What the Schools Teach and Might Teach

by John Franklin Bobbitt

READING AND LITERATURE

The amount of time given to reading in the elementary schools of Cleveland, and the average time in 50 other cities[A] are shown in the following table:

TABLE 1.—TIME GIVEN TO READING AND LITERATURE
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| Hours per year | Per cent of grade time
|———————————-|————————————
Grade | Cleveland | 50 cities | Cleveland | 50 cities
————————————————————————————
1 | 317 | 266 | 43 | 31
2 | 317 | 235 | 36 | 26
3 | 279 | 188 | 32 | 21
4 | 196 | 153 | 22 | 16
5 | 161 | 126 | 18 | 13
6 | 136 | 117 | 15 | 12
7 | 152 | 98 | 17 | 10
8 | 152 | 97 | 17 | 10
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Total | 1710 | 1280 | 25 | 17
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During the course of his school life, each pupil who finishes the elementary grades in Cleveland receives 1710 hours of recitation and directed study in reading as against an average of 1280 hours in progressive cities in general. This is an excess of 430 hours, or 34 per cent. The annual cost of teaching reading being about $600,000, this represents an excess annual investment in this subject of some $150,000. Whether or not this excess investment in reading is justified depends, of course, upon the way the time is used. If the city is aiming only at the usual mastery of the mechanics of reading and the usual introductory acquaintance with simple works of literary art, it appears that Cleveland is using more time and labor than other cities consider needful. If, on the other hand, this city is using the excess time for widely diversified reading chosen for its content value in revealing the great fields of history, industry, applied science, manners and customs in other lands, travel, exploration, inventions, biography, etc., and in fixing life-long habits of intelligent reading, then it is possible that it is just this excess time that produces the largest educational returns upon the investment.

[Footnote A: Henry W. Holmes, "Time Distribution by Subjects and
Grades in Representative Cities." In the Fourteenth Year Book of the
National Society for the Study of Education, Part I, 1915. University
of Chicago Press.]

It would seem, however, from a careful study of the actual work and an examination of the printed documents, that the chief purpose of teaching reading in this city is, to use the terminology of its latest manual, "easy expressive oral reading in rich, well-modulated tone." It is true that other aims are mentioned, such as enlargement of vocabulary, word-study, understanding of expressions and allusions, acquaintance with the leading authors, appreciation of "beautiful expressions," etc. Properly emphasized, each of these purposes is valid; but there are other equally valid ends to be achieved through proper choice of the reading-content that are not mentioned. There is here no criticism of the purposes long accepted, but of the apparent failure to recognize other equally important ones. The character of the reading-content is referred to only in the recommendation that in certain grades it should relate to the seasons and to special occasions. Even in reference to the supplementary reading, where content should be the first concern, the only statement of purpose is that "children should read for the joy of it." Unfortunately, this mistaken emphasis is not at all uncommon among the schools of the nation. How one reads has received an undue amount of attention; what one reads in the school courses must and will receive an increasingly large share of time and thought, in the new evaluation. The use of interesting and valuable books for other educational purposes at the same time that they are used for drill in the mechanics of reading is coming more and more to be recognized as an improved mode of procedure. The mechanical side of reading is not thereby neglected. It is given its proper function and relation, and can therefore be better taught.

So far as one can see, Cleveland is attempting in the reading work little more than the traditional thing. The thirty-four per cent excess time may be justified by the city on the theory that the schools are commissioned to get the work done one-third better than in the average city. The reading tests made by the Survey fail to reveal any such superiority. The city appears to be getting no better than average results.

Certainly people should read well and effectively in all ways in which they will be called upon to read in their adult affairs. For the most part this means reading for ideas, suggestions, and information in connection with the things involved in their several callings; in connection with their civic problems; for recreation; and for such general social enlightenment as comes from newspapers, magazines, and books. Most reading will be for the content. It is desirable that the reading be easy and rapid, and that one gather in all the ideas as one reads. Because of the fact that oral reading is slower, more laborious for both reader and listener, and because of the present easy accessibility of printed matter, oral reading is becoming of steadily diminishing importance to adults. No longer should the central educational purpose be the development of expressive oral reading. It should be rapid and effective silent reading for the sake of the thought read.

To train an adult generation to read for the thought, schools must give children full practice in reading for the thought in the ways in which later as adults they should read. After the primary teachers have taught the elements, the work should be mainly voluminous reading for the sake of entering into as much of the world's thought and experience as possible. The work ought to be rather more extensive than intensive. The chief end should be the development of that wide social vision and understanding which is so much needed in this complicated cosmopolitan age. While works of literary art should constitute a considerable portion of the reading program, they should not monopolize the program, nor indeed should they be regarded as the most important part of it. It is history, travel, current news, biography, advance in the world of industry and applied science, discussions of social relations, political adjustments, etc., which adults need mostly to read; and it is by the reading of these things that children form desirable and valuable reading habits.

The reading curriculum needs to be looked after in two important ways. First, social standards of judgment should determine the nature of the reading. The texts beyond the primary grades are now for the most part selections of literary art. Very little of it has any conscious relation, immediate or remote, to present-day problems and conditions or with their historical background. Probably children should read many more selections of literary art than are found in the textbooks and the supplementary sets now owned by the schools. But certainly such cultural literary experience ought not to crowd out kinds of reading that are of much greater practical value. Illumination of the things of serious importance in the everyday world of human affairs should have a large place in reading work of every school.

It is true that the supplementary sets of books have been chosen chiefly for their content value. Many are historical, biographical, geographical, scientific, civic, etc., in character. On the side of content, they have advanced much farther than the textbooks toward what should constitute a proper reading course. Unfortunately, the schools are very incompletely supplied with these sets. If we consider all the sets of supplementary readers found in 10 or more schools, we find that few of those assigned for fourth-grade reading are found in one-quarter of the buildings and none are in half of them. The same is true of the books for use in the fifth and seventh grades. Some of the books for the sixth and eighth grades are found in more than half of the buildings, but there is none that is found in as many as three-quarters of them.

The second thing greatly needed to improve the reading course is more reading practice. One learns to do a thing easily, rapidly, and effectively by practice. The course of study in reading should therefore provide the opportunity for much practice. At present the reading texts used aggregate for the eight grades some 2100 pages. A third-grade child ought to read matter suitable for its intelligence at 20 pages per hour, and a grammar-grade child at 30 to 40 pages per hour. Since rapidity of reading is one of the desired ends, the practice reading should be rapid. At the moderate rates mentioned, the entire series of reading texts ought to be read in some 80 hours. This is 10 hours' practice for each of the eight school years, an altogether insufficient amount of rapid reading practice. Of course the texts can be read twice, or let us say three times, aggregating 30 hours of practice per year. But even this is not more than could easily be accomplished in two or three weeks of each of the years—always presuming that the reading materials are rightly adapted to the mental maturity of the pupils. This leaves 35 weeks of the year unprovided for. To make good this deficit, the buildings are furnished with supplementary books in sets sufficiently large to supply entire classes. The average number of such sets per building is shown in the following table:

TABLE 2.—SETS OF SUPPLEMENTARY READING BOOKS PER BUILDING

Grade Average number of sets 1 10.0 2 6.3 3 5.1 4 5.5 5 6.3 6 5.3 7 5.5 8 6.0

A fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth-grade student ought to be able to read all the materials supplied his grade, both reading texts and all kinds of supplementary reading, in 40 or 50 hours. He ought to do it easily in six weeks' work, without encroaching on recitation time. He can read all of it twice in 10 weeks; and three times in 14 weeks. After reading everything three times over, there still remain 24 weeks of each year unprovided for.

The reply of teachers is that the work is so difficult that it has to be slowed down enough to consume these 24 weeks. But is not this to admit that the hill is too steep, that there is too much dead pull, and that the materials are ill-chosen for practice in habits of rapid intelligent reading? It is not by going slow that one learns to go fast. Quite the reverse. Too often the school runs on low speed gear when it ought to be running on high. The low may be necessary for the starting, but not for the running. It may be necessary in the primary grades, but not thereafter for those who have had a normal start. Reading practice should certainly make for increased speed in effective reading.

The actual work in the grades is very different from the plan suggested. In taking up any selection for reading, the plan in most schools is about as follows:

1. A list of the unusual words met with is written on the blackboard.

2. Teacher and pupils discuss the meaning of these words; but unfortunately words out of the context often carry no meaning.

3. The words are marked diacritically, and pronounced.

4. Pupils "use the words in sentences." The pupil frequently has nothing to say that involves the word. It is only given an imitation of a real use by being put into an artificial sentence.

5. The oral reading is begun. One pupil reads a paragraph.

6. With the book removed, the meaning of the paragraph is then reproduced either by the reader or some other pupil. This work is necessarily perfunctory because the pupil knows he is not giving information to anybody. Everybody within hearing already has the meaning fresh in mind from the previous reading. The normal child cannot work up enthusiasm for oral reproduction under such conditions.

7. The paragraph is analyzed into its various elements, and these in turn are discussed in detail.

Such work is not reading. It is analysis. A selection is not read, it is analyzed. The purpose of real reading is to enter into the thought and emotional experience of the writer; not to study the methods by which the author expressed himself. The net result when the work is done as described is to develop a critical consciousness of methods, without helping the children to enter normally and rightly into the experience of the writer. The children of Cleveland need this genuine training in reading.

Reading in the high schools needs very much the same sort of modernization. There are more kinds of literature than classical belles-lettres, and perhaps more important kinds. We would not advocate a reduction of the amount of aesthetic literature. Indeed, the young people of Cleveland need to enter into a far wider range of such literature than is the case at present. But the reading courses in high schools should be built out in ways already recommended for elementary schools.

The training, however, should be mainly in reading and not in analysis. The former is of surpassing importance to all people; the latter is important only to certain specialists. And, what is more, fullness of reading and right ways of reading will accomplish incidentally most of the things aimed at in the analysis.

The following table of the reading outline of the High School of Commerce is a fair sample of what the city is doing. Note how much time is given to the reading and analysis of the few selections covered in four years.

TABLE 3.—WEEKS GIVEN TO READING OF DIFFERENT BOOKS IN HIGH SCHOOL OF COMMERCE

Weeks to read
First Year
Ashmun's Prose Selections 9
Cricket on the Hearth 5
Sohrab and Rustum 3
Midsummer Night's Dream 6
Ivanhoe 11

Second Year
Autobiography of Franklin 7
Idylls of the King 10
Treasure Island 7
Sketch Book 7
Vision of Sir Launfal 3

Third Year
Silas Marner 7
Iliad (Bryant's—4 books) 5
Washington's Farewell Address 5
First Bunker Hill Oration 6
Emerson's Compensation 5
Roosevelt Book 6

Fourth Year
Markham's The Man with the Hoe 2
Tale of Two Cities 10
Public Duty of the Educated Man 4
Macbeth 11
Self-Reliance 6

When a short play of a hundred pages like Macbeth requires nearly three months for reading, when almost two months are given to Treasure Island and nearly three months to Ivanhoe, clearly it is something other than reading that is being attempted. It is perfectly obvious that the high schools are attending principally to the mechanics of expression and not to the content of the expression. The relative emphasis should be reversed.

The amount of reading in the high schools should be greatly increased. Those who object that rapid work is superficial believe that work must be slow to be thorough. It should be remembered, however, that slow work is often superficial and that rapid work is often excellent. In fact the world's best workers are generally rapid, accurate, and thorough. Ask any business man of wide experience. Now leaving aside pupils who are slow by nature, it can be affirmed that pupils will acquire slow, thorough habits or rapid, thorough habits according to the way they are taught. If they are brought up by the slow plan, naturally when speeded up suddenly, the quality of their work declines. They can be rapid, accurate, and thorough only if such strenuous work begins early and is continued consistently. Slow habits are undesirable if better ones can just as well be implanted.

To avoid possible misunderstanding, it ought to be stated that the plan recommended does not mean less drill upon the mechanical side of reading. We are recommending a somewhat more modernized kind of mechanics, and a much more strenuous kind of drill. The plan looks both toward more reading and improved habits of reading.

One final suggestion finds here its logical place. Before the reading work of elementary or high schools can be modernized, the city must purchase the books used in the work. Leaving the supplying of books to private purchase is the largest single obstacle in the way of progress. Men in the business world will have no difficulty in seeing the logic of this. When shoes, for example, were made by hand, each workman could easily supply his own tools; but now that elaborate machinery has been devised for their manufacture, it has become so expensive that a machine factory must supply the tools. It is so in almost every field of labor where efficiency has been introduced. Now the books to be read are the tools in the teaching of reading. In a former day when a mastery of the mechanics of reading was all that seemed to be needed, the privately purchased textbook could suffice. In our day when other ends are set up beyond and above those of former days, a far more elaborate and expensive equipment is required. The city must now supply the educational tools. It is well to face this issue candidly and to state the facts plainly. Relative failure can be the only possible lot of reluctant communities. They can count on it with the same assurance as that of a manufacturer of shoes who attempts to employ the methods of former days in competition with modern methods.

In this city the expenditures for supplementary textbooks have amounted to something more than $31,000 in the past 10 years. Approximately one-third of this sum was spent in the first seven years of the decade and more than $20,000 in the past three years. This indicates the rapid advance in this direction made under the present school administration but the supply of books still falls far short of the needs of the schools. A fair start has been made but nothing should be permitted to obstruct rapid progress in this direction.