lives with all of the capacities of the adult. For example,

when a unicellular animal is produced, it results from a division of

the parent cell into two equal parts. Each part immediately takes up an

independent life, and it may be said that adulthood begins at birth.

Further up the scale the parent organism provides protection and food,

and the infant requires a longer period of time to arrive at adulthood.

This lengthening of infancy is paralleled by an increase in complexity

of the animal form itself. The highest stages of complexity are reached

in man, and here we find also the longest period of infancy. The human

infant is helpless for years, and the care which parents must give to

it includes not only the provision of food and protection but also the

gradual training of the child to assume the responsibilities of an

independent life.

When viewed by the evolutionist, infancy and even childhood thus

appear to be the clearest evidences of the need of educational care.

Indeed, childhood may be described as a period of preparation or of

gradual maturing of the powers until the individual can carry on his

independent personal activities.

THE PERIOD BEFORE ENTERING SCHOOL

Just as the period of childhood taken as a whole has a clearly

definable character and purpose in the economy of life, so each

epoch within this period can be set off from the others as serving

a distinct purpose in the child’s development. This is especially

clear with regard to the years that precede school. In all civilized

countries there is practical agreement that regular schooling shall

begin with the normal child in the sixth year. To be sure, there are

special institutions like the kindergarten, which receive children at

an earlier age, but these institutions aim to serve in a somewhat more

systematic way the same purposes that under other circumstances are

served by home training.

What is the character of the education given in the home or the

kindergarten preliminary to the work of the primary school? The answer

to this question can be given negatively by saying it is not of a

type which belongs to a public institution. When the pupil comes to

primary school he must be reasonably prepared to live with people who

are comparative strangers. This implies that he must have a sufficient

command of language to make his wants known and to understand what

others want him to do. He must be somewhat independent of maternal

care, and must be ready to be initiated into a social world where his

individuality will be recognized as somewhat detached from that of

everyone else. Put in positive terms, the pre-school training may be

described as training in language and in personal independence of a

very elementary type.

This statement can be applied to the kindergarten, where the purposes

of the pre-school training have been brought to fairly clear

consciousness. The kindergarten gives the child much opportunity to

play with things that are given to him. He must learn to distinguish

objects for himself; he must learn to handle them with enough skill

so that he becomes an independent individual. Second, he must play

with other children, learning through games that social life consists

of a give and take which marks him off from others and yet makes him

responsible to the group. The social training of the kindergarten is

a preparation for life in an institution where the pupil will have

to recognize the reciprocal duties of life in a large group. Third,

the chief instrument of social life, and the most important means of

effective contact with the group, is speech. The kindergarten child,

through songs and stories, learns words and sentences and cultivates

the power to which home-training also contributes—the power of

independent oral communication.

The kindergarten does in an energetic and systematic way what the home

does incidentally, for in any home, however meager its resources, the

child learns in five years something of his mother tongue and something

of the demands of group living. The pre-school period is an important

epoch in education as well as in physical growth. We recognize the

physical fact that the child must cultivate strength enough to run

around independently and to use his hands in holding what he needs. So

it is also in the sphere of his mental life; he must be able to take

care of himself.

THE PRIMARY PERIOD ONE OF SOCIAL IMITATION

At five or six years of age the pupil comes to the primary school. His

experience is very limited; his senses are open to the impressions

of color and sound and touch, and he eagerly or timidly mixes in the

social group which is often to him bewilderingly large and strange.

The key to the understanding of this period is to be found in the

simple psychological principle that out of all the bewildering mass of

childish experience it is persons who attract the child’s most vivid

attention. The experiences of childhood are to be thought of not as

meager but as confusing in their abundance. The world is so full of a

number of things that one hardly knows where to turn. In the mass of

this experience one turns to some person and follows in a docile way

the lead of that person. The first grade is a place where children do

what others do. First-graders are a flock of sheep. The teacher can

lead them into almost anything because they are eager to do whatever

they see others do.

Sometimes this period is described as a period when children are

absorbed in sense impressions. This statement is true if it means that

colors and sounds constitute the content of experience. It is false if

it is meant to teach that little children are absorbed in the study

of objects. The sounds and colors which hold the attention of primary

children are those which attach to people. A little child will give

up a plaything which he has in hand for a less attractive plaything in

the hands of someone else. Primary children are social creatures first,

last, and all the time.

This description of the primary child’s mental attitudes gives us the

formula for the organization of the primary course of study. There is

an eager desire on the part of the first-grader to write his name. He

does not need any artificial stimulation to undertake writing. Other

people write; that is enough for him. He is eager to be initiated.

Other people look into books; he must do the same. The period is not

a period for nature study in any analytical scientific sense. It is a

period for social companionships. The primary child likes animals as

playthings; he is not interested in studying their structure. Show an

animal to a little child and let him ask the questions that are in his

mind, and social questions are the only ones which will come. “Where

can I get one?” “Will it bite me?”

The judgment of the race has been right; this is the period for the

teaching of reading and writing. The oral language which the pupil

acquires in the pre-school period is the basis on which the primary

work must be erected. The first reading lessons are lessons in the

association of known oral symbols with those complicated social

devices, the printed symbols. The ability to live in society which the

pupil brings to the first grade must be extended through the mastery of

language in its written and printed forms.

The utter absorption of the child of this age in society rather than

in material things is attested by his credulity for fairy tales which

are full of people but are grotesquely impossible in their description

of material facts. In his eager desire to illustrate every story he

hears, the child produces drawings which have very little merit as

representations of things but are often expressive of action in the

highest degree. A child of this age is keen in his observation of

people but neglectful of things.

THE PERIOD OF INDIVIDUALISM

The primary attitude of mind lasts about three years. In the normal

child nine years of age is a turning point. By this time he has learned

to read fairly independently. He can write and can solve simple

problems in arithmetic. He has control of some of the simpler objects

about him. He has imitated his elders until he has habits of his own.

Now comes a change. Sometimes the change is sudden and violent. The

pupil who has been laboriously writing from copy throws the example of

his copy book to the winds and composes a note to one of his friends

in a rapid, scrawling hand. The child has become an independent

master of writing for his own private purposes. So it is with his

other activities. Even in social matters he asserts his independence

by refusing to follow the dictates of the teacher. School discipline

suddenly comes to be a serious problem.

The change here described reflects itself in a fact of administration

which is of frequent recurrence. Pupils fail of promotion in the fourth

or fifth grade much more commonly than in the second, third, or sixth.

In other words, there is here, just after the primary grades, a period

of violent readjustment.

The readjustment which comes at this point can be described by saying

that the pupil is entering on a period of self-recognition. The primary

child is an imitator absorbed in social examples. The intermediate

child is an individualist. He is aware of his own powers and ambitions.

The boys of this period have been described as young barbarians. They

are disregardful of the rights of others. They step on the little

children; they refuse to be friends with the girls. They are ambitious

to leave school and do something to assert their independence.

The school has dealt with this period with much less intelligence than

it has exhibited in the primary years. In general, the intermediate

grades have followed in subject-matter and in methods too closely the

example of the successful primary grades. The result appears in the

fact that the migration out of elementary schools is very common in the

fifth and sixth grades. The intermediate grades have been described as

periods of drill. If there is one kind of work that is not appropriate

here, it is routine drill. There ought to be a new and thoroughgoing

study of the needs of this period and the introduction of a type of

instruction which will meet the needs of children who are vividly aware

of themselves and of their personal relations to the world.

That a change is coming about in the methods of dealing with pupils in

these years is shown by the fact that the elementary school is setting

apart the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades as the years in which the

strictly elementary work is to be completed. Much that was postponed

to the seventh and eighth grades under the older form of organization

will doubtless be brought down into the intermediate grades. The

children will no longer be drilled in the forms of the social arts

while waiting for the enlarged opportunities of the upper grades, but

will be introduced at once to experiences with the objects of the

physical world. They will be encouraged to see things and handle them

for themselves.

EARLY ADOLESCENCE AS A PERIOD OF SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS

The close of this period of individualism is marked by physical and

mental changes of a very definite and significant type. From twelve

years on the child begins to realize anew the social world about him.

Physical changes are going on within him that stimulate this type of

thought. The literature of education has emphasized the fact that at

this period there is a maturing of the sex organs and an accompanying

development of feelings and interests in the opposite sex. There has

been doubtless an overemphasis on the sexual characteristics of this

period. The fact is that a profound general physical and mental change

is going forward.

On the physical side the organism which has been accumulating powers

through its mastery of the fundamental processes of life is now ready

for its last large development. We shall understand the meaning of

this statement only when we realize that the organism has to cultivate

a whole series of internal habits in order that it may be internally

harmonious. The little child is easily disturbed, for example, in his

digestion. This means that the habits of digestion are not established.

The immature nervous organism of the pupil needs training to bring

it to the point where digestion will go forward without interruption

or distraction. The same is true of circulation and respiration. The

organism has to learn to live. The school period is a period of mastery

of these internal processes quite as much as a period of intellectual

training.

At about twelve years of age the inner coördination is reaching its

consummation. If one were to select for discussion the most significant

physical fact that marks this period, one would lay stress on the

development of the heart. This organ grows rapidly in size and

strength. Its more vigorous action raises the blood pressure throughout

the body. Organs which have been slow in their development now grow

rapidly. The whole life of the individual is intensified. It is not

alone the sex organs which mature; the nervous system acts with greater

energy, and the muscular system develops. In short, a period of the

most active life sets in.

The physical vigor of the twelve-year-old and the thirteen-year-old

child is only part of the explanation of the characteristic

intellectual temper of this period. Just prior to this period the

child, as we have seen, passes through an era of marked individualism.

The unsocial tendencies of that period bring disappointments and new

lessons, and finally the child is ready for a renewal of his contacts

with the social group. He cannot now be purely imitative as was the

primary child, for he has gained self-consciousness. He cannot be

content with pure individualism, because his experience has broadened

so that he sees his dependence on others. A new social era opens.

With self-consciousness and with a desire to get back into society

by accepting its ways and complying with its demands, the adolescent

seeks, albeit somewhat clumsily, a new contact with his fellows. The

awkwardness of this period, its lack of self-assurance, its eagerness

for social recognition, are all perfectly clear to the student of human

nature who has analyzed the case of a twelve-year-old pupil.

THE NEW SCHOOL ADAPTED TO ADOLESCENCE

Has the school met the legitimate demand for a suitable education of

the adolescent? The answer is that the school has been slow in meeting

this situation. The archaic form of school organization which attached

the seventh and eighth grades to the elementary school has hindered

greatly a proper recognition of the special needs of adolescence. The

child of twelve or thirteen does not need a review of the elementary

work so much as a preparation for the active life of adulthood.

The adolescent needs to be given an insight into the organization

of society. He needs to be brought into contact with the ways and

languages of other peoples. Fortunately, the keener educational

insights of the present day are bringing us to a recognition of these

needs. The school for the adolescent is beginning to emerge out of the

current reorganizations of the seventh and eighth grades.

In many schools these two grades have been gradually separating from

the rest of the elementary grades. The teaching has been organized on

the departmental plan; that is, a number of special teachers, each

dealing with a single subject, replace the single teacher who has

charge of the whole curriculum in the lower grades. Furthermore, the

curriculum has been enlarged. Manual arts and household science have

been introduced and, in some cases, other subjects which were formerly

offered only in the high school. A new type of school, including the

seventh, eighth, and ninth grades and known as the junior high school

or the intermediate school, is appearing.

Where these and like changes have not been made in the seventh and

eighth grades, criticism has made itself increasingly heard because

the pupils do not get ahead in these grades. The reviews which are

sometimes carried on at great length in preparation for promotion into

the high school are a waste of time and energy and leave the pupils

without enthusiasm for school work and without habits of concentration.

In an earlier chapter it was shown that the seventh and eighth

grades came from Europe during the decade 1840-1850. Every line of

evidence which is taken up points to the desirability of a complete

reorganization of the work of these grades.

The spread of the junior-high-school idea has been remarkably rapid.

This is due to the growing conviction that pupils in the seventh and

eighth grades require a higher type of instruction and discipline than

that which is supplied in the lower grades. The curriculum is being

enriched by the addition of science, foreign language, mathematics

other than arithmetic, and several of the practical arts. Instruction

is being intrusted to teachers of broader training, and the individual

needs of pupils are being more adequately met by the introduction of

some elective courses.

LATER ADOLESCENCE A PERIOD OF SPECIALIZATION

The early part of the adolescent period which has been under

consideration in the foregoing paragraphs is followed by a period

which can be described as the beginning of specialization. The fact

that individual differences here assert themselves and that individual

outlooks determine the training demanded is clearly recognized in the

adoption of the elective system by the high school. Special education

has an adequate foundation in the work of the earlier years, and now

the student must build his individual career on this foundation. He

comes to a new period of individualism. He is not individualistic in

the sense in which the fourth-grade boy is when he breaks away from

imitating social examples. The boy of fifteen to eighteen has passed

through the first period of individualism and through the socializing

training of early adolescence; he now comes to a new type of

individualistic effort which will fit him for his place in the social

system.

The upper limit of this period, as set down in the foregoing

discussions, coincides with the age at which a normal student is now

supposed to finish high school. There can be very little doubt that

with the readjustments going on in the seventh and eighth grades there

will be far-reaching changes in the upper high school also. It is not

too much to expect that with improved methods of teaching and with

a better curriculum it will be possible for the normal student to

complete at eighteen years of age the first two years of the college

curriculum. The complete reorganization of the higher institutions is

thus likely to follow the changes which are now under way in the high

school.

The freshman and sophomore years of American colleges are at present

filled with subjects which are essentially secondary in character. The

reorganization suggested is therefore altogether legitimate.

THE REORGANIZED SCHOOL SYSTEM

The scheme of school organization which is in keeping with the

foregoing study of mental development is as follows: Three primary

years are to be devoted to the rudiments of the social arts. Three

intermediate years following the primary are to be devoted to gaining

an outlook on the world. Three years covering the period now covered by

grades seven, eight, and nine are to be devoted to social studies and a

systematization of knowledge of the world. The three years from fifteen

to eighteen are to be devoted to a completion of general training and

to the beginning of specialization. After this will come complete

specialization.

Not all students can go through the full training thus outlined.

More and more, however, communities will provide for, and require

the completion of, the whole cycle. If a student’s training must be

curtailed, there will doubtless be an increasing tendency to bring

the higher stages down rather than to terminate education before

preparation for life has been carried far enough to give specialized

individual training.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

Considering the kindergarten and the first grade in the light of the

discussions of this chapter, what are the characteristics of pupils

which justify placing them in the one or the other? What is the present

rule with regard to this placing? Should there be any systematic

education of children in the home? If so, along what lines?

Make a detailed catalogue of the kinds of ability, both physical and

mental, exhibited by a group of pupils in the first grade, and then

attempt, by contrasting a third-grade group, to determine what pupils

acquire in the primary years. Which of the new characteristics noted

are consciously sought by the school?

What kind of reading matter should be offered to pupils in the fourth,

fifth, and sixth grades? What grade of experience is required of

teachers in the middle grades?

What readjustments is the student called on to make as he passes from

elementary school to high school? From high school to college? Do the

institutions concerned put forth any effort to help the student in

making these transitions?

When should formal education stop? Should pupils be given a course in

the methods of educating themselves? If so, at what school period?

Show in terms of earlier chapters what are the forces making for

reorganization of the school system and the forces opposing this

reorganization.

AMES, E. S. Psychology of Religious Experience. Houghton Mifflin

Company. Like other books on the psychology of religion, this calls

attention to the great importance of the changes that come with

adolescence.

HALL, G. S. Adolescence. D. Appleton and Company. This is a somewhat

erratic and often purely hypothetical description of the development

of pupils at the beginning of the high-school age. It called

attention, however, to the importance of the period and marked an

epoch in the development of educational theory.

HALL, G. S. Youth. D. Appleton and Company. A brief summary based on

the foregoing.

KIRKPATRICK, E. A. Fundamentals of Child Study. The Macmillan Company.

This is the best summary of the child-study movement. It offers

a treatment of the different periods of a child’s life somewhat

different from that in the text.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] John Fiske, The Meaning of Infancy. Houghton Mifflin Company,

1909.

CHAPTER XIV

SYSTEMATIC STUDIES OF THE CURRICULUM

THE CURRICULUM BASED ON AUTHORITY VERSUS THE LIVING CURRICULUM

The six preceding chapters, which have dealt with the curriculum, make

no pretense of presenting formulated courses which can be given to

classes. Some reader may have been impatient because he did not find

there an outline of arithmetic or geography or Latin or English. It has

been the purpose of these chapters to deal only with general principles

and general problems. The fact is that it would be absolutely futile to

lay down a curriculum and say of it that it is the true curriculum. The

curriculum of a school is a living thing. It is constantly undergoing

readjustments. Its content is drawn from the social life to which it

introduces pupils, and its arrangement depends on the ability of pupils

of different ages and different capacities to grasp this constantly

readjusted content.

There are some teachers who prefer to have the course of study handed

down to them by some superior authority. There are many fifth-grade

teachers, for example, who prefer to have the superintendent tell

them just how many pages of geography to cover each week and how many

minutes to devote to this subject. There are many Latin teachers who

are satisfied to take from some college catalogue a statement of the

number of pages to be read in Cæsar, to divide this number by the

number of days during which the class meets, and then to plod through

the assignments. The day of such teachers, unfortunately, is not yet

past, but it is passing. The course in geography or Latin is not a

quantitative matter; it is not a static affair; it is an organized

body of material which grows and changes with the development of

society. To the intelligent teacher a course of study is a subject of

constant scrutiny and revision. Every detail must be weighed as to its

importance and as to its relations to the whole series of topics and to

the needs of pupils.

OLDER SUBJECTS PRODUCTS OF LONG SELECTION

Efficient teachers have always assumed toward the subject-matter of

their courses an attitude of the type described. As a result there

has been in every generation of schools some progress in organizing

courses. Little by little experience has refined the practices of

schools. Take, for example, Latin or any of the older subjects.

Countless teachers have contributed to the organization of this

subject. There is very little probability that pupils will encounter

in first-year Latin anything that they ought not to be asked to learn,

because the details have been tried out on successive generations of

learners, and only that has been retained in first-year Latin which

can be taught in that year. In the newer subjects, on the contrary,

there is the greatest uncertainty. In his enthusiasm for the new ideas

which come to his own mind, the teacher of biology rushes forward

to generalizations which are too mature for his first-year classes.

The subject-matter will have to be tried out and sifted before it is

as well selected as is the course in Latin. The teachers of the new

subjects will inevitably pass through a series of the same kind of

sifting processes through which the teachers of Latin have passed. Even

when some of the problems thus arising are settled, the new subjects

will still be difficult of organization. Thus biology is changing by

virtue of the evolution of the science at a rate which complicates the

case very much more than it can ever be complicated in Latin.

SOCIAL NEEDS AND THE CURRICULUM

Further evidence that the curriculum is a living, changing institution

is seen in the way in which courses are related to social demands.

There was a time in the history of the secondary school and college

when the course in Hebrew was regarded as universally desirable for

every student of the social group which attended these institutions.

That was in the period when the group was of a definitely vocational

composition. For example, in the early days of Harvard College 70

per cent of its graduates entered the ministry, and Hebrew was a

requirement. The later history of the student body explains why the

requirement of Hebrew became obsolete. Two paragraphs from a recent

bulletin of the Bureau of Education give some of the facts as follows:

From this it is apparent that those who founded the institution

primarily had in mind a theological seminary. The professions of

the graduates for the early period bear witness to the fact that

this was practically what the institution was. The ministry was the

one profession most necessary, most demanded by the society of that

time, and this profession more than any other required an advanced

education. It is not surprising, therefore, to find this profession

dominant during the early years of Harvard’s history. This dominance

continues for over a century, and not until the period immediately

following the Revolutionary War does any other profession claim so

many of the graduates as the ministry.

The curve representing this profession has three distinct tendencies.

The first part, extending from 1642, the date of the first graduating

class, to 1720, is slightly downward, with rather wide variation. This

stretch of 80 years shows a decline from 70 per cent for the first

three years, a percentage never again reached, to 60 per cent for the

last five-year period. The second tendency is seen in the period of

theological unrest, marked off roughly by the years 1720-1775. Here

the downward tendency is clearly defined. It shows a decline from 60

per cent to less than 20 per cent. The variations during this period

are not so marked. The third tendency extends from the Revolutionary

War to the present. This shows a slow, persistent relative decline

reaching well below 5 per cent by the end of the nineteenth century.

The variations during this period, particularly during the last half,

are inconspicuous.[63]

SYSTEMATIC STUDIES AS DEVICES FOR FACILITATING EVOLUTION OF THE

CURRICULUM

The effect of this and like radical social changes is sometimes slow

in actually modifying the curriculum because of the conservative

tendencies discussed in earlier chapters. But the final effect is

inevitable. The changing social order carries with it the school and

its subjects of instruction.

The characteristic fact about the present generation of progressive

educators is that they are undertaking certain studies which are

designed to hasten the processes of selection. The curriculum is to be

modified and improved, with every new accession of knowledge and with

every new evolution in social life. How the improvement can be brought

about most expeditiously and most productively is a problem which is

engaging much of the attention and energy of school officers.

It will be noted that there is no opposition between the natural

tendencies of growth and revision and the special investigations which

are intended to hasten the process of adjustment. The purpose of

scientific studies here, as in every other sphere, is to facilitate

natural evolution and to give it rational guidance.

A STUDY OF REPRESENTATIVE ADULTS

One of the first methods of studying the curriculum is that of

investigating the relation between school work and the demands of later

life. The following description of a study made as part of a school

survey teaches some very impressive lessons on the need of revision in

the elementary curriculum:

The most serious defect of the present course of study, including

some of the suggested revisions now under consideration, is that it

makes thousands of children waste tens of thousands of precious hours

in the laborious acquisition of facts for which they will never have

any practical use. While the survey was under way the staff attempted

to test the practical value of some of the subject matter taught to

children in the elementary grades.

For this purpose short examinations were prepared from the material

prescribed by the course of study and actually being taught in the

upper grades in spelling, arithmetic, history, and geography. Through

the coöperation of a woman prominent in social and intellectual

circles of the city, 11 of the leading successful citizens were

brought together one evening and asked to take these examinations. The

object was to find out whether or not the material that the children

of the upper grades were being taught was of the sort actually used

by able men of affairs in the conduct of their daily business. For

carrying out the test the most prominent and successful citizens were

purposely chosen and in making up the examinations the most difficult

material was purposely selected. The result of these examinations in

spelling, geography, arithmetic, and history of the fifth, sixth, and

seventh grades was that no one of the men examined made a passing mark

in any subject. The reason is that the material on which they were

examined, and which the children in the schools are daily learning, is

of a sort that is seldom or never met with in the business of even the

most successful men engaged in commercial and professional pursuits.

The gentlemen who submitted to the examination were the following:

A state senator

A former lieutenant governor

The president of a manufacturing concern

The former superintendent of parks

A banker

A physician

A merchant

A lawyer

A newspaper editor

An efficiency engineer and a clergyman

The test in spelling consisted of ten words taken from the spelling

lists of the seventh grade. These words were as follows:

1. abutilon

2. bergamot

3. deutzia

4. daguerreotype

5. paradigm

6. reconnaissance

7. erysipelas

8. mnemonics

9. trichinæ

10. weigelia

Among the 11 men taking the examination, one spelled six of these

words correctly. Three succeeded in spelling four words, two got

three words right, one got two, three spelled one word correctly, and

one failed on every word. It is not surprising that they failed so

completely for no citizen in any ordinary walk of life needs to know

how to spell these words. When the rare occasion arises that he needs

to write one of them, he looks it up in the dictionary. These words

and scores of words like them are studied in the classrooms as well as

found in the spelling book.

The test described above was suggested by the experience of the

director of the survey who went into a sixth grade room where an

examination in spelling was being given. He took the test with the

children. It consisted of 20 words, and he failed on six of them.

These six words are included in the ten-word list used in the

examination of the business and professional men. Some of the children

in the schools can spell these words correctly but while they are

laboriously learning to do it, many of them are still unable to spell

short and common words as “which,” “separate,” and “receive.”[64]

A STUDY OF CURRENT REFERENCES

Another method of comparing school courses with common social needs is

set forth in the following quotation:

At a meeting of the Committee on Economy of Time held in the fall of

1912 it was suggested that current literature could be profitably

employed as a standard for determining the kind of geographical

information that the school should provide. The proposal was to read

current newspapers and magazines, record the geographical references,

and determine from the frequency of these references the relative

value of the various types of geographical information. Results of the

application of the method presented at the meeting seemed to indicate

that the content of geography as now taught in the elementary school

would be greatly modified if materials were chosen upon this basis....

Miss Biester collected and classified the geographical and historical

references and allusions in eighteen issues of the _Outlook_ and

the _Literary Digest_, representing a period of seven years ending

with 1913. She found in these eighteen journals a total of 2,237

geographical references. The distribution was as follows:

PER CENT

References to facts of location, size, direction, etc.,

which may be assumed to require for their understanding

a knowledge of “place and location” geography 53.5

References to political divisions and facts of government

which may be assumed to require a knowledge of

“political” geography 25.1

References to industries, commerce, products, etc., which

may be assumed to require a knowledge of “commercial”

geography 5.8

References to people, customs, religion, education, etc.,

which may be assumed to require a knowledge of

“social” geography 4.8

References to places as scenes of historical events, which

may be assumed to require a knowledge of “historical”

geography 1.7

Other references primarily of local or transitory interest 8.9

A grouping of this sort is obviously subject to the errors or

peculiarities of individual judgment, but it may be said that the

classification just presented is quite consistent with those furnished

by other readers. Except for the absence of explicit reference to

physiographical principles, this grouping represents fairly accurately

the distribution of emphasis in the textbooks ordinarily used in the

seventh and eighth grades. The physiographical principles, however,

are precisely the “general” principles to which we referred above;

that is, their function is broadly interpretive and adaptive; they

“cover” a host of particulars too numerous in the aggregate, and too

insignificant separately, to warrant specific attention.

Another suggestive grouping is based upon the frequency of references

to the various continents. If one is to read intelligently the

journals which formed the basis of this test, one will find occasion

to apply one’s knowledge of the continents in approximately the

following proportions (the maximum frequency of reference being

represented arbitrarily by 100):

North America 100

Europe 73

Asia 13

Africa 4

South America 3

Australia 1

The principal European countries had an importance for the readers of

the journals in question in the following proportions (giving England,

as the country most frequently referred to, the arbitrary value of

100):[65]

England 100

France 80

Germany 70

Russia 35

Italy 32

Turkey 30

Austria-Hungary 24

Spain 22

A STUDY OF THE MISTAKES OF PUPILS

It is not merely the remoter needs of adult life which should be taken

into account in determining the content of courses of study. Pupils

in schools have certain urgent needs which should be met. A study

was carried on in the schools of Kansas City, Missouri, which dealt

with the needs of pupils in grammar. Teachers observed and noted the

mistakes of pupils, and collected a body of written material which was

carefully analyzed. The urgent needs of pupils were readily discovered

and were found to be comparatively few. The following quotations give

the gist of the matter:

Table M, which is based upon the oral and written errors of the

children of the community, displays the items to be included in a

course of study for the elementary grades. It assumes that all types

of error were found and reported. That this assumption is absolutely

correct is not probable. That it is approximately correct seems

reasonably certain. To verify its accuracy further other studies would

need to be made in Kansas City.

As the present course of study in grammar in the sixth and in the

seventh grades of the Kansas City schools was materially simplified

in the 1913-1914 session, it is now one of the simplest in the United

States. Notwithstanding this fact, many items would be omitted from it

upon the basis of Table K. These are included in Table L. The pages

refer to “Grammar and Composition with Practical English,” by Robins,

Row, and Scott (Row, Peterson & Company, Chicago), the text now in use

in the sixth and seventh grades.

TABLE M

OMISSIONS FROM AND ADDITIONS TO THE PRESENT ELEMENTARY COURSE OF STUDY

IN GRAMMAR IN KANSAS CITY

_Omissions_:

1. Exclamatory sentence, p. 2.

2. The interjection, pp. 16 f.

3. The appositive, pp. 37 ff.

4. The nominative of address, pp. 39 f.

5. The nominative by exclamation, pp. 40 f.

6. The objective complement, pp. 53 f.

7. The adverbial objective, pp. 56 f.

8. The indefinite pronouns, pp. 69 f.

9. The objective complement, p. 91.

10. The objective used as a substantive, p. 91.

11. The classification of adverbs, pp. 94 ff.

12. The noun clause, pp. 107 ff.

13. Conjunctive adverbs, p. 116.

14. The retained objective, pp. 128 f.

15. The moods (except possibly the subjunctive of _to be_),

pp. 135 ff. and 152 ff.

16. The infinitive except the split infinitive, pp. 145 ff.

17. The objective subject, pp. 149 f.

18. The participle except the definition and the present and the past

forms, pp. 162 ff.

19. The nominative absolute, pp. 165 ff.

20. The gerund, pp. 168 f.

_Additions_:

1. The pronoun _what_.

2. Proper and numeral adjectives.

The first, second, and third of the omissions affect punctuation; the

first and second, the exclamation point; and the third, the comma. The

exclamation point is used at the end of the exclamatory sentence and

after interjections to express an intensity of feeling greater than

that expressed by the period, and it is doubtful if children have the

nicety of experience to understand the difference. If the point is

absent, its omission cannot be counted as an error because the reader

has no way of knowing how intense is the feeling that accompanied the

sentence. Strangely enough, the children used the appositive hardly at

all. Instead of saying, “Bill, the bandit, killed a deer,” they seem

to prefer to say, “Bill was a bandit, and he killed a deer.”

To the omissions, tabulated in Table M, should be added such sentences

for analysis and parsing as are given to children solely because they

involve subtle points in grammar. This is true because the errors made

by children seem to occur in the commoner and more easily classified

constructions, as may be seen by an examination of Table I.

POSTSCRIPT

The content of the course of study in elementary grammar in the Kansas

City schools is not dealt with here. The problem is simply and solely

to find out what the course of study would be _if it were based upon

the errors of the children_. The problem of the content of the course

of study requires such serious consideration that it can be determined

only by practical experience and opinion aided by other scientifically

conditioned studies.[66]

PREREQUISITES FOR HIGHER COURSES

The problem of finding what is the best progression of studies within

the curriculum is an important problem on which we have at the present

time relatively little information. President Lowell of Harvard

University collected some statistics on this matter which can be

briefly summarized in three quotations from his article:

Harvard University is singularly rich in material for determining the

relation of college studies to the work of the professional schools,

because nowhere in the world have so large a body of undergraduates

been so free, for so long a period, as in Harvard College to study

whatever they chose, and to make any combination of courses they

pleased. With the exception of one required course in English, and

sometimes one in another modern language, the election of courses has

been almost wholly free for a quarter of a century, and in fact the

variety of combinations made has been almost limitless. Moreover, the

Law and Medical Schools have contained a large number of graduates of

Harvard College, and this is essential for a fair comparison of the

results....

The statistics here presented cover, therefore, only bachelors of arts

of Harvard College who graduated afterwards from the Harvard Law and

Medical Schools, and they comprise only men who took twelve courses,

or nearly three years’ work, in the college....

If, therefore, one can draw any inference from figures so small, the

case of mathematics is singular. Unless some other element enters into

the problem, such as an unusually high standard in the department, or

an unusually vigorous intellectual appetite on the part of students

who elect the subject, the result may be supposed to indicate, so far

as it goes, that mathematics, altho rarely selected for the purpose,

is a particularly good preparation for the study of law; perhaps

because the methods of thought in the two subjects are more nearly

akin than is commonly supposed.

Leaving aside this possibly exceptional case, the conclusions to

be derived from the facts presented in this paper would seem to be

that, as a preparation for the study of law or medicine, it makes

comparatively little difference what subject is mainly pursued in

college, but that it makes a great difference with what intensity the

subject is pursued—or, to put the same proposition in a more technical

form, familiarity with the subject-matter, which can be transferred

little, if at all, is of small importance in a college education, as

compared with mental processes that are capable of being transferred

widely, or with the moral qualities of diligence, perseverance, and

intensity of application which can be transferred indefinitely. The

practical deduction is that in the administration of our colleges,

and, indeed, in all our general education, as distinguished from

direct vocational or professional training, we have laid too much

stress on the subject, too little on the excellence of the work and on

the rank attained.[67]

ADMINISTRATIVE STUDIES

Other studies of the curriculum have been made which may be called

administrative studies. The most elaborate investigation of this type

which has been carried out is reported in a volume entitled “The

Supervision of Arithmetic.”[68] Two of the leading students of the

science of education have here reported an exhaustive study of the

practices of various school systems in administering the arithmetic

course. At the same time they have made an analysis of the textbooks

which are commonly used in administering this course. Finally, they

have supplemented this body of fact with numerous opinions from

competent school people regarding changes which ought to be made.

It is not possible to take up in detail the various findings reported

in this volume. One especially interesting set of facts, however,

may be referred to as furnishing convincing evidence that the school

curriculum is constantly in process of revision. The particular part of

the book which shows this deals with the number of hours a week devoted

to arithmetic in the course of study of various cities. If we compare

the relative amount of time given to arithmetic in earlier years and at

present, we shall have some indication of the movement which has been

going on within the school curriculum. In 1888 New York City devoted 26

per cent of the total school time in the grades to arithmetic. In 1904

this had been reduced to 12 per cent, showing that the attention to

arithmetic is in point of time less than half what it was at an earlier

period. Boston, on the other hand, devoted to arithmetic almost exactly

the same relative amount of time in 1904 that it did in 1888. In both

cases about 16 per cent of the time of the course of study was given to

this subject. Chicago shows a distinct increase in the amount of time

given to arithmetic. In 1888 it was giving 9 per cent of its time to

that subject. The time devoted to arithmetic in 1904 was 18 per cent,

or just twice as much.

These statements confirm the remark repeatedly made in this volume

that the course of study is constantly undergoing revision. The only

intelligent way for the school system to deal with the problems of

the course of study which are sure to come up is to make a careful

examination of the movement which is under way, for this movement

is usually guided by the personal judgment of some enthusiastic

school officer or by the chance readjustments which arise out of the

effort to bring new subjects into the curriculum. The result is a

blind fluctuation, the magnitude and importance of which are wholly

unrecognized until exact comparisons are set up.

Such general discussions as that summarized in the foregoing paragraphs

are supplemented in the volume referred to, by detailed studies of

such questions as the following: When should the teaching of fractions

begin? How far should the elementary course deal with square root and

cube root? What are the characteristics of a given textbook which make

it available for a particular school system?

The kind of study which is here reported for arithmetic should, of

course, be made for other subjects as well. The time allotment for the

course in geography and the distribution of topics within that course

are quite as important as the time allotment in arithmetic.

NEED OF BROAD, COÖPERATIVE STUDIES

It would be a serious mistake to advocate any one of the investigations

referred to in this chapter as the sole basis for reform in the

curriculum. There must be a broad consideration of social and

educational conditions if the school is to arrange its materials of

instruction in the most advantageous form. Furthermore, the individual

teacher cannot make all the studies involved. The problem is one which

involves coöperation and the organization of scientific methods which

will give to each school officer the benefit of the experience of many

schools.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

The best type of exercise which can be suggested in connection with

this chapter is the analysis of a series of textbooks by members of

the class. The following suggestions will aid in the attack on three

classes of texts:

First, let the student get several sets of readers, beginning with

primers and running up to the books designed for the upper grades. Note

among other characteristics such matters as the following: Are the

selections in the primers equally interesting? Are the vocabularies

the same? What devices in the primer are adopted as aids in explaining

the words? Are the sentences of equal length? In the readers for the

upper grades is the emphasis on poetry the same? Is the reading matter

equally appropriate for boys and girls? Does it fit all localities

equally well? Is there any suggestion that would carry the pupil out of

the book itself to other books?

Second, let the student take several geographies. Are the maps equally

good? Are the pictures equally helpful? What is the order of topics?

Is the treatment equally detailed in the various books? Is the

attention given to the United States satisfactory both in point of

gross volume and in point of details taken up? What is the degree of

emphasis on physical geography and on man’s place in the world, that

is, on commerce and civilization?

Third, take books in first-year Latin. What emphasis is given to

vocabulary, to reading, and to grammar? How do books of this type

differ from books on French and German? Is the choice of reading matter

in the various books based on the same principle of selection? How

far could the books be used by a pupil without a teacher? What is the

contribution expected of the teacher; that is, what must the teacher

know about Latin more than is given in the book? How are the pages of

material related to assignments; that is, are assignments suggested by

the text itself?

BAGLEY, W. C., and RUGG, H. O. “Content of American History as taught

in the Seventh and Eighth Grades.” _Bulletin No. 16_, School of

Education, University of Illinois, 1916.

Minimum Essentials in Elementary-School Subjects. Fourteenth Yearbook

of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I, 1915. The

University of Chicago Press. Other types of study than those suggested

in the above questions are outlined in this yearbook.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] Bailey B. Burritt, “Professional Distribution of College and

University Graduates,” p. 15. _Bulletin No. 19_, United States Bureau

of Education, 1912.

[64] Survey conducted by L. P. Ayres of the Russell Sage Foundation.

“The Public Schools of Springfield, Illinois,” pp. 86-88. Published by

the Springfield Survey Committee, Springfield, Illinois, 1914.

[65] W. C. Bagley, “The Determination of Minimum Essentials in

Elementary Geography and History.” Fourteenth Yearbook of the National

Society for the Study of Education, Part I, pp. 131, 134-135. The

University of Chicago Press, 1915.

[66] W. W. Charters and Edith Miller, “A Course of Study in Grammar,”

pp. 43-45. _Bulletin No. 2_, University of Missouri, Vol. XVI (1915).

[67] A. Lawrence Lowell, “College Studies and Professional Training.”

_Educational Review_, Vol. XLII (October, 1911), pp. 220, 221, 233.

[68] W. A. Jessup and L. D. Coffman. The Macmillan Company, 1916.

CHAPTER XV

STANDARDIZATION

TESTS AND MEASUREMENTS OF PRODUCTS

There is a group of recent studies which affect the curriculum and

all other phases of school organization so profoundly that a separate

chapter must be devoted to an exposition of their character and aims.

These are studies which aim to standardize school work through tests,

measurements, and exact quantitative descriptions of the products of

teaching.

For example, one of the efforts of the elementary school is to teach

pupils to write. It is entirely possible after the school has done its

work to find out by an examination of the results how well pupils can

write. It is never expected that pupils in the second grade will write

as well as pupils in the upper grades. In this sense, then, it may

be said that the results expected in the second grade are of a lower

standard than those expected higher in the school. Furthermore, there

is a sharp contrast between rapid writing and slow writing. The pupil

who writes one hundred and fifty letters in a minute with a quality or

form of letters which is fair exhibits one kind of result, while the

pupil who writes only seventy-five letters a minute but shows great

regularity in his letters exhibits another kind of result. It is not

easy in two cases such as have just been described to determine at

once which result is better. It may be that speed should be encouraged

in order to secure free, fluent movements even if quality has to be

sacrificed for the time being.

EARLIER STANDARDS BASED ON OPINION

One difficulty in dealing with the results of school work has been that

schools have had no clear definition of what ought to be demanded.

Opinion has been matched against opinion. Thus the parent often feels

that he has a right to pass unqualified judgment on the progress of his

child and on the teacher’s methods of dealing with him. The employer

demands of the boy whom he employs a certain proficiency in spelling

and adding. The superintendent, in pursuance of his duties, tells the

teachers that their work is satisfactory or otherwise and that the

children do or do not read as well as they should. The teacher has a

certain expectation, and the pupil feels sure that he is doing his work

well. Each, according to his personal standard, is estimating the work

done in the school.

Very often these standards differ when applied to one and the same

performance; sometimes they differ so radically that social troubles

follow. The parent says that his child is doing satisfactory work,

while the teacher estimates the work as inferior. In such a case it

happens, often after a controversy, that one standard ultimately

prevails. It is a matter of record in some communities that the

parent’s standard has at times been asserted with enough energy to

result in the removal of the dissenting teacher from office. On the

other hand, it is more commonly true that the teacher’s standard

dominates, and the pupil either changes his ways or fails of promotion.

In either case, it would have been better for all concerned if some

exact standard could have been set up which would have been recognized

as superior in its sanction to individual opinion.

Even teachers of experience disagree in grading the same examination

paper. One demands correctness in every detail, while the other

concentrates attention on originality and force of expression.

OBJECTIVE AND EXACT STANDARDS

The effort to lay down by investigation satisfactory standards of

school work is one of the most productive lines of educational inquiry

which has ever been instituted. Like all great movements, this movement

of standardization has been misunderstood and opposed, but it is

steadily gaining ground and promises to be the largest contribution of

this generation to education.

In essence it consists of a careful, systematic measurement of what

pupils accomplish. If there are at hand measurements of the actual

achievements of pupils in various subjects in all the grades, it is

safe to compare any single performance with the general average. It

should be noted that this does not imply a demand that every pupil’s

work be like the average. There are pupils who do their work under

unfavorable conditions, as, for example, pupils who have difficulty in

reading because they hear no English at home. Their results should not

be expected to reach the average, at least in the early grades. How far

the results are from the average should, however, be definitely known.

Explanation can then be given. Where conditions are not unfavorable the

demand can be the more vigorously made that the average expectation be

reached.

BEGINNINGS OF THE MOVEMENT

The way in which this movement began and the rapidity with which it

has progressed are vividly described by one of its chief exponents as

follows:

Eighteen years ago the school superintendents of America, assembled

in convention in Indianapolis, discussed the problems then foremost

in educational thought and action. At that meeting a distinguished

educator[69]—the pioneer and pathfinder among the scientific students

of education in America—brought up for discussion the results of his

investigations of spelling among the children in the school systems

of nineteen cities. These results showed that, taken all in all, the

children who spent forty minutes a day for eight years in studying

spelling did not spell any better than the children in the schools of

other cities where they devoted only ten minutes per day to the study.

The presentation of these data threw that assemblage into

consternation, dismay, and indignant protest. But the resulting storm

of vigorously voiced opposition was directed not against the methods

and results of the investigation, but against the investigator who had

pretended to measure the results of teaching spelling by testing the

ability of children to spell.

In terms of scathing denunciation the educators there present and the

pedagogical experts, who reported the deliberations of the meeting in

the educational press, characterized as silly, dangerous, and from

every viewpoint reprehensible, the attempt to test the efficiency of

the teacher by finding out what the pupils could do. With striking

unanimity they voiced the conviction that any attempt to evaluate the

teaching of spelling in terms of the ability of the pupils to spell

was essentially impossible and based on a profound misconception of

the function of education.

Last month in the city of Cincinnati that same association of school

superintendents, again assembled in convention, devoted fifty-seven

addresses and discussions to tests and measurements of educational

efficiency. The basal proposition underlying this entire mass of

discussion was that the effectiveness of the school, the methods, and

the teachers must be measured in terms of the results secured.[70]

HANDWRITING SCALES

One of the earliest types of school work to be standardized was

handwriting. Standard “scales,” as they are called, have been prepared

by several investigators, and their use has become very common.

The first scale was prepared by Professor Thorndike.[71] He secured

a number of specimens of children’s writing, and asked experienced

judges to arrange these specimens in a series of descending degrees of

excellence. By combining the judgments returned by the experts it was

possible to secure an average judgment. Certain typical specimens were

then set aside, representing equal steps in the descending scale. In

practical use, a given sample of handwriting which is to be judged is

compared with the successive steps in the scale until an approximate

equality in degree of excellence is found. The sample to be judged is

then marked with the grade agreed on for the standard specimen.

A second scale was prepared by Ayres[72] on a more objective basis.

The specimens were arranged in a series, not in accordance with the

judgment of experts, but according to the time which was required to

read them.

A third scale, more elaborate than either of the others, was

prepared by Freeman.[73] He first made an analysis of the different

characteristics which enter into excellent writing, such as uniformity

of slant, uniformity in the height and spacing of letters, and other

like essential characteristics, and then selected specimens exhibiting

decreasing grades of excellence in each of these characteristics. Since

each characteristic of writing is capable of definite measurement, the

specimens could be graded on the basis of direct measurements. Thus

the slant of a number of specimens was measured letter by letter, and

objective grades were established.

Finally, the preparation of scales of handwriting has gone so far that

special scales or series of graded specimens for particular school

systems have been prepared.

SPEED AS A CORRELATE OF QUALITY

In the meantime the matter of speed in handwriting has also been a

subject of careful measurement, and tables of average speeds for

different grades have been prepared in a number of school systems.

A device for presenting in a single diagram both speed and quality

and at the same time comparing several grades in the same school with

each other was worked out in the Cleveland survey. The figure and a

description of its meaning are given on pages 218, 219.

The relative emphasis on speed and quality actually found in a number

of different schools is set forth in the following diagram. The

separate parts of this diagram are made up as follows: The average

speed of a grade is represented by distances in the horizontal, and

average quality by distances in the vertical, scale. Thus, taking

the first section of the diagram, that of the North Doan School, the

fifth grade has an average speed of 71 letters per minute, and an

average quality of 41. The sixth grade shows progress in both speed

and quality, though speed increases more than quality. The seventh and

eighth grades show further progress in both speed and quality, the two

changing at about the same rate. The diagram for the Kentucky School

shows progress of a slightly different type. In this school the sixth

grade, as compared with the fifth, shows progress in quality, but very

little in speed. Progress from the sixth grade on is about equal in

quality and speed. Memorial School emphasizes speed almost exclusively

up to the eighth grade, while Mt. Pleasant emphasizes quality.

The various schools which have been reported in the four upper

sections of the diagram are all regular in the sense that each

school shows steady progress from grade to grade in both speed and

quality. Without attempting to comment in detail on the special cases,

attention is called to the series of results presented in the lower

part of the diagram.[74]

[Illustration: FIG. 14. Average quality and average speed of

handwriting of pupils of the four upper grades in ten schools[75]]

Before giving examples of standardization in fields other than

penmanship, it will be well to indicate the full meaning of the

foregoing paragraphs.

STANDARDS, PERSONAL AND IMPERSONAL

First, it will be seen that measurements are here substituted for

purely personal judgments. It was the universal practice before this

movement began, and it is the common practice to-day, for a supervisor

to go from school to school, passing on the excellence and speed of

handwriting. The supervisor has arrived at a personal standard through

his experience. He expects a certain result in the fifth grade. He has

in his mind a more or less clearly defined requirement and regards it

as his duty to impose this on pupils and teachers. In the same way the

teacher has a personal standard which is imposed on the pupils. It

would be a mistake to describe these personal standards as arbitrary or

unintelligent. The experienced teacher is usually approximately right

in his expectations, and the supervisor usually does a great deal to

raise and unify the level of work with which he comes in contact. But

it is not possible in a complex social situation to rely on personal

standards. Personal life and professional activity are too transient.

How many schools have changed standards, to the great disadvantage of

the penmanship, with each change of supervisors? Furthermore, personal

standards are vague when one tries to transmit them to others. This is

a serious matter when it is remembered that a very large proportion of

teachers in each school are changing each year. If a supervisor is to

systematize the work of his schools, he must constantly be bringing

into agreement with his standards the standards of a large number of

new teachers. For the sake of coöperation it is advantageous to turn a

personal standard into one which can be described and defined. Finally,

a personal standard grows up out of all the accidents of a personal

career. The person of narrow experience may not have incorporated

into his standards valuable elements which he would have accepted had

he come in contact with them. The person of strong personal likes

and dislikes may often be prejudiced. The person of broad experience

may be inexact when it comes to details. To demand of all who teach

handwriting that they rise above purely personal standards is not

unlike the demand that the central government rather than the states

mint our coins.

SOCIAL STANDARDS VERSUS IMPOSED STANDARDS

Second, the standards set up are derived from the work actually going

on in schools. There is no dictation from purely theoretical and

arbitrary sources. It is quite impossible to close one’s eyes to the

fact that in the past there has been a tendency to assume that the

only standard of action is the perfect standard. Many a child has been

taught penmanship from perfect copy and has been urged to imitate this

copy at whatever cost of time and pains. The slow, painful effort

to draw letters like those in the copy book is not an unfamiliar

exhibition in the penmanship class. A standard derived from the school

work itself is a social standard; it is based on what pupils really do.

One need not be satisfied with present performances, but one starts

from solid ground. Furthermore, out of actual measurements will come

a clear idea of the range of variation. One of the most astonishing

facts which have come out in the course of the study of standards is

the fact that there are very wide variations in the same grade. There

is, therefore, an easy possibility of finding for each grade high

standards. These high standards have the further advantage of being

standards actually realized by pupils. We are justified in describing

the standards thus set up as natural standards. They do not limit

the progress of any grade or aim at mechanical uniformity as do the

arbitrary standards based on personal judgments.

COMPARISON THROUGH EXACT MEASUREMENT

Third, standards measured and expressed in definite terms can be

compared and can be made the basis of studies which are quite

impossible so long as standards are not expressed in common terms.

For example, when the speed of handwriting in a certain school

is deliberately changed, what is the effect produced on quality?

Heretofore it has been almost impossible to answer such a question.

Every school reform has been enthusiastically hailed by its friends as

accomplishing much. In the second generation most of these reforms are

checked, if not actually dropped, because it is found that the good

accomplished in one line is entirely lost in some other. To-day reforms

are in a position to measure their effects in all directions. A change

in the speed of handwriting may or may not be advantageous; it is the

duty of measurement to so state results that some light will be thrown

on this matter.

A concrete example will serve to show how studies of this kind may

be carried out. Fig. 15 shows the relative speeds and qualities of

handwriting found in various grades in a miscellaneous group of cities

and the corresponding facts for St. Louis and Grand Rapids. It is seen

that both of these school systems are ahead at all points in speed and

behind at first in quality. Both cities have made a conscious effort

to get away from the slow drawing of letters in the lower grades. In

doing this quality has been sacrificed. It is not the purpose of this

discussion to decide what methods of teaching handwriting are best; the

value of this example is that it shows quality and speed reduced to

terms where the two can be studied together and with a high degree of

exactness.

RECORDS AS A BASIS OF STANDARDIZATION

Fourth and finally, measured standards show the direction in which

pupils are moving, because they permit a permanent record of each

step of the child’s development. Schools have been slow to learn the

value of records. On the one hand, school records have been piled up

by the tome and no use has been made of them; on the other hand, they

are usually so loosely thrown together that they are of very little

value in guiding educational policy. Here is a form of record which

can be duplicated and compared from year to year. Medicine has long

since learned that exact records are the only safe means of guiding

treatment. Modern agriculture has become scientific through the use of

records and through decisions regarding experiments which these records

make possible. Modern business has learned to make its accounting

intelligent enough to guide policies. Finally, schools are beginning

to see that records of a type permitting continuous comparisons are

invaluable in determining at what point school work shall take this or

that form.

STUDIES OF ORAL READING

What has been done with penmanship has been paralleled in some other

subjects of elementary instruction. The following quotations have to do

with oral reading:

A coöperative study of reading was organized during the month of

September by the committee in charge of the grade-teachers’ section

of the Illinois State Teachers Association (Northeastern Section),

which met at Elgin, Illinois, November 3 and 4. The purpose of this

study was to secure a body of facts in regard to the achievement of

boys and girls in reading in a number of schools represented in the

Association....

[Illustration: FIG. 15. Speed and quality of handwriting

Dotted lines indicate the level of achievement in various grades in

fifty-six cities, the results from which were averaged; the full-drawn

lines show the achievements in the two cities discussed]

The materials used in this study of reading were the standardized

oral-reading paragraphs and the silent-reading tests which have been

used in connection with the surveys in Cleveland, Grand Rapids, and

St. Louis, as well as in a large number of investigations carried on

in other cities....

The standardized oral-reading paragraphs consist of a series of twelve

paragraphs arranged in the order of increasing difficulty. The tests

were given to the pupils individually by a principal or by a teacher

who had been previously trained for the work. As the pupil read the

teacher recorded the time required to read each paragraph together

with the number of errors which were made of the following types:

(_a_) Gross mispronunciations, which include such errors in

pronunciation as indicate clearly that the word is too difficult for

the pupil to pronounce.

(_b_) Minor mispronunciations, which include the pronunciation of a

portion of a word, wrong accent, wrong syllabification, omission of

syllables, etc.

(_c_) Omission of words.

(_d_) Insertion of words.

(_e_) Repetition of words or groups of words.

(_f_) Substitution of one word or group of words for another.

A pupil continued to read until he had made seven or more errors in

each of two paragraphs. By means of a system of scoring based on the

time required to read and on the number of errors which were made it

was possible to represent the achievement of a pupil or a class in

numerical terms....

The upper section of the table [given below] gives the average number

of seconds required to read paragraph 1 and the average number of

errors made by three _poor_ second-grade classes and by three _good_

second-grade classes. Of the poor schools, School M made more errors

and read more slowly than the average. School N read with fewer

errors than the average, but read so slowly that the oral-reading

score for the class was below the average. School O, on the other

hand, gave sufficient emphasis to rate, but neglected accuracy to

such an extent that the oral-reading score was low. An examination of

the records made by the good schools shows clearly that consistent

progress in both rate and accuracy is a prerequisite to a high level

of achievement. The schools of northern Illinois vary widely in the

amount of emphasis given to these phases of reading achievement. There

is need, on the part of many teachers, for a continuous critical study

of the specific character of the results which they are securing.

RATE AND ERRORS IN ORAL READING

PARAGRAPH 1—GRADE II

=====================================================================

| | POOR SCHOOLS | GOOD SCHOOLS

|AVER-|—————————————————+—————————————————-

| AGE | M | N | O | X | Y | Z

——————————————————————————+—————+—————+—————+—————+—————+————-+——————

Rate [seconds per passage]| 42.2| 65.0| 64.1| 39.1| 27.2| 32.8| 37.9

Errors | 1.4| 2.0| 0.5| 2.4| 1.1| 0.9| 1.3

=====================================================================

PARAGRAPH 1—GRADES II, III, AND IV

===============================================================

——————————+—————————+——————————+——————————+——————————+—————————

Rate | 42.2 | 37.9 | 65.0 | 39.1 | 43.4

Errors | 1.4 | 1.3 | 2.0 | 2.4 | 1.7

Rate | 21.9 | 19.8 | 23.6 | 23.9 | 28.0

Errors | 0.9 | 0.7 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 0.8

Rate | 18.6 | 18.0 | 21.9 | 16.0 | 27.0

Errors | 0.8 | 0.6 | 1.3 | 0.5 | 1.5

===============================================================

Additional light is thrown on this problem when we follow certain

schools through the second, third, and fourth grades. The average

rate and number of errors for Grades II, III, and IV are given in the

left-hand column of the lower section of the table. The records for

School A show that second-grade pupils do better both in rate and in

accuracy than the average. The same thing may be said of the third

and fourth grades. Continuous, consistent progress of this type

is very commendable. In School B, on the other hand, the pupils do

less well in each grade in both speed and accuracy than the average.

A question arises here concerning the general effectiveness of the

classroom instruction. School C ranks low in accuracy in the second

grade. Apparently this difficulty was realized in the third grade, and

considerable progress both in speed and in accuracy resulted. In the

fourth grade average results are attained which are above the average.

This school represents consistent, continuous growth from grade to

grade of a highly desirable type. School D, on the other hand, makes

improvement in speed and accuracy in the third grade, but fails to

increase its rate in the fourth grade, and makes a record in accuracy

which is distinctly below the record made by the third grade. It is

evident, if the records for the present second, third, and fourth

grades are typical of the results secured from year to year, that

there is need for more intelligent instruction and supervision in

School D.

In this connection it should be said that objective standards of

attainment for each grade should be defined. By means of tests given

throughout a school or a city the present level of achievement

can be determined. By means of comparisons with results secured

elsewhere new goals of attainment can be defined. Each teacher

should become familiar with the methods of giving tests. She should

utilize them frequently in examining her work to find sources of

strength and weakness. Through the co-operation of teachers and

supervisors progressive revisions in standards of attainment and

methods of procedure should be made. This type of co-operation is

necessary because it is only when all the units of a school system

work consistently together toward clearly defined ends that the most

effective results can be secured.[76]

STUDIES DEALING WITH OTHER SUBJECTS

A great number of similar studies are being reported each year on

arithmetic, spelling, and other aspects of the elementary curriculum.

The high-school subjects are more complicated than those in the

elementary school, but even these are beginning to be tested. There are

satisfactory tests in algebra and the beginnings of measurements in

Latin and English.

MECHANICAL ASPECTS THE FIRST TO BE STANDARDIZED

In all cases standardization begins with the mechanical aspects

of school work. These are more susceptible to exact quantitative

description and are the first to be taken up. Some writers have

professed to find in this a reason for rejecting the whole movement

toward standardization. There are, they assert, products of teaching

which are subtle and intangible. These are the products which are most

highly to be prized. Thoroughly to standardize penmanship and oral

reading and algebra is to set aside these more important matters.

Two answers are to be made to this objection to the movement toward

standardization. In the first place, the higher values of education

are not secured by teachers who are negligent of the fundamental

mechanical requirements. The teacher who successfully trains his pupil

to study history will make of him a good reader also. In the second

place, if it should prove to be desirable to give less time than is

given at present to training in the mechanical aspects of school

subjects, it will certainly be absolutely essential that the limits and

restrictions be set up with discrimination. We shall never be able to

deal intelligently with the mechanical aspects of education until we

have studied them.

A third statement which can be ventured with assurance in the light of

the recent history of this movement is that its limits cannot be set.

Each year new aspects of school work are measured with exactness. It

is certain that the ultimate conquests of measurement will push the

opponents back into their own territory.

STANDARDIZATION AND THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION

In short, standardization is nothing but a systematic effort to

deal with educational problems explicitly and in the light of exact

information. Whatever may be the limits of exact knowledge in

educational matters, it is certain that we ought to secure as much

knowledge of this type as possible.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

The exercise which will best serve to supplement this chapter is a

series of tests performed on members of the class and worked out by

them for purposes of comparison with other standard results. In the

appendix of the volume of the Cleveland survey entitled “Measuring the

Work of the Public Schools” a full set of standard tests will be found.

S. A. Courtis, 82 Eliot Street, Detroit, Michigan, furnishes tests in

various subjects, especially arithmetic.

The following institutions furnish various tests:

College of Education, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.

Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City.

Bureau of Measurements and Tests, State Normal School, Emporia, Kansas.

The readings which are most useful in this connection are to be found

in current educational periodicals. The student will find the latest

scientific studies in such journals as the following:

_School Review._ Published by The University of Chicago Press. This is

a journal dealing chiefly with high schools.

_Elementary School Journal._ Published by The University of Chicago

Press. This contains very full reviews of elementary tests.

_Journal of Educational Psychology._ Published by Warwick and York,

Baltimore, Maryland.

_Educational Administration and Supervision._ Published by Warwick and

York, Baltimore, Maryland.

_Educational Review._ Published by the Educational Review Publishing

Company, Easton, Pennsylvania.

_School and Society._ Published by The Science Press, New York City.

FOOTNOTES:

[69] J. M. Rice, editor of the _Forum_.

[70] Leonard P. Ayres, “Making Education Definite.” _Bulletin No. 11_,

Indiana University, Vol. XIII (October, 1915), pp. 85-86. Published by

the Extension Division of Indiana University.

[71] E. L. Thorndike, “Handwriting.” _Teachers College Record_, March,

1910.

[72] L. P. Ayres, A Scale for Measuring the Quality of Handwriting of

School Children. Russell Sage Foundation, New York.

[73] F. N. Freeman, The Teaching of Handwriting. Houghton Mifflin

Company, 1914.

[74] Measuring the Work of the Public Schools, pp. 75-77. Cleveland

Education Survey. Published by the Survey Committee of the Cleveland

Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio, 1916.

[75] Quality on vertical scale, speed on horizontal scale. The four

schools referred to in the text are represented in the four diagrams in

the upper part of the figure. North Doan is reported in the diagram in

the upper left-hand corner. Kentucky is shown in the upper right-hand

corner. Memorial is under North Doan. Mt. Pleasant is under Kentucky.

[76] William S. Gray, “A Co-operative Study of Reading in Eleven Cities

of Northern Illinois.” _Elementary School Journal_, Vol. XVII, No. 4

(December, 1916), pp. 250-257.

CHAPTER XVI

METHODS

MEANING OF THE TERM “METHOD”

The problems of instruction are by no means solved when a subject has

been selected and placed in its proper relation to the other subjects

in the curriculum. There is still the problem of presenting the subject

to the class in such a way as to appeal to the attention and interest

of its members. The special term which is applied in educational

writings to the organization of material for class instruction is the

term “method” or “method of teaching.”

In contrasting American schools with European schools it was pointed

out in an earlier chapter that the American method is the textbook

and recitation method, while the method of the European schools is

predominantly the oral or lecture method. The subject-matter of

instruction can be treated by either of these methods.

MEANING OF THE TERM “DEVICE”

Another term which has been used in educational discussions to

distinguish between the more general modes of procedure and certain

details of classroom work is the term “device.” A classroom device is

some special piece of equipment or some particular way of dealing with

a class that can be described as appropriate to a single classroom

situation or to some topic of a given subject. For example, if a

teacher of Latin has verb forms printed on cards for the purpose of

drilling his classes in the recognition of such forms, his cards are

spoken of as devices. Again, if one calls the roll by assigning a

number to each member of the class and then requiring each number to be

given in its order, it is said that one has a time-saving device.

PERSONAL METHODS AND DEVICES

Every teacher has methods and devices of presenting material to his or

her classes. The experienced teacher behaves skillfully in the presence

of a class because all the details of procedure have been tried, and

those which proved successful have been retained. The inexperienced

teacher is clumsy in his methods, just as is any novice in dealing with

an unmastered social situation.

SUPPOSED CONFLICT BETWEEN METHODS AND SUBJECT-MATTER

It is sometimes pointed out that in the training of teachers there is

danger that competition will arise between the demand for skill in

methods and the demand for knowledge of subject-matter. The specialist

in science scoffs at a course in methods of teaching, saying that all

the prospective teacher needs is to know the subject thoroughly, and

method will take care of itself. Furthermore, such a critic of methods

often points out that the time required for a course in methods must be

taken from time which the student ought to devote to subject-matter.

The school principal who is looking for a science teacher is likely to

reply that he has had teachers thoroughly acquainted with the science

but utterly unsympathetic with pupils. Such teachers do not know how to

get the facts to the students. They are abstract, or speak too fast, or

do not assign the lessons in such a way as to help the students see the

important points.

There is no necessity of being one-sided in this matter. The successful

teacher will ultimately have both knowledge of the subject-matter and

methods and devices of presenting the subject-matter. If he is lacking

in either, he will be in just that degree inefficient. There can be no

doubt that a properly balanced appreciation of both is the sane and

wise attitude to assume.

TWO EXAMPLES OF MODERN METHODS

It will, of course, be quite impossible to do more than illustrate

the problems of method in this general introduction. The remainder

of this chapter will be devoted to comments on two significant

innovations in method which are characteristic of present-day teaching

as contrasted with the teaching of two generations ago. The older of

these innovations was the adoption of the laboratory method; the later

general innovation is the movement in the direction of supervised study

in all subjects.

OBJECT TEACHING

An appreciation of the laboratory method can be gained by reviewing

briefly the history of this method in American schools. As far back

as 1809 a follower of Pestalozzi, one Joseph Neef, conducted a school

in Philadelphia, where he exhibited Pestalozzi’s object method.

Pupils learned by direct contact with things. Such teaching was in

sharp contrast with the ordinary methods then in vogue, for at that

time instruction consisted exclusively of statements, either oral or

written, which the pupils were supposed to learn by heart.

The object-teaching movement made little progress until it was taken up

in 1860 by Dr. Sheldon, the head of the normal school at Oswego, New

York. From Oswego the movement spread, especially to the new Western

schools, and had so wide an influence that the study of nature in the

lower schools was vigorously advocated and extensively undertaken. The

inductive method of direct contact with the facts was advocated in

fields other than nature study. Dr. Sheldon’s daughter took a vigorous

part in the development of instruction in history based on direct

contact with source material. The laboratory method in history, as it

was sometimes called, spread and inspired enthusiasm for methods in all

the literary subjects analogous to the laboratory work of the sciences.

LABORATORY METHOD IN PHYSICS

In the high schools a parallel movement took place in the last third of

the nineteenth century, leading to the adoption of laboratory work as a

definite mode of instruction. On this subject one writer on the history

of physics has given the following statements:

Experimental work had not been entirely unknown in secondary schools

even in the early part of the century, but no attempt had been made

to bring the pupil into personal contact with its results. The Boston

Grammar Schools were all furnished with a $275 set of physical

apparatus as early as 1837, and most of the academies installed sets

about that time, but the apparatus was for the use of the instructor

only, the pupils not being allowed to handle it. And this condition

existed to within about thirty years of the end of the century, when

the agitation for individual laboratory work began.

This period of agitation was marked by the beginning of some

laboratory work and the discussion of the value of individual work and

the inductive method by educators. But there was no general adoption

of the plan till a later period. It was about this time that David

Starr Jordan accepted the chair of Natural History in an Illinois

college and attempted to establish a chemical laboratory. His attempt

was promptly vetoed by the board of trustees....

In the report from the Albany, N.Y., City School, for 1882, the

Superintendent recommended that a whole year be given to the

study of physics with opportunity for daily experiments, the class

participating in the experiments as far as practicable. The report

of 1882-1883 from the Washington, D.C., High School, states that

laboratories have been fitted up. Indianapolis reported in 1883 that

the experimental method had been introduced and was meeting with

approval from both teacher and pupil. Cincinnati reported in 1882 that

physics was taught from a syllabus four hours a week during the third

year. St. Louis reported physics taught through the second year of the

high school. The reports show only qualitative experiments....

The general trend of accumulated opinion in 1884 shows increased

favor of the idea that mental discipline is the chief aim in physics

teaching. There was a general notion that the study of physics ought

to train the pupil to think, but as to what method should be used to

bring about this result there was no settled opinion. Laboratory work

meant anything from a few simple demonstrations by the teacher to a

complete individual laboratory course, such as is given at the present

day.

For the next fifteen years, physics teaching, in fact, science

teaching in general, was in an experimental stage. In the effort to

make science a disciplinary study, the laboratory method was coming

into general use rapidly, but the old idea of making science include

everything in reach—a remnant of the _Natural Philosophy_ stage—had

prevented its becoming a really disciplinary study. We find David

Starr Jordan in 1889 lamenting the superficial way in which science

was taught.[77]

SPREAD OF THE LABORATORY IDEA

The historical statements given above show how recent is the

acceptance of the laboratory method even in science teaching. The

enthusiasm for the method is as impressive as its youth. It would be

impossible to turn the present generation of science teachers away

from the laboratory method of teaching. In spite of its cumbersomeness

of administration, its demand for expensive equipment, and the

deliberation which it compels in teaching the results of science, the

laboratory method is everywhere accepted as the true method. Indeed,

as stated above, the literary subjects such as history and English,

the latter especially in the teaching of composition, not infrequently

adopt the term “laboratory method” in order to show their recognition

of the effectiveness of the method worked out by the sciences.

REACTION AGAINST THE QUESTION AND ANSWER METHOD

The second innovation in method of teaching, namely, supervised

study, came as a reaction against the purely examination method of

conducting class exercises which was formerly almost universal except

in laboratory classes. The examination method is the familiar one of

calling a pupil to his feet and then asking him one question after

another to find out whether he has learned his lesson. If he answers

well, he is marked with a high grade. If he answers badly, he is marked

with a low grade, reprimanded, and told to do his work over.

The futility of some of this procedure is at once evident if one thinks

of the student who has made an honest effort to learn his lesson,

but has failed because he adopted an inefficient and often a wrong

method of getting the lesson. In such a case the pupil fails because

he does not know how to get his lesson. It therefore occurred to some

progressive teachers that it was their duty to inquire not merely into

the results of the student’s study but also into his methods of study.

The moment this new idea is grasped, the function of a recitation

will be seen to be something more than the examination of pupils. The

recitation is now coming to be the place where pupils learn how to do

intellectual work, how to attack intellectual problems, and how to

guide their efforts into more economical and effective channels.

INEFFICIENT METHODS OF STUDY

Observation of high-school pupils who are asked to study will always

show the need of attention to methods of study. The following

description of such observation is illuminating:

To ascertain to what extent the other members of the class might have

this difficulty, the following experiment was tried. In assigning the

next lesson, suggestions were given with unusual care. The pupils were

then told that the next fifteen minutes would be given to studying the

lesson, and that they should begin the assigned home work immediately.

The experiment showed at once that the pupils did not appreciate the

value of limited time, for all were slow in beginning work. It took

some of them the whole fifteen minutes to go through the technique of

getting started. Several evidently were not in the habit of working

alone, for they looked about helplessly and simply imitated the

others. However, these same pupils had come to the classroom daily

with the lessons well prepared. Very little was accomplished in the

fifteen minutes indicating that the pupils very probably wasted

much time in studying their assignments of home work. Although the

class had been in the high school only a short time, the teacher had

been presupposing a habit of study which did not exist. Much of the

difficulty is due to lack of knowledge as to how to study and how to

use time to advantage. The remedy in this case is, of course, definite

instruction as to methods of study.[78]

ORGANIZING A SCHOOL FOR SUPERVISED STUDY

The organization of a school to provide opportunity for supervised

study is thus described by the principal of one of the first schools to

undertake this type of work on a large scale:

We took five minutes from each of the six recitation periods, which we

have in our school day, and put these together to make a thirty-minute

study period coming once a day. In order that each class might receive

the benefit of this period, we arranged that the first period class

use the time on Tuesday; the second period class on Wednesday; and

the third period class on Friday; the following week that the fourth,

fifth, and sixth period classes use the period for supervised study.

On Monday and Thursday the teacher uses this study period by having

come to her room for individual attention, such students as she thinks

may need individual help. So much for the plan.

In regard to the results, we have found that the plan is of greatest

advantage with the younger students, and in the first part of a

subject. That is, the younger students need direction in method of

study, and all the students find it helpful when learning the method

of attack upon a new subject.

We find it necessary, of course, to keep some definite check upon

the work of the students. This is done by setting for them certain

concrete problems in their study. For instance, to work out a certain

number of examples; to be ready to prove a given theorem; to pick

out the topic sentences in a given paragraph; to determine the most

important points of a certain topic in physics; to pick out the

leading events in a given historical topic, etc. We find the method

works very well in mathematics, science, and history. Some difficulty

has been experienced in the study of an English classic, such as

_Macbeth_, in making the work of the study period definite. We are

working at this problem.

Besides teaching methods of study, we have found one decided advantage

of this study period is that by reason of it, the teacher gets a

considerable insight into the methods of study of the various students

and can discover those who waste time, who have faulty methods of

attack, etc.

Another point which we have found as a result of this work is that the

teachers themselves are not at all clear as to definite methods of

study.[79]

ORGANIZING SUBJECT-MATTER FOR SUPERVISED STUDY

One of the recent elaborate plans for supervised study is thus

described by its author:

It has been erroneously assumed by many writers that supervised study

was synonymous with effective study. It has been taken for granted

that schools administering supervised-study schedules taught pupils

how to study. There is a wide difference between _more_ study and

_effective_ study. Supervised-study schedules may secure the former

and miss the latter. Effective study depends upon many elements,

among them proper time and place, concentration, reading ability,

organization habits, questioning habits, and memory. Supervised-study

schedules mechanically provide for the first two and more nearly

secure the third than do other devices. The remaining elements

involved in the technique of study are not necessarily concomitants of

so-called supervised study....

The origin of the plan I am about to describe grew out of study of

the classroom exercise in typewriting. In the typewriting class

pupils remain in the same group, but are individually apart. A pupil

taking typewriting may stay out of school for two weeks and return

to the same group in his mathematics, Latin, and typewriting. In the

last subject he starts in exactly where he left off with a distinct

realization that his muscular-mental co-ordination has been impaired,

while too often in the first two subjects he takes up the advanced

work with his classmates apparently without any particular sense of

loss. Why should he, if he makes his grade? Does he not figure out a

distinct gain?

Two things differentiate the mechanics of the typewriting exercise

from the mathematics and Latin recitations: (_a_) consecutive, daily

assignments which the pupil may follow without the guidance of a

teacher; (_b_) individual responsibility and progress or an accounting

for individual differences. Apply these same principles to academic

subjects and it becomes necessary to provide printed daily lesson

assignments and to check upon individual preparation of these daily

assignments. One added factor, however, appears with the academic

subject which uniquely distinguishes it from the manual, namely, the

_expression_ of the lesson ideas.

In typewriting the pupil during the exercise concretely and

muscularly shows the teacher how well he understands the lesson. In

academic subjects the understanding must first be tested by language

expression. There is no machine yet invented for eliminating this

language-expression exercise. Consequently for all academics there

must always remain the recitation period. _Throwing one’s ideas

into a language mold is not the same as expressing one’s ideas by

mechanical means._ For this reason the recitation period must always

be stressed....

The laboratory-recitation plan is based on the fundamental idea that

recitation groups should be organized on the basis of preparation.

Pupils need not recite on the day’s preparation, but the recitation

for the day is upon work previously prepared and tested. The

recitation teacher knows that when his group assembles each and every

pupil has previously prepared and has been checked in the work to be

recited upon, otherwise the pupil would not be in the group. This is

accomplished by the following _modus operandi_:

_Co-operating laboratory-recitation teachers._ Forty or fifty pupils

are assigned to a certain laboratory-recitation period operated by

two teachers—one the laboratory, the other the recitation, teacher—in

adjoining rooms. While the laboratory teacher is supervising

the preparation of lessons during the ninety-minute period, the

co-operating recitation teacher is conducting recitations with groups

of pupils taken from the laboratory on the basis of their preparation.

For illustration, each Friday the laboratory algebra teacher in the

second period will give the co-operating recitation teacher of that

class and period the advancement of the slowest pupil in each of two

or three recitation groups previously determined on the basis of

laboratory preparation. The recitation teacher prepares his work for

the following week on the basis of this information. If there are

three groups, the recitation teacher devotes thirty minutes to each

group; if two groups, forty-five minutes. The pupil spends either

one-half or two-thirds of each period in the laboratory, the time

depending upon the number of groups into which the recitation has been

divided, and the remaining time in recitation.[80]

EXPERIMENTS IN METHOD

The meaning of experiments such as have been described is not far

to seek. The ingenious supervisor or teacher who has watched the

ordinary recitation made up of a series of questions and answers

recognizes the fact that such a recitation is very formal. His efforts

to improve teaching will carry him into new types of class exercises.

The laboratory type of exercise will serve better in certain cases;

in others, the supervised-study type. Sometimes it is desirable to

try other experiments. Without attempting to deal with these other

experiments in detail, it may be well to enumerate some of the types of

class exercise which have not been discussed in full.

The lecture method is common in higher institutions. In the primary

grades this method has taken the form of story-telling and has been

developed of late with elaborate technique.

The study lesson is a name which has been used to describe an exercise

in which the pupils study new material on which they have not prepared

in advance. The special forms of this kind of exercise may vary from a

critical reading together of an advanced section of the textbook to a

series of readings by members of the class of various scattered sources

in collateral books.

A report lesson is a modification of the lecture method. The members

of the class, rather than the teacher, furnish the lecture material;

each student having prepared a part of the whole in advance has an

opportunity to present his findings to the class, with the result that

the subject is studied in full through the coöperative efforts of all.

The laboratory method may take on the form of field excursions in

the geographical sciences and the form of gardening in agriculture.

Whatever its form it is one of the most radical departures from the

traditional class exercise.

Shopwork has become common in many lines. With the girls the class

exercises in domestic science and domestic art are crosses between

construction exercises and investigation exercises.

Drill exercises in mathematics and language consist in the performance

under the teacher’s supervision of a series of tasks which are designed

to cultivate fixed habits in the fields to which they belong. Very

often such exercises are conducted in such a way that each pupil works

individually.

Written examinations ought to be included here. Whenever a class is

given a series of review questions for the purpose of requiring a

general review of a whole subject, the result of the exercise is to

fix in the student’s mind certain larger elements of the study and to

establish certain broad habits of selection. Written examinations may

be, from this point of view, devices of training, not merely tests of

results. The examination method as a training method has, accordingly,

an important place.

The coöperative recitation is one in which the pupils ask the

questions. The teacher withdraws as far as possible, and allows the

members of the class to initiate the discussions. When this kind

of exercise is first introduced, the pupils are likely to follow

as closely as they can the manner of questioning which they have

seen exhibited by their teachers. If the experiment is carried out

persistently, the pupils will ultimately become quite independent and

spontaneous in their questioning.

METHOD AS A SUBJECT OF SCIENTIFIC TESTS

Class exercises are thus seen to differ in form and in results. When

the student of standards begins to make his tests and measurements, he

finds an inviting field for study in the different effects which follow

the various types of exercises enumerated above.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

Methods can be discussed from various points of view. Let the student

consider methods in relation to the different subjects of instruction.

How will the method of teaching manual training compare with the method

of teaching Latin or arithmetic or music? Again, let the relation of

method to the maturity of pupils be discussed. What can be done in a

high-school class in English that is not possible with an elementary

class? In this connection what are the methods of teaching adults?

Does a preacher exhibit method in his preaching? What is the method of

a writer in a newspaper as distinguished from the method of a writer

of novels? Methods can be considered from the point of view of the

teacher’s personality and equipment. Are there any natural differences

between the methods of men and women in teaching? Classify teachers

with respect to the aggressiveness of their methods of attack. Some are

very quiet and require the pupils to do most of the talking; others are

not.

In the Appendix will be found a list of questions designed to aid in

the observation of classroom methods.

CHARTERS, W. W. Methods of Teaching. Row, Peterson & Company, Chicago.

EARHART, L. B. Types of Teaching. Houghton Mifflin Company.

MCMURRY, C. A. The Elements of General Method. Public School

Publishing Company, Bloomington, Illinois.

PARKER, S. C. Methods of Teaching in High Schools. Ginn and Company.

STRAYER, G. D. A Brief Course in the Teaching Process. The Macmillan

Company.

STRAYER, G. D., and NORSWORTHY, N. How to Teach. The Macmillan Company.

FOOTNOTES:

[77] David A. Ward, The History of Physics Instruction in the Secondary

Schools of the United States. Unpublished thesis for the Master’s

degree in the Department of Education of The University of Chicago.

[78] E. R. Breslich, “Supervised Study as a Means of providing

Supplementary Individual Instruction.” Thirteenth Yearbook of the

National Society for the Study of Education, Part I, p. 45. The

University of Chicago Press, 1914.

[79] F. M. Giles, late principal of the Township High School of De

Kalb, Illinois. Thirteenth Yearbook of the National Society for the

Study of Education, Part I, pp. 57-58.

[80] I. M. Allen, “Experiments in Supervised Study.” _School Review_,

Vol. XXV, No. 6 (June, 1917), pp. 401-404.

CHAPTER XVII

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS

The last chapter dealt with the intellectual side of class exercises.

The recitation has for its final purpose the conveying and fixing of

certain ideas and methods of thinking. But this end can be reached only

when the social conditions within the class are properly under control.

The teacher is concerned, therefore, not alone with intellectual

instruction; he is concerned also with what is sometimes called school

government or school discipline. If the class is in a riot, it is

impossible to make any headway with history or arithmetic. Young and

inexperienced teachers are often ineffective because they do not know

the art of social management. They know the subject-matter which is to

be impressed on the minds of the pupils, but they do not understand the

serious social distractions which are sure to arise at times in a group

of immature human beings.

SOCIAL TRAINING GENERAL

The social conditions necessary for successful classroom work are

often dependent on the general discipline of the whole school rather

than on the momentary situation. If the general social tone of a

school building is low, the best teacher is likely to find himself

handicapped. If, on the other hand, the social management outside

the classroom is efficient, a given teacher who is not skillful in

organizing his class may get on without serious disturbance.

There is another sense, also, in which the problem of management is

a general one. The effect of class management on the pupil’s life is

profound. The school coöperates with the home and often outweighs the

home in determining the pupil’s ideals of social life. These ideals are

not so much matters of intellectual training as of social habit. The

influence of a teacher over his pupils is often due quite as much to

the way in which he manages the class as to the subject-matter which he

teaches.

TYPES OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

A social situation can often be anticipated and conditions can be

prearranged so as to direct all the participants into lines of

activity which are desirable. In considering classroom organization

it is important that we recognize, first, the possibilities of

prearrangement. The more experienced a teacher becomes, the more he can

anticipate situations.

Second, there are forms of class organization which facilitate social

coöperation, such as arranging pupils in line. This is recognized

outside the school, and it is a common practice to arrange people in

line, when, for example, they are securing tickets. The management

of groups of people can best be carried on by the adoption of such

forms. There need be nothing artificial about the forms if they are not

overdone. The skillful teacher often uses formal routine to keep the

class moving as a unit.

Third, there is no social group which does not at times profit by a

critical review of situations after they are over. Punishment is meted

out by society to those who have failed to conform to social demands.

On the other hand, rewards are given to those who have promoted in

conspicuous ways the interests of the group. Both punishments and

rewards are to be recognized as educative devices, and should be used

in the school only when they are such. The future welfare of society

is what should be in mind in every expression of judgment on past

performances.

Briefly put, social management deals first with conditions before the

group comes together; second, with the forms necessary while the group

is together; and third, with the rewards or punishments which should

follow an act in the interests of future behavior.

SOCIAL CONTROL THROUGH ANTICIPATION

Examples of anticipatory arrangements are not difficult to find. All

the material equipments of the school contribute to class management.

The division of the building into small classrooms provides for the

division of the school into manageable groups. The arrangement of seats

and the precautions against the noise and distraction which result from

the shuffling about of furniture are further examples of preparation in

advance for the management of classes.

In like fashion, the program for the day is worked out in advance by

the wise administrator. This program provides for a distribution of

work and recreation such that there will be no undue tax on the child.

The third-grade pupil, for example, cannot sit still for thirty-five

minutes at a time, so the teacher changes the character of the exercise

at the end of every twenty or thirty minutes.

[60] Measuring the Work of the Public Schools, pp. 131-133. Cleveland