TABLE 14.—TIME GIVEN TO MUSIC
======+=======================+========================
| Hours per year | Per cent of grade time
Grade +—————-+—————-+—————-+——————
| Cleveland | 50 cities | Cleveland | 50 cities
———+—————-+—————-+—————-+——————
1 | 47 | 45 | 6.5 | 5.2
2 | 54 | 48 | 6.1 | 5.3
3 | 54 | 47 | 6.1 | 5.1
4 | 54 | 48 | 6.1 | 4.9
5 | 51 | 45 | 5.7 | 4.7
6 | 51 | 45 | 5.7 | 4.6
7 | 51 | 45 | 5.7 | 4.4
8 | 51 | 44 | 5.7 | 4.4
———+—————-+—————-+—————-+——————
Total | 413 | 367 | 6.0 | 4.8
———+—————-+—————-+—————-+——————
The probability is either that it is over-valued for the elementary school and should receive diminished time; or it is under-valued for the high school and should be given the dignity and the consideration of a credit course, as it is in many progressive high schools. It cannot be urged that the subject is finished in the elementary schools. Pupils in fact receive only an introductory training in vocal music. The whole field of instrumental music remains untouched. It seems the city ought to consider the question of whether the course ought not to be much expanded and continued throughout the high school period as an elective subject. However, in considering the question it should be kept in mind that there are very many things of more importance and of far more pressing immediate necessity.
FOREIGN LANGUAGES
German has long been taught in the elementary schools. Until less than 10 years ago it was taught in all grades beginning with the first. More recently it has been confined to the four upper grades. Beginning with the present year, it is taught only in the seventh and eighth grades. The situation is so well presented in the report of the Educational Commission of 1906 that further discussion here is unnecessary. They summarize their discussion of the teaching of German in the elementary schools as follows:
"Such teaching originated in a nationalistic feeling and demand on the part of German immigrants, and not in any educational or pedagogical necessity.
"It aimed to induce the children of Germans to attend the public schools, where they would learn English and be sooner Americanized.
"For 15 years [now 25 years] past, German immigration has almost ceased, and other European nationalities, as the Bohemians, Poles, and Italians, have taken their place numerically.
"The children of the earlier German immigrants are already
Americanized and use the English language freely, and those later
born, of the second and third generations, no longer need to be taught
German in the schools beginning at six years of age.
"It is demonstrated by experience and by abundant testimony that children neither from German nor from English-speaking families really learn much German in the primary and grammar grades, that is, from six to 13 years of age.
"Hence the Commission recommends that the teaching of German in these grades be discontinued and that the German language be taught only in the high schools.