The administration of secondary-school units

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SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATIONAL MONOGRAPHS

Published in conjunction with

THE SCHOOL REVIEW and THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL

Table Of Contents

CHAPTEa PAGE

I. Introductory: Purpose and Method i

History of the Committee of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools on the Reorganization of the

Chapter I Introductory: Purpose And Method

The following chapters present, largely from the point of view of the educational administrator, the results of an investigation into the status of the teaching of almost all subjects appearing in the secondary-school programs of study. It constitutes a digest and interpretation of facts gathered for the use of the Committee on Reorganization of the Secondary School and the Definition of the Unit of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools.

To make the significance of the facts and their interpretation more apparent than might otherwise be the case, it is advisable to rehearse here very briefly the history of this committee and to state the relation of its modus operandi, about to be described, to that of bodies and agencies that have previously had to do with the definition of units.

On motion of the North Central Association at its meeting in March, 19 13, the president appointed a Committee on the Revision of the Definition of the Unit and to Investigate ^he Practice of Colleges in the Admittance of Students with Conditions. This committee presented at the next annual meeting of the Association, in March, 19 14, an extended report^ in two parts, that part dealing with definitions of the unit suggesting, among other things, the desirabihty of providing in such definitions distinctions between elementary, intermediate, and advanced work. At the conclusion of the report the chairman presented for the committee a set of resolutions,^ from which the following excerpts are made:

^ Resolved, That it is the sense of this body that a revision is desirable of the

unit definition of secondary subjects now in use

That the unit definition should discriminate between elementary and advanced units, the former term to apply to the work of the first two years

' Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, 1914, pp. 101-17. 'Ibid., pp. 1 1 7-18.

and the latter to that of the last two years of the present usual four years' secondary-school course

Resolved, That a committee of at least seven members be appointed by the President of the Association .... to provide for the general revision of unit definition for secondary-school work.

That this committee shall be authorized to co-operate with the general committee in the preparation of imit definitions

The resolutions were adopted and a Committee on the Revision of the Definition of the Unit, composed of eight members, was appointed. This committee, at the meeting of the Association in March, 1915, presented a report^ which was, however, not in the nature of a revision of definitions, but a statement of the recognition of the relations of definition-making to the reorganization of elementary and secondary education. Upon this problem of reorganization another committee of the Association — namely, the Committee on the Reorganization of the American High School — presented a report at the same meeting. In consequence of the intimate relations of these two problems the two committees were constituted a single Committee on the Reorganization of the Secondary School and the Definition of the Unit and were instructed to make, before the next annual meeting, a report in print to the members of the Association. The method pursued in the preparation of this report will be described after there has been set down at this point a characterization of the method of definition-making heretofore used by standardizing bodies and agencies. Those standardizing bodies and agencies from whose activities illustrations of the method used will be drawn are the Committee of Ten of the National Education Association, which was the first body to attempt standardization on a very large scale, the College Entrance Examination Board, the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, the Commission of the National Education Association on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, and a few institutions of higher learning. The institutions of higher learning that have been selected to represent the sort of definition-making attempted by these institutions as a whole are Harvard

^ Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, 1915, pp. 27-30.

University, Yale University, and the University of Illinois. As the New England College Entrance Certificate Board uses the definitions framed by the College Entrance Examination Board, and as the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States uses for the most part those of the North Central Association, there will be no need of making further reference to them. The Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Maryland has not undertaken the task of definition-making and will therefore be omitted in subsequent discussion. At a later point in this chapter brief reference will be made to the activities in this line of state authorities, such as the Regents of the State of New York and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

The essential features of the method of definition-making as usually employed may be said to be, on the positive side, (i) the delegation of the task of framing definitions in particular subjects to committees of specialists in those subjects, and (2) dependence, sometimes almost exclusively, upon syllabi of content to be covered in the courses. On the negative side this method is characterized by (3) too Httle regard for the facts of practice in the schools, and (4) neglect of administrative considerations vital to the definition of the unit. As will be seen, it is not assumed that all these characteristics apply in all efforts at definition-making heretofore made; the writer contends merely that they are essentially true of each effort or that most of them apply to any one instance of definition-making.

METHODS OP DEriNITION-MAKING

I. Definition-making by specialists. ^To show that the first feature just named is characteristic, it will, for the most part, be necessary only to refer the reader to, or make brief quotations from, publications of the bodies and agencies we have named. The original conference that resulted in the provision for, and the appointment of, the Committee of Ten presented as the first of three resolutions the following: ''That it is expedient to hold a conference of school and college teachers of each principal subject which enters into the programmes of secondary schools in the

United States "^ Nine "conferences," or subcommittees,

of ten members each were finally appointed to deal with the following subjects or groups of subjects :^ (i) Latin, (2) Greek, (3) English, (4) other modern languages, (5) mathematics, (6) physics, astronomy, and chemistry, (7) natural history (biology, including botany, zoology, and physiology), (8) history, civil government, and political economy, and (9) geography (physical geography, geology, and meteorology). A glance through the lists of names in these various conferences will leave no doubt as to their being constituted of specialists in the respective fields.

The College Entrance Examination Board also has followed this practice. Under the head of history in its manual, Document No. 68, 1914, we find this note: "The requirements in history are based on the recommendations of the Committee of Seven of the American Historical Association ";3 under Latin: "The following requirements in Latin are in accordance with the recommendations made to the American Philological Association by the Commission on College Entrance Requirements in Latin, October, i909";4 under French: "The requirements in French follow the recommendations of the Committee of Twelve of the Modern Language Association of America ";s under mathematics: "The present definition of the requirements in mathematics is in accordance with the recommendations made in September, 1903, by a committee of the American Mathematical Association,"^ etc. The statements made in connection with all the subjects listed in this document are similar to those quoted.

That essentially the same practice of delegating the task of definition-making to bodies of speciaUsts obtained in the North Central Association may be seen in the definitions published in its Proceedings^ in 1910. On page 77 will be found the personnel

' Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary-School Studies (American Book Co., 1894), p. 3.

3 College Entrance Examination Board, Document No. 68, 1914, p. 20.

1 Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, 1910.

of the Committee on English, constituted of eighteen members, thirteen of whom are speciaHsts in this field, and five, administrators; on page 83 is listed the Committee on Mathematics, proportionately similarly constituted; and so on through the committees for the remaining subjects.

The Commission of the National Education Association on the Reorganization of Secondary Education is constituted of fourteen committees, twelve of which have to do with various high-school subjects/ Ten of these committees were organized by 19 13 as follows: those dealing with English, social studies, natural sciences, ancient languages, modern languages, household arts, manual arts, music, business, and agriculture. These are made up wholly of specialists.^

There is little direct evidence that specialists have had to do with the framing of definitions appearing in university catalogues; that is to say, we find practically no references to committees or individuals who have prepared the statements for these catalogues. Nevertheless, we are probably justified in assuming that these statements concerning subjects for admission have in most instances been prepared by members of the faculty in whose provinces the subjects with which they deal would seem appropriately to Ue, that is, the statement concerning admission requirements in Latin would be made by the department of Latin, that in mathematics by the department of mathematics, etc. The "High-School Manual "3 issued by the University of Illinois gives evidence of a practice somewhat at variance with this, although still resorting largely to the action of committees of specialists. For instance, the description of the work in agriculture'* begins with a very brief characterization of the course which conforms to that appearing in the catalogue of the university ,s but contains in addition an extended "outline of the work" prepared by the Agricultural Section

3 " High-School Manual, Standards and General Recommendations for Accrediting of High Schools," University of Illinois Bulletin, Vol. XII, No. 43 (June 28, 1915). ■

^Ibid.,pp. is-17.

5 University of Illinois, Annual Register, 1914-15, p. 85, of the High-School Conference held at the University of Illinois, November 28, 1908. Such outlines or syllabi authorized in a similar manner are given in this manual for almost all the courses listed in it,

2. Definition by syllabus, — ^An examination of the statements concerning subjects prepared by the standardizing bodies and agencies to which reference has been made will convince the reader that those who have had to do with definition-making have frequently been content with the mere framing of syllabi. It is not to be denied, however, that there are exceptions. The main contention here is that the framers have too frequently seemed to be concerned with little else.

The Committee of Ten specifically directed^ the conferences to make a report on the topics or parts of the subject that might reasonably be covered during the "whole course" or during the last four of the eighteen years of the elementary- and secondary-school period, but it requested, in addition, statements concerning places of appearance, time to be devoted to the work, relation of the work to the question of college entrance, methods of teaching, and the "best modes of testing attainments." The reports and recommendations of the conferences have usually given some attention to all the matters in this list, but an examination of the reports as a whole indicates that the problems of content and details of method in dealing with the content, especially the former, have, in general, been given most attention. For instance, 10 of the 16 pages of the report of the conference in Latin^ are devoted to content and method; a still larger proportion of the report of the conference in Greek^ is devoted to these topics; the reports in physics and chemistry are accompanied by extended lists of experiments to be performed ;"* courses in natural history are carefully outlined,^ etc. Some of the reports are not so readily analyzable into extent of answer to the several queries put by the committee, but examination of them will show how prominent the questions

* Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary-School Studies (American Book Co., 1894), p. 6.

of content and details of method were in the minds of the members of the conferences.

The College Entrance Examination Board has made almost exclusive use of the syllabus method, which Usts the content and sometimes makes reference to some aspects of method. The definition in English,* which follows the recommendations of the National Conference on Uniform Entrance Requirements in English, besides briefly stating the aims of the work, outlines both the work to be covered in composition and the literary selections to be read and studied. The definitions in history^ consist merely in the divisions of the field to be covered as suggested by the names of the courses Usted. The definitions in French^ and German'' include, besides the statement of "work to be done," a statement of aim. The definitions in mathematics' are mere syllabi. The definition in physics^ offers a preliminary statement as to the mode of class instruction and is then given over to lists of topics and experiments extending through six pages. Other definitions of the College Entrance Examination Board conform in organization to those here referred to.

The North Central Association, although following the syllabus method of definition, has not done so as closely as has the College Entrance Examination Board. The definitions in English,' as in the case of the latter institution, are those of the National Conference on Uniform Entrance Requirements in English. The definitions in mathematics® include, besides description of content, a statement of aims and some reference to method. The definitions in history' contain, in addition to the statement as to content, some reference to method, preparation of the teacher, collateral reading, and classroom equipment. The definitions of Latin*** and Greek" bear exclusively on content. The definition in zoology" outlines the

3 Ibid., pp. 25-28. 6 Ibid., pp. 35-43. 7 Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, 1910, pp. 78-82. ^ Ibid., pp. 84-87.

content of the course, gives its aims, and deals somewhat with method and equipment. The definitions here referred to typify those in other subjects and will be seen to have as their one constant constituent a statement of content.

The final results of the work of the Commission of the National Education Association on the Reorganization of Secondary Education have not yet been published, but this commission entertained the hope that the subcommittees would "formulate statements of the valid aims, efficient methods, and kinds of material whereby each subject may best serve the needs of high-school pupils."^ If this hope is being realized, the descriptions of courses will not be limited to mere lists of topics to be covered in given courses.

The universities in general have followed the syllabus method in their descriptions of subjects of study required for admission. These have been and still are in many university catalogues very brief, but their brevity does not prevent the statement of the content of the courses, although it does seem to forbid the inclusion of other aspects of course description. This is probably due to the fact that originally the universal mode of admission was via the entrance examination and that a definite statement of content would be the best sort of clue to the line of preparation for the examination to be followed by the student. The Harvard University Catalogue for 1881-82 contains the following statement as to what should be included in the student's preparation in Latin, a statement essentially typical for the other prescribed subjects listed, viz., Greek, ancient history, mathematics, physics, Eftglish composition, and French or German:

I, 2. Latin, (i) Caesar, Gallic War, Books I-IV (or Books I-III and Sallust's Catiline), with questions on the subject-matter and on construction and grammatical forms. Virgil, Aeneid I-IV (or Eclogues, and Aeneid I-V), with questions on the subject-matter and on prosody; (2) the translation at sight of average passages of Caesar, with general questions on grammar, history, and antiquities suggested by the passages set. Translation into Latin of simple English sentences, to test the candidate's practical knowledge of grammar.*

^ U.S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1913, No. 41, p. 8. 'Harvard University Catalogue, 1881-82, p. 64.

Examination of the statements contained in a recent Harvard catalogue concerning subjects in which examinations are held discovers that for EngUsh^ they are identical with those already reported above as used by the College Entrance Examination Board and the North Central Association and as recommended by the National Conference on Uniform Entrance Requirements in English. This is accompanied by a statement of the nature of the entrance examination given in English. Almost all other statements* concerning subjects describe the nature of the examination to be given in them, thus expressing definitely or implying in at least a rough way what the content of the courses preparing for the examinations should be. For example, the examination in advanced Greek is reported to consist of "(a) The translation at sight of Homer, with questions designed to test the candidate's understanding of the passages set, and questions on ordinary forms, constructions, and idioms, and on prosody. There will also

be questions oh Homeric poems and Homeric life (To) The

translation into Attic prose of a short passage of connected English

narrative "^ Then follows a statement of the amount of

class and reading work the examination presupposes, as well as a brief description of the methods of teaching recommended. In the statements as to some of the subjects, viz., geography, botany, zoology, drawing, and shopwork, reference is made to "Outhnes of Requirements" published by the imiversity, to which courses in secondary schools preparing students for entrance should be equivalent.4

The same method of describing content is also generally characteristic in catalogues of Yale University, as may be seen by an examination of the "Detailed Statement of Subjects" in a recent issue.5 It was true also when the only subjects listed were Latin, Greek, mathematics, and French or German,*^ and when the

' Harvard University Catalogue, 1914-15, pp. 480-83.

^Bulletin of Yale University, General Catalogue, 1914-15, Eleventh Series, No. 5 (February, 1915), pp. 81-96.

* Catalogue of Yale University, 1886-87, P- 27.

lo ADMINISTRATION OF SECONDARY -SCHOOL UNITS

description of that of which the examination in Latin would consist was as follows:

1. Latin Grammar.

2. Caesar — Gallic War, books i-iii.

3. Cicero — Orations, against Catiline and for Archias.

4. Vergil — Bucolics, and first six books of the Aeneid, including Prosody.

5. Ovid — Metamorphoses, translation at sight.

6. The translation, at sight, of passages from prose Latin.

7. The translation into Latin of connected passages of English prose

8. Roman History: Cteighton's Primer of Roman History is suggested as a, basis for instruction.

The "Description of Subjects Accepted for Admission" by the University of Illinois^ is for the most part very brief for each of the subjects, and frequently, as in the case of algebra,'' is a list of main topics, although in some instances this method has not been used. Nevertheless, when these descriptions are reproduced in the university's "High-School Manual,"^ they are accompanied, as has already been pointed out, by extended syllabi. An older catalogue'' of this institution made use of a very brief variation of the syllabus method of description; it merely made reference to what was considered a standard text in a subject, as, e.g., "Physics. — The elements of physics as given in Gage's Introduction to Physical Science, taught with the use of apparatus for illustration and experiment, "s

3. Definition-making without adequate regard for the facts of practice. — The definition-making has heretofore had too little regard for the facts of practice; that is to say, relatively few extended investigations into contemporaneous practice have been used as bases of the definitions. Of course it is not to be denied that bodies of speciaUsts drawn from wide areas would be acquainted to a considerable extent with the facts; it is merely contended that a thoroughgoing investigation would throw more light on the status of the teaching of any given subject than would the informa-

' Catalogue of the University of Illinois, 1892-93, pp. 85-91. ' Ibid., p, 85.

3 University of Illinois Bulletin, Vol. XII, No. 43 (June 28, 1915). * Catalogue of the University of Illinois, 1892-93, pp. 150-52. sibid., p. 152.

INTRODUCTORY: PURPOSE AND METHOD ii

tion possessed by the usual body of specialists in that subject. Moreover, the facts in the possession of these specialists as a result of their experience are not always of a sort available for use in definition-making, especially when this is of the administrative sort.

The report of the Committee of Ten does not indicate that the conferences acting as subcommittees on the various subjects and subject-groups, with the exception of that dealing with history, civil government, and political economy, made investigations into the teaching of the work in their respective fields. It is probable that some such investigations were made. It is apparent from the report of this conference' that it had carried on, before making the report, a rather far-reaching investigation. We know from the various references in parts of its report^* that the Committee of Seven of the American Historical Association had made extended inquiry into the practices of the teaching of history. The Committee of Twelve of the American Philological Association^ had before it in framing definitions now no longer in use the facts of practice as to the teaching of Latin and Greek in the secondary schools of the United States. These are the only two committees which have had to do with efforts at definition-making for the College Entrance Examination Board concerning which we have direct evidence of the making of investigations. This, however, is not to deny that such investigations have been made by more committees than we have here indicated. We only point out that it was not the usual practice. There is no evidence that the committees framing the definitions for the North Central Association have had access to facts of practice brought out as a result of investigations. One of the recommendations made by the Committee on the Articulation of the High School and College (the predecessor of the Commission of the National Education Association on the Reorganization of Secondary Education), after first recommending the appointment of subcommittees of specialists,

' Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary-School Studies, 1894, pp. 162-203. » Report of the Committee of Seven of the American Historical Association, 1899. ^Proceedings of the Thirty-first Annual Session of the American Philological Association, 1899, Appendix, pp. xcvii ff.

was to the effect "that each committee collect from a limited number of well-organized, large, and small high schools in various parts of the United States material on its own subjects under the general headings: Survey of work now conducted, Recommendations for modification, Suggestions for experiments.""^ The preliminary statement of the subcommittees,^ with the exception of the Committee on English, do not indicate that they were planning to carry on investigations into the status of the teaching of the subjects delegated to them. The Committee on English proposed ' " to make a fresh study of English in secondary schools "^ and did so."* It goes without saying that the definitions appearing in university catalogues have not been made after investigations into the facts of practice.

Of course, as has already been said, one would not be warranted in coming to the sweeping conclusion that, because one finds no direct or indirect evidence that such investigations as we have in mind here have been carried on, they were, therefore, always absent. Definitions do not customarily make reference to such investigations, even when they have been undertaken and their results utilized. But, certainly, reports of committees would make reference to them, and the almost total absence of such references in the reading that the preparation for this study has necessitated warrants the conclusion that such preliminary investigations have been relatively infrequent.

4. Definition-making that neglects administrative aspects. — ^It would be but natural that definitions framed by specialists in the subjects defined and that conform in most cases to the syllabus t5rpe would neglect certain vital administrative aspects.

It was shown under 2, above, that the conferences co-operating with the Committee of Ten were asked to include in their reports, in addition to recommendations as to topics or subjects, recommendations as to places of appearance, time to be devoted to the

' Proceedings of the National Education Association, 191 2 , p. 668. " U.S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1913, No. 41.

4 "Types of Organization of High-School English," English Journal, II (1913), 575-96.

work, relation of the work to college entrance, methods of teaching, and the "best modes of testing attainments." Some of these are seen to be in whole or in part administrative in character, and, in so far as they are, to free these conferences of the charge of having totally neglected administrative considerations.

We also saw that the syllabus method is so extensively used in the definitions of the College Entrance Examination Board that attention is given to little else: the definition in EngHsh contains only, besides the discussion of content, a brief statement of aims; the definitions in history list merely the fields to be covered; those in French and German add to the ''work to be done" a statement of aims; the definitions in mathematics contain nothing in addition to syllabi; the definition in physics contains, in addition to the syllabus, a statement of the mode of class instruction. As these definitions were selected as being fairly representative, obviously we may conclude that they have had small regard for vital administrative considerations.

North Central definitions have had more regard for such considerations, but attention to them has been inconstant and scattering. The definition in English is identical with that used by the College Entrance Examination Board, as has already been said; the definitions in mathematics have been seen to include reference to aims and method, both of some administrative significance; likewise the definitions in history have been seen to give some attention to the questions of method, preparation of the teacher, collateral reading, and classroom equipment, most of these aspects being clearly of an administrative nature; definitions in Latin and Greek omit all reference to anything but content. The definition in zoology, although given over largely to the problem of content, does touch upon aims, method, and equipment; and so on with other definitions, which those referred to may be understood to typify.

To what aspects of definitions the subcommittees of the Commission of the National Education Association on the Reorganization of Secondary Education have turned their attention may be inferred from what has been said of the hope it entertains that these subcommittees would "formulate statements of valid aims, efficient methods, and kinds of material whereby each subject may best serve the needs of high-school pupils." These subcommittees have thus had pointed out to them the desirability of including statements concerning at least two matters of administrative importance, but the writer cannot concede that these are adequate for purposes of definition.

Descriptions of courses to be accepted for admission credit, as these descriptions appear in university catalogues, also have been neglectful of administrative characteristics. The Harvard statement concerning English has been seen to coincide with that recommended by the National Conference on Uniform Entrance Requirements in English, and thus contains, in addition to the discussion of content, a very brief statement of aims. The statement concerning the nature of the entrance examination in Greek is followed, as has already been pointed out, by an additional statement as to the amount of class and reading work that is presupposed by the examination, as well as a brief description of the methods of teaching recommended. Both of these additional aspects may be seen to have administrative significance. The statements as to other subjects in the Harvard catalogue contain nothing of greater administrative importance than these and more commonly do not contain as much. As the descriptions of units of other universities have been found to vary in no great extent from the simple statement of content, it will not be necessary here to illustrate them to prove that they have given scant attention to administrative characteristics of the subjects.

STATE STANDARDIZING AUTHORITIES

Because of the limited area over which they are operative, little reference need here be made to efforts at definition-making by state authorities. Here may be included state adoptions of textbooks, since, if schools may use no other texts than those authorized, the content of the course is determined by the text adopted. More clearly in line with the work of definition-making are the syllabi of courses prepared by some state authorities and imposed by them more or less imperatively upon the public high schools of the commonwealth. An illustration of this manner of describing courses may be seen in the Regents' requirements in New York as published in the "Syllabus for Secondary Schools," 1910/ The manner of course description is here, as is implied in the title, largely that of outlining the content, although other matters, particularly those concerning methods, come in for attention. Thus, the descriptions of courses in Mathematics^ are nothing if not mere syllabi. After brief reference to method covering a half page the description of the course in Physics^ names topics and describes experiments through 24 pages. The description of the course in Chemistry* is similarly constituted. An examination of the statements in this manual of 492 pages concerning other subjects will be found with few exceptions to conform to those already referred to.