Requirements to be met when the Gary Plan is adopted
The Gary plan is a very striking example of the relation between the school plant and the school program. In many quarters this relation has not been clearly recognized. For example, some school boards, hearing that twice as many pupils can be accommodated in a Gary building as in an ordinary school building, have instructed the superintendents in their own towns to adopt the Gary plan. The superintendent has to answer: We have an old four-square building which is full in every available corner, there are no shops, and the play space is inadequate.
He often has to go further and question the advisability of departmentalizing the teaching in the lower grades. He is sometimes convinced that a daily program which includes many kinds of activity is distracting and undesirable. The adoption of a new building plan involves the course of study, and the adoption of a new policy with reference to the course of study involves the use of the building. The interesting fact for our immediate purposes is that educational questions that have to do with the content of the course of study and with the methods of teaching are always related to considerations regarding the building.