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and in respect to the number of studies or topics under each principal subject, is to be strongly recommended.

(3) It may seem trivial to offer criticism of the specimen programmes made by the committee, and yet I believe that each member felt that with ample deliberation results somewhat different would have been reached. Note for instance that in some of the programmes history is entirely omitted in the second year, and physics is given only three hours per week-no more time than is allowed for botany or zoology. There are many symmetrical secondary school programmes in actual operation to-day which furnish continuous instruction in all important subjects throughout the four years, allowing to each an amount of time adequate to good results. For most high schools the first, the classical programme, and the last programme, the one offering one foreign language, will commend themselves because they are economical, and they combine a good finishing course with adequate college preparation.

(4) On the basis of the tabulated results of the conferences I believe that by earnest scientific examination a scheme of work can be formulated that will meet the views of the members of the committee and of most educators. As an afterthought it may be an occasion for regret that the strength of the discussion was not devoted to Table III. Instead of considering the work of the committee as ended, I would recommend that the National Council hold itself responsible for further examination of the data furnished by the conferences. I have not presumed to offer a substitute report, because I believe that the importance of the work demands further effort of an entire committee.

Respectfully submitted.

JAMES H. BAKER.

THE REFORM OF SECONDARY EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.1

By NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER.

It has come to be distinctly recognized that any far-reaching educational reform in this country must begin with the secondary schools. The elementary school is helpless if the secondary school refuses to cooperate with it in raising the standard of scholarship and improving the methods of instruction, and but few colleges are strong enough to demand of the secondary schools more and better work than the latter are now doing. Persuasion on the part of the colleges has in some cases accomplished a good deal, but the improvement has been limited either to one or two subjects of instruction, or to the schools of a relatively small territory. The secondary schools themselves, not always conducted in a wise or generous spirit, have too often sacrificed the necessities of sound training to the local demand for an ambitious programme containing two score or more of school subjects, no one of which is pursued far enough or long enough for the pupil to derive from it the educational value it possesses; or, they have erred on the other side, and in the devotion to a past ideal excluded from the curriculum whole fields of knowledge that have grown up within a century. Thus the secondary school has appeared to many observers not only to scatter a pupil's energies and interests, but to delay him unduly. The consequence is, as President Eliot showed very clearly several years ago, that the American boy of 15 or 16, no whit inferior to his French or German fellow in native ability, is from two to three years behind him in acquired knowledge.

To remedy so apparent an evil as this would be an easy task in France or in Prussia. The minister of education would consult his official advisers and call the leading educational experts to his council, in a few weeks an order would issue prescribing for the schools a new and reformed procedure. In this way, Lehrpläne and Lehraufgaben for the higher schools of Prussia were issued in 1882, and again in 1892. Similarly, in 1890 the existing Plan d'Études et Programmes of

1 From the Atlantic Monthly, March, 1894.

the secondary schools in France was promulgated. In this country, however, where no central educational administration exists, and where bureaucracy is not popular, educational reforms can be brought about only by persuasion and cooperation, for no official and no institution is empowered to dictate to us. The press, the platform, the teachers' meeting, must be availed of to put forward new ideas, and men and women in large numbers must be reasoned with and convinced in order to secure their acceptance.

For secondary education, and through it for our educational organization generally, a long step has been taken in this direction by the proceedings that led up to the appointment of the committee of ten by the National Educational Association, and by the exceedingly valuable report which that committee has just laid before the public.

For thirty years the National Educational Association has been known as a large body of teachers that assembled annually to listen to addresses and discussions of more or less practical value. It has come to command an attendance of as many as 16,000 teachers of all classes and from every section of the country. Its power and authority have increased with its size and its representative character. In 1892, the directors of this association determined to pass from the field of mere discussion, and begin an educational investigation, under their own auspices and paid for out of their own funds, that should result in some practical gain to the country at large. They accepted the suggestion, made to them after careful deliberation, that the problems connected with secondary education should be vigorously and systematically attacked, and appointed a committee, which has come to be known as the committee of ten, to take full charge of the task, at the same time appropriating $2,500 to pay the expenses of the work. The members of this committee were carefully selected with a view to giving representation to the types of educational organization most interested, and to the various sections of the country.

As finally constituted, the committee was made up of one president of an Eastern university, two presidents of Western State universities, and one of a Southern State university, one president of a college for women, one professor in a Western college open to both sexes, one headmaster of an endowed academy, one principal of a public high school for both sexes, one principal of a public high school for girls only, and the Commissioner of Education, whose familiarity with the principles and practice of education in every part of the United States gave representation, indirectly, both to the elementary school interest and to the special students of education.

The procedure adopted by the committee of ten is fully described in the report to which it is the object of this paper to direct attention. It may be briefly stated thus:

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After a study of the whole problem, it was decided to appoint nine conferences of ten members each-one conference for each of the main divisions of work that fall properly to the secondary school. The members of the conferences were selected equally, as nearly as possible, from college and school instructors who had attained a reputation in connection with the subject of their conference, due regard being had also to the representation of various educational interests and the several sections of the country. The several conferences assembled in December, 1892, at convenient points, and 88 of the 90 members were in attendance. Of these 88, 46 were in the service of colleges and universities, 41 in the service of schools, and 1 was a government official formerly in the service of a university. So admirable aro the lists of members of these conferences that it is difficult to speak of them without enthusiasm. Among the 90 names will be found many that stand in the foremost rank of American scholarship, and no one of the 90 was without valuable educational experience of some kind. This fact of itself gives great weight to their recommendations, and their exhaustive reports, which are appended to the report of the com mittee of ten, are a mine of educational information and suggestion of the utmost value.

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The first impression produced by a study of the reports of the special conferences is that their members addressed themselves to their task with marked skill and directness. The questions submitted to them are answered, and answered fully, and the answers are accompanied with the reasons there for. From the standpoint of the old-fashioned preparatory schoolmaster, ignorant alike of the newer school subjects and of the newer methods of imparting life to the old ones, the changes urged by the conferences may seem many and radical. Yet it will be difficult to disprove the deliberate conclusion of the committee of ten that, on the whole, the spirit of the conferences was conservative and moderate. For example, the Latin conference distinctly disclaim any desire to see the college admission requirements in Latin increased. The Greek conference prefer to see the average age of entrance to college lowered rather than raised. The mathematics conference recommend the actual abridging of the time now devoted to arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. The geography conference agree that the time now spent upon that subject in the schools is out of all proportion to the value of the results secured.

As a matter of course, the conferences that dealt with the modern languages and the several departments of natural science had the largest amount of work to do. Greek, Latin, and mathematics have been staple school subjects for generations. They are carefully organized and graded. Adequate text-books are provided. A large body of teaching experience lies behind each of them. Of the other subjects this is not true. They appear only sporadically in schools. Too often they are taught badly, and their educational value is lost. The conferences dealing with the modern subjects make it clear in every case how these evils may be avoided; but their reports are correspondingly longer and more minute than those on the other subjects. The conferences on physics, astronomy, and chemistry, for example, append to their reports an elaborate outline of experiments to be performed and topics to be taught in the secondary school. The reports from the conferences on history, civil government, and political economy, geography, and natural history are similarly detailed.

The recommendations of the conference on English will naturally be turned to first; for the tendency to emphasize the importance of the study of the mother tongue, and to improve the methods of teaching it, is now too strong and too general to be resisted, if indeed anyone wishes to resist it. The report of this conference is very short, but it is extremely clear and cogent. In substance, it says that the proper use of English can only be gained by using it properly in exercises of increasing difficulty and variety. The spelling book is discountenanced. Formal grammar is relegated to the subordinate place that it deserves. The reading book should contain real literature, and not articles on physical science or natural history, and but little sentimental poetry. In the high school it is held that English should have as much time allotted to it as Latin, and that the two points to be kept constantly in mind in the teaching are the study of literature and training in the expression of thought. All this advice is so sound that, being now given a quasiofficial authority, it should be followed generally in the secondary schools, both public and private.

The fact that education can not be cut up into artificial periods distinct in themselves is brought out by almost every conference. They agree in saying that the elementary school must improve, and must cooperate with the secondary school if the latter is to meet the demands now made upon it. English teaching can not be neglected from 6 to 13 if good results in it are to be obtained from 13 to 17. It is facts like this that give the reports of the conferences their chief significance. Though dealing ostensibly and directly with secondary education only, they reach every nook and corner of the clementary school as well.

It is extremely encouraging, also, to find the nine conferences and the committee of ten, 100 teachers in all, in cordial agreement on many points of fundamental importance. It is laid down, for instance, that no school subject should be taught in different ways to pupils who are going to college, to a scientific school, or to neither.

If a pupil studies algebra or Latin he should study it in the same way and to the same extent during the time that he studies it, whether he is to enter Harvard or Yale, the Institute of Technology or the Rensselaer Polytechnic, or a merchant's office. On this point there is not a single dissenting voice. This one principle, if followed in the secondary schools, would immensely simplify their programmes and decrease the cost of their instruction.

The conferences agree again-excepting the Greek conference, the members of which had no reason for dealing with the subject-that much work now taken up for the first time in the secondary school should be begun in the elementary school. One foreign language, for instance, history, algebra, and geometry are all capable of excellent use in the upper grades of elementary schools, and are already to be found there in some of the more progressive cities of the country. The discussion on shortening and enriching the school curriculum begun so recently has already accomplished thus much.

The four conferences on language study and the three on natural science also agree among themselves as to the best methods of teaching. The former are a unit in desiring reading aloud in the language to be studied, the association of writing the language with translating from it, and the careful correction of translation in order to secure in it the use of accurate and idiomatic English. The three scientific conferences come to a like agreement. They all believe that laboratory teaching is better than text-book teaching, and that the inspection of laboratory notebooks should be combined with written examinations in testing a pupil's attainments.

The last and most important point of agreement among the conferences relates to the coordination of the studies in the curriculum. Neither the committee of ten nor the conferences contained a single person who may be classed as a follower of the Herbartian educational theory as exemplified by Ziller, Stoy, and Rein; yet by purely empirical methods the committee and the conferences arrive at a striking confirmation of one of the main doctrines of the Herbartians, the coordination and correlation of studies. The scientific conferences show how the practice of writing accurate descriptions of observations and experiments contributes to the requirement of a clear, simple, English style. The conference on history wish to have that subject always associated with the study of geography, and the conference on the latter subject agree with them. The English conference explicitly ask that the study of the mother tongue and its literature be supplemented by that of the history and geography of the English-speaking race.

Taking these points alone, and passing over the hundred and one questions of detail on which the conferences pronounce, we have a considerable body of educational doctrine that is sound to the core and that applies to one school and to one stage of education as well as to another. Principals of schools, teachers of special subjects, and students of education will examine and weigh carefully every recommendation of the conferences, however minute; but the general reader and the intelligent parent wish most of all to gain an idea of what is unanimously or even generally agreed upon. That question is substantially answered in the foregoing summary of the conference reports.

To study carefully the several conference reports, and to base upon them a general recommendation to the country, was the more difficult part of the task of the committee of ten. Any recommendation, to be tangible, must, of course, include a schedule showing how a school can arrange its programme so as to carry out the ideal of the committee. Four such schedules or tables are given by the committec; and while not perfect-what school programme is?-they are extremely suggestive. The first table is not a programme, but an ordered arrangement, by topics and school years, of all the recommendations of the nine conferences. It offers material for a thousand programmes. The second table is given to test the practical character of the conference recommendations. It includes them all in a four years' course, adding to each subject the number of weekly periods to be allotted to it. When

this is done it is found that for three-fourths of the course much more is demanded than any one pupil can follow, but-and this is the important point-not more than a school can teach. The necessary consequence is that there must be in the high school a choice or election of studies. In a small school this choice will be made by the principal, who will say: "With the staff at my command, I can teach only five subjects of those proposed by the conferences in the manner recommended. My school shall therefore be limited to those five." Larger and richer schools can teach more, or perhaps all of the subjects, and then the choice among them will be made by the pupil. This choice is necessary, as the committee of ten is careful to point ont, to thoroughness and to the imparting of power as distinguished from mere information; for any large subject whatever, to yield its training value, must be pursued through several years from three to five times a week.

The committee's third table is based on the second, but uses four as the standard number of weekly periods of study for each subject, except in the first year of a new language. Further reference to this table is unnecesɛary.

The fourth table submitted is of great interest, for in it the committee, after due deliberation, makes its own selection out of all the material and suggestions supplied by the conferences and submits sample standard programmes of secondary school work. It would be a grave error to dismiss this question of a specific programme as one involving mere detail that might be left to any principal or superintendent of schools. The committee of ten itself dissents strongly from that view; for it believes that to establish just proportions between the several subjects, or groups of allied subjects, it is essential that each principal subject shall be taught adequately and extensively, and therefore proper provision for it must be made in the programme.

In framing the sample programmes the committee of ten proceeded upon some general principles that are of great significance. In the first place, it endeavored to postpone to as late a period as possible the grave choice between a classical and what is generally known as a Latin-scientific course. Very frequently this choice determines a boy's future career, and it is important that it be made not only late in the school course but after excursions into all the principal fields of knowledge have discovered the boy's tastes and exhibited his qualities. A second principle is that each year of the secondary school course should be, so far as may be, complete in itself, and not made wholly dependent on what is to follow. This is essential, because thousands of pupils are obliged to leave the high school after one or two years, and during that time linguistic, historical, mathematical, and scientific subjects should all be presented to them in an adequate manner. It is also important that provision be made so that each subject may be treated in the same way for all pupils who take it; that time enough be given to each subject to gain from it the training it is able to give; that the different principal subjects be put upon an approximate equality in the matter of time allotment; that all short courses given for purposes of information only be excluded; and that the instruction in each of the main lines-namely, language, history, science, and mathematics-be continuous. With all of these principles in mind, the committee of ten framed the four sample programmes given herewith, the names by which they are designated being based on the amount and character of foreign language study in each.

In adopting twenty as the maximum number of weekly periods of school work, the committee had two qualifications in mind: First, that at least five of the twenty should be given to unprepared work; secondly, that laboratory subjects should have double periods whenever that prolongation is possible. Such subjects as music, drawing, and elocution, often found in secondary schools, are purposely omitted from the programmes, it being left to local authorities to determine how they shall be introduced.

Inspection will show how carefully the programmes have been framed with reference to being carried out economically in a single school. With few exceptions, the

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