In an earlier chapter it was shown that the seventh and eighth grades came from Europe during the decade 1840-1850. Every line of evidence which is taken up points to the desirability of a complete reorganization of the work of these grades.
The spread of the junior-high-school idea has been remarkably rapid. This is due to the growing conviction that pupils in the seventh and eighth grades require a higher type of instruction and discipline than that which is supplied in the lower grades. The curriculum is being enriched by the addition of science, foreign language, mathematics other than arithmetic, and several of the practical arts. Instruction is being intrusted to teachers of broader training, and the individual needs of pupils are being more adequately met by the introduction of some elective courses.
Later Adolescence a Period of Specialization
The early part of the adolescent period which has been under consideration in the foregoing paragraphs is followed by a period which can be described as the beginning of specialization. The fact that individual differences here assert themselves and that individual outlooks determine the training demanded is clearly recognized in the adoption of the elective system by the high school. Special education has an adequate foundation in the work of the earlier years, and now the student must build his individual career on this foundation. He comes to a new period of individualism. He is not individualistic in the sense in which the fourth-grade boy is when he breaks away from imitating social examples. The boy of fifteen to eighteen has passed through the first period of individualism and through the socializing training of early adolescence; he now comes to a new type of individualistic effort which will fit him for his place in the social system.
The upper limit of this period, as set down in the foregoing discussions, coincides with the age at which a normal student is now supposed to finish high school. There can be very little doubt that with the readjustments going on in the seventh and eighth grades there will be far-reaching changes in the upper high school also. It is not too much to expect that with improved methods of teaching and with a better curriculum it will be possible for the normal student to complete at eighteen years of age the first two years of the college curriculum. The complete reorganization of the higher institutions is thus likely to follow the changes which are now under way in the high school.
The freshman and sophomore years of American colleges are at present filled with subjects which are essentially secondary in character. The reorganization suggested is therefore altogether legitimate.
The Reorganized School System
The scheme of school organization which is in keeping with the foregoing study of mental development is as follows: Three primary years are to be devoted to the rudiments of the social arts. Three intermediate years following the primary are to be devoted to gaining an outlook on the world. Three years covering the period now covered by grades seven, eight, and nine are to be devoted to social studies and a systematization of knowledge of the world. The three years from fifteen to eighteen are to be devoted to a completion of general training and to the beginning of specialization. After this will come complete specialization.
Not all students can go through the full training thus outlined. More and more, however, communities will provide for, and require the completion of, the whole cycle. If a student’s training must be curtailed, there will doubtless be an increasing tendency to bring the higher stages down rather than to terminate education before preparation for life has been carried far enough to give specialized individual training.
EXERCISES AND READINGS