A Syllabus in Civil Government for Secondary Schools.
Considerable interest has been aroused in the forthcoming syllabus in Civil Government prepared by a special committee of the New England History Teachers’ Association, for whom it will be published late in the fall by the Macmillan Company.
There will be two parts to the book: An introduction of about twenty pages given to a discussion of the general subject and representing in a limited field the relation that the report of the Committee of Seven bore to the History Syllabus; and the syllabus proper consisting of approximately one hundred and twenty pages, with topics, diagrams, general and specific references and bibliographies. Specimen pages of the syllabus have been tried in the class-rooms of schools in widely different parts of the country, and the subject was discussed at the April meeting of the association.
Many problems confronted the committee at the outset, and at least a working agreement had to be reached upon the following questions:
1. What should be the position of the study and what time allotment should it reasonably expect?
2. What should be the aims of instruction in government in secondary schools?
3. What should be the scope and what should be the places of emphasis?
4. What should be its relation to other subjects of the curriculum?
5. What should be the point of attack and order of topics?
6. What should be the method?
7. What should be the form of the syllabus?
The conclusions reached by the committee may be briefly summarized. Two or two and one-half forty-five-minute periods a week should be allotted, and the subject should be correlated with United States history. Instruction in civics should aim to train the mind, to develop political intelligence, to awaken civic consciousness, to interest the pupil in civic duty, and to prepare him, through instruction and practice, for its exercise. The scope of the subject should include actual government as found in the local unit, the State, and the nation, with so much of the history of government as is needed to explain present institutions and conditions. Enough of the theory of government should be given to establish an orderly arrangement of the subject matter in the pupil’s mind. The ethical principles underlying government should be examined in a concrete way; and attention should be given to the application of these principles in the social duties of school life.
Civics should not be confounded with constitutional history. It is important enough to have its own field, and, while correlated with history, economics and ethics, should not be trammeled by either of these.
The most serious problem which the committee had to solve was that of the order of topics. Should local or national government come first? The majority of the committee favored local, State, national as the order. They also decided that not more than one-fourth of the time should be given to a study of the federal government.
Much stress is laid on the importance of studying local government, so far as possible, at first hand. This necessitates frequent, systematically-planned visits to local bodies and careful study of local documents, such as reports, specimen papers, etc.
No hard and fast form for the syllabus has been used. Sometimes topics, sometimes questions, and again statements are used wherever best adapted to the purpose.
The committee consists of Dr. Hay Greene Huling, English High School, Cambridge, chairman; Wilson R. Butler, High School, New Bedford; Professor L. B. Evans, Tufts College; Dr. John Haynes, Dorchester High School; Dr. W. B. Munro, Harvard University. Mr. Butler is editor for the committee.