flass\..."R \lo2)'^ Book rR4_, ' J21. 1 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL By G. VERNON BENNETT, A.M., J.D. City Superintendent of Schools, Pomona, CaJ. Lecturer in Education, University of Southern California. Baltimore WARWICK & YORK, Inc. 1919 Copyright, 1919 By WARWICK A YORK, Inc. WHSFERR WW ■ »£ PREFACE The author is frank to admit that this book is not a com- plete treatise on the junior high school. To write such a treatise there would have to be available a vast mass of facts, statistics, and experimental data about the subject.^ The junior high school is too new an institution to have had time and opportunity for the accumulation of such scientific ma- terial. There has been an insistent demand for a reorganiza- tion of our school system. It did not seem as if those de- mands could be met under the 8-4 plan of grouping grades. There arose — in response to the demand — a new institution, the junior high school, created to carry out the reorgan- ization. It was not as if an old institution had been asked to do new work. Not at all. It was pretty well decided before- hand what was needed to be done. The problem was, can the present organizations do the things needed ? Some edu- cators said, yes. Others said, no, and proceeded to create a new school to do the work. Since then Professor Johnston's statement that "the junior high school movement is sweep- ing the country" has become literally true. There have been some precedents in Europe and in this country for the creation of this school. These fore-runners are briefly described by the author. It is not pretended, how- ever, that these were real junior high schools. This book is put forth as a guide for the study of the junior high school movement. It is full of suggestions, full of arguments, full of enthusiastic hopes. It is put forth as a pathfinder. The author has necessarily drawn largely on his personal observations in his own schools at 'Pomona ; but VIII THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL he has also had the pleasure of visiting the junior high schools in Los Angeles, Berkeley, Detroit, Houston, and Salt Lake City. The author wishes to thank the many superintendents who have responded to his requests for information. He wishes especially to thank Dr. David P. Barrows, formerly Dean of the Faculties of the University of California, now Major, Chief of the Intelligence Department, Philippine Islands,' and 'Prof. E. E. Lewis and Prof. T. H. Briggs, of Teachers' College, Columbia, for valuable suggestions, criticism and inspiration. For faults in the book the author wishes himself solely and alone to be held responsible. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter One — The Problems and the Solution i i. Definition of junior high school I 2. The problems 3 A. Leakage from school 3 B. Selecting the wrong vocation 4 C. Delayed entrance into skilled vocations 5 D. Evils growing out of adolescence 6 3. Preventing leakage by the junior high school 7 4. Vocation selection through the junior high school 14 5. Shortening the preparation for skilled occupations 17 6. Adapting education to the needs of adolescence 20 A. Education of boys 20 B. Education of girls 23 Chapter Two — History oe the Movement 26 1. Foreign systems 26 2. Various plans of grouping grades 29 3. Supt. Bunker and the Berkeley plan ^Z 4. The Los Angeles plan 35 5. Work of the National Education Association 36 6. The junior high school throughout the country 38 7. Varying plans in operation 40 Chapter Three— Objections to Junior High School Answered 43 1. The same results obtainable under the old plan 43 2. Greater distance of pupils from school 46 3. Unfavorable effect upon elementary teachers. 48 4. Difficulty of obtaining college-trained teachers 50 5. Difficulty of inducing ninth grade pupils to attend junior high school 53 6. Additional expense for buildings, grounds, and equipment 54 7. Conservatism of the public 56 Chapter Four — Effect of the Junior High School Movement Upon the Elementary Grades 58 1. Foundational subjects covered in grades I-VI 58 2. Kindergarten preparation required 60 3. School attendance better enforced 62 4. An all-year session 64 5. Excellent teachers employed 66 6. Teaching how to study . . . .- 68 ix X THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL Page 7. Specific changes in the elementary courses 70 8. Non-essentials in particular subjects eliminated 73 Summary 74 Chapter Five — Courses oe Study 76 1. Preliminary considerations yy 2. Physical education 80 3. Manual and sense training 84 4. English 86 5. Foreign languages 90 6. Mathematics 92 Chapter Six — Courses of Study, continued 96 1. History and politics 96 2. The sciences 08 3. Culture subjects 101 4. Vocational subjects 108 Chapter Seven — Principal and Teachers 114 1. Manning the junior high school 114 2. The principal 115 3. The teachers 117 4. College-trained vs. normal-trained teachers 118 5. A teachers college for junior high school teachers 120 6. An organization of junior high school teachers 123 7. Literature on the junior high school 125 8. Pleads of departments 128 Chapter Eight — Teaching in Junior High Schooe 131 1. Aims and purposes 131 2. The teacher 132 3. The class-room 135 4. High school textbooks not adapted to junior high school. . 138 5. Certain qualities developed in pupils 141 A. Acquisition of habits of industry 141 B. Development of sense perception 142 C. Acquisition of motor skill 142 D. Health and development 143 E. Acquisition of information 143 F. Reasoning, retentiveness, alertness 144 G. Skill in expression 145 TABLE OF CONTENTS XI Page H. A liking for wholesome pleasures 145 I. Purposefulness 145 6. The method of the recitation period 146 Chapter Nine — Administration of the Junior High Schooe 150 1. The faculty 150 2. Supervision 152 3. Organization of the schedule 154 4. Clerical work 155 5. Student organizations and activities 158 6. Accessories of teaching 160 7. School interruptions and exercises 162 8. Moral guidance 164 Chapter Ten— Relation to Senior High and Junior CoeeEge 167 1. The senior high school and the tenth grade 167 2. The upper secondary school's tendency to become college-like 168 3. Nature of the people's college 170 4. Effect of the people's college upon the junior high school curriculum 174 5. Effect of the people's college upon the junior high schools in cities 175 6. Relation of people's college to junior high schools, outside of cities 177 Chapter EeEven — An Ideae Junior High Schooe 181 1. The city 181 2. Board of education 182 3. The superintendent 183 4. The grounds 185 5. The pupils 186 6. The buildings 187 7. Accessories of teaching 188 8. The faculty 189 9. Conclusion : Results 191 Appendix. Junior High Schooe Courses of Study 195 Bibliography 208 CHAPTER ONE) THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 1. Definition of Junior High School and Outline of the Subject: A junior high school in the fullest sense in which it is commonly used has the following characteristics : \ ($) It is a separate educational institution, with a dis- tinct organization and corps of officers and teachers. ; (b) It embraces the seventh, eighth and ninth grades (or years of work) and sometimes the tenth. ^ (c) It has a curriculum in the seventh and eighth grades enriched by the presence of several high school sub- jects or by the broadening, culturizing or vocationalizing of the so-called common branches. (d) It promotes by subject even in the seventh and eighth grades. f (e) It permits and encourages a differentiation of courses for the different pupils. It is with the above meaning that the term will be used in this book. Many schools that fall short of all these char- acteristics by one point are called junior high schools. But in practically all cities where the movement for establishing these schools has gotten well under way, the ideal toward which the authorities are working embraces all of these points. In California the term originally used was "intermediate high school," later shortened to "intermediate school," but the term "junior high school" is rapidly supplanting the others. In New York City the "intermediate school" is not properly a secondary school, although it is tending to become such. I 2 THE) junior high school, The reader must bear in mind that the junior high school movement is so new and is undergoing so many modifica- tions and improvements that what is true of it this year may fall far short of the truth next year. The subject of the junior high school will be treated first as an educational movement, and second as an institu- tion. In the first division we shall treat, in this chapter, the causes leading to the birth of the movement; in the second chapter, the history of the movement; in the third chapter, the objections raised to the creation of a junior high school; in the fourth chapter, the ascertained and prospective effects of the movemlent upon the elementary school. In the second division — the school as an institution — we shall devote chapters v and vi to the curriculum and courses of study; chapter vii to the preparation, selection and organization of faculties ; chapter vm to problems of teaching; chapter ix to administration; chapter x to the rrelation of the junior high school as an institution to the senior high school ; and chapter xi to the author's conception of an ideal environment, housing, equipment, and officering cof a junior high school. In this chapter we shall take up the causes that produced the junior high school movement. We shall find that society has made certain demands on the public schools with which the school system found it impossible under the 8-4 organ- ization successfully to cope. The junior high school came into existence to meet these demands. The four most important demands were : ( 1 ) That the enormous leakage from school in the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth grades cease; (2) That an effort be made to destroy the influences of schools which tend to send young men and women into unsuitable and worthless vocations and that a positive effort (be made to guide them into suitable and worthy occupa- THE PROBLEM OF THE SOLUTION 3 tions; (3) That the modern tendency to lengthen the period of preparation for skilled vocations be checked and some method be found for shortening" the period so that men may become self-supporting and society-supporting at an earlier age; and, finally (4) That the school system check the physical, mental and moral evils that accompany and grow out of adolescence. After showing how bad were the conditions that caused these demands to be made, we shall proceed to explain how these demands are being met by the junior high school. 2. The Problems. A. Leakage in the seventh and eighth grades and in high school. The records in Los Angeles City, where compulsory attendance is more strictly enforced than in most cities, show that in the years 1896 to 191 1, inclusive, there was an average dropping out, as fol- lows : From the fifth grade, 18 per cent of those registered in that grade; from the sixth grade, 20 per cent; from the seventh, 30 per cent; from the eighth, 17 per cent. As the eighth was the last grade &i the elementary school, the dropping out after graduation would greatly increase the percentage above the 17 per cent here recorded. The law required children to attend school up to the fifteenth birth- day; but there was a large number of Mexican children who reached that age in the fifth 'and sixth grades. The statistics of Los Angeles do not show how many dropped out at the end of the eighth grade; but in Grand Rapids 24 per cent of eighth-grade graduates failed to enter the ninth grade, and in Evansville, Indiana, 44 per cent. In the Franklin School of Berkeley, California, 59 per cent of eighth-grade graduates did not enter high school. Thorndike's statistics show that for the country in gen- eral, out of every 100 pupils finishing the sixth grade only 4 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 79 finish the seventh and only 59 finish the eighth. Ayres' figures show 79 and 57, respectively. As to leakage in high school, the record in Cincinnati showed that of the 1766 pupils enrolled in the ninth grade in 1912-13, only 1128 enrolled in the tenth grade the next year, and 714 in the eleventh grade in the following year. This shows a loss of 36.1 per cent the first year and 23.5 per cent the second year. The leakage in the tenth grade, however, was 36.7 per cent of those that entered it. The statistics of Los Angeles from 1896 to 191 1 show that 54 per cent of those who entered the high school dropped out before the end of the first year; and of those who remained to take up the tenth grade, 45 per cent dropped out before the end of the year. The Minneapolis report showed similar results. Thorndike's figures for the entire country show that between the end of the eighth year and the end of the ninth, out of every 100 pupils 33 dropped out, and during the next year 25 more dropped out. Ayres' statistics show that out ,of every 100 graduates of the eighth grade 22 dropped out ;inthe ninth grade and 42 in the tenth. While these accounts differ in detail, in final result they agree that about 60 per cent of elemlentary-school graduates fail to reach the third year of high school. B. Selecting the wrong vocation in life. Another social problem that presses for solution is that of getting each person into the occupation that will serve best his own interests and those of society. The good of both the indi- vidual and of society requires that boys and girls find at a reasonably early age the vocation for which they are best adapted and that all preparation possible be made for that .occupation. There is a large number of failures in business attributable THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 5 to the unfitness of the employer and the employees for carrying on that business. In 1915 there were 22,156 such business failures in this country. There are other contribu- tory causes, of course, but unfitness stands out as a principal one. The vast armies of idle poor that hang about city employment offices testify to the failures in fitting for the right employment. Competent authorities state that a large proportion of men change their occupations two or three times before they get into the right ones. If a man does not decide upon his vocation until he reaches twenty-five or thirty years of age, he has only natural aptitude to rely on ; he has not time then to prepare himself adequately for an occupation. Not only is the misfit unsuccessful in the occupation into which he is driven, but he finds it irksome. He is unhappy in his work. This unhappiness and poor remuneration affect his family relationship, disturbing its equilibrium and bring- ing about pessimism and distress. Society also finds itself cheated out of what it expects and demands of each indi- vidual. It may even have to support the individual or his family and is thereby burdened with pathological and cura- tive measures — a condition that prevents the carrying out of its creative and developmental program. Society feels the loss of such a man's monetary contribution to its progress. C. Delayed entrance into skilled vocations. We hear in these days a constant complaint of the system of schooling that prevents young men from getting started in their professions or occupations until late in their twenties. With twelve years for public education, four for college, and three for professional training in the university, a man finds himself ready to begin work at twenty-five years of age if he has been fortunate. If, however, he failed to pass 6 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL some lower grade; if his parents moved from one state to another, or from one city to another, entailing a loss of a grade; if he did not enter school until he was seven years old; or if sickness or other causes interrupted his steady advance in school, he will not finish his university work until he is twenty-six or twenty-seven. It takes so long to get a start in the professions or in business, that often he is well past thirty before he finds himself self-supporting. All these things tend to delay marriage to middle age, and sometimes entirely prevent it. If, by misfortune, the young man should marry in his early twenties, he is condemned to such cruel privations and struggles that his chances for suc- cess are slim. This is true not only in the professions, but equally so in many lines of agriculture. Orchards require several years to mature, and farms cannot be stocked short of three or four years. If the young man has neither the land nor the capital to start farming as soon as he is graduated from the university, he will find that he must wait several years longer before his education will yield him any permanent income. Most young men, foreseeing this long delay, go- directly into agriculture without taking a university course at all. D. Evils growing out of adolescence. These are of three kinds though closely inter-related. The physical evils result from (a) arrested development, caused by some disease, from overstudy, fright, etc.; (b) perverted sex habits, as self-abuse; (c) habits arising out of the adoles- cent's sudden induction into manhood which gives him the adult's desires and freedom to satisfy them but not the adult's restraining will power, such as the habit of keeping late hours, smoking, chewing tobacco, drinking liquor, eat- ing rapidly, and choosing irregular diet; (d) a reaching and THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION J straining" to do things that their elders do, without proper judgment, such as running endurance races; and (e) im- proper actions by girls at delicate bodily periods and neglect of bodily needs through a prudish sense of modesty. There are several mental evils that grow out of adoles- cence : (a) Arrested mental development caused by the physical changes incident to adolescence or caused by worry over those changes; (b) mental weakness caused by exces- sive indulgence in sex thoughts and habits; (c) habits aris- ing out of the adolescent's sudden induction into manhood which gives him freedom to do much as he pleases, such habits as idleness, irregularity in work, fickleness, weakness of will; (d) mental stagnation resulting from the youth's leaving school and entering unskilled work; (e) the "big- head," contempt for the opinions of others, unwillingness to learn, a feeling of "knowing it all." The moral evils are more definite and far-reaching. Many writers insist that they are actually worse now than ever before and are steadily getting worse. The following are some of those moral evils arising directly from adolescence : (a) Lying to parents and weaving webs of deceit; (b) dis- obedience to parents and general outlawry against the home; (c) playing "hookey" from school, cutting classes, chafing against restraints of any kind; (d) habits arising out of the freedom and independence that come with adoles- cence, such as the reading of trashy novels, frequenting bad moving picture houses, smoking, gambling, drinking, stay- ing out late at night, indulging in excessive social affairs, stealing to meet the unusual need for spending money; (e) perverted sex habits (ranging from mere "looseness" of actions to downright "shamelessness"). 3. Preventing Leakage by the junior high school. The leakage in the seventh and eighth grades is attributed to several causes, of which dislike for school as taught under 8 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL the old plan is the principal one. This dislike for school arose from the fact that the pupils were tired of going over and over the common-school studies, that they disliked to associate with the little children who had no community of interest with them, and that they wanted some real, telling work to do, work which was to be found only outside the walls of school. There were, of course, other contributing causes. Many children had to go to work to help support their families, and they felt that the longer they stayed in the old-time school the less lit they were for taking the small jobs which children can readily secure. This leakage in the seventh and eighth grades the junior high schools were organized to check. They plan to reduce the dropping out of school by keeping children interested in J school work. The common branches, if taught at all in these two grades, are to be so effectively changed in nature that the pupils will not recognize in them their old enemies. If arithmetic appears at all, it is as elementary accounts, bookkeeping or commercial arithmetic. If it is served to them in this way, the boys and girls enjoy the feast. Other subjects are added — subjects that appeal to the ambition of the young people. The two grades are taken from the grammar school building and housed in new quarters where the pupils will have only children of their own ages or older children to associate with. The real, telling work of the big outside world is brought into these new schools, and the youngsters have their legitimate ambitions satisfied in school work. Finally, the junior high schools are being so con- ducted as to make it possible for boys to help the parents, as in Los Angeles, either by part-time work in stores or by selling the product of their manual training or school-gar- dening work. We have available some statistical records of the influence THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 9 of the junior high school in retaining pupils in school. Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a city in which school attend- ance was kept up to a very high standard even before the institution of the junior high school. The following statis- tics are taken from an article by Paul C. Stetson in the April, 1918, School Review, but arranged by the author so as to show the facts which he wishes to bring out. His figures show that the elementary school enrollment remained practically stationary from 1908 to 1916, the increase being almost entirely in grades VIII to XII, inclusive. He states that the junior high schools were established in 1912. Not all seventh and eighth grade pupils were at once assigned to the junior high schools. The enrollment in the seventh grade remained about the same until 191 3, when it began to grow by leaps and bounds after feeling the effects of the junior high school upon it. The eighth grade had hardly been able to hold its own until 19 14, when the effect of the junior high school began to be felt. Here are the figures. We have underlined the figures where the junior high school's influence is felt. ' Seventh Grade Eighth Grade 1908 IO91 946 1909 1087 IO39 ^o 1063 1053 1911 Il6l 992 1912 I082 IO72 1913 1262 990 I9H Il88 II40 i9 J 5 1272 1097 i9 J 6 1346 1296 The next case to which we wish to refer is that of Macomb, Illinois, as reported by Superintendent V. L. io the: junior high school Margun. In this city the junior high school was established in 191 5-16, the results showing in 1916-17 in the seventh grade. The enrollment in the seventh grade had been at a standstill while the population of the city had been steadily increasing — as shown by the enrollment in grades I to VI. The following are the results : Grades I to VI Grade VII 1913 '■•■' 731 83 1914 745 82 1915 745 82 1916 748 81 1917 743 I2 3 In order to show how the junior high school is to solve the problem of the great mortality in high school, we must be able to say what is the cause of the dropping out in the first and second years of high school. The following seem to be the most usual and best known: (1) The de- partmental system is confusing to the new pupils. (2) High school lessons are so much harder than those of the grade school that failures are far more frequent. Lessons are longer and require much home study. (3) High school teachers are thought to be less sympathetic — in fact, cold and indifferent to the success or failure of students. (4) Pupils are thrown immediately upon their own responsi- bility in the preparation of their work ; they neglect, stumble, flounder, become discouraged, drop out. (5) It seems a long time before they will finish — four years — therefore they lose heart. (6) The desire is so strong in the breast of the adolescent really to "do" something, that cultural studies seem a waste of time. At first the student likes the change from grades to high school. There is greater freedom, greater school spirit and activity, everything is new, the buildings and equipment are THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION II fascinating, there is a thrill of joy about the whole institu- tion. If the pupils had no work to do and could dabble in the things that they like, their interest would not flag. The days would be one long dream of pleasure ! But, alas and alack, the state does not support costly institutions merely to amuse young people in their "teens." The evil days speed on apace ; there comes a time of reckoning about the end of the first quarter, when the report cards show low grades and failures. The pupil feels that he has been mistreated, that the lessons were too hard and too long, that the teacher takes little interest in the freshmen and in him in particular, that he should have been warned that he was failing, that the teacher did not give him help, that he got a late or wrong start through no fault of his own, that he should have been made to study and not allowed to drift. Finally, he con- cludes that four years spent in hard work upon senseless studies are a waste of time for him, he cuts classes, stays out of school a day or two at a time, sulks while in school, answers the teacher's questions with an abused 'M dunno,'t which implies that no person in his right mind could know anything about such meaningless stuff as is found in text- books, and finally leaves school. The junior high school is undertaking to prevent this enormous dropping out of pupils in the ninth and tenth grades by bridging the chasm through gradual department- alization, by introducing new and difficult studies gradually, by spreading subjects over a longer period so that each lesson will be short enough to be prepared under the school roof, by employing sympathetic teachers of boys and girls, by slowly extending the individual responsibility of the youth, by cutting in two the long period of time required to finish school, so that graduation is not so far in the future, and by giving the adolescent work that will appeal to his interests and ambitions. 12 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL Departmentalization should begin gradually and in a school where the pupil and not the subject is the prime con- sideration of the teachers. The first year of high school is evidently not the best place for its abrupt beginning. De- partmentalization should be pretty well developed by the time the ninth grade is reached; but it should be a matter of development, not of abrupt change. The junior high school offers to solve this problem for us by taking the one-teacher-taught pupil and sympathetically and gradually introducing him to departmental teaching. A sympathetic class adviser teaching him one solid subject and two or three minors like penmanship, spelling, and oral Eng- lish, or teaching him two or three solids in the seventh grade, will make the transition easy and pleasant and safe. The other teachers, too, with the right interest in children, will appreciate his difficulties and help him over the yawn- ing chasm, 1 , even at the expense of strict requirements of the curriculum. The effect of the junior high school on enrollment in ninth grade in Grand Rapids is shown in the following table. The population of school age was practically stationary during the years 1908-16. We underline the years in which the ninth grade was affected by the establishment of junior high schools. Ninth grade enrollment Gain per cent 1908 635 I. plus 1909 626 IO. " i9 x o 6 93 3- '" 1911 713 12. " 1912 804 12. " 1913 82 9 3- ' 1914 984 18. " 1915 "35 *5- " 1 THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 13. In further proof of the efficacy of the junior high school plan in holding pupils in school, may be cited the following figures from the Pomona schools. There is a law in Cali- fornia compelling children to attend school until they reach their fifteenth birthday. It is so strictly enforced that we have not used figures that concern the number of sixth-grade entrants who enter seventh grade. The junior high schools were established in 1914, and in 191 5 afTected seventh-grade entrants who entered eighth grade; eighth-grade entrants who entered ninth grade were also afTected that year. Ninth- grade entrants who entered tenth grade were not afTected by the junior high school until the fall of 1916; and tenth- grade entrants who entered eleventh grade, not until 191 7. We have underlined the percentages afTected by the junior high school. 7th to 8th 8th to 9th 9th to 10th 10th to nth Sept. 1914 92% 86% 93% 84% Sept. 1915 100% 99% 87% 80% Sept. 1916 93-9% 92% 92% 71% Sept. 1917 88.3% 905% 967% 95% Pomona is a rsidential city and began to be afTected by the European war in the spring of 1916, when many families moved away to the industrial and mining centers. This loss of pupils accounts for the counter movement shown in the table. It is seen mpst plainly in the first, second and last columns. In the first column under the same influence the percentage sank from 100 to 93.9 and then to 88.3 per cent. In the second from 99 to 92 and then to 90.5. In the fourth column, under unvarying influences, the percentages sank from 84 to 80 and then to 71. In every grade the junior high school immediately raised the percentages as soon as 14 THE) JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL the change began to affect it. In the eighth grade the per- centage was raised from 92 to 100 per cent; in the ninth grade from 86 to 99 per cent ; in the tenth grade from Sy to 92 per cent; and in the eleventh from 71 to 95 per cent. Superintendent P. W. Horn, of Houston, reports to his hoard as follows: "The most easily measurable result of the junior high schools is in the matter of attendance. In 1913-14 the attendance of white children in the high school of Houston was 1341. In 19 16- 17 the high school enroll- ments, not including seventh-grade pupils in junior high schools, was 2091. This shows an increase of 56 per cent in high school enrollment in three years, which is more than double the rate of increase in the elementary schools." To understand the correctness of Superintendent Horn's state- ment, it must be explained that Houston has no eighth grade. The seventh, first high and second high school grades are in the junior high schools, while the eleventh and twelfth are in the senior high schools. 4. Vocation selection through junior high school. Hitherto, when the importance of vocational guidance was not appreciated or even understood, the selection of high school courses was left either to the child or to the eighth- grade teacher. Of course, the high school principal was in no position to guide the pupil, for the pupil was probably entirely unknown to him before the first day of school. The eighth-grade teacher, with her lack of close touch with high school progress, is also not a safe guide. The child's selec- tion of a course must necessarily be haphazard unless infor- mation has by chance fallen into his hands. There is no more important step in the life of an indi- vidual than that in which he starts upon a high school course. He may some day, after paying a fearful penalty, THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 1 5 overcome a mistake made at this time. There may be some high school courses so general that they will meet the needs of a large percentage of a group of a hundred beginners. In some schools there may be a chance for readjustment later on. But these cases represent the exception, not the rule. There is undoubtedly great need for careful vocational and educational guidance. The best time for an adviser to study the boy is in the period of early adolescence, just before he -enters high school. The best opportunity for such study is when the student is "exposed" to various stimuli. Let a boy take a fair amount of several subjects, and then have the vocational adviser watch carefully the effect. It should place him in a position to diagnose the case with small chance of making a mistake. The junior high school is such an institution as will allow the greatest opportunity for this study. We have the boy or girl at just the right age. There are plenty of short courses which the pupil may take. If he is ever going to have an aptitude or liking for anything, it will surely show in the period from twelve yeaps old to sixteen. With pre- engineering, pre-medical, pre-agriculture, pre-business, pre- everything in the curriculum that he has to take in the junior high school, he should show a response to something or to several things. A few may not respond to any of these subjects. Some superior authority, such as the parent or adviser, may well take in hand pupils of this kind and put them through a rigid general curriculum in high school, finding out thereby the things they respond to least. By a process of elimination, just what is needed by such pupils may be ascertained. If it be true, as some educational writers assert, that early adolescents retain very little of what they learn — get in fact very little benefit from study — then it is no waste of l6 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL time to use this period for experimentation with them. It would at least be far better to use this period for experimen- tation and save the pupils to the high school, than to let them drop out or to drive them out by our past methods. But we are convinced by what has been done in vocational guidance through the intermediate high schools of Los Angeles, Grand Rapids, Houston and Pomona, that the richest and most valuable results are obtainable by the use of the early adolescent years of school children. Here in the junior high school, the vocational adviser has his class in vocational information and guidance. At least one semester should be devoted by each pupil to this class. In Pomona this subject is taken by every pupil during the semester preceding his graduation into the senior high school. The pupils learn about the world of occupations, the kinds of work, the compensation of each, and the advan- tages and disadvantages of every vocation. Interest is aroused in the whole field of occupations, and the pupils begin to see the importance of their life careers. Here also they find that society's interests are worthy of their consid- eration. They awaken to the fact that they themselves are of importance in the progress of civilization. The vocational adviser becomes well acquainted with the pupils whom he is to advise and guide. The boys and girls are also stimulated to study themselves and their own apti- tudes. Guidance therefore becomes a co-operative task, in which the pupil takes an active part. In such a class he learns to study himself and measure his character, abilities and likings. This habit of introspection is of value to him, whether or not he hits upon the proper vocation at this time. The vocational information acquired and the choice of occupation made by the pupil are immediately put into use in planning a curriculum to be taken in the senior high THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION \J school. The plan is to select such courses as will best fit the boy for service for himself and to society. The chosen vocation is to be the central object, but of course not the only object. The subjects are to be grouped about the main purpose of his education. When completely planned, this curriculum becomes the concrete result of the whole process of vocational guidance in, the junior high school. 5. Shortening the course by means of the junior high school. We have spoken of the demand that men get into their life work earlier. The junior high school proposes to do its part by shortening the time required by an entire year. The university, however, feels that three or four years are already too short a time in which to give a profes- sional course that is well-rounded and thorough. Moreover, the universities are insistent on at least two full years of college work as a preparation for the university course. On the other hand, educators insist that children should not enter school at an earlier age than six, while the laws of many states forbid earlier entrance. Long experience has shown that the tools and foundations of education are not obtainable in less than six or seven years. The junior high school has undertaken the task of saving a year of time. It proposes to do the work of four grades in three years. In some places this plan takes the form of doing the work of the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth grades in three years, leaving the senior high school the tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades to deal with. Richmond, Virginia, has worked out this plan very satisfactorily. The plan has many things to commend it to parents. One in particular is, that the tradition of an eight year elementary school is not changed. The children and the parents are not called upon to make any sacrifices or to change their ideals. When the child is graduated from the elementary i8 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL school he enters the tenth grade instead of the ninth grade. The plan that commends itself to many educators and thinking parents as the best is one in which the work of the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth grades is done in three years. In such a plan the elementary school ends with the sixth grade and the secondary school begins with the sev- enth. If the elementary school has done its work properly the pupil will not need much further work on the funda- mental operations in arithmetic or the foundational ideas in the other subjects. Reading, of course, is continued in literature; language in English (composition and gram- mar) ; historical stories in history ; arithmetical application in bookkeeping and practical accounts. Cultural subjects, such as Latin, algebra and general science, may be begun at once, with considerable simplification of the beginnings. The following plan — the one first adopted in Pomona — will illustrate this shortening of the course: First Semester Second Semester Third Semester English (non H. S.) English (non H. S.) English (non H. S.) U.S. Hist. (nonH.S.) U. S. Hist, (non H.S.) Civics (non H. S.) Latin (% H. S. Cr.) Latin (% Cr.) Latin (% Cr.) Algebra (% H.S.Cr.) Algebra (% Cr.) Algebra (% Cr.) Fourth Semester Fifth Semester Sixth Semester Accounts (non H.S.) Accounts (non H.S.) Physiology (nonH.S.) English I (% Cr.) English II (% Cr.) English III (% Cr.) Latin (% Cr.) Latin (% Cr.) Latin (% Cr.) PI. Geom. (% Cr.) PI. Geom. (% Cr.) PL Geom. (% Cr.) Gen. Science (% Cr.) Gen. Science (% Cr.) Gen. Science (% Cr.) Anc. Hist. I (% Cr.) Anc. Hist. (% Cr.) Manual Tr. (% Cr.) Manual Tr. (% Cr.) Cooking (% Cr.) Music (% Cr.) Art (% Cr.) Anc. Hist. (% Cr.) Manual Tr. (% Cr.) Cooking (% Cr.) Music (% Cr.) Art (% Cr.) Cooking (.% Cr.) Music (% Cr.) Art (% Cr.) Mec. Draw. (% Cr.) Mec. Draw. (% Cr.) Mec. Draw. (% Cr.) Note: The first two courses in each semester are re- quired, and three of the last eight courses must be elected. During the first three semesters, the pupil completes the applications of the foundation subjects and earns two high TH£ PRORLKMS AND THE SOLUTION IQ school credits. During the second three semesters, the pupil earns five high school credits. He graduates into senior high school with seven credits, which give him eleventh grade standing. By taking four courses through the next two years he has upon graduation from senior high school fifteen credits, or enough to enter college. As he takes physical education, unprepared oral English, and singing throughout the five years, he is given an additional credit in a combina- tion of these courses. This curriculum is cited only as a type of plan whereby the work of four grades may be done in three years. Another plan that helps to shorten the time of preparation for university work is that of promotion by subject in the seventh and eighth grades. While promotion by grade in the elementary grades may be defensible, such a plan is bad after the fundamentals of education have been mastered. In the lower grades harmonious development is the chief aim of the child's study; in the secondary school the chief aim is development of individual characteristics. Promotion in the elementary school may possibly be best only when the pupil attains a certain minimum standard in all subjects. Such a plan followed in the secondary schools would defeat the purpose of truly secondary education. Promotion by subject begun with early adolescent educa- tion will tend to shorten the entire secondary curriculum. Failure in one course will not hold the pupil back in all his courses. A second failure in t he_same..C0-Ur&e^is-.a^4xi'pi-ty. goodindication that the pupil's best education does not need 1 that subject, proyided;^oF^ourse^,that the teachexiia^jiQJieJ r Iiis^parl4irjape£l3^ Shortening the time consumed in completing the curricu- lum by a year and promotion by Subject are possible only in some form of junior high school. 20 the: junior high school 6. Adapting education to the needs of adolescence through the junior high school. The practical application of this plan consists in introducing vocational work into the curriculum to meet the growing demand for real, occupa- tional work; departmentalizing instruction for the better development of the individuality of the pupil and for the better teaching of the rich content of secondary subjects; enriching the curriculum by new and mind-broadening sub- jects, such as the cultural and civic subjects; and by adapt- ing all school life to the needs of adolescence — physical, mental, moral, and religious. We shall discuss these various junior high school methods in connection with certain demands of the adolescent nature, first for boys and then for girls. A. The education of adolescent boys is based upon their psychical and physical needs. To the educator or to the social reformer planning the proper education of boys, one must commend the proverb, "A little child shall lead them." To know what to do, we must study the child and let his needs tell us what kinds of training should be given. ( i ) The boy's tendency to grow and be active is encour- aged. In school the boy is taught that the home should provide plenty of well-cooked, nourishing food, and should not provide for much sweets, highly seasoned diet, stimu- lants, or rich dishes. The junior high school sees to it that the police make it impossible for him to secure liquors and tobacco in any form. The school and the playground pro- vide plenty of physical exercise and culture, athletics, games, and manual and physical labor. (2) The feeling of adultness and the desire to be consid- ered grown up are not suppressed, but are used for character building. Boys' organizations like the Scouts, Baraccas, and Corn pubs are formed in school. The school allows the THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 21 boy certain elective studies within a safe and sane range, and under proper vocational guidance. The organization of student self-government may afford a satisfactory method of allowing boys self-expression in their desire for adult- hood. Here also belong the vocational aspirations that need direction. (3) The widening of the reasoning faculties is allowed expression in debate, orations, argumentation, and mathe- matical studies. Historical, political and economic studies afford excellent material for the development of these faculties. (4) Rapid fluctuation in temperament is reduced to a minimum by the school in requiring defmiteness of studies and continuation of a course through at least several months. The school assigns tasks that require regularity and persist- ence. The worst thing that can be done is to coddle the boy and encourage him in feeling that he has real cause for grievance. Such indulgence will inevitably lead the boy to take a pride in the obstinacy of his temper, his sulking, his fits of gloom and despondency, and his changeful moods. The junior high school injects a little more iron and stern- ness into its dealing with boy delinquents than does the elementary school. (5) The strong physical emotions of adolescent boys are developed into higher aesthetic emotions. Boys like rag- time and noisy music; they are led to enjoy good music by the right process in school and in their clubs. Boys like the touch sensations felt in rubbing, wrestling, and swimming. Care must be exercised not to allow these touch sensation to become degenerate or unhealthy. Boys like rugged scenery, bright lights, and gaudy colors. The school attempts to direct this taste into the highest lines. 22 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL (6) Boys sometimes feel as if the world rested upon them and the welfare of society depended upon their opin- ions and actions. This feeling is seized and made use of — not for the benefit of society, but for the reflex action upon the boy. What he plans, the reforms he advocates, the changes he so valiantly champions, may never be brought to pass ; but the fact that he plans, advocates, and champions, has a great effect upon his character. This impulse may be directed toward the home, the school, the church, etc., but cannot issue in anything. It is turned upon the boy's debat- ing society, his club, his ball team, the rules of the game he plays, etc., with good effect. (7) The distinct sensory feelings of the adolescent are worthy of careful cultivation and practical use. The school through its classes manages this activity. The sciences appeal to the boy whose senses of sight, hearing, weighing, feeling, smelling, and measuring, are keen and alert. So it is also with drawing, mensuration, surveying, manual train- ing, and geometry. (8) The religious awakening in boys at this age is prob- ably associated with the emotional development of the period. Induction into church membership usually comes in the early adolescent stage, and a feeling of moral responsi- bility arises. The boy begins to long for a purpose in living and to plan for the future. The school teachers and advisers seize time by the forelock and gain the boy's confidence, and put him to work in some purposeful way, and show him how he can be a power for good, a leader in the battle for right. The fighting spirit in boys of this age will spur them on to enter any undertaking that smacks of battle and war. They delight to be enlisted as Christian soldiers, but they must have real fighting or they will turn away in disgust at the THK PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 23 hollowness of the cause. The school has its part in the development of religious feeling and moral courage, and should not shirk it. B. Education of the adolescent girl. Even more than with the boy, we shall find this a problem of physical development — a problem that involves not the girl alone, but the future generations descendant from her. We must keep constantly in mind the fact that we are educating the mother of the race. It is important that she should have an ideal environment in which to mature her body. We insist on this to such a degree because almost the opposite has been true — the girl's physical development has been neg- lected and her mental development has been overstimulated, to the great detriment of the race and to the great unhappi- ness of the individual girl. We mean, of course, that the over schooling of girls has lessened their chances of marriage at the proper time for women to marry; and that home and society have combined to educate women in senseless styles of dress, in vicious dietary habits, in- unsanitary prudery, and in physical flaccidity to a very considerable extent. The junior high school attempts sensibly to give physical ~"" education of the right sort. A good diet, exercises, proper elimination, sleep, and dress are the principal positive fac- tors; moderation in study, in social functions, in physical labor, in standing, and climbing stairs is the principal nega- tive factor. These matters are all worked out carefully and put into practice by persistent and wise co-operation of all concerned. Instruction in the care of the body should espe- cially be insisted upon during the period of adolescence. Next in importance comes the vocational education of girls for the vocation that is to engross thirty years of their life in ninety out of every hundred lives — home making. In school, girls are taught domestic science, sewing, and home 24 the: junior high school economics. They are given lessons in buying, shopping, de- tecting shams from realities, resisting the solicitations of salesmen of goods not needed ; they are also taught how the government can assist in the training of girls for home life by eliminating the economic conditions that draw> or drive, girls into the industries. As girls' senses are wonderfully acute at this time, their education involves the cultivation of flowers and shrubbery. They have the opportunity to hear and learn to appreciate good music, vocal and instrumental. They see works of art — pictures, statuary, and buildings. This is the period when deftness of the hands is developed by means of needlework, crocheting, fingering the piano, painting and drawing, bandaging, molding, kneading, massaging, dressing die hair, braiding. Singing, playing the piano, drawing, and painting belong here. These may be supplemented by decorating, designing, draping, trimming, arranging of flowers, sculp- turing, pounding ofM)rass, and wood carving. Millinery, costume design, book binding, art-metal work, musical composition, versifying, dancing, and dramatization, all are taught in the junior high school and are very closely related to the natural life of the adolescent girl. The gregariousness of girls at this period is used to advantage by the junior high school. They must have cliques and societies, with secret signs and mystery. Girls' clubs, French-speaking circles, girls' moral-training classes, taffy-making parties, girls' camps, are all necessary to this adolescent period. Through these organizations many valu- able lessons are learned — co-operation, neighborliness, hygienic living, sociability, tact, self-possession, and organ- ization. THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 25 More will be said later concerning the training of both boys and girls in good physical, mental and moral habits. Too much insistence cannot be placed upon the necessity for careful supervision by teachers of all youthful activities and watchful "big-brotherliness" twenty-four hours a day. CHAPTER TWO HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT The plan of this book is first to explain the junior high school movement, and then to describe the school as an insti- tution. The first four chapters are devoted to the first topic. In chapter r, we explained how conditions alleged to be caused or permlitted by the school system had become so bad that the public made certain specific demands upon the school. The school system organized on the 8-4 plan did not seem to be able to meet these demands, hence the reor- ganization of the school system and the creation of a junior high school. The newly created school undertakes to bring about the desired reforms. In this chapter we continue to discuss the junior high school movement. We go into its history from its inception, describing its prototypes in ^Europe and America and the establishment of the first successful junior high schools in this country, and relate how the National Education Asso- ciation, after deliberating over the problems for many years, finally took fire and became a mighty crusading force, how the new schools sprang up all over the land. The chapter closes with a brief description of the various plans being tried in the widely scattered parts of our country. 1. Foreign systems. As the new division of the twelve grades of the American school system 1 into two groups of six years each was largely suggested by European schools, it seems proper to describe briefly the German and French plans. In Germany there are two distinct types of schools — one for the lower class of society, the other for the upper class. The first embraces nine years of study, beginning at the 26 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT 2*J age of six and closing normally at the age of fifteen. The curriculum is divided into two parts, an elementary school of six years and an upper division of three years. The upper division is therefore begun at the age of twelve, or at the very beginning of adolescence. The six preliminary classes only are taught in the common schools. The six elementary grades and the upper three grades are taught in the Biirger- schulen. The upper division is distinguished from the lower by the introduction of English and Latin in the first year and by an increase in the number of recitations per week. The second type of school, i. e., that for the upper classes, has also a curriculum embracing nine years, but it takes the pupil at nine years of age and carries him through to eighteen years of age. The pupil enters this school able to read and write and with some knowledge of numbers. This type of school is divided into three divisions — a lower stage of three years, an intermediate stage of three years, and a higher stage of three years. There is no sharp distinction between the lower and the intermediate stages, but in gen- eral it may be said that somewhere near this dividing line the study of French, English, or Greek is begun ; the number of recitation periods per week is greatly increased; history and algebraic and geometric mathematics are taken up ; pen- manship is discontinued; and pupils are allowed a certain amount of election of subjects. There is no break whatever between the intermediate stage and the higher stage, unless the increase from thirty-five to thirty-six recitation periods per week can be so considered. The fact stands out clearly that what we call secondary education begins with the twelfth year of age in both lower- class and upper-class schools in Germany. The intermediate stage of the schools for the children of the upper-class people corresponds to the highest division of the Burger- 28 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL schulen in all essential points, and both are of three years' duration. This intermediate school work stands out dis- tinct and clear from the foundational type of work that precedes it. In France there are free schools and pay schools. The elementary free or common school begins at six years of age and extends through to eleven or twelve years of age. A primary diploma is awarded. This takes the child to the beginning of adolescence. The common schools provide for two or three years of further education in what are called higher primary schools : complementary course, superior primary school, professional school, and manual arts appren- tice school. The complementary course is conducted in the same building as the elementary school, but the other courses are in separate buildings. To enter these higher primary schools, the pupil must be twelve years of age and must have completed the elementary school. The curricula are all of three years' duration and are marked by their enrichment with what we should call secondary school subjects and with vocational or prevocational subjects. The pay schools are partly supported by the nation or by the nation and community. They are variously called lycee, colleges, or secondary schools. They provide separate schools for boys and girls. In general the length of these curricula is five or six years for girls and seven years for boys. The curriculum is divided into two stages or cycles. The first stage contains three years for girls and four years for boys. Boys are received as young as ten or twelve years of age, and both boys and girls normally complete the first cycle by the time they are fifteen. Under the same roof that covers the lycee or college (the French college must not be confused with the American college) is conducted a primary HISTORY OF THE: MOVEMENT 20, school for well-to-do children, to prepare them for the sec- ondary school. The first cycle of the secondary school — lycee, college, or secondary course — is quite sharply marked off from primary schooling in that there is given an election of studies, foreign languages are begun, the number of recitations per week is increased, religion is taught, and more attention is given to the sciences and mathematics. There is no sharp division between the first and second cycles. There is a marked resemblance between the three-year higher primary school course and the first cycle of the lycee and college. They both cover the same years of early ado- lescent life ; they are both distinctly marked off from primary education; they are either in entirely separate buildings from primary children or are conducted as distinctly differ- ent classes. The reader must be struck by the parallel in the following three classes of schools: German French American Upper division of Higher primary Junior high school Burgerschulen school or intermediate high Intermediate stage of school school for the upper First cycle of lycee classes or college German French American Three year course Three year course Three year course Age_i2 to 15 _ Ageii or 12 to 15 Age 12 to 15 Distinct from pri- Distinct from pri- Distinct from pri- mary course mary course mary course Merges into upper Merges into second Merges into senior stage cycle high school Some election Some election Some election Foreign languages Foreign languages Foreign languages Higher mathematics Higher _ mathematics Higher mathematics and sciences and sciences and sciences 2. Various plans of grouping grades in the United States. In the United States the general standard plan has been eight years of elementary education and four years of 30 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL . high school. However, in the New England states the grouping was until recently quite generally nine and four. In the Southern states financial distress following the Civil War prevented the communities from offering more than seven years of elementary instruction. So they have been forced to be content with a 7-4 plan. In a canvass taken in 191 1 of the 669 cities of 8,000 population or over, 489 had the 8-4 plan, 86 had the 9-4 plan, 48 had the 7-4 plan, 4 had the 8-5 plan, and the remainder had various modifications of these forms. Dr. Frank F. Bunker's monograph, from which the above data are taken, points out that ordinarily where the elementary course is nine years in length, the child starts to school at five years of age; where the course is eight years in length, he starts to school at six ; and where it is seven years in length, he starts to school at seven. In every case the pupil normally finishes his elementary course at fourteen years of age, or two years later than his French and German cousins. As adolescence begins here at twelve as in Europe, we have ignored the point that they everywhere observe, namely, that adolescent education should be different from pre-adolescent. However, Dr. Bunker's investigation shows that even before 191 1 several educators had begun to attempt to make a change in the grouping so as to adapt education to the needs of the two periods of pre-maturity pupils. Not only had the professors of education in our great universities and normal schools rebelled against the old plan, but even the administrators in our great school system's, restricted as they were by conservative public opinion, had accomplished something toward a reorganization. Still it was only an attempt, and in many cases with no clear vision of just what was needed. In some cases the changes were made because HISTORY OF THE) MOVEMENT 31 local conditions made it necessary — empty high school and overflowing grade buildings, the need of men teachers for the upper grades, or a grade building suddenly emptied by the erection of a larger one near. But it must not be for- g*otten that in some instances the public actually took the lead and forced the superintendent and school board to do something. . We give below a summary of these changes made prior to 191 1, and the principal features of each plan: City or School Supt. Year Plan Boston Latin 1635 6 vr. School H.S. pre- Admitted Chicago 1894 Richmond, Ind. Mott 1896 Saginaw, Mich. Whitney Providence Baltimore, Md. Van Sickle 1902 6yr. H.S Features Purely college paratory pupils at 10 or 11 years of age. Still thriving. Purely college pre- paratory. Courses of study based upon an elementary 6 yr. curriculum. 6-2=4 H. S. subjects in 7th and 8th grades. Pro- motion by subject. 6-6 One year of college work. Plan aban- doned. 6-2-4 College-prep, courses, with foreign lan- guages and algebra in 7th and 8th grades. Reg. H. S. 9-12 years. 6-3-2 Only brighest pupils permitted at end of 6th grade to enter these 3-yr. junior high schools. At end of two years of Jr. H. S. only the best pupils permitted to take the 3d yr. in junior high school. 32 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL City or School Supt. Year Kalamazoo, Mich. Hartwell 1902 Plan 7-3-2 Muskegon, Mich. Frost 1904 6-1- 2-3 Peabody, Mass. Albt. Robinson 1905 Philippine Islands D. P. Barrows 1905 8-5 6-4-2 Marshalltown, la. Palmer 7-1-4 Aurora, 111. Bardwell 8-5 Issaquah, Wash. Bennett 1906 6-5 Selma, Ala. Harman 1909 Roanoke, Va. Hart 1910 Rahway, N. Y. Bickett 1910 5-3-3 7-5 6-2-4 Olean, N. Y. Slawson 7-5 Ithaca, N. Y. Boynton 6-2-4 Concord, N. H. Rundlett 1910 6-2-3 New York State A. S. Draper 1910 6-2-4 Features One central senior H. S., several bldgs. containing first seven or ten grades. Seven grades all in one building. 8th and 9th grades in H. S. annex. Change from 9-4. College subjects in last 2 yrs. 8th grade depart- mentalized and con- ducted in H. S. bldg. Some H. S. subjects in 7th and 8th gr. Fifth H. S. year, college work. Two grammar grades taken into 3 yr. H. S. and department- alized. Change from 7-4. Work of 12 grades in 11 years. H. S. subjects in 7th and 8th grades. Apart from H. S. Promotion by subj. Best pupils finish H. S. at end of nth year of school. H. S. subjects in 7th and 8th grades. Apart from H. S. The "2" and the "3" year schools in sep- arate bldgs. Short- ens course 12 to n years. Elem. education com- pleted in six years. Real secondary work begins in 7th grade. HISTORY OF THI5 MOVEMENT 33 City or School Supt. Year Plan Features New Albany, Ind. Buerk 1910 7-1-A Merely a grouping of all 8th grade pupils in one bldg. De- partmentalization. Alameda, Cal. Wood 1910 6-2-4 7th and 8th grades in same building with lower grades but de- partmental i z a t i o n and principle of election introduced. Los Angeles, Cal. Moore 1910 6-2-4 Languages in 7th and 8th. Departmental- ization. From the above it will be seen that the new day was beginning to dawn even before the first decade of the twen- tieth century; that between 1900 and 1910 various plans were tried out, mlany of them containing one or more of the elements of the junior high school as described in Chap- ter One of this work. When at last the new plan did come into being, it came to two cities at the^same time. 3. Superintendent Bunker and the Berkeley plan. In 1908 Frank F. Bunker was elected superintendent of schools for the city of Berkeley, California, after having served a year as assistant superintendent in Los Angeles under Superintendent E. C. Moore. He was a careful student of education, and was especially interested in a reorganization of the system of schools so that each grade would have a particular function and could accomplish the end desired of it. His study led him to the belief that the seventh and eighth grades had not been functioning — in fact, had been a stumbling block in the way of education ; so muCh so that a large percentage of children were dropping out during those years and during the early years of the high school as a result of the failure of the public schools to do their work in the seventh and eighth years of the pupil's school life. .' 34 TH £ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL " ' : In January, 19 10, upon the recommendation of Superin- tendent Bunker, the Berkeley School Board established the first junior high school in America. The plan did not at first meet with general approval, and there is little wonder that it did not. There was to he no new building in a cen- trally located part of the city. If there had been such a building just completed and ready for occupancy, doubtless the problem would have been less difficult. Instead, an old grade building had to be used, and even then not all of that. The neighborhood insisted that it be allowed to continue to send its smaller children to this building : consequently only a part could be used for the junior high school classes. Not only was this building unsuitable for the depart- mental work of an intermediate high school and only in part usable for that purpose, but seventh and eighth grade chil- dren of other neighboring buildings had become so attached to their own schools that they objected to being shifted. 'This objection was met by allowing such children to decide "by classes whether they would attend the one-teacher grades ;to which they had been accustomed, or go to the junior high school. After the system was once established, however, pupils finishing the sixth grade were required to go to the central intermediate high school buildings. Soon the ninth grade also was retained in these buildings. So great, however, were the difficulties, so new the plan, and so fundamental was the change, that it became neces- sary to appeal to the people for a ratification of the scheme. A campaign of enlightenment was undertaken, and dozens of public meetings were held to discuss the matter. Parent- teacher associations, mothers' clubs, neighborhood clubs, and churches became interested in the question. At last favorable resolutions from all these organizations and assemblies were presented to the board of education, and HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT 35 the six-three-three plan became permanent in Berkeley. There are now several large buildings devoted entirely to the junior high school work. 4. The Los Angeles plan. Supt. E. C. Moore, who had inspired Bunker with enthusiasm for a reorganization of secondary education, was to awaken a similar interest in J. H. Francis. While Mr. Francis, at that time principal of a large polytechnic high school in Los Angeles, was travel- ing in Europe in 1909, he wrote from Italy a detailed report to Superintendent Moore on his investigations in Europe and advocated the six-three-three plan for the schools of his city. Mr. Francis approached the conception from an entirely different point of view from Mr. Bunker. He was interested in the vocational phase of the question. If boys and girls will drop out of school at fifteen or sixteen years of age, they should get, while in school,^some practical infor- mation and some technical skill that will help them to earn a living. Good as were the technical, commercial, and applied art courses of the high school, they very largely failed to reach the largest class of boys and girls who would use that type of education, for that class ordinarily leaves school at the end of the eighth or ninth grade. In the summer of 1910 Mr. Francis was elected superin- tendent of the city schools of Los Angeles, and at once launched his plans. Influential with his board, he readily got it to embark upon a course of establishing intermediate high schools. These met, of course, the same conservative opposition that had characterized the inauguration of the plan in Berkeley. But Los Angeles was so large and so rapidly growing a community that new school buildings were constantly being built. Several of the new buildings were used as junior high schools. These very attractive 36 the: junior high school, homes for the junior high school at once aroused the enthu- siasm of pupils and parents. In Los Angeles the ninth-grade pupils living in certain sections are permitted to attend high school if they prefer. About 50 per cent elect to go to the high school. Pupils expecting to continue in school through the twelfth grade generally leave the intermediate school at the end of the eighth year; pupils electing vocational or prevocational courses take their ninth-grade work in the junior high school and then leave school and go to work. There is, however, a growing tendency for all pupils to remain their full three years in the lower school, especially now that they can in these three years earn six or seven high school credits as well as comlplete the work of the seventh and eighth grades. Superintendent Shiels has, during his administration, given great impetus to this movement so that the junior high school in Los Angeles has come to be a decidedly secondary school in character. 5. Work of the National Education Association. .Although the National Education Association started late to "interest itself in the work of the junior high school, it has in the last three years given considerable acceleration to the movement. In 191 1 there was presented a report on the articulation of high school and college. This opened up such a large number of questions that a commission was appointed to work out a reorganization of secondary educa- tion. The commission's preliminary report made, in 1913 concerned itself with the subjects then taught in the four- year high school and gave almost no indication of a con- sciousness of the so-called 6-3-3 movement that had already appeared in several cities. But the 1914 report indicates that the commission had practically become committed to the new plan, saying: "The traditional plan of devoting eight HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT 37 years to elementary education is rapidly becoming obsolete. .... Consequently it will be necessary for each committee [the commission was divided into committees] in preparing its report to indicate how its recommendations may be ad- justed so as to meet the needs of schools under both plans." In 1916 two committees of this commission reported. The one on English in the Secondary School advocated a six- year course in English beginning with the seventh grade. The committee on Social Studies recommended a six-year secondary school program adapted to both the 6-3-3 an d the 8-4 plans. Meanwhile the committee on Economy of Time, under the chairmanship of Superintendent H. B. Wilson, reported in 19 1 3 on several plans for shortening the elementary curri- culum. Professor Judd of the committee reported a plan which was being tried out in the University of Chicago training schools whereby the eight years of elementary work were being done in seven years and work of grades nine to fourteen, inclusive, in five years. In 19 14 the com- mittee reported that actual progress had been mlade in formulating plans for economy of time in the various elementary subjects. Significant also was the report of a similar committee of the National Council of the National Education Association Which had been working on the prob- lem since 1908. This report recommended the division of educational curricula as follows : Elementary Education , Ages 6 to 12 Secondary Education (2 divisions — 4 yrs. and 2 yrs.) 12 to 18 College 18 to 20 University (graduate and professional) .... 20 to 24 In 1916, at a meeting of the Department of Superintend- ence in Detroit occurred two most interesting and far-reach- 38 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ing debates. The first was a debate on the question: Resolved, That the best organisation for American schools is a plan which shall divide these schools into six years of elementary training and sir years of secondary training. The affirmative was upheld by Professor Charles H. Judd, Director of the School of Education, University of Chicago, and the negative by President Carroll G. Pearse, of the Milwaukee State Normal School. With all due regard to the abilities of the negative speaker, the fact that such a well-known educator as Dr. Judd should publicly advocate the junior high school so eloquently and convincingly was epoch making. Hundreds of city superintendents left the convention with the intention of establishing the new plan in their cities. The next day the delegates to this convention of three thousand superintendents were privileged to hear a joint discussion of "The Minimum Essentials vs. the Differ- entiated Course of Study in the Seventh and Eighth Grades/' by Doctors Coffman, Bagley, and Snedden. These addresses at Detroit and the very strong paper by Pro- fessor Johnston at the New York City gathering in the fol- lowing summer, beginning, "The junior high school move- ment is sweeping the country," have brought the subject of this monograph into a position of the greatest prominence in the National Education Association. 6. The junior high school throughout the country. To trace the history of this movement from the time that the first real junior high school was established in Berkeley in 1910 would be like an attempt to count the springing up of mushrooms on a spring morning after a rain. Notable among the cities that have committed themselves to the plan are Houston and Detroit. Two new and beautiful buildings were constructed in the former city to accommodate 1,000 pupils each. In the fall of 1914 all the pupils of the three HISTORY OF THR MOVEMENT 39 grades following the sixth were housed in these splendid homes. Detroit has built five such junior high school build- ings at a cost of over half a million dollars. Salt Lake City has organized three large schools of this type. Former Superintendent -Brumbaugh recommended to his board that the Philadelphia school system be organized on the 6-6 basis with junior and senior high schools of three years each. The University of Michigan is encouraging the establishment of junior high schools by offering to accept three entrance credits earned in seventh and eighth grades — that is, the first two years of intermediate high school. St. Paul like- wise has just adopted the plan, and is constructing a build- ing to accommodate a large junior high school, with one of the largest athletic fields in Minnesota. In that city the sev- enth, eighth, and ninth grade pupils are called Juniors and the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders, Seniors. Lewiston, Idaho, has a well-mlatured junior high school with a splendid curriculum. It forms one of the two wings of a large cen- tral building that also houses the senior high school. There are different principals for the two schools, but the instruc- tors teach in both schools. By the summer of 191 6 almost every state in the Union had one or more of these junior high schools. Reports show them distributed among the several states as follows: Indiana 24 New Jersey 6 Iowa 3 Minnesota 24 Ohio 5 Connecticut 2 North Dakota 20 Oklahoma 5 Kentucky 2 Pennsylvania 16 Tennessee 5 Maine 2 California 15 Texas . 5 Vermont 2 Kansas 13 Colorado 4 Alabama New York 13 Missouri 4 Arizona Illinois 9 Montana 4 Arkansas Massachusetts 8 South Dakota 4 Florida Michigan 8 Utah 4 Georgia Oregon ; 7 Virginia 4 New Hampshire . Idaho 6 Wyoming 4 Rhode Island Nebraska 6 Washington 3 38 States Had 254 Junior High Schools 40 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL The latest available statistics at the end of 191 7 showed that 365 school systems, including most of the largest cities, had organized junior high schools on the general plan described in this book. The states of Vermont and Okla- homa are reorganizing their entire school systems to include these new institutions in every city and town. When this work is completed the number of junior high schools in the country will approximate 1,000. 7. Varying plans in operation. The reader will at once see the possibilities of variety. The simplest is the Berkeley system of arranging the seventh, eighth and ninth grades in the lower division, and tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades in the upper division, each grade consuming a year of time. This scheme contains all the points mentioned in Chapter One except the saving of a year of time. The Los Angeles plan attempts to do in three years the work of the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth grades, and consequently leaves only two years for the senior- high school proper. Detroit and most Eastern cities follow the Berkeley plan. Houston completes the twelve grades in eleven years. Its secondary system might be stated as follows : The seventh, ninth, and tenth grades in the intermediate school ; the elev- enth and twelfth in the senior high school. The eighth grade does not, and never did exist. In New York City in 1913 there were 61,262 pupils en- rolled in the high school. During that year there had been 20,326 pupils who failed to complete their courses. Of these, over 12,000 were in the first year. The result of this loss of pupils has brought about in that city some radical changes from the former plan. The intermediate school was introduced, largely to reduce this loss of attendance. It also plans to save a year of time HISTORY OF TIIF, MOVEMENT 4 1 for the pupils. The sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth grades are to be grouped into an intermediate school, and the work done in three years. This is to be accomplished by certain modifications in the grammar school curriculum, promotion by studies, and other features that are common to the junior high school. Practically this same plan exists in Richmond, Virginia, where, however, the nomenclature is different. In Rich- mond the name ''intermediate school" applies to a school in which just the fifth grade is taught. After finishing this intermediate school the pupils pass into the junior high school, which covers the work of the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. The work, however, of these four grades is done in three years. This junior high school has most of the characteristics that were described in Chapter One of this book as being essential to such an institution. It seems that in Richmond the purpose of the "intermediate school" is to prepare pupils better for the junior high school. The former, however, does not form any part of the latter. One of the earliest junior high schools established in that city was the Bainbridge School. For a while, at least, the fifth grade was taught under the same roof. In Fitchburg, Massachusetts, there are maintained inter- mediate schools which are, more or less independent of the high school. The curricula offered in them are, however, largely finishing curricula, although the schools maintain literary courses that lead directly to the senior high school. The purpose of the Fitchburg intermediate school is to keep children in school and to afford an opportunity to give a semi-vocational education to over-age children. There are similar intermediate schools in Cleveland, Albany, and Rochester. Little attention is given to grading in any of these schools. The thing that counts for entrance is age. 42 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL The intermediate schools do not form an essential link in the school curriculum. They aim to deal with special cases, although academic work is given in connection with the industrial work. Then there is the plan that makes no break in the middle of the secondary curriculum but completes the six upper grades in six or even in five years. Finally, there is the plan adopted in Pomona, California, which is the one that seems to be ideal to the writer. This plan completes the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth grades in three years, and then devotes four years to the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth grades. This normally carries the student to his nineteenth birthday, and gives him a strong taste of college life, vocational education that carries him well on toward maturity, and qualifies him to begin university work where it should begin, with the junior certificate. Such a plan when adopted creates not simply one new institution but brings into life at one and the same time two new institutions, a junior high school and a "senior high school — junior college." In this way the high school is not merely robbed of its first or first and second years, but is abolished altogether as not meeting the highest purposes, and in its place and in the place of the seventh and eighth grades and the junior college appear two entirely new insti- tutions profiting by the successes and failures of the schools they displace. CHAPTER THREE OBJECTIONS TO JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ANSWERED In the general plan of describing the junior high school movement, we have spoken of the conditions that gave rise to the movement and have described its history. In this chapter we shall treat of the obstacles — real and fancied — that have stood in the way of the progress of the movement and the manner in which these obstacles have been, or may be, removed. The first obstacle has been the belief on the part of many educators that the desirable results claimed for the junior high school are obtainable under the 8-4 plan. The second obstacle has been the objection of some parents to the new school arrangement because it caused their children to have to walk farther to attend school. The third obstacle to its success has been the alleged unfavorable effect that it is having upon elementary-school teachers. The fourth obstacle is the difficulty of obtaining college- trained teachers ; and the fifth the difficulty of inducing ninth grade pupils to attend a junior high school. A sixth obstacle is the expense of additional buildings, grounds, and equipment. Finally, it is asserted that the conservatism of the public will render the establishment of junior high schools well nigh impossible. 1. The same results obtainable under the old plan. Some educators maintain that this new institution is a fad and will soon be out of style. They say that all the good things claimed for the 6-3-3 plan can be secured without changing the old general plan and especially without creat- ing a new institution. They say that in many grade schools the work of the seventh and eighth grades is taught '.depart- 43 44 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL, mentally, with the result that pupils are prepared for the departmental work of the high school. They argue that there would be nothing to prevent the course of study of such a school from being enriched by the addition of a foreign language, algebra, and other good things. In such a school the idea of vocation-selection could be carried out as easily as if it were a separate institution. To these arguments it may be interposed that there is no particular harm in having a new institution. The kinder- garten, the night school, summer sessions, continuation classes, and the high school itself were new institutions at one time and can hardly yet be considered old or unchange- ably established. Even the public school as a state-sup- ported institution is comparatively new. There can be no serious objection to the junior high school because it is new, or because it adds one more to the number of institutions already existing. As for departmentalizing the seventh and eighth grades in a grade building, it must be admitted by our opponents that this is very difficult in the ordinary grade building where there are no more than two teachers for the two — seventh and eighth — grades. Moreover, the rooms are often dismally large and unadapted to classroom use. Most objectionable is the utter heterogeneity of such a school, with its six-year-olds getting in the way of the strenuously physical adolescents. As for enriching the curriculum under the old plan, the matter of getting good grade teachers to teach subjects that are really high school branches would be difficult. It is hard enough to get junior high school teachers to venture to teach algebra, Latin, and ancient history to seventh-grade pupils. The natural conservatism of teachers would well- nigh prevent regular grade school teachers from undertak- ing to teach such immature ( ?) children the higher ( ?) OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 45 branches. Besides, the grammar school course of study has in many states become a state adoption, so that ambitious cities and towns would find themselves handicapped on every hand if they attempted to try something radically new and different. In California, a progressive state, Berkeley and Los Angeles under the old laws found themselves so hedged about by statutory restraints and state textbook laws that they were prevented from working out new curriculums on a broad basis. We refer to such laws as required the use of state-published textbooks in United States history, geogra- phy, arithmetic, etc., in the seventh and eighth grades, and to the law requiring twelve and one-half hours out of the twenty per week to be devoted to the common branches. Vocation selection could not succeed under the old plan. In the first place there could be little or no election of sub- jects. A grade school with even four teachers and 160 pupils in the seventh and eighth grades could not offer a large number of subjects. With such a limited number of pupils many classes would be so small that they could not be maintained even if there were seven or eight teachers. Each half grade would contain approximately 40 pupils. Of these the elections as tried out in Pomona run : English, 40 (compulsory); bookkeeping, 25; algebra, 15;. ancient his- tory, 8 ; domestic science, 8 ; Latin, 8 ; Spanish, 29 ; German, 3 ; manual training, 20 ; general science, 7. This necessitated two classes in English, two in Spanish, and one in each of the other subjects — a total of twelve classes in the B 7. But in the two grades as a whole, owing to conflicts in the pro- gram due to failures, etc., the total number of classes was 51 in solids and five in music, drawing, etc. — 56 classes or nine teachers for only 160 pupils ! And yet without election of subjects and a wide variety of options no real vocational traits can be discovered. 46 the: junior high school, Finally, the argument against a separate institution for pupils of ages twelve to fifteen leaves out entirely the ques- tion of the ambition of adolescent children to lead a life untrammeled and unhampered by the restrictions and re- pressions incident to the elementary school against which they now chafe with bitterness and which prompts them in large numbers to leave our old-time grade schools. 2. Greater distance of pupils from school. This is usually true when a building that has been used for grade school purposes is taken entirely for junior high school pur- poses. Superintendent Bunker, of Berkeley, tells of his troubles in this matter. He wished to use a certain grade school building for an intermediate school, the pupils to be drawn from the seventh and eighth grades of several other grammar buildings in the vicinity. The thought was then to fill the rooms of those buildings with the lower grade pupils who had formerly attended the central building now to be used as a junior high school. This plan would necessi- tate a number of changes in the boundaries of districts ; but most objectionable of all changes was that which took the primary children who lived within a stone's throw of the central building they had been accustomed to attend, and required them to walk several blocks to another building. The parents objected to this change, and the matter was adjusted by leaving the smallest tots in the central building, so that only the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade young- sters had to walk the greater distance. Not only did this work hardship on the grade children transferred, but it required the seventh and eighth graders to go much farther to attend school. We may conceive of a group of nine buildings, A, B, C, D, B, F, G, H, and I, arranged as they probably would be in a city so that / would be in the center of the town, or, if a large city, in the OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 47 center of a ward. The other schools would be equi-distant from I, so that each occupied the center of a district of, let us say, sixty-four blocks. The whole town, or ward, would appear somewhat as in the diagram: A B C H I D G F E It is desired to convert / into a junior high school, draw- ing all seventh and eighth grade children from A, B, C, D, B, F, G, and H, a total of sixteen rooms of children. If each building had sixteen rooms, the six lower grades would probably occupy fourteen rooms in each building. When the change is made, the fourteen rooms full of younger children from school / would be distributed among the eight other buildings, filling the two rooms in each building that would be left vacant. The upper-grade children living between buildings A and I, B and I, etc., would not be seriously inconvenienced; but those living beyond building A, building B, etc., would have much farther to go and would feel greatly inconvenienced. At first they would be greatly annoyed, especially in foul weather. 48 th£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL The problem of the smaller children can be solved as it was in Berkeley and other cities, by leaving the very smallest children in I; and it can be permanently solved by leaving all the six lower grades in building / and then building a new school-house for the junior high school pupils, some- where near the center of the whole district. The problem of the larger children has no solution; it cannot be avoided, unless the school department provides free transportation for the seventh and eighth grade pupils. However, there is compensation for the longer distance these upper-grade children have to go in the fact that the ninth-grade pupils would not have so far to go as they would if they attended the senior high school, which would be at the center of a much larger district. There would, of course, be compensa- tion in the better schooling and the greater advantages offered by the junior high school to seventh and eighth grade pupils than they had in the grade buildings. Finally, it may be said that these same problems arose at the time of the creation of high schools. It is within the memory of many who read this book that the high school was conducted on the upper floor of a grade building and was later housed in a building by itself remote from the homes of many students. Nowadays it seems to be the fashion to build new high schools at the edge of town or in the suburbs of a city where plenty of ground can be bought cheaply for agricultural and playground purposes. We hear little complaint of this custom, and we are likely to hear little complaint of the junior high school hardships after the benefits are fully realized. 3. Unfavorable effect upon elementary school teach- ers. Those who seem to want to find every source of oppo- sition to the junior high school as a distinct institution claim that there is a strong feeling against it among grade teachers. It is alleged that they oppose the plan (a) because OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 49 it overworks them and the children in getting the pupils ready for the intermediate high school in six years ; that is, that they have to do the eight grades in six years, (b) Sev- enth and eighth grade teachers unable to secure higher certi- fication are compelled to accept assignment to lower-grade work, for which they are unprepared and unadapted and which is distasteful to them in the extreme, (c) The crea- tion of a new institution diverts funds from the elementary schools, which are already suffering for want of equipment, and this prevents a raising of the salaries of elementary teachers and a consequent raising of the standard of the teaching profession. In answer to these alleged objections of elementary school teachers it can be shown that (a 1 ) by elimination of the non- essentials from the elementary curriculum, by reorganiza- tion of the work, and by removal of the decidedly over-age pupils to the intermediate high school, neither the pupils nor the teachers will be overworked in preparing for the junior high school in six years. We shall go into this matter in detail in the chapter on "The Effect upon the Elementary Grades Preceding the Junior High School." As the seventh and eighth grade work has heretofore been very largely a repetition of that done in the lower grades, it is absurd to say that this upper-grade work is to be crowded upon the elementary school. Furthermore, the junior high school is to take the children as they come and build upon the prep- aration already attained, not dictate what that preparation must be. The principal and teachers of the intermediate high school will have no authority to reject any pupil sent to them. They must take all entrants and do the very best for them that is possible. (b 1 ) Occasionally, one must admit, a hardship may be worked upon a few teachers by the inauguration of a new 50 the: junior high school arrangement of work. As a general rule, however, the former seventh and eighth grade teachers have been taken over into the junior high school. Most of the teachers that have chosen this upper-grade work in the past were teachers who had had some college work or who were ambitious enough to attend summer sessions of the universities to broaden their mental horizon. In several cities with which the author is familiar, the upper-grade teachers were given a choice between taking a lower-grade assignment, or pre- paring for intermediate work. In all cases they were given several years in which to make the adjustment. In Pomona they all elected to prepare for the junior high school work, and none complained that it was a hardship to him. They are thoroughly enjoying the added professional interest and zest that the change has aroused. (c 1 ) In answer to the objection raised that the junior high school's support will take from the elementary funds, it may be answered that in California it has had just the opposite effect. In this state the junior high school is sup- ported entirely out of high school funds, which have been increased by entirely new revenue in order to meet this addi- tional burden. The elementary school funds have remained the same as they were before the new law ; but with only six grades to support, instead of eight as formerly, the ele- mentary school funds are proving ample. In fact, there is such a surplus that new buildings are being built, better equipment is being bought, and teachers' salaries are being raised. 4. Difficulty of obtaining college- trained teachers. It is claimed that the authorities have found difficulty in securing college-trained teachers for this new institution. They want high school positions and consider it beneath their dignity to teach the younger pupils. There is, of OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 51 course, a real problem here, but by no means an unsolvable one. The problem really arises from a lack of understand- ing of what junior high school work is, on the part of college graduates who have fitted themselves to teach in high school. They object not so much to teaching younger pupils as to teaching the common school branches. Unless they are familiar with this modern trend in education, they imagine that it is grade school work. They want to teach algebra and geometry, not arithmetic. Of course they object to the lower salaries ; but the matter of salaries is largely determined by the laws of supply and demand. Where there is a large supply of new teachers and few positions in high school open, they are compelled to accept the lower salaries. A survey of the cities will reveal the fact that hundreds of teachers holding high school certificates are teaching in the elementary grades. As a mat- ter of fact, many such teachers learn to like work with the smaller children and do not care to change. When it comes to a matter of choice, many high-school- certified teachers choose to accept positions in the junior high schools of cities and large towns rather than go into remote districts for strictly high school teaching. This they do in spite of the higher salaries paid in the remote high school districts. And well they might, for the chance of appointment to city senior high schools from the interme- diate high schools of the same community is better than from a rural high school. The reason is clear : The super- intendent and supervisors come to know the teacher's quali- fications better when in the same city than when he is in a remote town or village. Some city boards of education make it a rule that vacancies in the senior high school shall be filled by transfer from the junior high schools. Nevertheless, it is confidently asserted by the opponents 52 ths junior high school of the 6-3-3 pl an that school authorities will never get men to teach in the junior high schools, and that these new schools will be over-femininized. We cannot admit that this will be the case. It is not so much that the elementary schools have paid lower salaries or that men do not like to work with small children that men have been kept from entering the lower-grade work; it has been a matter of supply and of custom. There has been a larger supply of efficient women teachers than of even mediocre men teach- ers. The result has been that boards have employed the bet- ter teachers. The custom once established of employing women in the grades, men have shrunk from competing, and boards have shrunk from breaking the custom. Now the intermediate high school, as an entirely new institution, starts its career bidding for an equal number of men and women. Men will not regard it as trespassing upon woman's special field of acitvity; and we may expect young men to seek and secure junior high school positions along with women. The adolescent children need the men teachers as well as the women. With men already employed in these schools in large numbers, young college men will look upon such teaching as affording an attractive career. We predict this with certainty, for we see it already going on. Finally, both women and men are being taught in train- ing schools to be teachers of boys and girls, and less of sub- jects. Even the college-educated man or woman will readily see that it is a far nobler occupation to train the youth of the land than to impart information or to add to the sum total of human knowledge by research in the universities. When this becomes their dominating, all-absorbing passion, they will long for the opportunity of coming into contact with the young folks at the very earliest adolescent period. OBJ ACTIONS ANSWERED 53 5. Difficulty of inducing ninth grade pupils to attend junior high school. When the intermediate schools were first established in Pomona, the boys and girls who were ready for the ninth grade were given a choice as to whether they would take the next year's work in intermediate school or go on to high school. They were unanimous to go to high school. They explained that they had for several years been looking forward to the time when they could experience all the broader life of the high school, including participation in high school athletics, that they would dis- like to have to wait another year. At the end of another semester the pupils of the class finishing the eighth grade were again permitted to choose what they should do. In this case 20 per cent of the pupils elected to remain in the junior high school; the others chose the high school. Meanwhile there had been a campaign on the part of high school pupils to induce the above class to choose the high school for the ninth grade. At the end of another semester, the class was required to stay in the intermediate school. There was some complaint, several students dropping out of school rather than remain. But fully 85 per cent of the pupils stayed in school to the end of the ninth grade, entering the senior high school in February, 191 7. Several have requested that they be per- mitted to stay one year more in intermediate high. The next class, though not given a choice, voted unanimously to stay in the junior high school for their ninth-grade work. They entered the senior high school, at the end of the year, with seven credits. The explanation of the results given above are simple. Pupils accustomed to the old grade system through the eighth grade want to enter high school. Pupils that have been accustomed to the advantages of the junior high school 54 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL in their seventh and eighth grades prefer to remain through another year. Many will then be loath to leave, for they will have become attached to their intermediate school. But, if we close the intermediate work with the end of the tenth grade, all the pupils who can will go on to senior high school. This objection to the junior high school, then, falls down when the pupils become accustomed to the new plan. The large life, the social spirit, loyalty, athletics, interesting sub- jects of study, attachment to building, excellent and sympa- thetic teachers, all will 'combine to make the pupil happy to remain in his junior high school through the ninth and even the tenth grade. 6. Additional expense for buildings, grounds, and equipment. To make a success of a junior high school, it is claimed by its opponents, there must be central grounds provided, a specially designed building constructed, and expensive equipment bought. In a small city of 20,000 inhabitants, where there would be approximately 1,000 pupils in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, two such plants Avould be necessary, in order to serve the community well. If ample grounds were provided in central locations, the cost would be at least $20,000. Two buildings, each large enough to house 500 students doing departmental work, would cost approximately $100,000; while the equipment for libraries, laboratories, gymnasiums, desks, etc., could not be provided for much short of $20,000. In other words, there would be an outlay of $140,000, for which the city would have to bond itself, all as an additional expense caused by adoption of the 6-3-3 plan. It must be admitted that in a city that has reached its maximum population and wealth, or in one that is decreas- ing in both population and wealth, the purchase of grounds o i ; j i : cr ions .\ n s w ic i : k i > 55 and the erection of two such buildings as described would entail an entirely additional expense upon the community. Such an additional outlay of funds might, however, be justi- fied on the ground that the old buildings would be annually deteriorating, would possibly already have passed beyond use. A new building to take the place of an old one might already be imminently necessary. At any rate, some build- ing in such a stationary community of 20,000 people would be old and dilapidated — possibly one that had been built to accommodate the city's children when there were not more than 500 of them in all. Such a building would be out of date and should be condemned and wrecked. That this is not random supposition is more than evi- denced by the survey recently made of the Denver schools. That survey speaks of a large number of Denver's school buildings as entirely unfit for school use. If a live young community like Colorado's capital contains many buildings that should be condemned, surely a city that has become sta- tionary or that has begun itself to decrease in population would contain at least two buildings unfit for further occu- pancy. The new buildings needed for junior high schools would therefore not be additional expense, but would be taking the place of outworn structures that would have to be replaced anyhow. But most of our American cities are growing in popula- tion or wealth or both. Others that are not increasing in total population are growing in number of school children. Many of our Western cities that were formerly made up almost entirely of adults now have a normal population of children. In such communities a new school building is needed every few years. Long Beach, California, a city of 40,000 people, has built on an average one school building every year for the past twenty years. This is not at all an 56 the: junior high school unusual case. In such cities, to construct two or four junior high schools instead of so many ward or grade buildings, would not entail any additional expense whatever. The present ward buildings when relieved of their seventh and eighth grades would be commodious enough to accommo- date the normal growth in school population for several years. The junior high school buildings would merely ab- sorb the excess growth of school children, and would be in lieu of grade school buildings. 7. Conservatism of the public. The greatest obstacle to the success of the junior high school idea is the conserva- tism of the public. It has not been difficult to convince educators of the desirability of introducing the plan. But fathers and mothers and the great mass of adults look with disfavor upon changes in our educational system. To the enthusiastic teacher it seems incredible that there are still to be found large numbers of people who regard anything besides the three "r"s as the "frills" of education. There are those who regard with disfavor the high school, indus- trial education, the kindergarten, playground work, agricul- tural courses, athletics, college training, dramatics, manual training, printing and newspaper courses, domestic science and art, and commercial education, to say nothing of the newer things that educators regard as essential. It takes years — aye, generations — for these things to get into the blood of a people. It is no wonder that the people look upon the junior high school with apathy and in some cases with actual hostility. There can be only one answer to this objection; namely, that all new things have been opposed. But by one method or another, great, compelling institutions become established, take root, and grow. In one community a campaign of en- lightenment may bring about adoption of the thing desired. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 57 In another community the board of education may establish it by main force, and continue it in existence until opposition ceases. In still another community it may be brought about quietly and without any violent change through a mere alteration of the curriculum;. In one state it has been virtu- ally compelled by state legislation giving financial aid to those communities establishing the institution. Occasion- ally the chamber of commerce or some local philanthropist brings about the change by financial or other assistance. Finally, the junior high school idea is in the air. Edu- cators are thinking hard about it; universities are offering courses treating of it ; and many school administrators have just put it into their school systems. The leaders and advo- cates of the movement are multiplying rapidly. The public cannot long resist what is proving to be such a strong factor in the proper education of the new generation. CHAPTER FOUR EFFECT OF THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL MOVE- MENT UPON THE ELEMENTARY GRADES We have now carried the discussion of the junior high school movement through three of its phases : The causes giving rise to it, its history, and the obstacles to its success. There now remains to be discussed the effect of the move- ment upon the elementary school grades. Our exposition of those effects will reveal the facts that the foundational subjects will have to be very largely covered in grades I-VI, that kindergarten training will become compulsory, that school attendance will have to be better enforced, that all- year school sessions are already being carried on, that there is existing a movement for increasing greatly the excellence of our teachers, that more emphasis is being placed on teach- ing pupils how to study, that certain specific changes in the elementary curriculum are being made and others are sure to be made, and that non-essentials in the subjects taught will have to be eliminated. 1. Foundational subjects largely covered in grades I-VI. If secondary school work is to be begun in the first year of the junior high school, then the foundational courses must be completed in the grades preceding it. Of course, this does not mean that the work of eight grades must be compressed into six years. Unfortunately it has been repre- sented to the public that the new system is to bear down heavily upon the children, overcrowding them with study and overtaxing their tender strength. It has been pictured to us that babes and innocent children who should be spend- ing their time in joyful play will be rendered nervous and 58 EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 59 prematurely serious by the pitiless taskmasters, trying to do the work of eight grades in six years. As a matter of fact it never should have required eight years to complete the eight grades of the common schools. The old courses of study, the old branches of study, and in cases the textbooks have been padded and repeated so as to keep the children busy for eight years, when they could have done, without strain, all the really foundational work in six years. The pre-secondary education of our public schools should provide the pupil with the tools by which cultural and voca- tional education are to be worked out later. The pupil is to be able to read silently and with rapidity the books on scientific, literary, and historical subjects that will contain the messages and suggestions of secondary education. He is to be able to work things out for himself with the aid of a dictionary only. He is to be capable of obtaining a secondary education if left alone on an island with merely the books relevant to the subjects, a library, including dictionaries and encyclopedias. He is not only to be able to read with ease and facility, but also to write so that others can read the record of his thoughts and so that he himself at a later time can also decipher his writings. This writing will include not only the formation of his letters and other characters, but the spelling of words correctly, the composition of sen- tences and their punctuation — so that no misunderstanding can ever arise as to what his writings actually mean. Besides being able to express his thoughts on paper, he is to be able to express them clearly in oral speech. Foundational education must also include facility and accuracy in computations that involve the fundamental operations of arithmetic — addition, subtraction, multiplica- tion, and division — and that involve fractional as well as 6o the; junior high school whole numbers. In this age of expressing fractional num- bers by the decimal system, the pupil should master deci- mals and possibly percentage in the elementary grades. There are certain other foundational ideas and concepts that should be acquired — such as the place ideas of geography, the fundamental concept of the universe, the historical con- cept that we are living at the end of a past that stretches back hundreds and thousands of years, the political concept that we are a part of a state governed by regularly consti- tuted authorities, the nature sense that we are related to all creatures in the world of nature, the feeling of physical health and the knowledge of the laws that govern it, and the vocational idea. These are all fundamental. The body and the mind must be trained through physical education and manual training. That this foundation can be laid in six school years must be patent to an impartial observer. That the physical and mental growth through the progress of advancing age is more fundamental than even the acquisition of knowledge is also patent. The amount of knowledge to be acquired in the elementary school should not retard the child beyond the six or seven years laid down by nature as the time to mature the six-year-old into an adolescent. Fortunately we have data now to show that children can in six years acquire the foundational education described above. 2. Kindergarten preparation required. We hesitate somewhat to use the expression "preparation" in connection with any period of education. The newer conception of edu- cation that makes the schooling period not a preparation for real life, but real life itself, meets with ready acceptance by the author. The child is as really living as is the mature man. And yet, without denying this truth, can we not regard each period of life as a preparation for all the sue- EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 6l ceeding periods? The mind, as well as the body, may be carefully prepared to do certain tasks; or it may be unpre- pared to do certain tasks. If it is unprepared at this time to do certain tasks, then it may be prepared for those tasks by a certain course of training. In this sense we may speak of the kindergarten training as preparing for the foundational work, the foundational training as preparation for a voca- tional curriculum, the vocational training as preparation for the pursuit of the particular vocation aimed at. In turn, the practice of that vocation might become a preparation for some other vocation to be pursued later. In this way every course of training enters into the fiber of the man and pre- pares him for well-rounded mature manhood. The rapid and persistent growth of kindergartens is resulting in establishing the kindergarten year of training as a regular part of the public school course. In some cities today a parent would no more think of sending his child to the first grade without a year of kindergarten training than most parents would think of sending their children to the sec- ond grade without their having had a year of primary grade schooling. The laws may some time make it possible for school authorities to require one year of kindergarten as preparation for the primary class. And unless the child receives at home the training of mind and hand necessary to do first-grade work, the school should require that it be done in a "sub-first" grade. We realize that all the prob- lems connected with kindergarten have not been solved, but it is coming to be generally recognized that the child gets in it something that he needs and something that he does not ordinarily get elsewhere. It is outside the province of this book to argue for a change in the kindergarten to adapt the work to the needs of the first grade, or to argue for a change 62 THD JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL in the primary so that the powers acquired in the the kindergarten will not be dissipated or left undeveloped. It is sufficient to know that these adaptations are being worked out to the great benefit of the children. In the new curriculums the kindergarten training is useful and usable. It becomes the first school grade, taking the child at five years of age. When he becomes proficient, when he has acquired the abilities aimed at, ^he is promoted to the first primary, which may now be called the second step or grade. 3. School attendance better enforced. In section one of this chapter, we outlined the mental and physical develop- ment to be required for entrance to the junior high school. This standard is the minimum requirement to be exacted of the normal child having a normal opportunity. It has been tested and found possible of accomplishment in six years, beginning at the age of six. We shall now describe the con- ditions which would make it easier to accomplish the devel- opment in six years. If all these conditions are present, ioo per cent of normal children should reach the junior high school at twelve years of age in ioo per cent mental and physical condition. Practically all children slightly below normal at the beginning of school age should make their grades in the process of these six years of schooling and should enter the junior high school with their first grade classmates. Those above normal or above the average could acquire the knowledge required and the necessary develop- ment in six years, even though several of the conditions described in this chapter were lacking. The first condition is a year, more or less, of kindergarten training as a foundation for the work of the primary. This year of work should constitute Step One of a regular series of seven steps leading to the junior high school. Steps Two to Seven, inclusive, would then include the six years of grade EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 63 school work in which the tools should be acquired — tools that will serve to build the superstructure of secondary edu- cation as carried on in the schools, or will, in a pinch, so to speak, serve to build a vocational education and a cultural education, while the pupil is earning a livelihood, if the builder has the strength of character necessary. The second condition is regular school attendance. A large percentage of retardation is brought about by failure to attend school regularly. A day's absence can not easily be made up; a week's absence may so break the continuity of the mental development that the individual will feel the gap through life. The wound may heal, but the scar will be painfully apparent. A month's absence is in many cases fatal: the pupil would do well to repeat the whole semes- ter's work rather than try to struggle through with the handicap. Happy is that pupil who lives in a community where promotions are made every eight or ten weeks ; or, better still, perhaps, where Dr. Frederick Burk's anti-lockstep methods prevail. This injury is just as great whether the absence comes all in one large block or is scat- tered along through the semester a day or a half day at a time. Nor does this interruption in consecutive mental de- velopment take account of the injury to the habits of work sustained by the pupil. If anything, this weakening of the habit of continuous application is more injurious to the pupil than is the damage to the continuity of his mental development. Aside from the loss to the individual, one must consider the loss to society and to the State. Nearly every state in the Union has a compulsory-attendance law, and it may be assumed that the State and society regard a common school education as vital to their interests, else they would not be so insistent on enacting laws rendering it compulsory and 64 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL in some cases actually writing it into the constitution. The State, it is said, regards an educated electorate as necessary to the perpetuity of democratic government. Many of the evils that have befallen popular government are traceable to the lack of a common school education on the part of the voters. We may assume, then, that society through the organization of the state is in deadly earnest when it enacts laws compelling parents to send their children to the public schools until those children secure an education. Regular attendance on the part of every pupil every day that school is in session is essential to the welfare of the individual and of society. Self-interest of the individual demands it ; society, with all the authority of organized gov- ernment, requires it by drastic laws and the exercise of its irresistible police power. 4. An all-year school session. The normal child with a normal opportunity may still find it inconvenient to attend school in certain seasons. Many children find it harmful to their health to brave the winter's severe cold and snow; others have to stay out to help with the planting or with the harvests ; while still others need their vacations not in the summer, but in the winter, spring, or fall. Then, there is a large group of children who find the long summer vaca- tion irksome and unprofitable. It is believed by some edu- cators and parents that children would be better of! if they could attend school through the year, with short vacations of a week or a fortnight at regular intervals, say at Christ- mas, Easter, in early July, and in October. The year might be divided into four or more equal terms, and promotions made more frequently than at present. Suppose that the year were divided into six terms of eight weeks each, and that one week's vacation should be given as indicated above. There would still be a few holidays scat- EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 65 tered through the year sufficient to break the monotony. Then let it be provided that four terms' attendance be the minimum required by law. Forty weeks' work might then be equivalent to a grade. This number of weeks' work would be somewhat more than the average at present. While thirty-five or thirty-six is the average for the cities, twenty seven or twenty-eight is the average for rural districts and smaller towns. If a child in a village school can now com- plete a grade in twenty-eight weeks, surely forty weeks should be ample anywhere. The six-grade elementary course could then with ease be completed by the normal child in six years of forty weeks each. The subnormal or the slower pupil might take six years of forty-eight weeks each to do the work. The bright- est pupils might possibly do the six grades in six years, some of only thirty-two weeks attendance and others forty weeks, or some of forty-eight weeks and others of sixteen weeks. This would give opportunity for the parents of the brightest pupils to travel with their children. Or pupils, needing the country life, might be sent to a ranch or farm for a few months at a time when the weather would be agreeable. One could multiply indefinitely the advantages to be derived from such a plan. Some decided advantages in the plan as a whole should be pointed out as bearing upon the success of the six-six, or six-three-three, or six-three-four plan that we have been advocating. We have repeatedly said that it is vital to this plan that children enter upon the secondary course at twelve years of age; that is, at, or immediately before, the begin- ning of adolescence. It is also much to be desired that all pupils complete the foundational courses of study before they enter the secondary school. Any arrangement that will 66 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL contribute to making both of these possible should receive the favorable consideration of educators and the public. There is the case of the child whose parents move fre- quently, perhaps from one state to another. These pupils often form a considerable part of our Far-Western pupils. In moving they find it difficult to get an exact adjustment. Many Western schools have an established rule of placing the newcomer in a class at least a half grade below the one which he would have been entitled to enter in his Eastern home. This is a common practice, and has much justifica- tion from the point of view of the school teacher and in advantages to the pupil. Ordinarily it takes some time to become adjusted to a new school and a new plan of work. It ought not, however, in all conscience, to take a half year. If the terms are short, say of two months' duration, the pupil will be put back only eight weeks, and these eight weeks he can easily make up in one forty-eight-week school year. While not essential to the success of the six-year elemen- itary school plan, an all-year school of forty-eight weeks with six promotions to the year, will contribute greatly to making it function properly and adequately. 5. Excellent teachers employed. In the new system of things we must have teachers who are in sympathy with progress even though it clash with their preconceived ideas. For instance, a teacher who has not been teaching percent- age in the sixth grade might conceivably set the whole weight of her convictions against succeeding in getting the pupils to grasp the subject in that grade. But most normal- trained teachers are open-minded and glad to try sympatheti- cally any plan that looks toward a more practical education :for her pupils. Normal schools have in several cases adapted their organization to meet the needs of an elemen- EFFECT UTON ELEMENTARY GRADKS 67 tary course of six years. It is important that the co-opera- tion of teacher-training institutions be secured in furthering the success of the six-six plan. The kindergarten teacher of the future should receive in normal school a general professional training that will in- clude methods in the lower primary grades. She should do some practice teaching in the primary — sufficient to get the point of view of the primary teacher and to understand the needs of the children. Only in this way will she realize what is expected of her in the kindergarten. While this is an age of specialization, it is also an age of co-operation, of doing things by team-work. The teacher of Step One must feel that she is doing a foundation work without which the steps higher up cannot be expected to succeed. The primary teacher should likewise study in the normal school the methods and aims of the kindergarten. In teach- ing pupils of Step Two, she should have in mind what has been accomplished in the previous year of the child's life. She should be careful not to bore the pupils with doing the things they have already done; but knowing the faculties that have been trained in the kindergarten, she should give new work to continue the development. Constant associa- tion with Step One teachers will keep her fresh in the knowl- edge of the accomplishments of her pupils. Interchange of teachers may occasionally be for the best. Certainly primary teachers may profit by having the kindergarten teachers come into their rooms to give certain lessons in concentra- tion, motor control, handwork, etc. All along the line the teachers must adapt themselves and their methods to the new point of view. The uppermost thought must be: We must lead the pupils through the foundational work in six years; we must not be slaves to our textbooks; we must feed the child's mind and body as 68 the: junior high school fast as its development will permit; we must not withhold what the child is ready for, we must not repeat when repeti- tion will deaden. The motto must be : See to it that the child works up to its full capacity. Anything short of that is wasted time. 6. Teaching how to study. The largest problem is teaching the pupils how to work. In most cases this means teaching them how to study. However, it may be easier to teach other forms of work than study. The same principles are involved: Concentration, overcoming inertia, keeping at the thing, an ever present feeling of progressing in the job, revolving the matter in one's mind, relating it to one's store of information, analyzing the problem, getting the solu- tion, reviewing what has been done. In these days when supervised study is the topic uppermost in the minds of teachers, and with several good books on the subject, school men and women ought to find it an easy matter to think out or work out methods for teaching children how to study and work. The best time to teach children how to work is in the grades, and before they have formed bad habits. Some one has said that it is worse for the individual to get a lesson in the wrong way than not to try to get it at all. The corollary is that a bad habit once formed is harder to overcome than a good habit is to acquire. At any rate, bad habits of work should be discouraged, and every effort made to help the pupil early to form good habits. Good methods of work can be learned in the kindergarten. Wasting or scattering one's interests and attention should be prevented. The teacher herself should set a good example. One thing at a time, is a very good rule. The most orderly school room is where the hum of industry is ever present. The teacher must early learn to distinguish disorderly noise EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 69 from orderly noise, a vacant look from rapt attention, a mind carelessly passing from one thing to another from a mind with a definite goal in view, accidental success from organized success. No matter how much the teacher may believe in free and undirected work from her pupils, she must understand from the beginning that many children must be led time and time again through the process of doing a piece of work — which is, of course, solving a problem. Originality is a quality decidedly to be developed and en- couraged; but ability to work, to study, and to solve prob- lems is of greater importance. There is not space in this brief section to go into methods of teaching pupils how to study. Nevertheless, it occurs to the writer that the approach to the task may be most easily made through teaching the pupil how to work at some task other than getting a lesson out of a book. Some of our most difficult problems are not propounded to us from the pages of a book. There is fundamentally no difference be- tween these problems: Roping a trunk, reading (remember that reading is getting the thought) a passage of Browning, solving a problem in algebra, sewing a patch on an apron, building a house out of blocks, writing a sentence using the word "cat." But there is a good deal of difference in the ease with which you can teach a child how to do these vari- ous tasks. There is less concentration required of a person in working with an object that he can reach all around than with one that is on a flat surface ; with the latter than with one that you can neither see nor feel, that exists only in the mind. Let us illustrate by reference to a study of art. Suppose you wish to bring to a person's mind a concept of a battle. The easiest way would be to take him to an elevation and let him witness a real battle; the next would be to act it yo the; junior high school, upon a stage; the next to have it represented by statues of men and figures of cannon, etc. ; the next would be in bas- relief ; the next in painting ; and most difficult of all, in writ- ten or printed language. Likewise the approach to study should be first with real things, then with symbols in the order we have mentioned above. Also this is true with the method used in teaching the child to solve problems, to work, to concentrate. The earliest task in the kindergarten is to construct something real, then something that resembles the real, then a picture, finally a verbal description or explanation of the thing con- structed. In the same order will he get his thoughts, his ideas of things. If study is approached in this way, the child will have acquired good habits of study before he reaches the point where he is to get lessons out of a book. When he does reach that point, he will apply the same principles and habits to studying a printed lesson that he has been applying to an object lesson. He will meet with the same success. He will be able to study effectively. 7. Specific changes in the elementary courses of study. Assuming that the subjects will remain the same as in the immediate past, it may be worth while (pending the evaluation of these subjects) to suggest some necessary changes in the euriculum brought about by making the sec- ondary courses start with the completion of the sixth grade. Several foundational subjects that had been delayed until the seventh or eighth grade must be hereafter taught before the seventh grade is reached, and other adjustments will have to be made. In many schools oral reading from seventh and eighth readers has been carried on in the corresponding grades. Oral reading as a formal subject will close with the end of EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 7 1 the sixth grade. When one considers the small use a person makes of oral reading, the wonder is that it has continued so long to occupy the serious attention of upper-grade pupils. Spelling as a subject occupying a recitation period will, and should, be discontinued before the end of the new elemen- tary course. By careful measurement Ayers has ascertained that sixth-grade pupils can spell correctly 92 per cent of the 975 words that the average intelligent adult uses in writing. One does not necessarily need to know how to spell words that he never writes but uses only in speaking. The eighty- five words that a particular pupil of the sixth grade does not know how to spell correctly should be ascertained in each individual case. That pupil may then learn in ten lessons how to spell the words that he did not know how to spell. What drudgery and loss of time for a pupil to study and recite on words that he has known how to spell for years! Besides, there is still some hope that a sensible form of simplified spelling may come into fashion in the near future. Geography miust be carried lower in the grades, and all the essential information conveyed in our present textbooks must be gathered by the pupil before reaching the seventh grade. This may necessitate the rewriting of our textbooks in more simple language. The large output of easily under- stood geographical readers that we are at present enjoying will contribute greatly to the success of this new plan. Books of travel, descriptions of customs and manners of foreign people, stories of the industries, interesting accounts of things grown from the soil, bird books and animal books, and pictures that really tell things — all adapted to the under- standing of elementary school children — are pouring from the press. God bless the devoted men and women that are toiling ceaselessly to bring things within the comprehension of the little folks ! 72 the; junior high school It is pleasing to note the success that teachers are having in teaching addition and subtraction in the second grade, multiplication and division in the third. The fourth grader masters these operations, memorizes the tables, and passes on to fractions. The fifth and sixth graders with a good foundation in arithmetic do the processes of fractions, deci- mals, and percentage. True, they cannot untangle the com- plicated problems often found in textbooks (but never found in actual business) ; but, if the textbook writers really wish to demonstrate their ingenuity in making up puzzles, let them insert them in books on higher mathematics or in com- mercial calculuses, books intended to develop logic and pro- found reasoning faculties. We are not expecting the child to perform all possible operations in the grade school ; we wish merely to give the child command of the tools with which to work. Anyhow, it is an injustice to the pupil to make him work out nerve-racking problems by arithmetic, when he is to be shown an easier way later through algebra. Finally, history (if the biographies and exciting events contained in historical readers can be classed as history) may be begun in earnest in the fifth grade, read and studied. Take any one of the several very effective books now on the market, work through the stories and biographies of the period of discoveries and the colonial period in the first semester, and through the national period in the second semester. The pupil will then have a good grasp of the story of the United States. A good textbook on the back- ground of American history in Europe to the settlement of Virginia could be completed in the first three fourths of the sixth grade. The last one fourth could be spent in studying the settlement and development of the colonies and the causes, events, and immediate results of the Revolution. A year of real national history, including civics, could be re- EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 73 quired of first, second, or third year junior high school pupils. This last year's work could be so thoroughly done that senior high school American history could be a fairly analytical study of some short but important period — as the post-Civil War period — or of some important movement or institutional development. 8. Non-essentials in particular subjects eliminated. It is highly important to the success of the six-year elemen- tary curriculum as well as to the children of our country that the work of eliminating the padding should be prose- cuted with vigor. Stripped of the non-essentials, most com- mon school subjects can be mastered in the first six grades without crowding or overworking the pupils. Thanks to several enterprising school men and textbook producers, we now have good sets of "minimum essentials" in nearly all the subjects. Nevertheless, this pruning must go further, and more dead limbs must be cut from the branches. It seems to the author that geography, history, arith- metic, English composition, manual training, and art need complete revision. What joy it would be to lop off from elementary school geography all the motions of the earth, moon, winds, and currents, also names of insignificant capi- tals, rivers, capes, bays, and the impossible-to-be-remem- bered minerals and manufactured articles of the hundred or more states and countries of the world ! An excellent eighth- grade teacher confessed to the author that he had to look up very carefully the causes of the seasons, eclipses, tides, winds, and ocean currents every time he came to these sub- jects in his teaching of geography, and he had been teaching this grade for twelve years ! What joy to lop off names and dates of discoverers and explorers that mean nothing to us ; names, dates, locations, and misfortunes of all the colonial enterprises ; Indian massacres back in New England and 74 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL Virginia ; the colonial wars ; battles, generals, size of armies, maneuvers, terms of surrender; expositions, presidential trips, cabinet officers, fires, floods, and other disasters ! What joy to lop off apothecaries' and avoirdupois weights, paper- ing and plastering of imaginary walls, multiplication and addition of denominate numbers, bank and true discount, square and cube root, longitude and time! And so with description and narration, exposition and argument, when the pupils cannot even write complex, compound, or even simple sentences! Then there is the making of hatracks, bootjacks, and bric-a-brac, with planes, vises, and draw knives, when the home will never need the useless product and will never possess a single one of the tools ! It would seem better to learn how to sharpen pencils with a jack- knife and to use a screwdriver, a handsaw, and a hammer. Lastly, how much time we waste and what bad habits we form in dabbling in paints, making incongruous and absurd valentines, paper napkins, masks, penwipers, and calendars ! From the foregoing paragraphs it is evident that much courageous, painstaking work is before us, but we must give credit for mluch that has already been done. A good start has been made ; but we must not stop until the task is finished. The junior high school movement is reacting on the elementary school. The time is auspicious, the oppor- tunity is inviting. Where are the daring spirits to blaze the way? They will make mistakes, they will be severely criti- cized, their plans will have to be reviewed and thoughtfully worked out by practical teachers in the field ; but eventually, all credit to those who dare to be pathfinders ! Summary. With this chapter we close our discussion of the junior high school movement. We have analyzed the causes that gave rise to it and that justify its continuance. We have briefly traced its history. We have examined the EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 75 objections that have been raised against it. We have dis- cussed the actual and prospective changes in the elementary school necessitated by this movement. We proceed now to a treatment of the junior high school as a functioning institution. CHAPTER FTVE COURSES OF STUDY It was asserted in the first chapter of this book that four of society's many problems are to be solved, and to some extent are being solved, by the junior high school as an insti- tution. We have tried to give the reader a clear idea of those problemls. Later we showed that the rapid adoption of the junior high school by so many cities and towns and its advocacy by so many educators have made its success all but certain. Through all these practical applications the school has remained true to its purposes, although it has not in every case tried to do all that is expected of it. Mean- while there have arisen many objections, obstacles, and aspersions to which we were compelled to devote a chapter. The objections have been answered, the aspersions refuted, and plans given for removing the obstacles. The reor- ganization of secondary education and the establishment of a junior high school have necessitated many changes in the elementary schools. Some of these adjustments have already been started and are well under way. For the others we have offered such suggestions as our limited space and the exceeding newness of the problems would permit. The junior high school is not a panacea for all social and educational ills. For the limited ills set forth we believe that this school will prove, and is to a very considerable ex- tent already proving, a cure. It remains for us, in the chap- ters that follow, to show how the junior high school acts in operation, how it meets the demands placed upon it. We shall discuss these matters under the head of curriculums, principal and teachers, teaching in the school, administra- 76 COURSES OF STUDY /7 tion, and relations with the higher secondary school. Finally we shall sketch' our ideas of an ideal junior high school. In discussing the subjects to be taught in junior high school we adhere to the terminology as defined by the Com- mittee on College Entrance Requirements. "Program of studies'' refers to all the subjects taught in the secondary school without reference to organization of these subjects. A "subject" is a branch of learning separate and distinct in subject-matter, as Latin, algebra, or history. A "course" is the subject-matter of a subject offered within a definite period of time, as first year Latin, second year algebra, ancient history, (since this course by general usage is known to be a definite year unit of high school study). A "curri- culum" is any systematic arrangement of courses which ex- tends through a number of years and which leads to a diploma of graduation. I. Preliminary considerations. Two phases of the program of studies demand attention: What subjects are to be taught? When is each course to be taught? In answering the first question, one must bear in mind the psychology of the adolescent student and the effect upon the evolution of society. If a subject does not contribute richly to the development of the boy or girl, or will not serve to advance society, it should be discarded, no matter how much the children may like it or how many teachers have pre- pared to teach it. The fact that the college or university may require for entrance a certain subject of small value will serve to bolster up that subject for a while; but sec- ondary school authorities should endeavor to have the col- leges change their entrance requirements in respect to such a subject and should plan to eliminate it after a reasonable time for adjustment. Not only must we determine what subjects are to be yS TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL taught, but we must also decide when they are to be taught, at what age, in what year of the curriculum. Here it must be kept in mind that many subjects are to be left for the senior high school and junior college or even for the uni- versity. Other subjects can be best taught in the junior high school. In considering each individual subject, we shall try to determine to what school it properly belongs and, if to the lower secondary school, to what year. In making out a curriculum to suit a particular student, it must be decided how many courses he should carry. This will depend upon the capability of the student and upon his needs. Some pupils will be able to carry six courses suc- cessfully, but may need only five to complete their plan of work. Others may be able to carry only four, but may need five. In the latter case the course must be adjusted to the boy's capabilities so that he can carry as many courses as he needs. For him much extra material would have to be elim- inated. For instance, if the reading of five books a year should be the normal requirement in English, his require- ment would have to be reduced to four or to three. Or if David Copper-field were the standard, he might substitute Oliver Twist or some other shorter and easier novel. On the whole, however, it may be safely predicted that the nor- mal student will be able to carry as many normal courses as he needs. A decision based upon the experience of several cities that begin the secondary course with the seventh grade indi- cates that through the intermediate high school age — twelve to fifteen — pupils successfully carry twenty-five recitation hours per week where each lesson is two-thirds the difficulty of a senior high school lesson. In the schools of Pomona, a pupil earns in the first three years of the secondary school an average of two and two-thirds credits per year, in the COURSES OF STUDY 79 next two years (eleventh and twelfth grades) he earns an average of four credits per year, and in the last two years (thirteenth and fourteenth grades), an average of five. If the curriculums for the junior high school were based on this plan, the normal adolescent would be expected to carry successfully five courses, each for one year and a half. A course carried for one year and a half would be equivalent to the same /course carried for one year in senior high school, where only four different subjects are taken at one time. Expressed in another way, the senior high school student does as much in one fourth of a year as a junior high school pupil does in one third of a year. There is also the matter of election of courses. Shall there be a free election of courses by the pupil? or, shall there be certain required courses ? If the pupil has an elec- tion, how often may he elect? Must he continue an elected course until he finishes it, or may he drop it at the end of a semester and elect another in its place. We wish to advocate quite a large freedom of election by^ the pupil under the guidance of parent and teacher or of vocational adviser. One or two courses should be required of every pupil unless he is thorough master of them. The most generally required courses are two years each of physi- cal education and English. Even if these are in general required, it w 7 ould be unwise to impose them on a student who does not need them. The other four subjects should be elective; but a pupil should be expected to take a course that he needs. If a boy has not mastered the fundamentals of arithmetic, he should be expected to take such a course in junior high school. Hence, we need a wise counselor to help the student in electing subjects and courses. We should advocate that a pupil be required to take a course until he has completed it or has put on it a reasonable 8o THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL amount of effort. Here, again, the youth needs a guide and adviser in the principal or parent. Instinctively a pupil wants to drop a course in which he is failing or which he dislikes. He also wants to avoid the subjects taught by the teacher whom he dislikes. In these matters a principal will exercise careful discretion. It is by no means certain that a pupil should be compelled to take a subject with a teacher whom he dislikes. We do not compel our college or uni- versity boy to do it ; yet he surely could be expected to over- come his prejudice more easily than the early adolescent. We must not forget that the junior high school is the trying-out school where young people are expected to find themselves. We must, then, be insistent upon exposing the student to as many subjects as possible without allowing him to become fickle or flabby, changeable and always seek- ing the easiest course. 2. Physical education. From the principle set forth in the first chapter it must be evident that the subject of physi- cal education should have a large place in the intermediate high school. The purpose of the course is to develop the body, to make it fit for the uses for which God's plan seems to intend it. Athletics and gymnastics are by no means all there is to this, the subject of paramount importance. Schools should attack this problem in a scientific spirit, with the fullest appreciation of its worth and value to the happi- ness of the individual pupils, to the improvement of the race, and to the health and morality of society. Looking at the subject in this way, we find that it deserves full discus- sion at this point. There is a theoretical or "book" side to physical educa- tion. Physiology and hygiene have long had a place in the school curriculum. That place must be enlarged and strengthened. Physiology might well be offered in the sec- COURSES OF STUDY 8 1 ondary school as a formal subject, independently or in con- nection with biology. But somewhere in the junior high school pupils should be taught the functions of the organs of the human body, their pathology and hygienic care. In such work the boys and girls should be in separate classes, the boys under a man teacher, the girls under a woman teacher. In this way the right kind of appeal may be made to the young people. There should be an interesting, instructive, and thorough- ly trustworthy textbook. The book selected should be writ- ten, not with an idea of frightening boys, but with the seri- ous purpose of informing them on matters pertaining to their health and strength. Science does not bear out the scare-head statements of old physiologists on alcoholic drinks, narcotics, and stimulants, or the still more unreliable twaddle of quacks concerning the results of sexual errors. The plain truth is sufficiently alarming. Boys frequently point to the facts that there are many healthy old men who smoke tobacco and drink liquor, and scientific physiologies must square with these facts. The physiologies should have something to say about diet, candies, gum chewing, endurance running, cosmetics, self- poisoning, bad air, soiled underwear, children's lunches, over-exercise for girls, greediness, climbing stairs, regular habits of bowels and kidneys, lying in bed in the morning, irregular eating, late parties, thin dresses, care at the monthly periods, incorrect posture in reading, decaying teeth, bicycle riding, tight lacing, tight shoes, high heels, coffee drinking, standing long, straining the vocal cords, abrasing the skin, abuse of the hair, neglect of colds, hard blowing of the nose, lack of sleep, unnecessary exposure of the head to the sun (especially dangerous among light-com- plexioned people), wet feet, over-study, eyestrain, con- 82 the junior high school tagious diseases, mosquitoes and flies, impure food. It will be seen that many of these matters refer especially to girls. It seems to the writer that undue emphasis has heretofore been placed upon dangers to the health of boys, whereas it is equally important that emphasis be placed upon dangers to the girls. Men are by their very nature and by the out- door active life they lead far more immune to constitutional ailments. In this connection sanitation and community physiology should form a part of the intermediate course in physical education. The disposal of sewage, the healthfulness of the home, the care of public toilets, the purity of the water supply, the inspection of public markets and groceries, the prevention of factory smoke, the sanitation of bakeries, meat markets, confectioneries, and hotel beds, and the quarantine of contagious diseases are matters that children should study about early in the teens. Closely associated with the pre- vention of sickness is the improvement of health. Here the selected text should tell of measures to improve the strength and virility of the race. Such measures include a wide variety of public activities, such as the planting of parks in cities ; the growing of shrubbery, flower gardens, and lawns about the homes ; recreation centers and athletic clubs ; pub- lic baths; paving^and widening of streets, public driveways, bridle paths, promenades, water courses ; public excursions to the open country and to the mountains; mountain play- grounds for children and adults ; "better babies" campaigns ; eugenic marriage campaigns ; roof gardens on tenement houses; boys' and girls' camps; compulsory military drill in schools; county and state; athletic tournaments; and all other measures that tend to make the race healthier and stronger. COURSES OF STUDY 83 The above courses are to be regarded as theoretical physi- cal culture. x\pplied physical education aims to do in school all that can be done (1) to keep boys and girls healthy, (2) to restore to health those who are not well, (3) to correct physical deficiencies, (4) to develop muscle and bodily con- trol, (5) to inure the young people to physical labor, (6) to develop moral courage and squareness. No system is complete or even passably satisfactory unless it does all these things well. This is a big program, one not to be carried out by a teacher whose sole qualification is a knowl- edge of football and a record as a star on a college team. The teacher should excel in a seriousness of purpose and a fullness of plans on how to accomplish all the points given above. The author does not presume to know how all these things can be done. He does know that they are being done in some cities and that they should be done in all, especially in those with junior high schools, if the next generation and the following generations are to be benefited. There must be gymnasiums, shower baths, playgrounds, equipment and paraphernalia, testing and measuring machines. Above all, there must be a master organizer to plan the work so as to reach every pupil — a person who can also act as the director. How often should formal exercise be required ? For how many years? Should credit be given? How long should each exercise be? Should the exercises be in the morning, afternoon, or after school? May anybody be excused? Can other work be substituted for physical culture? Should dancing be allowed in school? If so, should it be required of children whose parents object to it on moral grounds? Should military training be required? Optional? Should pupils furnish their own suits, or should the school district furnish them? Should girls be permitted to wear silk 84 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL stockings in the gymnasium? Should Rugby, American, or soccer football be adopted ? Should girls play basketball ? Should boys and girls play together ? Should girls be direct- ed by men teachers ? Should physicians and dentists exam- ine school pupils? Is a woman nurse preferable, especially for girls? These and dozens of other questions must be left to the intelligence of the director. It is not the sphere of this book to discuss them, much less to .answer them. Some of the questions, such as those with regard to years in the curriculum and j amount of time, must necessarily answer themselves in the very nature of the needs of the individual boy or girl. 3. Manual and sense training. Even a slight study of the psychology fof adolescence will reveal the importance of sense awakening in that period. With the natural acute- ness of the senses of touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste, and of muscularity, at pubescence and on to adulthood, the school has a wonderful opportunity to get results from their education. We have spoken in the preceding section of physical education, which is among other things an edu- cator of the muscular sense. We wish in this section to discuss the education of the senses of touch, feeling, sight, and measurement. In no sense has the traditional manual training developed these senses to the proper extent. For instance, let us take the touch sense /alone. There is as much development of this sense in playing a piano or guitar, in writing on a type- writer, in painting or drawing, in kneading bread jdough, in molding clay, in writing shorthand, or in sewing and knit- ting as there is in manual straining. But the possibilities are by no means exhausted in all these lines. Take the art of reading with the fingers from raised type. Why confine this method of reading to the blind? Why should it not be COURSES 01- STUDY 85 taught in school to all children suffering from eye-strain or defective vision? If such pupils could be taught to read in that way, how much it would save their eyes. Reading with the ringers is only one of the many possi- bilities of sense training. Accurate measurement with the eves is also an undeveloped possibility that could be gen- erally tried. This sense can be developed to the extent of accurately estimating a room's width, the length of cloth or rope, the distance across a field, the height of a tree. To distinguish this sense training from others, we may call it mensuration. A very useful development of the sight is the recognition of colors and their proper blending. A great deal is done in art along this line; but many boys who do not want art could profit by such an eye training. Color matching or visual harmony could well find a prominent place in a gen- eral course on sense training. Sawing boards straight, joining, planing, shaping, lining, boring holes, properly driving nails, designing and making a piece of furniture — traditional manual training — form only a part of sense training. Certainly the time has come to evaluate the subject of manual training and to work out a richer content for the course. Along with these matters may profitably be included such useful arts as wood sawing and wood splitting, shoe mending, basket making, mat weaving, puttying, paper hanging, plaster mending, calcimin- ing, japalacking, and converting worn-out socks into mit- tens. If such a course can be devised and organized with litt'e cost, most superintendents and boards of education will gladly make it a required subject in the junior high school. Leaving the vocational phase of hand work to the senior high school, the course (in sense training for boys may be 86 the junior high school completed in one and one half years in the intermediate school. As other matter is constantly added to this course, a longer time will have to be provided. Certainly pupils can well afford to spend three semesters on this enriched subject. If confined to traditional manual training, there should be scarcely more than one semester required of boys. The place of sense training in the junior high school must depend upon the age and development of the boy taking it. If boys enter the intermediate school at twelve years of age, sense training should be placed as date in the curriculum as possible, so that there can be a reasonable certainty that adolescence has well set in before the subject is begun. I 4. English. In America we lay great stress on the teaching of the vernacular. In some English-speaking lands the people are not so proud of the mother tongue and not so insistent upon its being spoken with a certain inflection or even upon using standardized words. In some parts of Eng- land, for instance, they are prouder of their brogue than of the great universal language; they say that the newspapers and railroad travel will soon enough break down differences in dialects, and consequently they put forth no conscious effort to conform to the standards of good literature and cul- tivated conversation. In a land as large as America we realize the importance of aiding nature, and our schools become the dynamic factor in universalizing the English language. Other nations go a step further by the creation of academies that speak authoritatively on what is and what is not good Spanish, French, or what-not. In the United States our schools undertake to teach standard Eng^ lish, but each teacher is left to decide for himself what is standard. English, as a subject to be pursued in the secondary schools, covers a number of branches that were formerly COURSES OF STUDY 87 spoken of as separate subjects. We used to have grammar, spelling, reading, composition, rhetoric, etymology, oral English, literature. Still farther back in the past several of these were sub-divided into two or more subjects. The tendency of late has been to group all these matters under the one head of English. Along with this custom has gone the making of English a required subject throughout the grade school and the high school. (And now have come in very recent years certain additions to the general subject of English, such as debate, public speaking, private speaking, dramatics, and journalism. Many high schools that require four years of English permit pupils to earn additional credits in these extra subjects. It would be possible to earn eight credits of a necessary fifteen for graduation, in the field of English and its related subjects. All these subjects have as their main object the improvement of the students in the vernacular. This tendency has alarmed conservative school men to such an extent that a reactionary movement has set in to compel English to "keep its place" and not monopolize the curriculum. This reaction has set in just at the time when a strong progressive current in education is sweeping the old subjects off their feet and is threatening to drown those whose heaviness prevents them from swimming. Some of these may be rescued by clinging to a more active, virile sub- ject, and thus may be restored to life after being considered for some time dead. Latin and German have a chance in this way to survive the strong current of modern progressivism. And strangest of all, they may be saved by clinging to their greatest competitor for favor — English. We refer, of course, to making Latin and German part of the English course, to be studied briefly for their value as parents of modern English. 88 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL Makers of curriculums for secondary schools are, there- fore, finding the four years of high school entirely inade- quate for the mastering of the vernacular. The junior high school movement, tending to lengthen the secondary course to seven years stretching from the beginning of the seventh grade to the end of the junior college, offers us a solution of the problem. Pursued as one subject through seven years, English can be made to cover conventional English plus dramatics, journalism, oral English, public speaking and debate, and a semester of backgrounds of English in Rome and in Saxon England. We arrive at the conclusion that English should be pur- sued as a subject through the seven years of the secondary school. We believe that it should be made compulsory. But if we argue for making it compulsory, we must allow cer- tain elections of courses. Better still, the wise teacher will give to each pupil what he needs most. Not all by any means need exactly the same things. One boy will require grammar; another will be so correct in speaking and writ- ing that he will not need grammar. Some girl will need dramatics, while another will profit more from debate and argumentation. Suppose the English courses embraced twenty-six semester units as follows: (i) Latin back- ground, (2) Anglo-Saxon background, (3) grammar, (4) spelling and etymology, (5) oral English, (6) composition, (7) heroic narration, (8) heroic poetry, (9) Merchant of \ r enice and Julias Caesar, (10) description and narration, (11) exposition and argument, (12) history of English literature to the Romantic Period, (13) Romantic Period to the present day, (14) public speaking, (15) debate, (16) journalism, (17) Macbeth and Hamlet, (18) the essay, (19) history of American literature, (20) private speaking, (21) dramatics, (22) the drama, (23) applied journalism, (24) COURSES OF STUDY 89 the novel, (25) Shakespeare, (26) current literature. Boy A may need 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 21. Boy B may need 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 24, 25. Both boys and all other pupils would take English through the seven years. It now remains to determine which of these courses shall be offered in the junior high school. If certain of these courses are less difficult or simpler than others, they should precede the more difficult. If some are more adapted to the pubescent period, they should be given in the junior high school. We may pick 1, 2, 3, 4 as foundational in character upon which others have to be built. We find that 5 is simpler than 15 or 20; that 6 is simpler than 10, 11, 16, or 23. It is evident that 7 and 8 are adapted to the period of emotional awakening at the beginning of adolescence. We may feel quite sure that I, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 belong to the intermediate school period ; although we may entertain some doubt about Anglo-Saxon backgrounds until the course shall have been organized and tried out. Units 9 and 10 are being taught in junior high school with success, and may be left on the borderland, to be taken in junior or senior high school as circumstances dictate. One more question must be answered. In case a pupil needs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 — eight semesters of work — how shall he get them in three years ? This question is sus- ceptible of just two answers. The most obvious is that he should be permitted to take two units at one time until he shall have worked through all eight. The second answer is, that such a pupil should spend three and one-half or four years in the junior high school. He would enter the senior high school with probably more than eight of the sixteen credits required for entrance to college. go TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 5. Foreign languages. What foreign languages, if any, shall be taught in our secondary schools ? Why should any foreign language be taught? If any is taught, where shall it be placed in the curriculum? How much of each language shall be taught? These are questions that are challenging the best thought and the widest investigations of educators. The range of foreign languages thinkable as subjects for our secondary schools embraces Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Russian. These are languages said to have cultural value, disciplinary value, or practical value to Americans. Greek has by common consent been dropped from public secondary schools. The demand for it has been so small that it has been found impracticable to organize classes in it. Russian and Italian, though growing in popularity, may be left out of consideration. Whatever decision is made in the remaining cases will be applicable to these two modern languages if they fulfill the same end. If any foreign languages are to be taught in our secondary schools, they are Latin, German, French, and Spanish. Why should any foreign language be taught? There is a growing sentiment that no foreign language is of practical value. This is particularly true of German and French. The number of German-speaking people in the United States is diminishing so rapidly that except in sections the language is not widely heard spoken. Furthermore, nearly all Ger- man-speaking Americans can speak English sufficiently well for all ordinary purposes ; and, if the wide-spread movement of societies for the education of the foreigner continues, the non-English-speaking Germans will shortly be a negligible number. Frenchmen are even more scarce. A questionnaire elicited the fact that few German-taught or French-taught students ever find any use for those languages; and nearly COURSES OP STUDY 01 all returned the reply that in the many years since they had left college, they had never even had an opportunity to con- verse in German or French! There is also the other angle. If it were granted that Ger- man and French are practical languages in America, can a boy acquire in school the ability to speak the language? After two or three years of high school German, how many boys could understand a German conversation, or could carry on conversation in German? The probability is that not one in ten can do it. The same is true of Spanish. The practical or usable value of a foreign language as taught in our secondary schools is, therefore, very little. The doctrine of formal discipline has been given such body blows that we refuse to defend the foreign languages on the ground of their having disciplinary value superior to other subjects. The culture, the humanitarianism, the broader outlook upon life gotten by two or three years of a foreign language is so doubtful, is so negligible in quantity or quality that we could not justify the taking up of so much of the pupil's time on that ground alone. Certainly it could not weigh in the balance against the narrowing, the deadening effect of hours upon hours spent upon looking up the meaning of words in the lexicon — looking up the mean- ing of the same word a half-dozen times if it occurs that often on a single page. The truth is that the foreign languages have been kept in the curriculum because the colleges and universities have required a foreign language for entrance and because the children take a fancy to the idea of getting a smattering of a language not known by everybody. These are unworthy reasons for having any subject in the secondary schools. A more justifiable reason for electing a foreign language is that it is usually taught by an excellent teacher — a teacher 92 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL who could teach and inspire boys and girls through the medium of any subject whatsoever. For the junior high school there is a strong justification for some Latin and possibly for some Old English on the ground that they have an excellent reflex action upon Eng- lish. Through them the pupil learns to understand the grammar of his own language, he gets a larger insight into the meaning of English words, and he strengthens and ex- tends his English vocabulary. One semester of each would probably be sufficient, especially if they were taught with this end in view. We reach the conclusion that in some parts of the United States a certain foreign language if mastered may have some practical value ; but that on the whole, foreign lan- guages should be dropped from the curriculum of secondary schools ; that the process of dropping languages must be done gradually so as to permit colleges and teachers to ad- just themselves to the change; and that a semester of Latin, of German, of French, or of Old English may be retained permanently for the value to English. Until foreign lan- guages shall disappear altogether from the secondary course, they should be made optional in the junior high school and should be taken by such pupils only as are compelled to have them to meet college requirements. 6. Mathematics. In an earlier chapter it was seen that boys have strongly outcropping at adolescence the measur- ing sense which is connected with the observation faculty on the one hand and the reasoning faculty on the other. This is generally interpreted as the age for mathematics, and the boy is usually able to grasp the principles of algebra and geometry and apply them to objective problems. A careful trial of teaching pure mathematics to early adolescents re- veals the pupil's lack of ability to solve the problems that COURSES OF STUDY 93 require an application of the principles of algebra and geometry. The chief difficulty here is that the pupil is un- able to unravel the mysterious wording of the problems so as to get his first statement. Girls often excel in algebra and geometry, sometimes far outstripping the boys of the same class. An investigation of a case of this kind revealed the fact, however, that the girls were somewhat older than the boys and were more than a year advanced in physical maturity. But girls are more variable in their mathematical proclivities. Far more girls are found wanting in ability to grasp algebra and geometry than boys. It is also true that girls do not like mathematics so well as boys do. In Pomona we have tried a progressive system of ex- tending algebra lower and lower in the grades. It was tried first in the A8 grade, then in the B8, then in the Ay, finally in the B7. The most interesting result was obtained in the B8 grade. A B8 class was started in algebra at the same time as a B9. There was no appreciable difference in the character and preparation of the pupils. If anything the ninth grade was more of a "picked" group than the eighth grade — picked in the sense that the poorer children had been eliminated. At the end of one semester the two classes stood together ; during the second semester, the most intri- cate problems being eliminated for the eighth graders, the two classes kept together, reaching quadratics at the same time. The number of intricate problems eliminated, how- ever, did not exceed twenty. Both classes finished the course without one student failing to reach a grade of 75 per cent. Our course is so arranged that pupils may begin algebra in the B7 grade if they have indicated strength in sixth grade arithmetic; otherwise they take arithmetic in the B7 and begin algebra in the A7 grade. Pupils who do not wish 94 the; junior high school to take algebra in the By, may take household accounts through the seventh grade, and bookkeeping through the eighth and ninth grades. If a pupil taking book- keeping has a change of heart at the end of the Ay or B8 semester, he may start algebra at the beginning of the B8 or at the beginning of the A8 semester. Wherever he begins it early, he spends three semesters on the subject, algebra being one of the five subjects that he carries. There was some doubt in our minds whether the average child could commence algebra at the beginning of the junior high school and complete the subject in one and one-half years. In one of our schools all the children of the beginning seventh grade qualified on the basis of proficiency in arithmetic and have successfully carried algebra. In the other school forty out of sixty qualified for algebra and have successfully car- ried it. The other twenty made such slow progress in arith- metic that they were not considered ready for algebra at the beginning of the Ay grade. The conclusion is inevitable that, in a course allowing three semesters for algebra, the beginning of the junior high school is the time to commence the subject. The best two- thirds in arithmetic of the sixth grade will carry algebra without failure; the weak one-third will do better to take up algebra at the same time. Out of a class of thirty poorly- prepared seventh graders, probably twenty will do the algebra satisfactorily. The other ten should probably drop algebra for a semester, coming back to it at the beginning of the eighth grade. All in all, the proportion of failures among seventh graders taking algebra is no greater than among ninth grade high school pupils. We naturally expect to have geometry taken up by those A8 pupils who have finished algebra. In Pomona we have no data as yet on the success of this plan. In Los Angeles,, COURSES OF STUDY 95 however, they have been successful in teaching concrete geometry (under the name of mensuration) to eighth grade pupils. Simple theorems are successfully demonstrated by the classes. In case our plan proves successful, the three years of the junior high school course will be divided into two equal periods — the first period for algebra, the second for plane geometry. CHAPTER SIX COURSES OF STUDY (Continued) ; 1 . History aind politics. There are a number of con- siderations making the teaching of history and politics imperative in the junior high school. Among them are the incompleteness of the elementary school course, the grow- ing reasoning powers of adolescents, the desire to be con- sidered grown up, the budding desire to assume the burdens of society, the desire for a voice in government, the love of the heroic. Out of the many possible courses in this field, what shall be taught in the junior secondary period? The following are the units collated from the published courses of study of half a hundred cities and towns: (i) European backgrounds, (2) colonial period of American history, (3) national period, (4) community civics, (5) state history, (6) early ancient history, (7) late ancient his- tory, (8) medieval history, (9) early modern history, (10) 1 8th, 19th, and 20th century history, (11) English history to 1700, (12) English history since 1700, (13) advanced American history to 1828, (14) advanced American his- tory since 1828, (15) advanced civics, (16) elementary economics, (17) sociology, (18) problems in American democracy, (19) problems in American democracy, con- tinued, (20) advanced economics, (21) economic and social problems, (22) constitutional history of England, (23) Europe 19th Century, (24) sectional history. If we follow the recommendations of the Committee of Eight, we will assign European backgrounds to the sixth grade, probably carrying the work to the American Revolution in that grade. It must be assumed that in the fifth grade the children have had a narrative and biographical account of American his- 96 COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) 97 tory through the entire range of white men's existence on this continent. If I and 2 have been done in the sixth grade, 3 might occupy the first semester of the junior high school, followed by 4 in the second semester; 5 might occupy the third semester, while 6, 7, and 8 — covering the conventional first year high school history — would occupy the fourth, fifth, and sixth semesters of the intermediate high school, leaving Modern European History to the senior high school. In substance the above is a commonly used plan, and would meet the requirements of a junior high school that embraced the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades of one year each. The well-worked out Berkeley plan gives 2 and 3 in the sev- enth grade, 4 and 5 in the eighth grade, and 6, 7, and 8 in the ninth grade. The Pomona plan places 1 and 2 in the sixth grade. The other units taken in the six corresponding semesters of junior high school are as follows: unit 3 in first semester; 4 and part of 6 in second semester ; the remainder of 6 and all of 7 in third; 8 in fourth; 9 in fifth ; 10 in sixth. In this way the conventional two high school years of world his- tory are given in the intermediate school. The senior high school- junior college is then left free to pursue advanced American history and economic, social, and political prob- lems. How much of this work should be required of all pupils ? If there were sufficient time, everyone should be required to take these six semesters of history. As it is, a minimum amount should be fixed — probably two units. If two units only are required, undoubtedly they should be 3 and 4, the last half of American history and all of community civics. If general history is not taken, the student will be greatly handicapped thereafter. However, the youth will have had European backgrounds which in a general way covers world 98 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL history. He will also have an opportunity later to take Eng- lish history, English constitutional history, and Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. These cover the ground pretty thoroughly. If, however, the school is not organized on the seven-year secondary plan, more pressure should be brought to bear upon the pupil to take world history in the junior high school. Will the pupil have opportunity to get the things he needs as summarized in the first paragraph of this topic if he does not take general history in the intermediate school ? The love of the heroic may be satisfied in heroic fiction and verse ; the desire for a voice in government, in student self- government and other student organizations. The other tendencies may be satisfied in debate, public speaking, and church activities. The ripening reason may find develop- ment in mathematics, in the sciences, and in English. The results obtainable are not so good as they would be in world history, nor would the outlook upon life be so broadened. Boys especially should be encouraged to take history, not so much because they are future voters but because all through history and civics can the boy express his masculine traits of character. In community civics one gets an under- standing of social benefits and obligations, and puts into practice the principles learned. 2. The sciences. The investigating inquisitiveness of the adolescent coupled with the awakening senses of sight, hearing, etc., drives the boy inevitably toward science. If he does not get it in school, he finds it outside of school. Nothing can keep the normal adolescent boy from studying nature and nature's laws. The school has wisely taken over the sciences and is endeavoring to assist the young people to get a knowledge of nature by real scientific methods. Not the least benefit to the student is the scientific habit acquired. GOURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) 99 The foundation of a vocation may also be laid by studying the underlying scientific principles. Thus science is the basis of cooking, mechanical arts, agriculture, mining, and many other occupations. The sciences commonly taught in the secondary schools are general science, agriculture, biology, chemistry, zoology, botany, physical geography, and physics. The difficult mathematics of chemistry and physics have forced these subjects into the eleventh and twelfth grades. Zoology and botany have likewise tended toward the maturer years of youth. By common consent physical geography, biology, and elementary agriculture have settled down in the ninth and tenth grades; while general science as a foundation science has until recently occupied the ninth grade and is now tending downward into the eighth and seventh grades. We have shown in a previous chapter the natural tendency of geography, that is, to merge gradually into history and disappear as a separate subject. After history has effec- tually swallowed the descriptive and geologic parts of geography, general science finishes the dissolution by ab- sorbing the physical element of geography. Only in rare cases now do we find schools offering courses in physical geography : general science has taken its place in the curri- culum. General science as a teachable subject has not been stand- ardized; it is still in a pliable, yes, plastic condition. And while it is still in this state, it will be easy to adapt it to what- ever grade to which it may be assigned. There are textbooks on the market purporting to be intended for fifth grade chil- dren. There would be a danger of such a course falling to the level (developmentally) of nature study. It might teach and inspire a love for nature but could scarcely develop the scien- tific method or embody a group of facts suitable for a foun- ioo the: junior high school, dation upon which to build a science. General science must go far beyond nature study, be a science in fact. If general science should occupy the last three semesters of the junior high school course, it would not need to differ from the subject as now taught in the first year of high school. It would, indeed, correspond precisely to that age, and such text-books as have been written for ninth grade could be used in the course. The plans outlined, the labora- tory manuals, and the laboratory equipment would be the same. On the other hand, if general science is to occupy the first three semesters of the junior high school, a considerable change in the course, text-book equipment, and manual would have to be made. The pupils could not understand the lan- guage of the text ; the materials in the laboratory would have to be less complex; and a simpler approach to the subject would have to be made. In the Pomona schools we are trying out this plan after having successfully taught it in the last three semesters of the junior high school. We are using a high school text-book, however. The success of the work is not assured as yet. Elementary agriculture as a text-book science and as a -science requiring no experimental farm is teachable in the intermediate school. It has been taught with success in the ninth grade of high schools, and, as was said in discussing general science, it would not need much change to adapt it to the last three semesters of the junior high school. If, however, general science should have to be taught in the last three semesters of the intermediate school, an unsolved problem would arise as to whether agriculture could be taught successfully, profitably in the first three semesters. It seems upon the face of the question that general science ^should precede agriculture, but the reverse may become COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) IOI necessary. Elementary agriculture in the seventh grade would be in danger of falling to the level of school garden- ing — a subject belonging to the elementary school. It can- not be too much insisted upon that elementary agriculture shall be a science in the true sense. It is decidedly a basic science upon which vocational agriculture may be built ; and the teachers should not forget that it is a science as well as an art. In case the junior high school course includes the tenth grade, biology would probably be offered in the last three semesters. Biology that includes the elements of zoology, botany and physiology would probably fill a demand in the lower secondary school. Many educators urge that a one- semester course in physiology should be required of all. In the preceding chapter we insisted strongly on the teaching of physiology and hygiene in connection with physical edu- cation. If pupils were required to elect between general science and biology, one semester of the two courses might be made common to both, and physiology be made the sub- stance of the semester's work. Where physiology and hygiene can be made a part of the course in physical educa- tion, biology and general science would then touch but lightly on those matters. 3. Culture subjects. Under this heading we include those subjects that are studied for culture only — those that open new fields for intellectual and emotional enjoyment without any thought of their utilitarian value. It is an open question as to whether the public schools are justified in teaching on public funds subjects that contribute merely to the development of capacity for enjoyment. But the cul- ture subjects have so long been a part of our curricula that they cannot be dropped without disorganizing the school system. Under this head would come the foreign languages, 102 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL which have such a fascination for the young people of our country. The ability to utter a few phrases in French thrills the emotions of youths. It is very noticeable, however, that the hard grind necessary to the mastery of a foreign lan- guage does not greatly appeal to our young people. There are other culture subjects that produce the same tingle and yet do not involve such deadening drudgery. (a) Music. Most of our young people now arrive at the beginning of adolescence with an ability to read music of considerable difficulty. As music and other culture subjects have a tendency to raise the mind above the sordid and carnal things of life, we may safely assume that they will be taught in the adolescent period as a deterrent if for no other reason. Music is par excellence a culture subject. Classes in vocal music can be taught with inconsiderable expense, the child carrying his instrument around with him. The vocal music of the adolescent school should be free from grinding labor. The joy and inspiration in singing will be sufficient to offset such mental application as may be neces- sary. Choral singing lends itself to this period best, blend- ing and harmony being necessary to the making of adol- escent music. Occasionally one finds a soloist of the "back- fisch" age, but it is very exceptional. Duets and quartets are difficult to produce from among these young people. Boys and girls should hear good music at this age ; but should not be surfeited with classical compositions. One easy grand opera should be heard while the children are in junior high school. It will be epoch-making in its effect. This is the heyday of instrumental music. If possible, the school should own instruments of all kinds to be used by pupils with or without means. The youth cannot well afford to purchase an expensive instrument, which in all probability will be laid aside in a couple of years. While the frenzy lasts, COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) IO3 however, the opportunity should be afforded to learn to play. It will be hard to work instrumental music into a schedule of studies, because much of the teaching must be done by appointment with the instructor. Nevertheless, many schools teach it successfully, and thus help to build up a band and an orchestra of real merit. The fact that "music hath charm to soothe the savage breast" has wide application in the adolescent period. Many a boy has found solace in music when his growing body seemed aflame for more sensual sensations. Many another boy too anaemic for athletic honors has found himself lion- ized and happy as a musician in the school band. Besides, there is much healthy physical development in singing or playing for it strengthens the lungs, enlarges the chest, straightens the back, and induces a posture of body condu- cive to strength and symmetry. (b) Art. Much that has been said for music may be said with equal emphasis for art. Art as a culture study is justified in that it opens up a large field for high emotional enjoyment. Next to harmony of tones, beauty of color and form attracts the adolescent. In art girls find joy earlier than boys. In fact, art thrust upon boys of the adolescent period, may produce a revulsion, rather than an ecstacy, of feeling. A taste for art can frequently be culti- vated. Most girls take readily to art: it is an outcropping of budding womanhood, a symptom of adolescence. In the order of natural development, painting comes first, painting with striking colors and bold contrasts. Soon fol- low blending of shades and harmony of color. Drawing is more or less a drudgery at first, but the necessity for accuracy of perspective, for correct form, for light and shade soon dawns upon the pubescent girl. Paper and canvas give way to wood, leather work, weaving, metal work, clay- 104 the: junior high school moulding, and jewelry. A large proportion of girls would take to this work if it were open for election, and no culture is healthier for the girl, compelling, as it does, out-door sketching, work-shop habits, physical exercise, and sense- education. It may be made of practical value, the girl carrying the work into womanhood and the home. Trimming of hats, designing of one's own dresses, draping of curtains, and decorating of the home — all are rendered easier and more successful by a course in art. At least three semesters of art and freehand drawing should be open to girls and boys in the junior high school. (c) Literature. One phase of this subject has been discussed in connection with English. It is mentioned here again as a culture subject, aside from its bearing on the student's learning to speak and write well in the vernacular. Whenever literature has failed, in the past, to give the boys and girls a love for reading good books, it has been very largely because they have been taught forms of literature far beyond their developmental stage. We have been ex- pecting children of fourteen and fifteen to like books whose cultural appeal is to adults. It is folly to try to get boys and girls interested in philosophical poetry or problem nov- els. Their intellectual and moral experience is too limited to comprehend the author's meaning. It is idle to attempt to interest early adolescents in Carlyle's Bssay on Burns, Emerson's and Macaulay's Essays, Macbeth, Hamlet, much of Milton's, Wordsworth's, Browning's, or Tennyson's poetry, to say nothing of Pope, Addison, Ruskin, Shelley, Keats, and Thackeray. And why try to interest pupils in, to them, such dry read- ing when we have dozens of writers and hundreds of books graduated to the adolescent mind. Here, too, it must be remembered, boys and girls begin to diverge in their likes COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) IO5 and interests. Girls are fond of Miss Alcott's books, George Eliot, Scott, Whittier, Longfellow, Hawthorne, J. G. Hol- land, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Paul Leicester Ford, Myrtle Reed, Owen Meredith. Boys like Stevenson, Scott, Cooper, Longfellow, Conan Doyle, Poe (prose), Dickens, Washington Irving, Aldrich. These authors should not be "studied," but merely read. Poetry will have to be read in class or with assigned lessons. As a matter of fact poetry should always be read aloud and in sufficient quantity to tell a story. Heroic poetry should predominate. Dr. Stanley Hall shows in an interesting diagram that girls reach their quantitative maximum of reading at thir- teen and boys a little later. This fact should lead us to conclude that this early adolescent period is our opportunity for introducing young people to good authors. How much shall we expect the boy or girl to read ? Hall's investigation shows that each twelve-year-old will read twelve books in a year, and the thirteen-year-old, fifteen books. Let us see what books a girl could read in the two years : Jo's Boys, Little Men, Little Women, Silas Marner, Romola, Ivanhoe, Kenihvorth, Snowbound, Evangeline, Miles Standish, Great Stone Face, Blithedale Romance, Scarlet Letter, Bitter Sweet, Katrina, Little Lord Fountleroy, Hon. Peter Stir- ling, Lavendar and Old Lace, A Spinner in the Sun, Lucile, and seven others. Boys could read Treasure Island, Ivan- hoe, Waverly, Rob Roy, Last of the Mohicans, The Path- finder, The Prairie, Miles Standish, Firm of Girdlestone, Hound of the Baskervilles, The Great Shadow, The Gold Bug, Oliver Twist, Martin Chuzzlewit, Tour of the Prairies, Astoria, Adventures of Captain Bonneville, Prudence Pal- frey, and nine others. One could be quite certain that the boy or girl would find at least one author whom he would want to complete. io6 the: junior high school This is the period of life when there should be some guidance in reading current literature. There are many magazines whose stories are very wholesome for adoles- cents ; there are others whose stories would be exceedingly harmful to those whose characters are not yet formed. The law ought to step in and prohibit certain story magazines being sold to children under eighteen, for the danger is cer- tainly as great as in the case of cigarettes or liquor. Love stories that are insinuatingly suggestive, adventure stories that arouse the desire to steal or commit semi-criminal pranks have the same demoralizing effect as liquor and tobacco. The school has done a great good in arousing pub- lic opinion against the latter: it should commence a legis- lative campaign against the former. (d) Dramatics. The study of dramatics for its cul- ture value is beginning to book large in the high school. Such a course is carried on along parallel lines. There is the theoretical side of the study, dealing with the history of the stage, the mechanics of drama writing, the elements of the drama, method of producing a play. On the theoretical side comes also the study of certain great type dramias — tragedy, melodrama, romance, comedy, and farce. Such a course in theory is called in the curriculum the drama. The other side might be regarded as the application of the prin- ciples of the drama to practice. It would involve the actual work of staging a play and would include making the scenery, stage construction and management, making-up the actors, and acting the play on the stage. Much of the class- room work would be the study of a play to get at the mean- ing of the words, then the interpretation of that meaning in speech and action. This practical side of the subject might be called dramatics. Both the drama and dramatics con- tribute to the broadening of the student's field of enjoyment. COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) 107 The beginning of this subject may well be undertaken in the junior high school, not perhaps as an organized course, but as a school activity. The pupils of this age may well be permitted to attend one good play a year. In all probability their parents will take them to half a dozen poor plays and to dozens of picture-shows. There will well up in the ado- lescent a desire to act on the stage, and mass action will be wholesome and good for such young folks. A warning should be uttered against choosing a "star" or "leading part" from among intermediate pupils : their heads are so easily "turned" that there is danger of ruining the boy or girl for any more prosaic work. (e) History and geography. From one point of view history and geography may be regarded as cultural sub- jects. One who learns in school to love the movement of events, descriptions of many lands, and all their attendant concomitants, will have a source of great enjoyment when he grows to adulthood. These joys will not consist entirely in reading history and geography, but in travel, in collecting local historical material, in constructing and reading maps, in visiting industrial plants, and in learning the methods of producing from the soil in places where he happens to sojourn. (f) Sciences. All busy men and women have their avocations which they love and enjoy. Many an office-man finds rest and pleasure in pursuing at home some scientific investigation. It may be chemical experiments, collecting flowers, stuffing birds, inventing mechanical devices, classi- fying geologic specimens, or testing building materials. It is to provide men and women with such enjoyable avoca- tions that many culture subjects are taught in school. In this sense the sciences may be regarded as culture subjects. I08 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL (g) Manual training. What has been said of the sciences may be said of what is taught under the broad term of manual training. Dentists worn out with the tedious day's work find recreation at evening in wood- work; physi- cians, in metal working; lawyers, in electricity; teachers, in basketry, plastering, gas engine construction and repair. In this sense manual training is a culture subject, and, in pass- ing, it may be said that many more boys will use it as an avocation than as a vocation. 4. Vocational subjects. For the purpose of this dis- cussion we define a vocational subject as one that is taught chiefly for its contribution to making a student fit for doing the work of an occupation, and is pursued by the student with the same aim. Algebra is not a vocational subject be- cause its main raison d'etre is not to prepare the youth for engineering (the only occupation in which algebra could be used). Stenography is a vocational subject because the main reason for teaching it is to prepare the pupil for the gainful occupation of a stenographer. The main vocational lines teachable in the junior high school are homemaking, dressmaking, agriculture, the com- mercial occupations, and the trades of the artisan. It is not claimed that any one of these occupational courses can be completed in the three years of intermediate school or at the tender age of early adolescence. A good beginning can be made, however — a beginning that will materially shorten the period of apprenticeship or that will lay a good foundation for a finishing course in the same line in the senior high school- junior college. (a) Homemaking. There have been many objections to the boys learning an occupation in the junior high school, the chief being that it forces the boy to choose at too early an age. This objection cannot be levied against homemaking COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) IO9 for girls. Such a large proportion of girls become home- makers that those who do not may be disregarded as being a negligible quantity. No parent could object to his daugh- ter's learning the household arts. It is therefore put first in the list of vocational subjects. (It is not necessary, I think, to point out that manual training does not stand in the same relation to boys that homemaking does to girls. Manual training, as such, is not an occupational course at all; and only a few boys follow a vocation that can be remotely con- nected up with it. We have pointed out in preceding pages that manual training has its chief value as a training of the senses, and is more closely related to art, music, and draw- ing than to any purely vocational subject.) The home-making branches best fitted for early adoles- cent girls are cooking and sewing. These subjects have a well standardized content and need not be discussed in full in this connection. The chief problem is where to place them in the three-year course. In high school sewing is usually taught in the ninth and cooking in the tenth grade. In some schools the two courses are taught through the two years but on alternate days. It may with assurance be stated, then, that these two subjects should be taught in the last two years of the junior high school, whether it has a three or a four year curriculum. As many school systems provide sewing one day per week in fifth and sixth grades, and some junior high schools continue sewing on the same scale through the first year of the intermediate curriculum, many girls want a change at the end of that time. There is, on the other hand, no good reason why cooking should not precede sewing as a five-day- a-week course. Therefore, in three-year junior high schools (seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth grades) ■, cooking may best be taught in the second year and sewing in the third, IIO THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL it being understood that the work be taken for ninety min- utes each day and that credit for one full year of high school work be allowed for each of the two subjects. (b) Dressmaking. Only the very beginnings of a course in dressmaking can be given in junior high school. It would be taught under the name of sewing. No differen- tiation need be made in sewing as a branch of the general vocational course of home-making from sewing as part of a dressmaking course. (c) Agriculture. We have discussed the subject of elementary agriculture as a science. While it should be taught as a science, and should be adapted somewhat to a class of students who do not have farming in mind as an occupation, its chief raison d'etre in a public school curri- culum is laying the foundation for vocational agriculture in the senior high school- junior college. A valuable product of the course is the vocational guidance result. That is, the course may open to the boy such an enchanting vista in soil cultivation that he may be led to select agriculture as his life-occupation. Elementary agriculture should make use of. a laboratory and propagation house. The pupils must see plants germi- nate and grow. This objective teaching is especially desir- able with pupils of the intermediate school age. The prepa- ration of the soil, the propagation of plants, the cultivation, irrigation, and enrichment of the ground — these are elements of vocational training par excellence. Computation of the costs and profits of farming is also a valuable aid to occu- pational training as well as to vocational guidance. (d) Commercial vocations include a large number of occupations, only a few of which can be taught directly in the junior high school. The most successful beginnings can be made in preparation for the vocations of stenographer, COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) III typist, bookkeeper, clerk, and merchant. The best voca- tional results can be obtained where the pupil puts in part of the day in the practical application to business of the principles and facts learned in the school-room. But, the courses are usually planned with the idea of the work being continued by the student in the senior high school. In many cases, however, a finishing commercial course will have to be planned to fill the needs of young people who have to go to work at fifteen or sixteen years of age. In the regular curriculum provision may be made for the pupil's taking household accounts in the first year, elemen- tary bookkeeping in the second year, and business accounts in the third year, A more conventional course would give commercial arithmetic in the first year and bookkeeping in the second and third years. Of course the courses in com- mercial work would be elective. Typing is a very attractive subject to young people. It may be advisable for all the pupils to take lessons on the typewriter until they can all write with ease and rapidity. This sort of work can be done in odd hours and before and after school. But as a vocational course, it must be pursued by the pupil with greater avidity and with more serious pur- pose. Accuracy and speed must be attained; great skill in variety of work must be acquired ; and the mechanism of the machine must be thoroughly understood. These results can- not be secured in less than three semesters' work of at least sixty minutes per day. Ordinarily, the first three semesters of the junior high school course would be the time for typing. Shorthand appeals to the adolescent instinct for a secret code or language. There is great practical utility in the sub- ject. There is a possibility of doing all our writing with pencil in the shorthand code : it would save time and paper. 1 12 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL As a vocational subject it is of great importance. Commer- cial accuracy, speed, and readability cannot be acquired in less than three semesters of one hundred and twenty minutes per day. If the pupil is going to work at the end of his junior high school course, he should take his stenography during the last three semesters that he is in school. If the pupil is going to senior high school, his intensive study of shorthand had best be delayed until the last year of his school course. The principles of clerical work may be learned in connec- tion with bookkeeping, typing, and stenography ; pupils may get practice in clerical work through working in the prin- cipal's office, and in connection with student body finance and school records. Business principles and practice may be gotten in the same manner, and in the management of stu- dent affairs, especially of a co-operative book and supplies store, or of a cafeteria. Work in stores or in the management of a paper route gives some practice in business and clerical work, and is worthy of encouragement if it does not inter- fere with regular school work. (e) Artisan's trades may be begun in the junior high school in a small way, especially shoemaking, cobbling, plas- tering, paper-hanging, building, carpentry, cabinet-making, glove-making, corset-making, concrete-mixing, mat-weav- ing, basketry, pottery, book-binding, printing, tinning, ma- chine-repairing, blaiksmithy, plumbing, electric-wiring, sign-painting, upholstering, barbering, "practical-nursing, laundering, housekeeping, and manicuring. The beginnings of these vocational courses can be gotten in connection with the regular courses described in this and the preceding chap- ter. The whole physical, nervous, and mental being of the adolescent cries out for these things. Without them the boy or girl becomes stunted and unnatural; with them, COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) II3 growth is normal, school life becomes real life. These voca- tional activities are a tonic for a constitution fearfully shaken by the ferment of adolescence going" on within. (f) Practical arts. Finally, music, art, dramatics, pub- lic speaking, English composition — though taught as cul- ture subjects — become vocational subjects for those students who plan to become musicians, artists, actors, public speak- ers or writers. CHAPTER SEVEN PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 1. Manning the junior high school. One of the first problems confronting the superintendent who has secured his board's adoption of the six-three-four plan is that of providing a faculty and manager for his junior high school. If he plans to place at once the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth grades in the new school, he must secure men and women of unusual tact, interest, and ability. Unless he can use all his former high school faculty in his "senior high school-junior college," he may need to shift several high school teachers to the junior high schools. This may be difficult. Such teachers regard it as a demotion even if they had formerly taught only the lower classmen. How- ever, out of a high school faculty of fifty, there, will be a normal resignation of five or six per year. These vacancies may be left unfilled until the enrollment in the "senior high school- junior college" justifies an increase in its faculty up to fifty. The expense of carrying on a senior high school of two years with forty-five instructors, when the four year high school had only fifty will probably operate to convince the superintendent that it were better to reduce the number of years in the senior high school gradually. A plan similar to the following might be arranged : Grades Jr. H. S. T'ch'rs. Grades Sr. H. S. T'ch'rs. 1st Half Year of the 7th and 8th 20 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th 50 Experiment 2nd Half Year 7, 8, and B9 24 A9, 10, 11, 12 48 3rd Half Year 7, 8, 9 28 10, 11, 12 44 4th Half Year 7, 8, 9, BIO 32 A10, 11 12 42 5th Half Year 7, 8, 9, 10 or, better 35 still 11, 12 38 1st Half Year 7, 8 20 9, 10, 11, 12 50 2nd Half Year 7, 8, B9 24 A9, 10, 11, 12, B13 48 3rd Half Year 7, 8, 9 28 10, 11, 12, 13 46 4th Half Year 7, 8, 9, BIO 32 A10, 11, 12, 13. B14 44 5th Half Year 7, 8, 9, 10 114 35 11, 12, 13, 14 42: PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 115 In case, however, that grades 7, 8, 9, and 10 are com- pressed into a three-year course, the junior high schools will not need so many teachers. On the other hand, the greater number of pupils that will stay in school may require a still larger faculty. The senior high school being taken care of by the natural resignation of teachers, the increase in the faculty of the junior high school will be taken care of by adding new teachers drawn from the universities and teachers' colleges. The nucleus of this teaching force will be the grade teachers that are taken over when the seventh and eighth grades are transferred to the junior high schools. Experience has shown that these women develop into the very best type of junior high school teachers. With further college education secured in summer schools and with a greater breadth of view brought about by the spirit of the new institution, these teachers become the very models for the new additions to the faculties. 2. The principal. So much depends upon the principal of the junior high school — an institution so new that there are, no precedents by which to go — that a separate para- graph must be devoted to the subject. Unless an unusual woman can be found, the principal should be a man. On account of the war the faculty must for years to come be largely of women, and yet the boys of the adolescent age should come in personal, intimate touch with at least one man. ; Even the girls should feel the fatherly hand in the guidance of their young lives. The principal should be a man of maturity and of considerable teaching experience. There are two attitudes either of which the principal may assume toward his pupils — that of the firm but sympathetic father or that of the intimate but protecting elder brother. The one he chooses must depend upon his age, experience, Il6 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL and character. An unmarried principal; of thirty- three years or under would scarcely fail to make himself ludicrous in the role of father. The married man of over .thirty-three would scarcely make himself less ridiculous in the part of elder brother. But any other attitude must be cautiously avoided, especially that of boyishness, of the gallant, of the suspicious moral guide, of the indifferent employer, of the easy grandfather, or of the indulgent father or brother. An experienced man may mix among the boys, inspiring their respect for his vast accumulation of information, for his bravery and hardy manhood, much as the scoutmaster among the Boy Scouts. Valuable is the principal who can coach the boys in athletics taking active part and 'showing them how the thing is done. At the very least, he must have a real interest in boys' sports and must be active enough to get out with them to advise, encourage, discuss, and appreciate. The principal must be a good thinker and a good organ- izer. He must have ideas on education worked out with the aid of his reading and personal experiences. He must be- lieve in the plan he is called upon to put into practice. He must not regard his present position merely as a stepping stone to a high school principalship. He should be a leader in the perfecting of the junior high school as a functioning institution. He must inspire the confidence of his teachers and of the public. He is not merely an institution manager, a chief clerk, a detective, a police officer, an executioner, a maker of programs, an executive ; but he is the 'leader in school matters, the truest judge of adolescent nature, the one head through which all departments, all classes, all activities are correlated. He must have a vision or an ideal toward which his school is to be (led to tend ; he must be PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 1 17 tactful in his relations to the elementary schools and to the senior high school. He must be close in the confidence of the superintendent. 3. The teachers. What shall be said of the kind of teachers we want for our early adolescent children? For our boys, do we want all women ? For our girls, do we want all men? Can we get what we want or what the children ought to have ? There seems to be a feeling growing, to the effect that our schools are OYorfemininized, that we should have strong, manly men for our boys and even for our girls. "Leave it to a board of education composed of men," said a woman candidate for election as a board member, "and we shall soon have only women teachers. We want a few men teachers who will excite the right kind of admiration from both boys and girls." We seem to be getting just now a higher type of men in the profession of teaching. As teach- ers' salaries rise, the profession will attract more and more young men; as more and more men enter the profession, young men will come to regard it a man's job and will pre- pare for it. At present in high school the field seems to be divided by comjmon consent. Boys' physical culture, commercial branches, manual training, the sciences, seem to be men's subjects; English, domestic science and art, Latin, girls' physical culture, and art seem to be women's subjects; while history, mathematics, modern languages, and music seem to be neutral ground occupied jointly by both sexes. On the whole, however, even among the neutral subjects, civics, higher mathematics, Spanish, and band and orchestra music are in most cases taught by men, while European history, algebra, German, French, and vocal music seem to be in women's .province. If this seeming division is carried down into junior high school the proportion will be about three women to one man ; Il8 the: junior high school, if carried up into junior college, the proportion there will be the reverse. This would fulfill the desire and belief of those who believe that the educational system should start with all women and end with all men teachers. In kindergarten all women and no men ; in the elementary schools, . 90% women teachers, 10% men (manual, physical teachers, and principals) ; in the junior high , school, 70% women, 30% men; in the senior high school-junior college, 30% women, 70% men; in the universities, colleges, and normal schools, 10% women, 90% men; in the research foundations and experimental stations, practically no women, all men. Whether this is logical or not, it seems as if it might be a safe guide at least when the war is over. A question that the superintendent must consider is, shall I seek for junior high school, young or old teachers, fresh graduates or teachers ,of long experience? One superin- tendent has signified in an article contributed to a profes- sional magazine his attitude. He wants older and more ex- perienced teachers for the early adolescents than for senior high school. He believes that the first year of the secondary course is so important, such a delicate time for the pupil that it would be fatal to leave it to inexperienced teachers. Many will agree with this plan, and it will for the present easily be carried out by having all seventh year work taught by the grade teachers that are taken over from the elementary school. Such new teachers as are added to the corps might be assigned to eighth, ninth, and tenth grade classes. 4. College-trained versus normal- trained teachers. In nearly all states high school teachers are selected from among college and university graduates, grade teachers from normal school graduates. The result has been that normal schools have devoted their efforts to teaching elementary school methods, management, and problems. The depart- PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 119 ments of education in colleges and universities have con- centrated their attention on high school methods and prob- lems. The junior high school embraces two grades that were formerly in the jurisdiction of the normal school and one or two that were formerly in the province of university tutelage. Arguments are now offered pro and con as to which institution shall train the junior high school teachers. The university has assumed that it is its work because the junior high is a secondary school in which the high school branches are taught, and because it has ;the machinery for instructing ninth and tenth grade teachers which may now be extended to seventh and eighth grade teachers without additional effort or equipment, and because the teacher can secure in the university without changing schools all the advanced extensions of the cultural branches he will have to teach. It is argued that the normal schools have become purely professional institutions, and that a person planning to teach in junior high school would have to take his higher academic training in a college or university and then trans- fer to a normal school for his professional training. The normal schools, on the other hand, lay the emphasis on the kind of teacher to be produced. They say that the university training tends to make the teacher interested principally in the subject to be taught and not the child, while the normal school studies the child and concentrates upon teaching the child. They argue that they will not need to give anything but professional training, for the teacher- students will come to them with sufficient academic educa- tion secured in the junior colleges of the cities and large towns The normal school will then maintain a course for graduates of the twelfth grade who wish to teach in the elementary schools and a course for graduates of the four- teenth grade who wish to teach in junior high school. In 120 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL the latter courses the emphasis would be placed upon study of the adolescent child. The university asserts that the normal school has become an institution for women only and cites such cases as the San Francisco Normal School with only a dozen men in a school of a thousand women. Such a school could not hope to attract men in adequate numbers for the needs of the miany junior high schools. The university is already pre- dominantly a men's school and the proportion of men over women is increasing. ;A man wanting to become a teacher would be proud to attend university, glad to have the chance to mingle with other men preparing for other professions. The normal, school replies that the pendulum is beginning to swing back, that a reaction has already set in. Once the normal schools had a goodly number of men students, lost them through the university's assumption of the training of high school teachers, and is now beginning to get them back by establishing classes and equipment for the training of teachers of so-called special subjects — manual training, printing, business and clerical work, vocational courses lead- ing to the trades. The training of junior high school teach- ers will fall in line with this movement. The question has not been settled. Its solution will large- ly lie with the superintendents of our cities and towns and will depend upon the kind of teachers they want for their junior high schools. 5. A teachers' college for junior high school teachers. Another attempt to solve the problem presented in section 4, is the establishment of a college designed especially for the training of teachers of both elementary and high schools. Such an institution is Colorado Teachers College at Greeley, which prepares its graduates to teach in both classes of schools. It is a professional school — a normal school, in PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 121 fact — but maintains two distinct courses, one for the elemen- tary school teacher, the other for the high school teacher. Its success has been tremendous. Peabody College for Teachers is another such institution. In a state that already maintains several normal schools, one could be singled out to become a college for junior high school teachers. Or, the agricultural college could add the new courses 'necessary for training teachers, this especially in a state whose single large industry is farming. There seem to be two distinct movements connected with the university development — one toward centralizing all state-supported professional schools in !one university, the other toward grouping the schools in two or three centers. In a small compactly settled state, the former tendency seems to be the stronger ; but, in the larger states where there are two or three quite distinct centers of population, the latter tendency seems to prevail. Massachusetts would be an example of the first, where the tendency is to group the pro- fessional schools about Harvard ; Washington is an example of the latter where the two centers of population, Seattle and Spokane, separated by a high range of mountains and by many miles of space, tend to create two professional school centers. Seattle is the seat of the university, where most of the professional schools are located and where a school of forestry and a school for high school teachers are sure to become powerful. Spokane, on the other hand, has a right to be the center for agricultural education, for the training of elementary teachers, t and should expect to be- come the seat of an institution for training junior high school teachers. California and Texas are states that may be expected to exhibit the two-centers idea. In California San Francisco Bay is the seat of the powerful university and of two large normal schools. Los Angeles, with its million 122 . THE) JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL people, can expect to group about its normal school other state colleges. Here should be located its teachers' college to supply the needs of the junior high schools of the state. Such a state teachers' college might offer courses that would be extensions of the courses offered in junior high school. In all probability, however, the local junior colleges will be ample to provide sufficient instruction along this line. A teacher who has four years of academic work beyond what he is to teach will have sufficient subject-matter knowledge. What he will then need is a wide knowledge of methods of teaching those subjects, a large professional interest, and practice in teaching under the careful advice and suggestion of a master teacher. The; college instructors should be men and women with wide experience in teaching and unusually versatile. They should be capable of meeting any emer- gency that might arise in an ordinary class-room ; they should inspire their pupil-teachers with the greatest desire to teach; they should put their students into possession of numberless plans and ideas connected with the teaching of the subjects to be taught; but above all they should lead those student-teachers to understand adolescent boys and girls, and how to treat the various problems likely to arise. The physiology and psychology of the adolescent should be thoroughly understood by teachers graduating from such an institution. Such a teachers' college should be so located that a study of boys and girls, practice teaching in junior high schools, and an intimate acquaintance with the chief vocations of the state may be possible to the student-teachers. A large city surrounded by farm lands would ,be ideal in a state like Iowa. A large city accessible to mines and factories would be ideal for Pennsylvania. It is deplorable that so many state schools have been distributed as political sop to PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 1 23 keep alive communities that would otherwise languish and die. Such a location is decidedly bad for a normal school. We want for our children teachers who are alive and progressive, teachers who have seen the busy world, teach- ers who are urbane not rustic, teachers who know more than our children and who live in the twentieth century. For our own rural and village schools we want teachers who know farm activities ; for manufacturing cities we want teachers who can explain things to the children in the terms used in the industries ; for mining camp towns we want teachers who understand the hearts that beat under the rough exterior of miners. Finally, the vocational life of a community re-acts upon the schools, especially its secondary schools, and vocational or pre-vocational courses must book large in determining the tone of the junior high school. 6. An organization of jianior high school teachers. Nothing w^ill contribute so much to the high character of the junior high school teaching body as an institute devoted to their interests. A convention of all such teachers within a large city or within a county embracing several communi- ties should be held three or four times a year, perhaps every month. At this institute well prepared programs should be provided in which wide discussion may be given to their problems. There are so many questions unsettled as yet that such a convention could scarcely fail to find a plethora of interesting and valuable subjects. Organization, purpose, courses of study, methods of, teaching, grades and promo- tion, textbooks, relationship to the lower and higher schools, student-government, student activities, records and files, finance, part-time pupils, supervised study, length of periods, length of school year, frequency of promotion, making the transition from the grades easy and pleasant — these and a 124 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL hundred other subjects might well be discussed to the great profit of all teachers concerned. During the year and as often as possible, conferences should be held among the principals , of junior high schools, or among the teachers of a certain subject, or among teach- ers of the new pupils, or among teachers of special pupils. These smaller committees concentrating upon limited sub- jects of interest will be able to work out very idefinite plans. A committee of five or ten members, each member represent- ing a distinct community or section or school, will find itself suited to doing definite things, settling definite questions. In this way there will come to be a standard tending to uniform- ity among the schools. The distinct problems of each school may be relied upon to offer opportunity for sufficient originality and initiative. Teachers' organizations are subject to some dangers, temptations that, if yielded to, may discredit them before the world. One of these temptations is to use their strength for selfish purposes. It may be to raise salaries, secure shorter hours of work, exclude outsiders fromi positions, restrict a line of work to one sex, to unmarried persons, or to graduates of some one institution. Nothing injures the profession more than selfish aims of teachers' clubs. Some- times these clubs are secret in their meetings and in their operations. A suspected organization of graduates of a certain state university to secure all the best positions in the Philippine service resulted in a deterioration of the esprit de corps of the excellent body of Americans teaching in the Islands. Nothing so discourages a worker as the feeling that promotion will be determined not by merit but by mem- bership in some organization organized to promote the selfish interests of its members. PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 125 Junior high school teachers should be represented in state and national educational associations ; and a promiment place in the programs of the annual meetings should be secured. This new institution must become national; it meets a uni- versal need, but cannot render its best service unless the widely scattered schools come together in a single purpose. 7. Literature on the junior high school. The output of literature on the six-six plan is already considerable, but chiefly in the form of contributions to educational maga- zines. One has to subscribe ifor a large number of such publications in order to get such information as has been published. Some school book publishing house would do great service to the profession if all these articles could be collected and printed in book form, filling probably two or three volumes. Permission to reprint this material could, very likely, be easily obtained from the authors and pub- lishers. In this way every school could possess a source book on the junior high school idea and plan that would be of great value to teachers. But there is need for much more material on the subject. There is need for concise descriptions of the actual exper- iences of school superintendents in getting the plan adopted by the board and approved by the people. Such a mono- graph as Superintendent Bunker's Reorganization of Sec- ondary Education is of the very greatest value, and espe- cially the chapters that tell of his actual experiences in Berkeley in working out his curricula and in (making a go of the plan. A volume devoted to Superintendent Francis' experiences in Los Angeles, another to Superintendent Chadsey's experience in Detroit, and still another to Super- intendent Horn's work in Houston would prove of large value. Such an enterprise would be welcomed by thousands of teachers, and school administrators. Books of this' kind 126 the: junior high school, should be minute and personal, describing actual conditions that prevailed, and giving the success and difficulties in the inauguration of the scheme step by step. Then we need books or exhaustive articles written by principals of junior high schools the country over on the detailed work of their offices, of the establishment and build- ing up of their .schools, of the kind of teachers they find best suited to the teaching of adolescents, of the attitude of the pupils themselves toward the school and toward the new plan, of the reaction on the community. We need pages and pages of statistics that are unflinchingly accurate and that really tell us something about the number of young people saved to the higher schools, the reduction of retardation, the raising or lowering of grades, the effect of the various new studies upon the pupils, the logical place of certain studies in the curricula, the length of the school day, the success of supervised study, the hundred other questions that are upper- most in our minds. We want these statistics in detail first; then we want the superintendent and principals to draw in- ferences from those statistics. We want to know their inter- pretation of why the figures are so and so. We want the local coloring, even the personal equation which is always present in every group of statistics, and is of immeasurable value. We are not so much interested in proving our point in all this, as in ascertaining the truth. Lincoln's attitude should be ours. We are not concerned so much as to whether God is on our side as we are to know whether in this matter we are on God's side. Finally, we want to hear from the teachers on the many questions that they alone can answer. What do they think about the textbooks ? What are their experiences in adapt- ing the high school subjects to early adolescents? What is the re-action upon them of the longer school day, of the PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS \2J all-year school term? What difficulties do they encounter in getting at various pupils? With what classes do they like best to work? In their actual experiences do they find some children "born short?" What methods and plans do they use in teaching this subject or that? — in teaching chil- dren how to study? — in directing religious education? — in helping adolescents to acquire proper moral standards? What is the effect of teaching in junior high school upon men and women? Does it keep them sweet and human or tend to make them other-worldly? What is its effect upon the marriageability of women ?— men ? Is this last question of any value to the race ? — to society ? — to the success of the junior high school plan? — to the pupils that come under the influence of such teachers? It may be seen that we are only at the beginning of a period of flood — a deluge of books, pamphlets and maga- zine articles dealing with the problems of the junior high school. It will be well for the cause if the writers of these publications have originality and some literary ability. It is so much easier to get a pamphlet read if it be made easy reading. Nevertheless, a lack of literary grace should not deter any teacher from setting her experiences and best thoughts down in writing. Not all of the half-million teach- ers in America will read these writings. No one has time to read all the educational publications. Nevertheless there is a growing tendency for teachers to read professional books and magazines more widely. Some school superin- tendents require a certain amount of educational reading each year, say one book on general professional subjects, one book on the special field in which the teacher is working, and twenty-five magazine articles or pamphlets dealing with child-study or methods of teaching. Such a requirement is 128 the: junior high school not burdensome, and in many cases is far below what the teacher voluntarily does. Just one more word along this line — that may be relevant or irrelevant. Public school administrators — the men that are actually doing things — are letting college professors get ahead of them in the matter of writing books. It is high time we were hearing from the men and women in the field! Of course we are grateful to the college professors for publishing their theories and their investigations. We would not have them stop. They should even do more pub- lishing. But so also should superintendents, principals and teachers. What a travesty on life to find in Who's Who the name of a mediocre professor in a small western university, and not the mention of the name of a certain school superin- tendent of a city of half a million people — a man who has effected a revolution in education ! Again, casually looking over a list of the hundred contributors to a certain one of the five volumes of the best encyclopedia of education printed in America, we find not a single public school super- intendent or principal! Imagine an encyclopedia of medi- cine written by a hundred men with not one of them a practising physician or surgeon ! 8. Heads; of departments. The matter of creating heads of departments in high schools has not met with uni- versal approval. In large schools where a department might have eight or ten teachers, the advantages of having a head teacher are obvious. There are also some arguments against the plan — it removes the principal too far from the teacher ; it converts the principal into a mere business manager; it departmentalizes rather than humanizes the teaching; it robs the teacher of his individual responsibility in matters of selecting textbooks and planning his work. In high schools with fewer than thirty teachers in all, the plan has even less PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS I29 to commend it. If a head has only one or two assistants, there is little excuse for his existence. In such a school the principal may well attend to the actual supervising of teach- ing. A moderate-salaried clerk will relieve him of the cleri- cal work of his office. In some high schools of fewer than thirty teachers, there are often heads of departments with no assistant teachers. In these smaller schools the practice of having heads often becomes a mere excuse for paying one teacher more than another, or of rewarding a merito- rious teacher by giving him a high-sounding title. If this is all there is to it, the end may be accomplished in a more creditable way. Shall there, then, be heads of departments in the junior high school? If such a school had two thousand pupils and a hundred teachers, there might be some reason for it. But even then the danger of making the instructors teachers of subjects rather than of children would be a strong argument against it. As we are committed to the advocacy of the small junior high school with a faculty not to exceed thirty or forty teachers, we cannot regard the practice of creating head teachers in such schools as anything but pernicious, with no good effects and many bad ones. It has been suggested by an able thinker and a capable administrator that the head of a department in the senior high school extend his authority over the teachers of those subjects in the junior school. With great deference to the opinions of this administrator, we cannot concur in this advice. The junior high school must be independent, not dominated by the school above it. Moreover the tend- ency in the senior high school is toward strict depart- mentalization, toward making the subject-matter the im- portant thing. Any policy that would tend to give the lower school such a tendency would be harmful. Finally, the 130 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL teacher in (the lower school will teach in two or more fields. A teacher would probably teach several classes of English and several of history. If subject to a head in the higher school, he would have a divided allegiance that would not be for the happiest results. Such a plan would defeat the policy of closely correlating the subjects in the junior high school. CHAPTER EIGHT TEACHING IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 1 . Aims and purposes. In a most instructive book on methods of teaching in high school, Professor Parker, of The University of Chicago, gives as the ultimate aims of teaching in secondary schools the endowing of students with social efficiency, good will, and capacity for innocent enjoy- ment. Social efficiency embraces economic, domestic, and civic efficiency. Putting it in another way, the aims of sec- ondary education are efficiency, morality, and culture. As the proximate or immediate aims of teaching in the junior high school, we shall give the following: (a) The acquiskion of habits of industry; (b) the development of sense perception; (c) acquisition of motor skill; (d) health and physical development; (e) acquisition of valuable in- formation; (f) development of the faculties of reasoning, retentiveness, alertness, and quickness; (g) acquisition of skill in expression; (h) the development of a liking for clean, wholesome pleasures; (i) and the endowment of boys and girls with a deep sense of the purposefulness of itheir lives. Some of these purposes of educating the young are best taught through certain subjects; others, through other subjects. Each teacher will ponder over this matter thor- oughly. If he finds ithat the subject which he is assigned to teach lacks in the qualities to accomplish the desired aims, or if he finds that his subject is anti-educational in its influence upon pupils, he should in all conscience refuse to teach it. Surely no superintendent would compel a teacher to teach a subjeot contrary to the conscience of the teacher. Before proceeding to a further discussion of methods of teaching the various subjects so as to accomplish the results I3i 132 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL given above, some attention must be given to the mechanics of teaching, which will be treated under the headings of the Teacher, the Class-room, Textbooks, Libraries and Labora- tories. 2. The teacher. The teacher must be introspective. Before beginning to teach he should get acquainted with himself, make an inventory of himself. He might address a questionnaire to himself, the questions running somewhat as follows: Am I going to teach for the money there is in it? Do I like adolescent boys and girls? Do I understand adolescents? (If so, make a brief in- ventory of the principal physical and mental characteristics of (a) the adolescent boy, (b) the adolescent girl.) Do I really love to teach children? — or is it the subject, thajt I love to teach? Do I simply know the subject-matter of the subject? — or •do I appreciate the large, vital purpose of that subject? Have I thought out what things touching the subject should be taught, and what omitted? \What should be the effect of my teaching of this subject