Report of the Committee of Fifteen / Read at the Cleveland Meeting of the Department of Superintendence, February 19-21, 1884, with the Debate

by William Torrey Harris; A. S. Draper; H. S. Tarbell

I. CORRELATION OF STUDIES.

Your Committee understands by correlation of studies:—

1. Logical order of topics and branches.

First, the arrangement of topics in proper sequence in the course of study, in such a manner that each branch develops in an order suited to the natural and easy progress of the child, and so that each step is taken at the proper time to help his advance to the next step in the same branch, or to the next steps in other related branches of the course of study.

2. Symmetrical whole of studies in the world of human learning.

Second, the adjustment of the branches of study in such a manner that the whole course at any given time represents all the great divisions of human learning, as far as is possible at the stage of maturity at which the pupil has arrived, and that each allied group of studies is represented by some one of its branches best adapted for the epoch in question; it being implied that there is an equivalence of studies to a greater or less degree within each group, and that each branch of human learning should be represented by some equivalent study; so that, while no great division is left unrepresented, no group shall have superfluous representatives, and thereby debar other groups from a proper representation.

3. Psychological symmetry—the whole mind.

Third, the selection and arrangement of the branches and topics within each branch, considered psychologically, with a view to afford the best exercise of the faculties of the mind, and to secure the unfolding of those faculties in their natural order, so that no one faculty is so overcultivated or so neglected as to produce abnormal or one-sided mental development.

4. Correlation of pupil’s course of study with the world in which he lives—his spiritual and natural environment.

Fourth and chiefly, your Committee understands by correlation of studies the selection and arrangement in orderly sequence of such objects of study as shall give the child an insight into the world that he lives in, and a command over its resources such as is obtained by a helpful co-operation with one’s fellows. In a word, the chief consideration to which all others are to be subordinated, in the opinion of your Committee, is this requirement of the civilization into which the child is born, as determining not only what he shall study in school, but what habits and customs he shall be taught in the family before the school age arrives; as well as that he shall acquire a skilled acquaintance with some one of a definite series of trades, professions, or vocations in the years that follow school; and, furthermore, that this question of the relation of the pupil to his civilization determines what political duties he shall assume and what religious faith and spiritual aspirations shall be adopted for the conduct of his life.

To make more clear their reasons for the preference here expressed for the objective and practical basis of selection of topics for the course of study rather than the subjective basis so long favored by educational writers, your Committee would describe the psychological basis, already mentioned, as being merely formal in its character, relating only to the exercise of the so-called mental faculties.

It would furnish a training of spiritual powers analogous to the gymnastic training of the muscles of the body. Gymnastics may develop strength and agility without leading to any skill in trades or useful employment. So an abstract psychological training may develop the will, the intellect, the imagination, or the memory, but without leading to an exercise of acquired power in the interests of civilization. The game of chess would furnish a good course of study for the discipline of the powers of attention and calculation of abstract combinations, but it would give its possessor little or no knowledge of man or nature. The psychological ideal which has prevailed to a large extent in education has, in the old phrenology, and in the recent studies in physiological psychology, sometimes given place to a biological ideal. Instead of the view of mind as made up of faculties like will, intellect, imagination, and emotion, conceived to be all necessary to the soul, if developed in harmony with one another, the concept of nerves or brain-tracts is used as the ultimate regulative principle to determine the selection and arrangement of studies. Each part of the brain is supposed to have its claim on the attention of the educator, and that study is thought to be the most valuable which employs normally the larger number of brain-tracts. This view reaches an extreme in the direction of formal, as opposed to objective or practical grounds for selecting a course of study. While the old psychology with its mental faculties concentrated its attention on the mental processes and neglected the world of existing objects and relations upon which those processes were directed, physiological psychology tends to confine its attention to the physical part of the process, the organic changes in the brain cells and their functions.

Your Committee is of the opinion that psychology of both kinds, physiological and introspective, can hold only a subordinate place in the settlement of questions relating to the correlation of studies. The branches to be studied, and the extent to which they are studied, will be determined mainly by the demands of one’s civilization. These will prescribe what is most useful to make the individual acquainted with physical nature and with human nature so as to fit him as an individual to perform his duties in the several institutions—family, civil society, the state, and the Church. But next after this, psychology will furnish important considerations that will largely determine the methods of instruction, the order of taking up the several topics so as to adapt the school work to the growth of the pupil’s capacity, and the amount of work so as not to overtax his powers by too much, or arrest the development of strength by too little. A vast number of subordinate details belonging to the pathology of education, such as the hygienic features of school architecture and furniture, programmes, the length of study hours and of class exercises, recreation, and bodily reactions against mental effort, will be finally settled by scientific experiment in the department of physiological psychology.

Inasmuch as your Committee is limited to the consideration of the correlation of studies in the elementary school, it has considered the question of the course of study in general only in so far as this has been found necessary in discussing the grounds for the selection of studies for the period of school education occupying the eight years from six to fourteen years, or the school period between the kindergarten on the one hand and the secondary school on the other. It has not been possible to avoid some inquiry into the true distinction between secondary and elementary studies, since one of the most important questions forced upon the attention of your Committee is that of the abridgment of the elementary course of study from eight or more years to seven or even six years, and the corresponding increase of the time devoted to studies usually assigned to the high school and supposed to belong to the secondary course of study for some intrinsic reason.