The six preceding chapters, which have dealt with the curriculum, make no pretense of presenting formulated courses which can be given to classes. Some reader may have been impatient because he did not find there an outline of arithmetic or geography or Latin or English. It has been the purpose of these chapters to deal only with general principles and general problems. The fact is that it would be absolutely futile to lay down a curriculum and say of it that it is the true curriculum. The curriculum of a school is a living thing. It is constantly undergoing readjustments. Its content is drawn from the social life to which it introduces pupils, and its arrangement depends on the ability of pupils of different ages and different capacities to grasp this constantly readjusted content.
There are some teachers who prefer to have the course of study handed down to them by some superior authority. There are many fifth-grade teachers, for example, who prefer to have the superintendent tell them just how many pages of geography to cover each week and how many minutes to devote to this subject. There are many Latin teachers who are satisfied to take from some college catalogue a statement of the number of pages to be read in Cæsar, to divide this number by the number of days during which the class meets, and then to plod through the assignments. The day of such teachers, unfortunately, is not yet past, but it is passing. The course in geography or Latin is not a quantitative matter; it is not a static affair; it is an organized body of material which grows and changes with the development of society. To the intelligent teacher a course of study is a subject of constant scrutiny and revision. Every detail must be weighed as to its importance and as to its relations to the whole series of topics and to the needs of pupils.
Older Subjects Products of Long Selection
Efficient teachers have always assumed toward the subject-matter of their courses an attitude of the type described. As a result there has been in every generation of schools some progress in organizing courses. Little by little experience has refined the practices of schools. Take, for example, Latin or any of the older subjects. Countless teachers have contributed to the organization of this subject. There is very little probability that pupils will encounter in first-year Latin anything that they ought not to be asked to learn, because the details have been tried out on successive generations of learners, and only that has been retained in first-year Latin which can be taught in that year. In the newer subjects, on the contrary, there is the greatest uncertainty. In his enthusiasm for the new ideas which come to his own mind, the teacher of biology rushes forward to generalizations which are too mature for his first-year classes. The subject-matter will have to be tried out and sifted before it is as well selected as is the course in Latin. The teachers of the new subjects will inevitably pass through a series of the same kind of sifting processes through which the teachers of Latin have passed. Even when some of the problems thus arising are settled, the new subjects will still be difficult of organization. Thus biology is changing by virtue of the evolution of the science at a rate which complicates the case very much more than it can ever be complicated in Latin.
Social Needs and the Curriculum
Further evidence that the curriculum is a living, changing institution is seen in the way in which courses are related to social demands. There was a time in the history of the secondary school and college when the course in Hebrew was regarded as universally desirable for every student of the social group which attended these institutions. That was in the period when the group was of a definitely vocational composition. For example, in the early days of Harvard College 70 per cent of its graduates entered the ministry, and Hebrew was a requirement. The later history of the student body explains why the requirement of Hebrew became obsolete. Two paragraphs from a recent bulletin of the Bureau of Education give some of the facts as follows:
From this it is apparent that those who founded the institution primarily had in mind a theological seminary. The professions of the graduates for the early period bear witness to the fact that this was practically what the institution was. The ministry was the one profession most necessary, most demanded by the society of that time, and this profession more than any other required an advanced education. It is not surprising, therefore, to find this profession dominant during the early years of Harvard’s history. This dominance continues for over a century, and not until the period immediately following the Revolutionary War does any other profession claim so many of the graduates as the ministry.
The curve representing this profession has three distinct tendencies. The first part, extending from 1642, the date of the first graduating class, to 1720, is slightly downward, with rather wide variation. This stretch of 80 years shows a decline from 70 per cent for the first three years, a percentage never again reached, to 60 per cent for the last five-year period. The second tendency is seen in the period of theological unrest, marked off roughly by the years 1720-1775. Here the downward tendency is clearly defined. It shows a decline from 60 per cent to less than 20 per cent. The variations during this period are not so marked. The third tendency extends from the Revolutionary War to the present. This shows a slow, persistent relative decline reaching well below 5 per cent by the end of the nineteenth century. The variations during this period, particularly during the last half, are inconspicuous.[63]
Systematic Studies as Devices for facilitating Evolution of the Curriculum
The effect of this and like radical social changes is sometimes slow in actually modifying the curriculum because of the conservative tendencies discussed in earlier chapters. But the final effect is inevitable. The changing social order carries with it the school and its subjects of instruction.
The characteristic fact about the present generation of progressive educators is that they are undertaking certain studies which are designed to hasten the processes of selection. The curriculum is to be modified and improved, with every new accession of knowledge and with every new evolution in social life. How the improvement can be brought about most expeditiously and most productively is a problem which is engaging much of the attention and energy of school officers.