“and have had it verified each year since, that the shop will spot a yellow streak in a man before the university even suspects it. 66 An attempt to sneak through spoiled work is never a great success there. We, at the college end, soon find our work under scrutiny and criticism from a source that does not hesitate to scrutinize and criticise. We are brought face to face with the failure of a university department as we never are in our four-year courses. A student, let us say, has finished successfully his work in physics. Some day he does a fool thing in the shop which indicates that he knows very little about the subject. When you confront him with the fool thing, and with the fact that he should have known better because he had been taught the theory governing it, you find his grasp upon the theory to be very feeble." In other words, the shop affords a testing of the teaching as well as of the taught, and no doubt will, as the coöperative plan becomes more common, have an important bearing both upon courses of study and upon the thoroughness with which they are taught. The High School. DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS.-The following statements, from the Bureau of Education at Washington, indicate the encouraging growth of public high-school education: "The private secondary schools show a healthy increase an increase of 25 per cent in attendance since 1900; but the public high schools have actually doubled their attendance in the same period. In 1890, 40 out of every hundred high schools were private-to-day there are only 16 private secondary schools for every 84 public high schools. In 1890, 32 per cent of the pupils were in private high schools and 68 per cent in public; to-day only 12 per cent of the pupils are in private secondary schools. The people have shown their appreciation of their high school in the most direct way possible-by supporting it unfailingly and generously. They have faith enough in it to pay high sums of money year after year that the high school may do greater and greater work. Industry, technical ability, home-making, together with the essentials of a cultural education, are being taught our boys and girls in the splendid high schools of to-day on a scale never dreamed of in the civic life of any nation before our time." The faith of the people in the work being done in our public high schools should of itself be a sufficient answer to the occasional hostile criticism that is heard. Secondary education at public expense is winning its way because the people realize what it has meant in the evolution of higher standards of American citizenship. THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE SMALL HIGH SCHOOL.— Under this title the Commissioner of Education for Massachusetts, Doctor David Snedden, has indicated, in the School Review for February, what he believes to be the proper lines of work for the smaller high schools of the country. As in Massachusetts 40 per cent of the public high schools have fewer than 4 teachers and, taking the country as a whole, the greater number have only 1 or 2 teachers, the nature of the work attempted by such a small faculty is a matter of grave importance. Manifestly such high schools should not attempt the full curriculum possible in larger schools, and they must always decide between instructing in a few subjects, with the possibility of doing good work in them, or attempting more with almost absolute certainty of dealing more superficially with each thing attempted. Doctor Snedden points out that these small high schools usually have a few pupils who are preparing for college, and there is a strong temptation on the part of the school to place most of the emphasis of the work upon them, because their admittance to college is a creditable thing which the public of the community can easily grasp and appreciate. None of the other standards and ideals of secondary education can have much weight with the small high school, because Its teachers are almost of sheer necessity followers, not originators;" and they have their hands full in seeking to meet the very specifically formulated requirements imposed by the colleges. Thus restricted in its scope, it is undoubtedly true that the small high school has largely failed to serve, as effectively as is ideally possible, community needs as represented in the large majority of its pupils for whom a higher education is impossible. While 66 he admits that such subjects as Latin, algebra, ancient history, physics and the like, play an important part as the tools of a higher education, presented as a means of college preparation they can have less value for those not going to college than other subjects that should be introduced for their benefit. The conviction is slowly spreading, he says, that the traditional program of the small high school is, for those who do not reach college, a relatively futile affair when viewed from the stand-point of any one of the three possible aims of secondary education, namely, vocational efficiency, civic capacity, and personal culture. Doctor Snedden says he has a growing conviction that the following should characterize the small high school: 1. It must remain primarily a school of liberal, as contrasted with vocational, education; simply because effective vocational education in any field is practicable only under specially prepared teachers, special equipment, and specially arranged conditions. 2. On the other hand, every small high school should maintain work in one or more lines of practical arts, but avowedly with reference to the possible contributions of the subject to the valid ends of liberal or general education. Manual training, household arts, agriculture, and such commercial studies as typewriting and elementary bookkeeping, can be made valuable factors in this liberal or general education scheme. They will also make valuable contributions to vocational ideals; but neither the pupil nor the community should expect, from the few hours per week that can be devoted to these subjects in these small schools, that genuine vocational skill or capacity can be developed in them. 3. While the necessary and valuable function of preparing the few for college must receive recognition, these schools must remember that, for the great majority of their pupils, preparation for the cultural and civic life of the community is supremely important. Nor are the two aims to be fulfilled by the same means and methods; for the college student must learn to use tools of knowledge that the others will not need. 4. Especially should such schools care for the needs. of the large number of boys and girls who will leave at or before 16. As the vast majority of these will participate in vocational occupations, the practical arts mentioned above can be made to serve the twofold purpose of helping them to choose a calling and of giving them some practical knowledge of it. 5. These schools, as indeed larger high schools, should bear in mind that in all liberal education there are two methods of approaching almost every subject. The purpose of one method is to secure appreciation; the purpose of the other to develop power. "The writer believes that in the introductory stages, at least, of literature, general science, social science, and practical arts, when these subjects are designed for students likely to leave school early, the controlling end should be deep and varied appreciation; whereas in vocational subjects, in English expression, and in the later stages of science and mathematics, the controlling purpose should be power in application or execution." 6. With respect to the means and methods of stimulating interest and appreciation, the small high school may have a relatively wide field. But in mastery of a foreign language, systematic study of literary selections, laboratory exercise in science work, and drill in the arts of vernacular expression, where specialization in teaching power is required, it must restrict its field to what it can do well. Doctor Snedden then suggests the following as a minimum curriculum for such schools, to meet the ends enumerated for the two classes of students apt to be found in them: The first two years' work is organized primarily to care for those who will leave at about 16, but with the assumption that some of the work will also prove valuable for those preparing for college. This permits some of this work to be combined for the two classes. On the other hand, in the last two years prominence is given to the college-preparatory work. 1. The two-year course in English literature should be largely for the purpose of establishing good taste and standards of judgment in general reading. Doctor Snedden believes, however, that there should be no effort made to correlate language study and literature, as each requires a different pedagogic method. Especially in English designed solely" for life" literature and the arts of expression should receive independent consideration. 2. While literature should be taught almost solely for appreciation, language study should be taught mainly for power in the arts of expression. 3. The general science should consist of large units or topics from several or all of the sciences. It should be presented from the stand-point of appreciation and insight, rather than for power to use. These science topics should in the main be for the purpose of interpreting the significant phases of the material environment of the pupils. 4. By social science is here meant topics that will help to an appreciative understanding of the social environment which is essential not only to citizenship but to effective living. 5. Although the small high school cannot be a vocational school in the sense of preparing for a vocation, it can bring its pupils into contact with the practical arts by which men and women must live. Contact with these arts, as part of such great realities of life as the earth, the sky, the social life around them, and participation in them on the amateur's level, are the essential basal elements of the method to be pursued. Four distinct departments are usually recognized in these practical arts,-agriculture, the industries, the commercial occupations, and the household arts; and it is manifest that the small high school can carry but one or two of them. Even with these more restricted efforts of the small high school, it is manifest that the teachers will have to carry a heavy burden. But on what other terms can we 66 |