Civic training scarcely finds a place upon the elementary school
program. The manual suggests that one-quarter of the history time--10
to 20 minutes per week--in the fifth and sixth grades should be given
to a discussion of such civic topics as the department of public
service, street cleaning, garbage disposal, health and sanitation, the
city water supply, the mayor and the council, the treasurer, and the
auditor. The topics are important, but the time allowed is inadequate
and the pupils of these grades are so immature that no final treatment
of such complicated matters is possible. For seventh and eighth
grades, the manual makes no reference to civics. This is the more
surprising because Cleveland is a city in which there has been no
end of civic discussion and progressive human-welfare effort. The
extraordinary value of civic education in the elementary school, as a
means of furthering civic welfare, should have received more decided
recognition.
The elementary teachers and principals of Cleveland might profitably
make such a civic survey as that made in Cincinnati as the method of
discovering the topics that should enter into a grammar grade course.
The heavy emphasis upon this subject should be reserved for the later
grades of the elementary school.
In the high schools, a little is being accomplished. In the academic
high schools, those who take the classical course receive no civics
whatever. It is not even elective for them. Those who take the
scientific or English courses may take civics as a half-year elective.
In the technical high schools it is required of all for a half-year.
The course is offered only in the senior year, except in the High
School of Commerce, where it is offered in the third. As a result of
these various circumstances, the majority of students who enter and
complete the course in the high schools of Cleveland receive no civic
training whatever--not even the inadequate half-year of work that is
available for a few.
Whether the deficiencies here pointed out are serious or not depends
in large measure upon the character of the other social subjects, such
as history and geography. If these are developed in full and concrete
ways, they illumine large numbers of our difficult social problems.
It is probable that the larger part of the informational portions of
civic training should be imparted through these other social subjects.
Whether very much of this is actually done at present is doubtful;
for the history teaching, as has already been noted, is much
underdeveloped, and while somewhat further advanced, geography work is
still far from adequate at the time this report is written.