In the discussion comparisons are frequently made with similar reports from other cities, and following these are the conclusions reached by the committee and recommendations for further work.
It will not be possible to give in detail all the results thus obtained. It must suffice to repeat here the figures which summarize the table of causes for leaving school. The percentages of pupils leaving for each cause are given with the statement of the cause.
| Ill health | 5.7 per cent |
| Had to go to work | 35.5 per cent |
| Child’s desire to earn money | 8.2 per cent |
| Kept vacation work | 2.6 per cent |
| Disliked or not interested in school | 29.6 per cent |
| Trouble with teacher | 3.1 per cent |
| Failure to pass | 1.1 per cent |
| Further public school not worth while | 14.2 per cent |
The number of pupils who leave because they do not like school or do not believe it worth while is disturbingly large. That there should be so pronounced an adverse judgment on the part of pupils is perhaps to be explained in a measure by their immaturity and restlessness; but part of the school’s problem is to meet this immaturity and restlessness and to train the pupils with full regard to all that goes to make up their individual tastes and abilities.
It is especially important that a careful study be made of all available recommendations for improving the situation. We turn, therefore, to some of the leading recommendations of the Minneapolis commission:
That as rapidly as would be economical, the schools be organized on the “six-three-and-three” plan, beginning differentiated courses in the B seventh grade. These courses should follow three broad lines: (1) Leading toward the academic courses in high schools. (2) Toward the commercial courses, or directly to business. (3) Toward manual training in high school, or directly to manufacturing and mechanical pursuits.
That preparation for the trades can be best and most economically closely related to working conditions, while the necessary skill shall be gained in actual work under the usual commercial conditions.
That the membership of the Thomas Arnold school be enlarged to include all boys who have reached the age of fifteen and have not yet reached the seventh grade. And that a similar school be organized for girls.
That a department of vocational guidance be organized.
That, as an adjunct to the board of education, an advisory commission of 15 members, composed of employees, employers and educators, be established, whose duty it shall be to report changes in the demands of business and industry, and to advise modifications of the course of study to meet these new demands.
That a law should be enacted, making it mandatory that a boy shall be either in school or at work up to his eighteenth year, and that the department of vocational guidance be charged with the duty of enforcing such a provision.
This report has been reproduced at length because it furnishes a concrete example of the kind of demand which is being made on many sides for a complete remaking of the curriculum. The comments about school officers are also typical of much that is being laid at the door of the present-day pedagogue. Better than any theoretical answer to these critics is a careful study of the whole problem of reorganizing the curriculum.
Traditional Neglect of Industrial Education on the Part of the Public
The reasonableness of the demand that the schools prepare boys and girls for their work in the world raises at once the question: Why have the schools ever neglected this need? The answer to this question is supplied in part by the remoter history of schools which was touched on in an earlier chapter and in the early paragraphs of this chapter. European and American schools first dealt with professional and theological problems and have accordingly always had a strong leaning toward the literary subjects.