from year to year is lamentable. This loss is not wholly due to home conditions. The program of study has been much at fault. Pupils have been forced to pursue studies, and given up the pursuit without capture, in sheer discouragement. They have been compelled to bolt down food which has been nauseating, but not nourishing. Intellectual dyspepsia has been the result, and they have abandoned school because it did not meet the demands of their nature, it did not feed their appetite; and yet in later years many of these same pupils have come to the very front in the honorable callings of life. There has been a noticeable increase in the per cent. of students who remain in college to the end of a curriculum since electives were introduced into college programs. There may be the same desirable results in our secondary schools, when pupils, under interested and safe guidance, are given a large liberty of choice in the studies they may pursue. There is a niche for everyone of average intelligence to fill, but the misfits in life are deplorable in the extreme. The opportunities for success and usefulness are rich and varied. The teaching profession needs better-trained specialists; in the learned professions there is vacant room at the top; in the world of nature there is much to be discovered, in the laboratory of science much to be developed. The institutions of mankind await the touch of master-minds to reform them and adapt them to new eras, new modes of living, and new methods of thought. Our own government needs rejuvenation; our municipalities, reeking with rottenness, need revolutionizing. The whole moral sense of the public needs quickening. All these high ideals must be reached thru the instrumentality of education. The young people of the nation, then, must be furnished opportunities for such an education as their natural endowments seem to foreshadow will be of most value to them. We shall not have, then, so many physicians that ought to be farmers, so many lawyers that ought to be blacksmiths, so many preachers that ought to be peddlers, nor so many failures in business because of mistaken vocations. Woe be to the one who crowds upon a young and innocent mind a study which, tho meat to the parent or teacher, may be poison to the pupil! Child study, mental aptitudes, individual trend, the eternal fitness of things should absorb our thought and demand our vigilance in the arrangement of a curriculum of study for every boy or girl who passes thru the secondary school and the college. The sky is streaked with the gray of a better dawn; the clouds of pedantry are passing away; individualism in education is the promise of a rational future. On behalf of the committee appointed by your departments to study. the question of college-entrance requirements, with gratitude for your patience in waiting four years for our conclusions, with acknowledgments. to the hundreds who have given us valuable aid, and in the hope that this report will be received and studied in the same earnest and honest spirit in which it has been prepared, I submit it, with the unanimous endorsement of the committee, for your consideration. DISCUSSION President JoseEPH SWAIN, Indiana University.—-In opening this discussion, I wish to say with emphasis that the committee of which Dr. Nightingale is the honored chairman deserves much commendation for the four years of intelligent and painstaking service which it has performed for the schools of the United States. It has labored long and faithfully. It has its reward in the knowledge that its labors will be most helpful to the cause of education. The committee very wisely, as I think, recognizes that uniformity of college-entrance requirements as regards particular subjects is not only undesirable, but impossible. It does hope, however, to establish a collection of units which shall be practically equivalent, and out of which the requirements for entrance shall be selected, thus making national units which shall be understood thruout the limits of this association. In order that we may have in mind its terminology, I quote the language of the committee: The committee, for itself, adopts a definite terminology which will be used during this discussion. Three distinct terms seem to be needed: first, program of studies, which includes all of the studies offered in a given school; second, curriculum, which means the group of studies, schematically arranged for any pupil or set of pupils; third, course of study, which means the quantity, quality, and method of work in any given subject of instruction. Thus the program of studies includes the curriculum, and may, indeed, furnish the material for the construction of an indefinite number of curriculums. The course of study is the unit or element from which both the program and the curriculum are constructed. The committee has secured leading experts from all sections of this union to aid it in the formation of these units. The result of its investigation deserves the very careful consideration of this association, and warrants the members in giving their most cordial co-operation in trying this scheme in our respective institutions. Dr. Nightingale has intimated in the paper to which we have listened that he would leave the resolutions, stating the principles upon which the report is based, to be discussed by those who come after him. I shall discuss briefly two of these : 1. Resolved, That the principle of election be recognized in secondary schools. This resolution is properly placed as a fundamental one. The committee does not undertake to say how much election there shall be in any given school. It simply recog nizes election as an established fact, and leaves to each school the range of election. Absolute prescription is no longer feasible, and absolute freedom of selection on the part of the pupil is not encouraged. I have no quarrel with those who have already found the exact curriculum for the development of the child, but there are too many exact curricula, each having the same claim to command general confidence in any one. For myself, I am inclined to believe for the present that the high school can do most for the graduate of the elementary school by giving him as a curriculum a minimum amount of those subjects which are very generally regarded as proper subjects for his study, and are representative subjects in the several fields of human knowledge; leaving the rest of the course to be selected from a wide range of subjects, partly by the student, partly by the parents, and partly by the teacher. There may be an ideal curriculum for a particular child, but there is no one curriculum for all children. The idea that one student may receive the training best for him thru the study of one subject, and another student thru the study of another subject, is rapidly gaining ground. I am willing to accept thoro work in any proper high-school subject which has been pursued for at least one year under competent instructors, with adequate equipment, as a part of the work for collegeentrance requirement. 2. Resolved, That the teachers in the secondary school should be college graduates, or have the equivalent of a college education. I believe it is certainly significant that the present committee, the chairman of which is a secondary-school man, should so strongly reinforce the declaration laid down by the Committee of Ten. The greatest need I believe to be teachers of larger and more accurate scholarship. Scholarship is not by any means the only requisite a high-school teacher should have, but no teacher can lead students to proper ends without mastery of the subject he is required to teach. It is too frequently the case that the knowledge which the teacher has of the subject he is trying to teach is limited to the narrow and partial view of some text-book. The opinion expressed in the resolution, that a teacher should be in scholarship at least four years in advance of the pupils he is trying to teach,' is certainly sound. A grade- and common-school teacher should at least be a graduate of a high school. A high-school teacher should be a graduate or in scholarship equivalent to a graduate of a reputable college. I would go farther and say he should have a four'years' course in college in the subject he is expected to teach in the high school. For example, if he is a teacher of mathematics, he should have a four-years' course of thoro mathematical training in college. There is a large amount of misdirected energy in our schools today because of the failure of many of our teachers to grasp the essentials of the subjects which they are endeavoring to teach. A teacher who is merely able to solve the problems in some text-book may get along; he may be able to convince the pupils that they are getting on satisfactorily; he may have superior skill in class management; he may have a wide knowledge of educational literature; but unless he is master of the subject he is trying to teach, there can be no adequate compensation for time and energy expended; for it is the blind leading the blind, and they are sure to fall in the ditch at last. The committee well says: The time is past when a superficial knowledge of a variety of subjects, coupled with a knack for giving instruction and some administrative ability, can be considered sufficient qualifications for teaching in a high school. In many departments of study, work is now being done in these schools as advanced as that done in the first year of a college course, and there is no better reason in the high school than in the college for intrusting this work to the care of teachers who lack adequate special training for it. PROFESSOR F. H. CLARK, Lowell High School, San Francisco, emphasized the point that the secondary schools have a field of education distinctly their own, and that the colleges must recognize this and accept what the high schools find to be their proper work. PRINCIPAL E. W. Coy, Hughes High School, Cincinnati, O., criticised the report as having made a requirement of at least one half-year's work in Greek and some work in Latin beyond what was now customary or desirable. PRESIDENT JAMES H. BAKER of the University of Colorado, being called upon, expressed himself as in general sympathy with the report. He stated that he was a conservative in regard to the doctrine of the equivalents of studies, but thought that the committee had been successful in adopting the only plans under which an agreement among colleges was practicable. He thought that it is the duty of the schools to train men and women rather than professional men and women; even those who stand most strongly for freedom of election in practice actually do insist upon certain studies as essential. PRINCIPAL H. L. BOLTWOOD of the Township High School, Evanston, Ill., criticised the report as being impracticable in certain points, notably in the recommendation that all high-school teachers should have college preparation, especially if the high-school course be extended to six years. He did not think that the pay would be sufficient to secure college graduates for seventh- and eighth-year work. He commended the system of units presented in the report as the basis of college admission. PRESIDENT WILLIAM H. BLACK of Missouri Valley College commended the report, especially for the careful distinction drawn between the principle of election, as defined in the report, and specialization, as ordinarily understood. Specialization, so-called, is one of the hobbies which we are in danger of overdoing. He commended the remark of President Baker that the schools should train men and women rather than professional men and women. Boys and girls in the high school are not then choosing professions. PRESIDENT DAVID STARR JORDAN of Stanford University, California, said that colleges have done much mischief by putting requirements upon the secondary schools as to what they should teach. Secondary schools should give the pupils work upon which the world can build; the universities desire work upon which they can build. These demands are identical. The schools should teach what they can teach best; the only thing that the colleges should insist upon is thoroness. President Jordan related the experiences of the Stanford University faculty in trying to decide on a basis of admission to the university. After much trouble the "Stanford system" was brought about. According to this system, any twelve units admit a student, the only thing being demanded from all being training in English composition, and there being a further restriction that any science units offered must represent work actually performed in the laboratory for not less than a year. Even the English requirements he thought unnecessary, believing that the high schools would insist upon that anyway. The speaker expressed himself as not being able to find anything in the report with which he could disagree. MR. SEELY, of Texas, continued the discussion of the report, speaking of the burdens of high schools in trying to connect with the varying requirements of colleges, and commending this effort to unite them. DR. A. F. NIGHTINGALE closed the discussion. He regretted that more opposition had not been developed in the discussion; and gave fuller explanation of points in the report concerning which fault had been found. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON COLLEGEENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION LOS ANGELES, CAL., July 13, 1899. To the Department of Secondary Education and the Department of Higher Education of the National Educational Association: The committee appointed by your honorable bodies in July, 1895, to study the question of college-entrance requirements has the honor to submit the following report. A. F. NIGHTINGALE, Chairman. BURKE A. HINSDALE. EDMUND J. JAMES. JAMES E. RUSsell. PART I To the Department of Secondary Education and the Department of Higher Education of the National Educational Association: The committee appointed by your honorable bodies to study the question of college entrance requirements, for the purpose of harmonizing the relations between the secondary schools and the colleges, to the end that the former may do their legitimate work, as the schools of the people, and at the same time furnish an adequate preparation to their pupils for more advanced study in the academic colleges and technical schools of the country, submits the following report: HISTORICAL SKETCH At the meeting of the Department of Secondary Education of the National Educational Association at Denver, in 1895, a paper was read by Professor William Carey Jones, of the University of California, on the subject, "What Action Ought to be Taken by Universities and Secondary Schools to Promote the Introduction of the Programs Recommended by the Committee of Ten ?" Discussion of this paper led to the motion for the appointment of a committee to report a plan of action on the basis of Professor Jones' paper. The committee presented the following report: WHEREAS, The most pressing need for higher education in this country is a better understanding between the secondary schools and the colleges and universities in regard to requirements for admission; therefore Resolved, That the Department of Secondary Education appoint a committee of five, of which the present president shall be one, and request the appointment of a similar committee by the Department of Higher Education, the two to compose a committee of conference, whose duty it shall be to report at the next annual meeting a plan for the accomplishment of this end, so urgently demanded by the interests of higher education. This resolution was unanimously adopted, and the result communicated to the Department of Higher Education, from which the following reply was presently received: Secretary Thurber. DEAR SIR: The Department of Higher Education has arranged to have a committee appointed to co-operate with the Committee on Secondary Education in regard to requirements for admission into colleges and universities. Very truly, JOSEPH SWAIN, Secretary. The president of the Department of Secondary Education announced the appointment of the following committee in accordance with the above action: William Carey Jones, Berkeley, Cal.; A. F. Nightingale, Chicago |