that this constitutes a common-school education and that it is complete in its preparation for the ordinary duties of life. Since the common school is frequently regarded as a natural stopping place, many pupils end their school life at this point under the mistaken notion that the work of the high school is merely ornamental and not needful as a preparation for the duties of active life in gaining a livelihood. On the other hand, if the influence, the methods, and the spirit of the secondary school could be begun two years earlier this erroneous notion of finality and completeness at any point in the system might in some measure be avoided and pupils and parents be spared the fallacy that there is any logical stoppingplace in a process of education. 8. An equal division of the twelve years would make the system more nearly selfconsistent. This is shown by the experience of other countries. Without accepting the ideals of European countries or emulating their defects arising from social segregation, we must admit the advantage which the secondary schools of England and Germany enjoy in introducing the appropriate study of some of the secondary school subjects even as early as nine years of age. The mistakes in these countries that have been made in this direction, resulting at times in an unwholesome cramming, are due not to the early introduction of secondary subjects but in the failure to introduce them in sufficiently elementary form. Your committee is of the opinion that whatever may be freely admitted as the evils of European systems, the early introduction of secondary subjects constitutes their one chief redeeming feature. In England the pupil is prepared for the secondary school in the so-called preparatory schools where departmental methods are employed two or three years below the age of adolescence. A similar process is being successfully tried in certain public schools in Chicago and New York and the belief is growing among superintendents of city schools that the American practice of postponing the introduction of secondary subjects to the age of fourteen sacrifices two years of valuable time. 9. The downward extension of the high-school course would give the pupil time to prepare for college. While it is not the primary end and aim of the secondary school to prepare pupils for college it is now quite generally admitted that the culture, power, and practical knowledge that a thoro course would give to a pupil under favorable conditions would equally fit him for college. The requirements for entrance to colleges are constantly increasing, and our best high schools with their four years can no longer meet these requirements. Special work for those students who expect to go to college is now provided in the form of work outside the regular course, and extra time is given to coach candidates in order that they may reach the matriculation standard. This means that our high schools no longer hold their rank as secondary schools, no longer do the work up to the college. It seems evident that more time and more leisure are needed to reach this standard. As pupils enter the high schools unprepared for its work, so do they knock at the doors of the college before they are prepared for its requirements. The committee believes that the downward extension of the high-school course, if it would not shorten the time of preparation and lower the age of college entrance, would accomplish the work more effectively. This opinion is corroborated by the colleges themselves. In answer to questions sent to representative college presidents bearing on this phase of our problem, the consensus of college opinion may well be quoted from the reply of President Eliot. He says: The proposed equal division of the twelve years in the public schools between the district and high schools has an important bearing on the work of the University because of the better training which such a training would afford. The lengthening of the highschool course at the lower end would tend to the earlier introduction of certain subjects now deferred to the pupil's disadvantage, and it would at the same time admit the pupil sooner to the departmental system of instruction in these and other subjects—a system which more and more high schools can afford, but which is often beyond the means of the district school. 10. The lengthening of the high-school course to six years would help to solve the problem of the outward extension of the course of study and the crowded curriculum. The enlargement of the secondary field in the last few years, that has brought in the mechanic and domestic arts and the commercial branches has increased the complexity of the problem. The educational values of the newer branches are rapidly coming into recognition. But the belief in the exclusive competency of the traditional branches to provide the essentials of culture still holds sufficient sway to influence school authorities to retain in their curricula a sufficient number of these branches to somewhat overload the course. The desire to take the practical studies and still to keep on the conventional highway to knowledge constitutes the transition process through which we are now passing. The additional effort that this increase of work requires calls for more time, and the addition of two more years to the high-school course would give the leisure necessary to insure normal growth. The committee believes that the reading, the writing, and the practical arithmetic that are necessarily incidental and accessory to this work will be secured in a better way during these two years with the additional gain in actual knowledge and working-power. The economic aspect of this question does not at first appear so favorable to the lengthening of the high-school course, for this would call for a greater proportion of high schools which are, of course, more expensive than primary schools. While the total number of school buildings, including both high and primary, would not have to be increased, the additional cost of equipment in a larger proportionate number of high schools would add something to the expense of the present arrangement. Whether this additional expense can be afforded or is justified will depend on local conditions and on whether the necessity is sufficiently great. The amount that the American people are willing to tax themselves for education seems to be limited only by the unnecessary and the undesirable. Whenever a proposed improvement in our schools has appealed to the community as a necessity, it has always been met by a ready and a willing response. Laboratory science, drawing, music, calisthenics, commercial branches, and manual training have, in their turn, been incorporated into our school curricula, each entailing additional expense. Even the additional load of free textbooks seems to be borne without a murmur, wherever it has been tried. The same results will probably follow an appeal for additional high schools. Whenever the belief that they would add to the efficiency of the school system, and better equip the children for the duties of citizenship, they will be provided. The economic difficulties involved in making the change suggested in the report would be greatest in small towns and villages in which the smaller number of pupils and the limited means for the maintenance of schools make departmental methods difficult to secure. To this objection it may be noted that the necessities of a change in the smaller towns are not so great as in the large cities which are deprived of many of the natural and stimulating conditions afforded by the country. We may therefore conclude that the change could be most easily made where it is most needed. The extensive laboratories, workshops, and museums in our large city schools may indeed be considered in part as an attempt to restore to the pupils those forces, exercises, and experiences which are the inheritance of youth in the country. But the immense inertia of custom to be overcome before this want becomes a part of public consciousness will probably make this change slow in coming. For this reason the committee believes that the inertia of the economic objection will gradually be overcome by conservative, even-tempered discussion and by further study of the problem. Respectfully submitted, GILBERT B. MORRISON, principal of McKinley High School, St. Louis, chairman ALBERT B. GRAHAM, College of Agriculture, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio Committee. DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION SECRETARY'S MINUTES FIRST SESSION-TUESDAY MORNING, JULY 9, 1907 The Department of Higher Education met at 9:30 A. M. in joint session with the departments of Secondary Education and Normal Schools. In the absence of President W. L. Bryan, of Indiana University, Vice-President George A. Gates, of Pomona College, Claremont, Cal., presided. President Joseph H. Hill, of the State Normal School at Emporia, Kan., presented a paper on the "Preparation of High-School Teachers from the Standpoint of the Normal School." The next paper presented was prepared by Reuben Post Halleck, principal of the Boys High School, Louisville, Ky., and was read by J. Stanley Brown, superintendent of Township High School, Joliet, Ill. This paper was on the theme, "Preparation of the High-School Teachers from the Standpoint of the High-School." The third paper of the morning, which was presented by Alexis Frederick Lange, dean of the faculty of the college of letters, University of California, Berkeley, Cal., treated of the "Preparation of High-School Teachers from the Standpoint of the University." The papers were discussed by C. P. Cary, state superintendent of public instruction Madison, Wis. The discussion was continued by Robert J. Aley, professor of mathematics, Indiana University; J. H. Hoose, professor of philosophy, University of Southern California; John R. Kirk, president of State Normal School, Kirksville, Mo.; A. O. Thomas, president of State Normal School, Kearney, Nebraska; J. H. Hill, president of State Normal School, Emporia, Kan., and Alexis F. Lange, University of California. The chairman named the following Nominating Committee: Robert J. Aley, of Indiana. W. O. Thompson, of Ohio. J. H. Hoose, of California. The department then adjourned. SECOND SESSION-FRIDAY MORNING, JULY 12 The Committee on Nominations made the following report: For President-Oscar J. Craig, University of Montana, Missoula, Mont. The report of the committee was approved and the nominees were declared elected as officers of the department for the ensuing year. President W. O. Thompson, of the University of Ohio, presented a paper on "The Care of Freshmen." The discussion was opened by Fletcher Bascom Dressler, professor of the science and art of education in the University of California and continued by Professor Robert J. Aley, of the University of Indiana; C. P. Cary, state superintendent of public instruction, of Wisconsin; and Mr. Howard of the Los Angeles High School. The second paper of the morning session was presented by Professor Wallace N. Stearns, Wesley College, Grand Forks, N. D., on "Religious Education in the State Universities." President W O. Thompson of the University of Ohio presented the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted: Resolved, That the Department of Higher Education, recognizing the rapid growth of the state universities in numbers and in the importance of social and religious work for the students, most cordially approves the movements now being promoted in order to make adequate provision for the social and religious needs of students, and expresses the hope that the various churches will co-operate in meeting this need. The paper was discussed by Benjamin Ide Wheeler, of the University of California; Clifford W. Barnes, ex-president of the Illinois College, Lake Forest, Ill.; Professor Allen of Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa, and Dr. McClish, formerly of the Pacific University. Vice-President George A. Gates, of Pomona College, California, made some remarks on the matter of standards and urged that the Department of Higher Education go forward to a higher standard. John G. Bowman, assistant secretary of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, was introduced. He gave some account of that organization and spoke especially of the restrictions imposed by the committee on those institutions applying for the benefits of the fund. The department then adjourned. OSCAR J. CRAIG, Secretary. I. THE PREPARATION OF HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHERS Public education in the United States is a healthful organism because it is a growth, not a creation. Organization there has been, but artificial articulation and ideally perfected machinery do not mark the real stages of its progress. There has not been, it is not to be expected nor desired that there will be, absolute uniformity of development in the educational systems of the various states of our Union; but out of the clash of conflicting opinion and the varying circumstances producing local differentiation, there comes the gradual, sometimes the painfully slow, evolution of the ideal. Looking back over the seventy years of our educational history, since the beginning of the "CommonSchool Revival," every term in the theme assigned me for this paper, the teacher, his preparation, the high school, the normal school, illustrates this enlarging process and each must be considered from the point of view of a continually expanding content. The training of the high-school teacher, ideally considered, is training for a vocation, I wish I could say without controversy as an already attained reality, for a profession, tho etymologically, I like better that word "vocation." The high calling of the teacher is more than that of a hearer of classes or the keeper of a school. This is part of the traditional content from which time is but slowly emancipating us. The teacher's work, ideally considered, with the enlarging social and individual meaning of education, involves considerations as many-sided as life itself, and his preparation implies more than knowledge of the subject-matter of instruction, more than the orderly arrangement of that knowledge from the aspect of presentation, not acquisition-tho that is one of the things to be emphasized-more than personal culture and discipline if it is still permissible to use that term "discipline." It implies a preparation of character, of purpose, and of power, technical skill, the professional spirit, the grasp of a philosophy, the mastery of an art. A coherent and philosophic view of the processes of education must be supplemented by training in the application of the principles of education to practice; and this whole body of general and specific preparation must be invigorated and transformed by that intangible something that we call teaching power, the infusion of that breath of pedagogic life without which there can be no living soul. There is an atmosphere that the intending teacher must learn to breathe, there is a consecration of personal power that he must make if he would fully find himself in his work. For such a professional spirit and training, the normal school has from the beginning distinctively stood. It exists for the training of teachers and nowhere now is there a question as to its right to exist. The professional ideal that the normal school in the seventy years of its history in the United States has been the chief agent in maintaining that public provision must be made for the training of public-school teachers, not only is universally conceded by educational theorists, but recognized in practice in every state and territory of the Union. Yet singularly enough, there are educational leaders who will concede as valid every claim that the normal school makes as to the preparation of elementary teachers, who yet both in theory and practice place the ideal training for high-school teaching on a far narrower plane. I do not want to be misunderstood. I concede absolutely the necessity of a greater degree of academic training in specific subjects in preparation for high-school teaching than most of the normal schools have in the past been able to give, tho the value of much strong preparation for high-school work done in the normal school has been unduly minimized; but the normal-school contention is that the ideal preparation for high-school teachers is not fragmentary nor merely quantitative, not so much of physics or of chemistry, weighed by scale or measured by test tube, not so many segments of mathematics, of biology, or of language, that the processes of teaching are more subtle than any processes of merely intellectual research, that soul values and life values imply tests and measurements and discriminations that no emphasis placed merely on knowledge can assume the power to make. I met the other day, on the train, a longtime friend of mine, a commercial traveler, who began to sell goods in boyhood and has little of education save for the four years of training in the school of the Civil War, where he fought with distinction, and his lifetime of business experience. He introduced me to a physician who was sitting next to him, and in doing so, said: "I am only a dry goods drummer, but you two men ought to have something in common. One of you understands the body, the other understands the mind." Personally, I was disposed to receive somewhat humbly his estimate of my understanding, but I felt that in his tribute to my profession he had expressed, in the rough, a subtle appreciation and a true educational philosophy. The high-school teacher is more than a teacher of |