For an understanding of some of the characteristics of this report it
is necessary to mention certain of the conditions under which it was
prepared.
The printed course of study for the elementary schools to be found
in June, 1915, the time the facts were gathered for this report, was
prepared under a former administration. While its main outlines were
still held to, it was being departed from in individual schools in
many respects. Except occasionally it was not possible to find record
of such departures. It was believed that to accept the printed manual
as representing current procedure would do frequent injustice to
thoughtful, constructive workers within the system. But it must be
remembered that courses of study for the city cover the work of twelve
school years in a score and more of subjects, distributed through a
hundred buildings. Only a small fraction of this comprehensive program
is going on during any week of the school year; and of this fraction
only a relatively small amount could actually be visited by one man in
the time possible to devote to the task. In the absence of records of
work done or of work projected, unduly large weight had to be given to
the recommendations set down in the latest published course of study
manual.
New courses of study were being planned for the elementary schools.
This in itself indicated that the manual could not longer be regarded
as an authoritative expression of the ideas of the administration. Yet
with the exception of a good arithmetic course and certain excellent
beginnings of a geography course, little indication could be found as
to what the details of the new courses were to be. The present report
has had to be written at a time when the administration by its acts
was rejecting the courses of study laid out in the old manual, and yet
before the new courses were formulated. Under the circumstances it
was not a safe time for setting forth the _facts_, since not even
the administration knew yet what the new courses were to be in their
details. It was not a safe time to be either praising or blaming
course of study requirements. The situation was too unformed for
either. In the matter of the curriculum, the city was confessedly
on the eve of a large constructive program. Its face was toward the
future, and not toward the past; not even toward the present.
It was felt that if the brief space at the disposal of this report
could also look chiefly toward the future, and present constructive
recommendations concerning things that observation indicated should be
kept in mind, it would accomplish its largest service. The time that
the author spent in Cleveland was mostly used in observations in
the schools, in consultation with teachers and supervisors, and
in otherwise ascertaining what appeared to be the main outlines of
practice in the various subjects. This was thought to be the point at
which further constructive labors would necessarily begin.
The recommendation of a thing in this report does not indicate that
it has hitherto been non-existent or unrecognized in the system.
The intention rather is an economical use of the brief space at our
disposal in calling attention to what appear to be certain fundamental
principles of curriculum-making that seem nowadays more and more to be
employed by judicious constructive workers.
The occasional pointing out of incomplete development of the work of
the system is not to be regarded as criticism. Both school people and
community should remember that since schools are to fit people
for social conditions, and since these conditions are continually
changing, the work of the schools must correspondingly change. Social
growth is never complete; it is especially rapid in our generation.
The work of education in preparing for these ever-new conditions can
likewise never be complete, crystallized, perfected. It must grow and
change as fast as social conditions make such changes necessary. To
point out such further growth-needs is not criticism. The intention
is to present the disinterested, detached view of the outsider who,
although he knows indefinitely less than those within the system about
the details of the work, can often get the perspective rather better
just because his mind is not filled with the details.