LOUIS P. JOCELYN, Ann Arbor, Mich.-It is better to control athletics than to abolish. In the public schools of Michigan we have complete control of athletic matters. A state league is formed governed by teachers and this has been very successful. No team can participate unless it has lived up to the rules. To be eligible one must have carried ten hours the preceding term and twelve hours the current term. No professional coaches are employed. While coaches are hired they have no authority over the team, to arrange games, etc. The governing board have all authority and arrange schedules. Moreover a teacher always accompanies the team out of town and if a boy visits the saloon or otherwise conducts himself in a disorderly manner he is removed from the team. At Ann Arbor we require all first- and second-year pupils and advise all the others to take gymnasium work. We divide the school into classes and have contests between these classes. Girls also have friendly contests among themselves.

MR. GILES, Marion, Ind., chairman of the State Athletic Association.-In Indiana we provide that a pupil shall carry fifteen hours both the preceding and current year. The state board of control has entire charge, and we can now say that athletics are clean. There is one exception that I would make to Michigan methods-namely, that of interclass contests. Class spirit runs too high in small schools and is very objectionable. It is hard to control when fostered and you never know when you have it down. A club system is better. Other Indiana cities are in sympathy with the movement in Indianapolis, and are eagerly watching the outcome of the new arrangement. If successful that plan will be adopted in other Indiana cities. The development of class spirit leads to class rushes and class fights.

MR. RECARD, Indiana.-There is danger when high-school boys travel all over the state in athletic contests. When not permitted to go under the name of their school they form independent teams and go on their own responsibility without the restraining influences of a teacher. Two years ago I saw a team from a representative city marching through the streets and in and out of saloons stirring up the town and attracting everybody's attention. Teachers need to be on hand all the time and prevent such unseemly exhibitions.

MR. COOK, Hamilton, O.-Ohio too has had her troubles in inter-high-school athletics. The state is now thoroughly organized and matters are in hand. The state is divided in four sections: northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast. I am chairman of the southwest district. Our regulations provide that no team can leave town without some teacher. This, with other good rules, has been tried for the last two years with good results. Our boys under these restrictions have conducted themselves in an orderly manner. Everybody is required to be up on fifteen-hour-per-week work without the fads and frills. Athletics are in the high school to stay and they must be properly controlled. But I differ from some of you. I believe in inter-high-school contests. Class contests lead to conflicts, struggles, and disgraceful class rushes sometimes. All this is of course in imitation of the colleges as were the objectionable high-school fraternities which in this state are happily outlawed if the present law is not declared unconstitutional.

C. E. ROSE, Boise, Idaho.-I think out in Idaho we are fully up to date in athletic matters. The conditions outlined in the paper are largely ideal. Not one school in a hundred could care for physical training as St. Paul's does. But all such matters should be regulated as well as circumstances allow. Control is much better than prohibition. In our school we add some moral conditions to the requirements for the team. No one who smokes or drinks is eligible.

SPENCER R. SMITH, Wendell Phillips High School, Chicago.-In Chicago, we go Indiana one better and require that a pupil shall carry sixteen hours work in both past year and current year, to be eligible to the team. One year ago the control of athletics was

taken from the league entirely and placed in the hands of the principals. Instead of the seven or eight games scheduled formerly by the students, only three or four were arranged for. We allow but one game annually outside of the city. No prizes were offered. The game was played purely for sport. So far as I know both the faculty and the boys of the Wendell Phillips High School were satisfied with the plan. But other high schools refused to play us in the future on these conditions and we are forced to go back to the old régime if we are to play other schools.

As principal of the high school, I desire to have these matters under good control. But I want to see a larger number interested and benefited by physical training. For instance, in the Wendell Phillips High School only eighty out of one thousand seven hundred are actively interested in athletic sports. What attention should we give to the other one thousand six hundred? We have recently planned for a field day for this large number. This last field day was the third we have had and from four to six hundred of the student body participated in these events. While what I am about to say may be considered a digression, still it seems to me to be at least an indirect outcome of our field day in its development of the proper school spirit. At the close of the class day exercises in June, 1908, with proper ceremonies, we raised the class flag together with the flag of our country. This was done with perfect sympathy of the lower classes and with no spirit or disposition to interfere on their part as the flag of 1908 was raised with "Old Glory." This is an effort to dignify the class colors.

I believe that we should take athletics under our control for physical reasons. Pupils are not always honest in revealing their true physical condition and often enter a contest at the instigation of their fellows and sometimes even at the suggestion of their own parents when they are not in fit condition.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON SIX-YEAR
COURSE OF STUDY

BY EUGENE W. LYTTLE, INSPECTOR UNIVERSITY OF STATE OF NEW YORK,

CHAIRMAN

In 1893, the Committee of Ten representing subcommittees of ninety, chosen for the most part from secondary and higher institutions, presented its report on secondary-school studies.

So far at least as public high schools were concerned, that report was valuable mainly as establishing ideals, and ideals only for those subjects then deemed acceptable for college preparation. No report at all was made on such subjects as music, drawing, commercial, manual, and physical training. From that report we quote one sentence. 'Any one who reads these nine reports consecutively will be struck with the fact that all these bodies of experts desire to have the elements of their several subjects taught earlier than they now are."

Eleven years later, at the St. Louis Exposition, it became painfully evident that the United States was almost the only considerable civilized nation that prolonged its system of elementary education to eight or nine years.

Since 1900 two of the most progressive nations of the world, France and Japan, have revised their national programs and both have virtually limited the term of elementary study to six years.

In 1905, at a meeting of the secondary department of the National Educational Association held at Asbury Park, it was voted to appoint a standing com

mittee on Six-Year Courses of High-School Study, of which committee Gilbert B. Morrison, principal of the William McKinley High School, St. Louis, was chairman. That committee reported at Los Angeles in 1907 (see pp. 705-10, Los Angeles, Volume of Proceedings).

[Synopsis]

The question of dividing the twelve years of the public-school course equally between the elementary and the secondary school presents a twofold aspect: The first is educational or pedagogic; the second is economic. On the pedagogical side, while not unanimous, the trend of competent opinion is strongly toward such a division. The reasons for a sixyear course are:

First, It would give the pupils the advantage of being taught by teachers specially trained for the different branches, the gain coming from the better teaching that results from the adaptation of the teacher to the work for which he is best fitted and for which he has made special preparation.

Second, The departmental plan extended downward to the seventh and eighth grades would give the children the advantage of daily contact with several personalities, instead of that all-day association with one teacher which often breeds an abnormal psychic atmosphere.

Third, It would give the pupils the advantage of laboratories in which elementary science might be begun earlier than at present.

Fourth, If in the high school, the manual training shops could be employed to start seventh and eighth grade pupils in this work without sending them off to another school in another part of the city.

Fifth, The modern languages could be begun earlier and continued longer than at present, making it possible to learn the languages by natural and direct methods.

Sixth, It would mitigate the present abruptness of the transition from the elementary schools, and check the loss of pupils at this critical period. The object of a six-year course is not to save time but to secure better adaptation and more natural growth, fitting the pupils better both for the high school and for college.

Seventh, It would cause more pupils to enter the ninth grade as it would remove what is now regarded by parents as a natural stopping-place.

Eighth, Six-year courses would make the system more self-consistent as shown by

experience in the schools of Germany and England.

Ninth, It would give the pupil more time to prepare for college.

Tenth, It would do much toward solving the problem of the outward extension of the course of study and the crowded curriculum.

The economic aspect is not so favorable inasmuch as high schools are more expensive than elementary schools. But the difference in it would not be great. The economic objection will yield when the change is generally believed to be a necessity. The tax payers cheerfully provide the necessities at any cost.

G. B. MORRISON, Chairman

WILSON FARRAND

EDWARD RYNEARSON

J. H. FRANCIS

A. B. GRAHAM

Committee

It is well to note that within the present year, Mr. J. Edward Swanstrom, for some time president of the Board of Education in Brooklyn, and later a member of the Board of Education of Greater New York, published in the Brooklyn Eagle an argument for the adoption of the six-year course of elemen

tary study to be followed by three years of work in the lower high schools plus three years in the upper grade or specialized high schools. In that article Mr. Swanstrom argues forcibly that his plan would not only increase the educational efficiency of the schools but would be highly economical for the city of Greater New York.

At least ten cities in the United States, for several years, have employed the proposed six-year division and believe it to be more economical.

Working along the lines indicated by growing educational opinion, your present committee has decided as follows:

1. To outline what may reasonably be required of pupils at the end of the sixth school year as essential to a preparation for high-school work.

2. To suggest for the seventh and eighth grades a minimum practicable course of study based on the experience and practice of the civilized world, to consume perhaps 70 per cent. of the pupils' time and to advise for the other 30 per cent., those elective which the best pedagogic thought and practice approve.

3. To recommend further careful investigation in regard to fixing points for vocational differentiation in accordance with local conditions and individual characteristics.

4. To recommend that promotions be by units of work accomplished rather than by years, thereby permitting the shortening or the lengthening of the time in which the course, nominally of six years, may be completed by pupils of varying ability.

I. WHAT SHOULD BE EXPECTED OF PUPILS AT THE END OF THE SIXTH SCHOOL YEAR-

AGE 12-13?

A. Reading.-Pupils should be able to get the thought and express the thought in simple narrative prose and poetry, such as Robinson Crusoe and Paul Revere's Ride. B. Spelling. They should be able to spell correctly 90 per cent. of the words commonly used in their home and school vocabulary.

C. Writing. They should be able to write legibly and with fair rapidity.

D. Composition.—(1) They should be able to compose and write a business or social letter, in conventional form, on a simple assigned topic that properly comes within the experience of children of their age. (2) They should be able to compose and write short descriptions and narrative on simple themes appealing to the natural interests of children and falling within their experience.

E. Arithmetic.—(1) They should be thoroughly familiar with number combinations (1-100) in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. (2) They should be able to solve easy two-step problems in arithmetic involving fundamental operation. (3) They should be able to read and write readily integers and decimals to six places. (4) They should be able to solve easy one-step problems involving common and decimal fractions. (5) They should have some knowledge of percentage and its simplest applications to profit and loss and to simple interest.

F. Geography. They should have a general knowledge of (1) The oceans and continents, their relative size and locations; (2) Of the principal countries, their peoples and products, with a somewhat detailed study of the United States and its possessions; (3) Of the great river and mountain systems, specially those of North America, South America, Europe, and Asia; (4) Of 50 to 100 of the principal cities of the world, their location, peculiar characteristics, commercial, industrial, and artistic features of special interest; (5) Of the great trade routes.

G. Other subjects. With the aim of starting as many lines of interest as possible, pupils during the first six years, should have instruction in drawing, music, morals, elementary science or nature-study, history, literature, calisthenics, constructive and illus

trative hand work; but instruction in these subjects should be directed with the aim of developing habits of observation, power to think and power to do, rather than with the aim of imparting information of definite amount.

II.

SUGGESTED LIST OF STUDIES FOR PUPILS OF THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH GRADES, PERIODS 30 MINUTES.

Required subjects

Periods weekly

English, including spelling, literature, composition, grammar
Arithmetic with concrete geometry and algebra

Physical Training (required of those whose physical condition needs

it as corrective; optional for others).

2

3

3

5

It will be seen that the above list presents simply suggestions from which varying courses of study may be worked out, and correlated with courses now given in our high schools.

Your committee makes no claims for infallibility nor for superior insight or foresight. It presents these suggestions as the results of a year's faithful study of the problems before us all. It invites the fullest and freest discussion on the part of all educational bodies during the coming year that we may all gain more light. It respectfully requests that the work of the committee be continued. E. W. LYTTLE, Chairman

E. W. Coy

OLIVER P. CORNMAN

T. A. MOTT

J. H. VAN SICKLE

J. STANLEY BROWN

JOHN H. DENBIGH

ROUND-TABLE CONFERENCES

A. MATHEMATICS

Committee

THE TEACHING OF ALGEBRA IN ITS RELATION TO THE PRESENT
EDUCATIONAL TREND

THOMAS K. MC KINNEY, Professor of MATHEMATICS, WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
MIDDLETON, CONN.

No subject more earnestly engages the attention of teachers of mathematics than does algebra. It is the most important as well as the most difficult subject to teach in the range of elementary mathematics. The difficulty to make the subject attractive has done much to hasten the change from the old régime of required mathematics in the freshman and sophomore years in college to the present elective system. The dissatisfaction felt by pupils John H. Denbigh, Morris High School, agrees to the report with the single exception of that on physical training which he would require of all