The junior high school, its feasibility in the Catholic educational system ...

Front matter

Class. /,_JS ;' .

Book_ _„1_:3.

Gojjyriglit]^'?.

Preface

The widespread and thorough consideration given to every phase of the junior high school during the past thirty years is evidence of its importance. The most eminent educators of the country have studied the movement and written on it. Practically every educational association in the country has devoted much time to it in its annual meeting. Boards of Education, superintendents of school systems, the members of various teacher organizations have become interested in it. A rather extensive junior high school literature has developed and attempts have been made by a large number of school systems to reorganize in conformity with the theory.

There are many different viewpoints from which this institution can be treated. The iDsychological aspect presents many unsolved problems. Many philosophical •questions in respect to the junior high school remain to be settled. The advantages and disadvantages have not been fully measured. Numerous administrative problems, such as securing or preparing qualified teachers, determining methods of teaching, reorganizing the curriculum, deciding the length of the recitation period, of the school day and of the school year, etc., etc., must be further studied and much experimentation done before a solution of the difficulties involved can l)e reached.

The discussions of Catholic educators have been confined for the most part to a general examination of the theory, to some particular defects of the traditional system, e. g., retardation, elimination and reorganization of the elementary curriculum. No attempt has been made to introduce the junior high school into the Catholic system. The yjurpose of this dissertation is to offer a general plan whereby this institution might be made a part of the Catholic system. With this end in view an outline of the history of the movement is presented in the first chapter. Its aims are discussed in the second. In the third various views concerning the meaning of the term, junior high school, are considered. Some of the results obtained in junior high schools in the State system are presented in the fourth. In the fifth and last chapter the purposes of the junior high school are briefly discussed in relation to the aims of Catholic education and a plan suggested for its establishment in the Catholic system.

The plan suggested is not expected to settle finally this immensely important and intricate question, but is offered with the hope that it may serve as a practical basis for working out the details of a Catholic junior high school.

The writer is pleased to acknowledge his indebtedness to all the professors of the University whose courses he followed during his three years residence ; in particular he feels indebted to Very Reverend Doctor McCormick under whose direction his major work was pursued. Acknowledgment is made to the writers whose works were used, especially to Doctors Thomas H. Briggs, Calvin 0. Davis and Aubrey Augustus Douglass. To the Right Reverend Joseph Chartrand, D.D., Bishop of Indianapolis, the writer is particularly grateful for the permission accorded him to spend three years in graduate study at the Catholic University of America.

CHAPTER I Origin of the Junior High School Movement

The three decades between 1830 and 1860 approxi- ^ mately represent the period of strui^;i;'le for i-cco.u'iiition on the part of the graded system of elementary schools. During this period, through the efforts of Horace Mann in Massachusetts, Henry Barnard in Connecticut, John D. Pierce in Michigan, and Calvin E. Stowe in Ohio, the educational forces of the country were gradually concerted into a movement to organize the elementary schools on a graded basis. During the early part of this period the progress was slow, but by 1860 ''nearly every city and town of any consequence in the country, as well as many populous rural communities, had its own system of elementary schools organized on a graded basis with a definite course of study, embracing definite time limits, the whole sanctioned and protected by legislative enact^ ment."^

In less than ten years after the advocates of the graded system of elementary schools had won recognition for their views, a discussion was started by Harris, superintendent of the St. Louis public schools, on its disadvantages as it was then established. In his annual reports issued between 1868 and 1875, Harris endeavored to show that annual promotions with a common standard for all children failed to provide for their different capacities, temperaments, tastes and mental and physical endo^\Tnents. The responsibility for this failure, according to Harris, rests upon the supporters of the graded school who attempted to provide a system of education for the average child, which child does not exist. He contended that the system must be so modified that it would deal justly, both with the child above the

1. Bunker, Frank Forest, Beorganization of the Fuhlic School System. Bulletin, 1916, No. 8, U. S. Bureau of Education, page 34.

2 The Junior li'ujh ScJiooJ

average and with the chikl below the average. As a constrnctivo suggestion, he advanced his theory of frequent classification and frequent promotion whereby, as he believed, each child could find his level and not be retarded by the superiority of some children or by the inferiority of other children. The intent of Harris was to provide an arrangement whereby, while children were being educated in groups — an economic necessity as well as a social advantage — their individual differences would receive the proper consideration.^

The scholarly treatment of the disadvantages of the graded system l^y Harris and his clear and logical explanation of his theory to remove these disadvantages attracted the attention of a large number of eminent educators throughout the country. While many of these educators found sufficient reason in the arguments of Harris to agree with his view^s, others did not hesitate to disclose what they considered the shortcomings of the plan and some even strenuously opposed its adoption. It is noteworthy, however, that practically all the educators of the country, who expressed opinions on the theory of the St. Louis superintendent, acknowledged the existence of the disadvantages he had pointed out, even though all could not agree with his views relative to the remedy. This general concession is very clearly stated in the paper of Hon. E. E. White, of Ohio, read at the Convention of the N. E. A. held in Detroit in 1874. Speaking in favor of the St. Louis plan of frequent classification and frequent promotion, White declared : ''It is believed by many experienced superintendents and other intelligent observers that the universal experience of graded schools condemns the prevalent ])ractice of promoting children but once a year with a year's interval between the classes."-^

2. Beport of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1898 to 1899. Vol. I, page 304.

Its Feasibilitu in the Catholic Educational System 3

As a result of this general acknowledgment of certain deficiencies in the promotional plans of the elementary schools, a great many different methods of solving the problem were advanced. A rather accurate summation of the methods proposed may be found in the attempt of Dr. Philbeck in 1885 to harmonize these varying views. After reviewing the problems of promotion and giving due consideration to prevalent practice, he set forth the following conclusions:

1 — For the lower grades, annual promotion is not sufficiently frequent.

2 — The quarterly promotion is perhaps too frequent, especially if carried through all the grammar school grades, necessitating quarterly graduation from the grammar school and quarterly admission to the high school.

3 — Better than either of these extremes is the plan of semi-annual promotions in the lower grades and annual in the upper.

4 — It should be understood that a division (that is, the body of pupils in one room under one teacher) may be composed of pupils belonging to two diiferent grades or classes, if the just classification requires such an arrangement.

5 — Promotions should be made both by classes and individually.

6 — In determining the qualification of the pupil for promotion, his mental capacity, physical condition and age sliould he taken into account, as well as his scholastic attainments ; the examiner should ask himself, is this pupil capable of doing the work of the next class without injury to himself?

7 — Promotion should not be made on the l)asis of a predetermined percentage of examination results. Promotion from class to class should be made hy the principal.

8 — Promotion of primary scholars, comprising pupils from five to eight or eight and a half years of age, should not be made to depend on the result of a written examination.^ These conclusions of Philbeck, however, did not settle the question.

Many other plans of frequent promotion by which it was hoped to prevent the retardation of the more gifted children and not to overwork the less gifted were devised a little later and introduced into school systems in different parts of the country. In Batavia, New York, a plan was introduced by which one-half of the teacher's time might be free from class work, and might be devoted to helping the pupils in their studies. When the number ■ of pupils in one class exceeded fifty, an assistant teacher was provided for the class so that recitation work and assisting pupils in their study could go on simultaneously. This plan has been in use for the past twenty years in this city and has proven its value in decreasing retardation and non-promotion. But it has been criticised on the grounds that it tends toward producing average results and thus fails to provide for the more gifted children.-^

In Pueblo, Colorado, a plan somewhat similar to the Batavia plan was worked out. In Pueblo, however, the classes were small. Each class was divided into five smaller groups of about the same size, and each of these smaller groups progressed at different rates of speed. The primary aim of this plan is to provide for the needs of the individual pupil. It was arranged that children could pass from one group to another as their progress warranted. The ease with which pupils were transferred from one division to another under this plan practically eliminated non-^jromotion.^

4. Circular of Information, No. 1, 1885, U. S. Bureau of Education.

5. Cubbory, Ellwood P., Puhlic School Administration, pp. 301-302. Houfthton Mifflin Co., New York.

The new Cambridge plan is another effort to overcome the problem of retardation and non-promotion. In this plan two elementary courses were arranged, one consisting of six years, the other of eight. The children who were able to finish the elementary school in six years were given an opportunity to do so, while those* who needed eight years were permitted to proceed at a rate compatible with their ability. There must be some failures in this plan for it is hardly probable that all children will be able to proceed as rapidly as the eight year course demands. Provision was made for this contingency to some extent by dividing each class into three groups. Due to this arrangement the child that fails is obliged to repeat only one-third of a year and not an entire year.^ This plan has been widely used in large school systems, but is obviously unsuited to small systems.

Similar plans were worked out in Portland, North Denver, Elizabethto^\^l, Baltimore, and in several other places. The underlying principle is to prevent the retardation of the brightest children and to provide for the differences of children. Each of these plans, in the opinion of authorities, has some excellent features and has produced excellent results where introduced, but no one of them proved to be entirely satisfactory .<?

The period (1860-1890) that marked the attempts to remedy the defects of the elementary school may, generally speaking, be said to embrace the same years that witnessed the struggle for existence of the high school. Before 1860 there were few such institutions, although the high school movement had begun as early as 1821 with the establishment of the English classical high school of Boston. The number of these schools established between 1860 and 1890 has been variously estimated by a numlier of writers. However, there seems to be no satisfactory data prior to 1890, when the commissioiicr of education began to give some figures.^ But it was not nntil well on into the last half of the nineteenth century that the right of the State to establish high schools and to support tliem from the public treasury was recognized.^^ These high schools at first, however, varied so greatly in regard to time allotment for completing their courses that in 1888 the National Educational Association adopted a formal resolution demanding that the high school period be made uniformly four years.^^ From that time on to the present, high schools have multiplied very rapidly in all parts of the country. In 1890 there were 1657^^ high schools in the whole country. In 1916 this number had increased to 14,206.^'^ During this time special attention was given to the problem of satisfying the demands of those who were and those who were not preparing for college.

During approximately the same period (1860-1890) that has been designated as the period of development of the elementary school and the period of struggle for existence of the high school, the president and faculty of Harvard University began another very interesting and important investigation in the field of higher education. In his report for the scholastic year, 1872-1873, President Eliot called attention to the steadily increasing age at which students enter college. He stated, in this report, that ^'the average age of admission has gradually risen until it is now a little over 18 years, and the college faculty, thinking that age to be high enough, do not wish to require for admission anything more than a

9. Inglis, Alexander, "Principles of Secondary Education, p. 194. Houghton Mifflin Co., New York.

10. Johnston, Charles H., and others, "High School Education," p. G4. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

12. Estimate of Dexter, Edwin G., "A History of Education in the United States," p. 173. New York, 1904.

13. Ecport of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1917, Vol. II, p. 543.

Its Fcasihilitij in the Catholic Educational System 7

boy of eighteen of fair capacity and industry may reasonably be expected to have learned. "^^

Again in 1885-1886, President Eliot noted that the average age of admission to college had increased to such an extent that ' ' abont two-fifths of the freshmen are over nineteen at entrance. "^^ This situation determined the faculty to seek for a remedy whereby the average age of entrance to college might be reduced to eighteen years. Four different proposals were made by the Harvard faculty as possible solutions of this particular problem. The first three of these proposals were confined chiefly to suggested changes within the college itself.^^ The fourth proposal was a call to those responsible for elementary and secondar}^ education to seek some means of saving time in their respective fields. This last plan, for remedying the specific problem of decreasing the average age at which students enter college, was placed before the educational w^orld by President Eliot in 1888 in that famous address which is commonly considered the beginning of the movement to investigate the entire school sj^stem of this country with a view to reorganizing the three great divisions of education according to their natural functions and their true relationships.

In this address President Eliot declared: ''The average age of admission to Harvard College has been rising for sixty years past, and has now reached the extravagant limit of eighteen years and ten months." This condition, he believed, w^as so unreasonable that he further declared : "Some remedy is urgently demanded." Then, after pointing out the arguments in favor of shortening and enriching the school program. President Eliot suggested the following means to accomplish .the necessary reform :

16. Bunker, Frank Forest, op. cit., p. 44.

1 — Better teachers must be secured. This can be done by providing a more secure tenure of office and by increasing the proportion of male teachers in the schools.

2 — More substantial and more interesting programs must be provided.

3 — The time allotted to elementary education must be shortened.

-The erroneous notion of teachers that it is necessary for the child to master one thing before he goes to another and the undue caution of parents on the other hand to prevent overpressure must be removed.

5 — The school hours, which have been decidedly shortened during the past two generations, must be lengthened.^^

This paper of President Eliot was widely read and discussed by college and university professors and educators throughout the country.^^ His emphasis of the importance of the problem and a realization that the existence of many deficiencies in the several divisions of the educational system had been acknowledged for a long time, caused the leading educators of the country to turn their attention to a consideration of the entire range of the school system in order to determine what should be done.

In 1892, the National Educational Association appointed a committee of ten to investigate the secondary schools of the country. Owing to the close relationship of these schools to the elementary schools on the one side and to the colleges on the other, this investigation necessarily involved the study of many problems that affect the whole educational system. The recommendation of this committee that directly affected the elementary

17. Address in full in Proceedings of the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association, 1888, pp. 101-118.

18. Bunker, Frank F., op. cit., p. 47.

schools and the high schools was the following: "In the opinion of the committee, several subjects now reserved for the high school, such as algebra, geometry, natural science and foreign languages should be begun earlier than now; or as an alternative, the secondary school period should be made to begin two years earlier than at present, leaving six years instead of eight for the elementary school period. "^'^

This report, wiiich received considerable attention in all parts of the country, and which w^as discussed quite generally in educational publications l)y well-knoAvn writers, was proba])ly responsible for the appointment in the same year of the committee of fifteen on elementary education by the department of superintendence of the National Educational Association. This committee formulated a series of questions which w^ere sent to representative school men and women in all sections of the country. The report of the committee was based to a great extent upon the replies to these questions and for this reason, the opinion expressed by the committee may be considered fairly representative of the general sentiment of the country. In view of the answers received to the direct qustion: "Should the elementary course be eight years and the secondary course four years, as at present? Or should the elementary course be six years and the secondary course six years ?""'^ The committee reported: "Your committee is agreed that the time devoted, to elementary school work should not be reduced from eight years, but they have recommended, as hereinbefore stated, that in the seventh and eighth years a modified form of algebra be introduced in place of advanced arithmetic and that in the eighth year English grammar yield place to Latin. This makes, in their opinion, a proper transition to the studies of the secondary school and is calculated to assist the pupil materially

19. Beport of the Committee of Ten, p. 45.

20. Report of the Committee of Fifteen on Elementary Education, p. 10.

in liis preparation for that work. Hitherto the change from the work of the elementary school has been too abrupt. "^^ On the question of differentiated courses and departmental teaching, the members of the committee did not agree/^

The next study made under the auspices of the National Educational Association was in charge of a committee on college entrance requirements. The findings of this committee were presented to the department of secondary education of the N. E. A. at the meeting of the Association held in Los Angeles in 1899. In this report it was strongly recommended : *^That the last two grades that now precede the high school should be incorporated in it. "^'^ One reason given for this view was that the work required in the high school was in the judgment of the committee more than could be done in the period of time allotted to it. Ijn addition to this argument from authority, the committee held that the child reaches a natural turning point in his life at the end of the sixth grade rather than at the end of the ninth ; that this new arrangement of time would permit other changes which would provide for an easy transition from the elementary to the secondary school; that this arrangement would tend to lessen elimination, and finally that it would provide a better articulated system of education.^^ X The second period of the discussion of the problem

raised by President Eliot was devoted to the consideration of practical ways and means of bringing about this dosired reorganization of the school system. This period extended approximately from 1900 to 1912.^^ During the first four years practically every phase of the question of reorganization received consideration and nearly all of the present-day arguments for and against a reorgan-

23. Beport of the Committee on College Entrance Becjuirements. p. 2?,.

25. Bunker, Frank F., op. cit., p. 73.

ization of both the elementary and the high school may be found in the literature dealing with the question/^ The tendency to shorten the time allotted to elementary education gradually grew very much stronger from 1900 to 1910 and in 1914, Kingsley stated that the old plan of devoting eight years to elementary and four years to secondary education was rapidly becoming obsolete/"

The National Educational Association continued its investigation during this second period through the National Council of Education and the Department of Secondary Education. The progress of the movement was also aided by the studies of the University of Chicago and its affiliated schools under the leadership of President Harper, as well as by the work of the New York and Brooklyn Teachers' Association. Furthermore, the contributions of Professor Dewey, of Superintendent Greenwood, of Kansas City, and the paper of Dr. Little '* Should the Course of Study be Equally Divided Between the Elementary School and the Secondary School!" together Avith the work of President Baker, Drs. Hanus, Snedden and Prichett, and many other educators and educational associations, laid the foundation for the practical experiments which were to be made during the third period of this movement.

During these first two decades, however, effort was not confined entirely to theoretical discussion. Besides the frequent promotion plans adopted at Batavia, Cambridge, Pueblo and elsewhere, a number of other attempts were made by superintendents in different parts of the country to improve conditions in the schools under their direction. There was a general tendency in those places where nine years had been given to elementary education to reduce the time to eight and in the South where the high school course was quite generally limited to

26. Douglass, Aubrey A., TJie Junior High School, p. 11. Fifteenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part III. Public School Publishing Co., Bloomington, 111.

27. Proceedings of the N. E. A. 1914, pp. 483-488.

three years, there was a noticeable tendency to add a year and thus conform to common practice. Then too, plans were devised in a number of cities to make their systems of promotion so flexible that some children might complete the elementary course in a shorter time and certain other children might be given more time than was generally required/^

Out of all the discussion and experiment, therefore, of the first two periods of this movement came a rather definite opinion that the best solution of the problem lay in lengthening the time devoted to secondary education and shortening the time commonly given to elementary school work, and a number of cities at a comparatively early date began to reconstruct their school systems in accordance with this new theory. In these attempts at reorganization, the junior high school was born because, in almost every instance where an attempt was made to improve the existing system, are found one or more of the features that are now quite commonly accepted as characteristics of this institution.

In Richmond, Indiana, since 1896, the seventh and eighth grades have been housed in a separate building centrally located where the work is carried on departmentally. Then, too, different courses of study have been offered ^'a Latin course, a German course, and one in which the study of English predominates. "-•'' In June, 1898, a six-year high school course of study was adopted for the six upper grades in Saginaw, Michigan ; between 1896 and 1910, seventeen other cities are mentioned by (Bunker as having similarly reorganized, illustrating the tendency to depart from the 8-4 plan.-^^ /Douglass, however, contends that from the standpoint of the present conception of the Junior High School, the pioneers are Columbus, Ohio (1909); Berkeley, California (1910);

28. Bunker, op. cit., p. 76.

29. Mott, T. A., Correlation of high school and grammar school work. Proceedings, N. E. A., 1901, p. 277.

30. Bunker, op. cit., pp. 79 to 87.

J

Concord, N. H. (1910), and Los Angelcn, California 1911)/^ Inglis agrees with Douglass. In this connection he states: "While numerous attempts had been made previously in different parts of the country to reorganize the work of the late grades of the elementary, the real beginning of the present junior high school or intermediate school movement is probably to be found in the reorganization of the school systems in Columbus, Ohio (1908); Berkeley, California (1910); Concord, New Hampshire (1910), and Los Angeles, California (1911)."^^

From 1910 up to the outbreak of the World War, the number of places that reorganized their educational systems in whole or in part increased from year to year. The progress of the movement was interrupted during the period of the war, but now there are evident signs of the resumption of the work of establishing junior high schools, especially in the larger cities.

To show the rapid progress of the junior high school movement, its advocates have compiled a number of statistical tables, a few of which are reproduced here. None of these tables pretends to be mathematically exact, nor is it claimed that every school listed is a full-fledged junior high school. Assuming that every city or town which claims to have a junior high school really has one, or at least has made some effort to readjust its school system in accord with this theory, it seems clear that the new movement has been very widely accepted in a rather short space of time.

The following table is taken from Douglass.-''^ It shows the years of organization of 159 junior high schools :

31. Douglass, op. cit., jip. 25 and 26s

32. Inglis, Alexander, Frinciples of Secondary Education, p. 292. Houghton Mifflin Co., New York.

33. Douglass, A., op. cit., p. 25.

'98

'9<) 1900

'02

'04

'07

'08

'09

'10

'11

'12

'13

'14

'15

'16

1 1

Beiiiiett-^^ gives a list of the junior high schools in existence in 1916. ' ' Reports show them distributed among the States as follows":

Indiana 24

Minnesota 24

North Dakota ... 20 Pennsylvania ... 16

California 15

Kansas 13

New York 13

Illinois 9

Massachusetts ... 8

Michigan 8

Oregon 7

Idaho 6

Nebraska 6

New Jersey 6

Ohio 5

OkUihoma 5

Tennessee 5

Texas 5

Colorado 4

Missouri 4

Montana 4

South Dakota ... 4

Utah 4

Virginia 4

Wyoming 4

Washington 3

Iowa 3

Connecticut 2

Kentucky 2

Maine 2

Vermont 2

Alabama 1

Arizona 1

Arkansas 1

Florida 1

Georgia 1

According to the above table, there were 254 junior high schools in existence in 1916, and these were distributed throughout 38 States. The following year, Briggs found that there were 791 schools of this type in the United States and one or more was established in each of the 48 States. The distribution of these 791 junior high schools among tlie different States is shown in table No. VII, p. 61, in Briggs' work on the junior high school. Assuming that these two tabulations are equally accurate, it seems reasonable to conclude that the changes in so far, at least, as the extent of the movement is concerned, are taking place so rapidly that any calculation of the number of junior high schools in existence will be quite unreliable after the lapse of one year. For tlic

34. Bcnnott, G. Voniou, TIic Junior Tligh ScJiool, p. .'i9. Bultin^ore, Warwick aud York, 1919.

Beiggs' Table (1917)

Indiana 46

California 51

Its Feasibiliti) in the Catholic Educational System L3

sake of illustration, a few of the more notable changes shown in the two lists are set down in the following two columns :

Bennett's Table (1916)

Indiana 24

California 15

Massachusetts Si Massachusetts 79

New York 13 i New York 47

Iowa 3 j Iowa 40

Illinois 9 Illinois 29

Ohio 5 Ohio 34

Utah 4 Utah 31

Oklahoma 5 Oklahoma 25

Missouri 4 | Missouri 21

Probably the latest attempt that has been made to list the junior high schools in this country is found in ''The Junior High Clearing House" for April, 1920. Here these schools are enumerated according to the size of the city or town in which they are located. The following table is compiled from the data contained in this list:

Table

Population

No. of Schools

30,000 - 100,000

10,000- 30,000

5,000- 10,000

The total according to this reckoning is 361. It must be noted, however, that only places of 5,000 or more inhabitants are mentioned. According to this same publication: "There are upwards of 2,000 schools in the United States which have junior high schools in name or in fact."-^^