At the very outset the committee was confronted with the pedagogical question as to whether Government should be taught as a distinct subject or whether it should be taught in connection with history. The teachers are still somewhat divided on the subject, and practice varies. The information collected indicates that the teaching of American Government, Civil Government or Civics as it is still barbarously designated, is suffering from a lack of proper recognition in the school curriculum, for want of especially trained teachers, from lack of a working school library on Government and from inadequate text-books. It seems a curious thing that our public schools, which were instituted and are operated by governmental agency to maintain an enlightened citizenship, have taught every other subject excepting Government. There can be little doubt that the rather confused and contradictory recommendations of the Committee of Seven ten years ago helped materially to spread the impression among high school teachers that the subject of Government could not be successfully studied apart from History, and that it is a sort of poor relation to it on which little time need be spent. The suggestion of the Committee of Seven that the subject might be taught in connection with American History was adopted by a large number of schools. The results obtained are generally considered to be unsatisfactory. In the West out of 240 schools heard from, 153 were offering separate instruction in Government, 47 taught the subject in connection with History, and 40 failed to specify the plan in use. The teachers or principals in these schools personally preferred the separate course by 158 to 30, 54 failing to commit themselves.
In the South 85 schools reported a separate course in Government, 53 a combination course with History. The teachers or principals reporting preferred the separate course by 111 to 33.
In the East and Mid-West 98 schools reported a separate course on Government and 74 a combination course. The teachers or principals expressed a personal preference for the separate course by 110 to 42.
It should be noted that the committee divided the States into three more or less arbitrary sections; the West, embracing all the States west of the Mississippi, excepting Missouri and the States to the south; the South including all the States south of the Ohio River and Mason and Dixon’s line and east of the Mississippi, but including Missouri and the States to the south; the East and Mid-West including the States east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River line.
The reports from all the sections show that experience is demonstrating that the plan of teaching American Government and American History as one subject is bad pedagogy and false economy. The fact that the teachers personally prefer the separate course in Government by a large majority in all three sections is significant. It means that experience is a little ahead of practice, and that when practice has caught up with the best experience, the combination course will be relegated to the scrap-heap of discarded methods.
In its recommendations the committee urges the need of more and better instruction in Government, throughout the entire school system from the fifth grade up. There can be no question that improvements in the administration of the government have not kept pace with the advances, for example, in industry, in commerce, in transportation, or even in pure science. It is a well-known fact that foreigners find much to learn from this country in the organization of industry and in the methods of conducting business, but they do not find so much to commend in the administration of our governments. Yet it is in this very field of politics and government that this country was long supposed to have completely outstripped all the older countries. In the framing of constitutions and in the inauguration of new systems of popularizing political institutions America has led and contributed much, but in the careful, efficient management of public affairs we have not been so successful. In the management of our cities it is conceded that our mistakes and failures are rather more conspicuous than our successes. The question naturally arises whether the public schools have not contributed to these mistakes and failures by neglecting to provide adequate instruction in matters of Government. It may be difficult to demonstrate that school training in the science of Government does result in purer political methods and more efficient administration of public business, but surely a citizenship whose political information has been gleaned from election posters, stump speeches, newspaper head lines, and highly colored magazine articles will not furnish a model of civic enlightenment and success.
The duty of fitting the youth for the services and responsibilities of citizenship in the Republic under the complex conditions which now prevail, belongs primarily to the public school. It has not discharged its highest function until it provides for every child adequate instruction in the government of this country. So far the public school has failed to do this. There are large cities in this country in which no systematic instruction in Government is given in the otherwise splendidly equipped high schools, nor is the subject taught in the grades. Some of these cities are in the boss-ridden class. The question naturally presents itself to our minds, is one circumstance the cause of the other? Certainly a high school, situated in a large city, that does not lead its boys to study the complex organization and functions of the community in which they live fails in performing its first and highest duty.
The Committee of Five therefore recommends that the instruction in Government begin with the fifth grade. In the fifth, sixth and seventh grades the subject should be presented in general school exercises, in the subjects selected for language lessons, in connection with geography and other exercises. In these grades the method of instruction must be largely oral without a text. Such topics as the fire department, the police, the water works, the parks, garbage collection, the health officer, the light housekeeper, the life saving station suggest subjects for discussion. The aim being to lead the child to think of the community and realize that it has rights, obligations, property, that it does certain kinds of work and that every individual citizen has a part to play in the life and activities of this community.
In the eighth grade more formal instruction on local, State and national government may be given. A simple text should be selected, and this should be supplemented. The main emphasis must be placed on the study of local government to make the subject concrete and bring it home.
The committee recommends that in the high school Government be presented as a distinct subject of instruction following one semester of American History. At least one-half year should be devoted to the subject with five recitations per week or an entire year where the three-recitation plan is in use.