INTRODUCTION TO THE
SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF
EDUCATION

BY

CHARLES HUBBARD JUDD
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION AND DIRECTOR OF THE SCHOOL
OF EDUCATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

GINN AND COMPANY
BOSTON · NEW YORK · CHICAGO · LONDON
ATLANTA · DALLAS · COLUMBUS · SAN FRANCISCO

COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY CHARLES HUBBARD JUDD
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
219.9

The Athenæum Press
GINN AND COMPANY · PROPRIETORS ·
BOSTON · U.S.A.

[PREFACE]

This book is the result of eight years of experimentation. In 1909 the Department of Education of The University of Chicago abandoned the practice of requiring courses in the History of Education and Psychology as introductory courses for students preparing to become teachers. For these courses it substituted one in Introduction to Education and one in Methods of Teaching. This move was due to the conviction that students need to be introduced to the problems of the school in a direct, concrete way, and that the first courses should constantly keep in mind the lack of perspective which characterizes the teacher-in-training.

In the years that have elapsed since 1909 the conviction has gained almost universal acceptance in normal schools and colleges of education that the History of Education is not a suitable introductory course. Psychology has grown in the direction of a scientific discussion of methodology, and the demand for a general introductory discussion of educational problems from a scientific point of view has often been expressed by teachers in normal schools and colleges. In this period the writer has had frequent opportunity to try out various methods of presenting such an introductory course. The results of this experience are presented in this volume, which is designed as a textbook for students in normal schools and colleges in the first stages of their professional study.

The teacher who uses this book can expand the course to double the length here outlined by introducing schoolroom observation and supplementary reading. The questions and references offered at the end of each chapter and the references in the footnotes are intended to facilitate such further work. A set of questions is given in the Appendix as a guide to classroom observation.

The obligations which the author has incurred in the preparation of the book are numerous. Almost every member of the Department of Education of The University of Chicago has at some time or other given the course to a division of students, and all have contributed suggestions and criticisms with regard to the organization of material. Special obligations should be noted in this connection to Professors J. F. Bobbitt, S. C. Parker, F. N. Freeman, H. O. Rugg, and W. S. Gray. To Professor E. H. Cameron the author is under obligation for suggestions made after reading the manuscript. To the authors and publishers whose works have been drawn upon for extensive and numerous quotations, special thanks are due for courteous permission to use their material. Finally, it is to the students who have from year to year passed through this course that the largest obligation should be acknowledged because of the suggestions which their reactions have given to the writer.

C. H. J.

Chicago, Illinois

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LIST OF TABLES

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF EDUCATION

[CHAPTER I]
EXTENDING THE PUPIL’S VIEW OF THE SCHOOL

The Pupil’s View Limited

Most people think of school matters from the pupil’s point of view. When they learned arithmetic and grammar, or later when they studied algebra and Latin, each course was presented to them as though it were a perfect system. The teacher did not confide in them that arithmetic probably ought to be revised by the omission of many of its topics, that formal grammar is a very doubtful subject, and that both algebra and Latin are on the point of losing their places as required subjects. The pupil sees the front of the school scenery; the machinery behind is known only to those who conduct the performance.

It would be possible to multiply indefinitely examples which show that the pupil’s view of the school is very limited. What pupil understands the duties of the principal or the superintendent, or of the still more remote and mysterious board of education? Where does the daily program come from? Who decides about textbooks? Why are school buildings commonly planned with large study-rooms? Most of these questions are never thought of by pupils. Everything in school life seems to have a kind of inevitableness which raises it above question or even consideration.

Conservatism in the Community as a Natural Consequence

The narrowness of the pupil’s view would have less serious consequences if it were not for the fact that the pupil becomes in mature life a member of a board of education or adopts teaching as his profession. Then trouble results, because there is machinery which must be kept running if schools are to be efficient, and this machinery suffers if intrusted to the hands of those who do not understand its complexities.

One school superintendent, who encountered vigorous opposition to the introduction of changes in the course of study, wrote as follows:

The average American citizen whose schooling was limited to the primary and grammar grades looks with reverence upon the subjects there taught, and refuses to concur in a change of the course of study for the elementary school. Associated with the average citizen is a heavy percentage of the teaching faculty of both elementary and high schools throughout the country.[1]

Another superintendent, who was more successful in bringing about reforms, makes this statement:

People are more conservative in their attitude towards educational innovations than toward new adjustments to meet the demands of changing modern life in any other field of activity. Each adult is inclined to overvalue the particular type of training he received and to regard with suspicion any change which will tend to discredit this sort of training received at such an expenditure of time and money. The schools are, therefore, the last institution to respond to the changing demands of modern life.[2]

Demand for a Broad Scientific Study

If schools are to be progressive and efficient, they must be studied very much more broadly and comprehensively than they can be from the pupil’s point of view. The suggestion naturally arises that this broader study is a part of the professional duty of the teacher. So it is; but it will not be enough merely to exhibit the intricacies of education to teachers. The whole community must be shown by scientific methods that the school is a complex social institution, and that its conduct, like the conduct of every other social institution, requires constant study and expert supervision. In this movement of opening the eyes of the community to the needs and nature of education, the school officers must be leaders; but their methods must be impersonal and exact.

Beginnings of the Science of Education

During recent years the demand for a thorough and comprehensive study of schools by scientific methods has led to a number of investigations which can be offered as an optimistic beginning of a science of education. It would, indeed, be far beyond the truth to assert that science has settled all the problems of teaching and of school organization. There is, however, a very respectable body of fact which has been clearly enough defined so that it can in no wise be set aside. In certain details the requirements of a scientifically valid educational scheme are known and can be described. The method of studying schools can safely be said to be established. It is the work of the future to take up, now this problem, now that, and by progressive stages to work out a complete science of school management and classroom organization.

It will be the purpose of subsequent chapters to define fully certain of the leading problems with which the science of education deals. The remainder of this chapter will be devoted to a brief statement of certain typical studies, which will make more concrete and definite the contention that the pupil’s view of schools is narrow and that the teacher’s view must be extended, as must also that of the community at large, if educational conditions are to be improved.

Effectiveness of Studies of Retardation

First, we may refer to investigations which have been made of the rate of promotion of pupils through the grades.

Whenever a pupil fails to complete the work of a grade in the appointed time, it is evident that there is some kind of maladjustment. The pupil may be incompetent to do the work required of him because he is mentally deficient. On the other hand, it may be that the work is ill chosen and in need of revision. The following statement from one of the leading students of education in the United States describes with clearness the problem and the progress made in meeting it.

Just ten years ago the distinguished superintendent of schools of New York called attention to the fact that 39 per cent of the children in the schools of that city were above the normal ages for their grades. This aroused widespread investigation, which showed that similar conditions obtained in other cities throughout the country. Soon studies of this phase of educational efficiency showed that the same conditions which resulted in our schools being crowded with retarded children also prevented a large proportion of these children from ever completing the elementary grades.

About seven years ago this became one of the most widely studied problems of educational administration, and in the past four it has been one of the prominent parts of the school surveys. During the entire period hundreds of superintendents throughout the country have been readjusting their schools to better the conditions disclosed.

In these seven years the number of children graduating each year from the elementary schools of America has doubled. The number now is three quarters of a million greater annually than it was then. The only great organized industry in America that has increased the output of its finished product as rapidly as the public schools during the past seven years is the automobile industry.

It is probable that no other one thing so fundamentally important to the future of America as this accomplishment of our public schools has taken place in recent years. There is every evidence that this is the direct result of applying measurements to education. If the school survey movement now under way can produce other results at all comparable with this one, we need have no fear for the outcome.[3]

The quotation does not tell us how the reform has been worked out. That is a long story. In some cities better teachers were needed and have been employed. In a great number of cases the course of study has been revised. Sometimes smaller classes have been provided. So on through a long list of details, one might enumerate the reforms which have resulted from a careful study of the one fact that pupils in the schools were older than they normally should be.

A Study of High-School Courses

A second type of study can be borrowed from the reports of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. This Association has as its practical purpose the inspection of the secondary schools and colleges of the northern states from Ohio to Colorado. The inspectors of high schools in seventeen states brought together in the report of 1916 a number of exact statistics regarding 1128 approved schools.[4] One set of these facts may be selected for special comment.

Fig. 1. Average number of high-school units in the approved schools of the various states of the North Central Association
The full-drawn lines are proportional in length to the number of units offered in academic subjects; the dotted lines, to technical subjects

The number of units, or courses, offered in high schools has increased rapidly in recent years. Especially marked is the addition to the school program of technical subjects, such as home economics, manual training, and commercial courses. The report here under discussion states that in all the approved schools of the association there is an average of 21.13 academic units, that is, units in such subjects as languages, history, mathematics, science, and English; and an average of 9.41 units in technical or vocational subjects.

When we examine the individual states, we find that Minnesota, which has a large state fund, much progressive legislation on high schools, and a vigorous state department of education, shows averages of 23.87 academic units and 12.65 units of vocational subjects. South Dakota, where the school system is new and economic conditions are much less favorable, has averages of 17.62 academic units and 6.46 vocational units. The more striking differences are those which arise not from economic conditions but from clearly indicated differences in educational policy. Ohio has an average of 22.24 academic units, which is high, and an average of only 7.26 vocational units, which is low. On the other hand, Kansas has 22.9 academic units, or just about the same as Ohio, and 10.13 units in vocational subjects.

Finally, if we carry the comparison into still further detail by examining the schools in a single state, we find in Ohio one city with a high school of 870 students offering 18 academic units and 5 vocational units, while in another city, where the student body numbers 710 students, the school offers 24 academic units and 22 vocational units.

The comparisons are illuminating in several respects. It is probable that most communities are ignorant of the fact that their own high schools differ from others. The publication of definite facts with regard to the practices of schools would stimulate wholesome thinking on school problems. The whole life of a school depends in very large measure on the course of study. When there are such wide divergences as are here indicated, there is clear evidence of differences in educational policies in different states and communities. At the present time the accepted policies are often the products of tradition or accident. They should be made subjects of careful study and either confirmed or revised.

Fig. 2 A. Pauses made in silent reading
The vertical lines, Figs. 2 A, 2 B, show where the eyes of an adult reader paused during the reading. The numbers above the vertical lines in the two figures indicate the order of the fixations

Fig. 2 B. Pauses made in oral reading

An Experimental Analysis of a Fundamental Subject

As a third type of scientific study we may take certain recent laboratory investigations of reading. Reading is the most important subject taught in the schools; yet there are the widest differences in the results secured with different pupils. It is the duty of the schools to find out what constitutes the difference between good readers and bad readers, in order that both classes may be improved.

The method of these studies consists in photographing the reader’s eyes as they travel along printed lines. The number and length of the pauses are thus determined. It is found in general that competent readers see more at a glance than do poor readers. Furthermore, it is found that different types of reading are radically different; thus there is a marked difference between oral and silent reading. The importance of distinguishing these two types of reading lies in the fact that most of the teaching of reading in the elementary schools is by means of the oral method. Most of the demands of later life, and all of the demands made upon pupils when they study textbooks in geography and history and the other subjects of the school course, call for ability in silent reading. The results of investigations can be briefly stated in the following averages: the average numbers of pauses per line in oral reading for adults, high-school pupils, and elementary-school pupils, reading passages of different grades of difficulty, are 8.2, 8.6, and 8.1, while the corresponding averages for silent reading are 6.5, 7, and 6.3. These figures mean that the eye makes more pauses along a printed line when the reader is reading orally than when he is reading silently. Oral reading is therefore a more laborious, difficult form of reading. Furthermore, the time spent in each pause is greater in oral reading. The averages in thousandths of a second for oral reading for the three classes of readers are 380.8, 372.9, 398, while the corresponding figures for silent reading are 308.2, 311.1, and 314.[5] These figures show that oral reading is slow as well as laborious.

It would require more discussion than is appropriate at this point to bring out the full meaning of such facts as these. Enough appears on the surface of the results, however, to make it quite evident that the school ought not to emphasize oral reading in the upper grades as it does to-day. The daily oral-reading drill in the seventh and eighth grades imposes on the pupils a slow, clumsy form of reading at a time when they ought to be cultivating the power of rapid silent reading.

It is by means of investigations of this kind that each of the subjects of instruction is being examined, and as a result schoolwork is increasingly developing effective methods of cultivating children’s intellectual powers. The work of analyzing each of the subjects will be slow and will require the coöperation of many investigators, but in several subjects, especially in the elementary schools, an encouraging beginning has been made.

A Study of the Relation of Education to General Social Life

A fourth and final example can be borrowed from studies made in the city of Minneapolis of the opportunities for trade training in that city, of the number of workmen needed in each of the trades, and of the kind of preparation required for efficiency in each branch of labor. An industrial and educational survey of the community was undertaken for the specific purpose of adapting educational organization to the practical needs of the community.[6] Such a study recognizes the fact that the school is but one among many social institutions and that the school must find its proper place in community life through a thorough scientific study of other more general social activities.

The Scientific Study of Educational Problems

Here, again, it is by no means asserted that the solution of the problem of training workers for the industries has been found. It can, however, be stated with complete assurance that both the school and the community will proceed with greater intelligence if the facts are carefully canvassed in advance.

The spirit of patient, detailed scientific study is more and more dominating the schools. There are some who, impatient at the labor involved in such studies, would rush forward to radical experimentation. Fortunately, even such rash reformers are becoming convinced that they need to keep records of their results in order to prove the success of the changes which they have made. As a result, they too are taking on some of the forms of science, though they do not adopt the full program of patient study of conditions.

The result of a scientific movement such as is under way in education will be the cultivation of a broader conception than was ever possible from any individual point of view. The pupil’s view is narrow because he comes in contact with the school only at the point of application of educational methods to his own life. The scientific view of education is broad because it places the school in its proper relations to other social activities, because it defines the relation of the pupils and teachers to one another and to the material used for instruction, and because it opens up all the results of school work to full inspection and evaluation. This broad scientific view is the one which the teacher and the community at large should adopt.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

In every school certain changes are introduced from time to time in spite of the conservatism of the community. Let the student find examples of (1) new courses of study, (2) new methods of appointing or promoting teachers, or (3) new forms of organization, such as the junior high school or departmental teaching. After discovering innovations, let him find how they were brought about.

What are the usual forms of school records and reports known to the student? How could records be made of more value? Suggest methods of presenting the facts of daily attendance so that they can be readily interpreted by a community. What are some of the interpretations that ought to be put on failures and nonpromotions in different kinds of cases? Is repetition of a course desirable for a pupil who has failed? Are failures more common in required courses than in elective courses? When a required course is described as essential to the education of everyone, what is meant?

Let the student test his own rates of reading. How should a college class differ from a high-school class in ability to read? Go to a library or study-room and watch the people read. Report the differences between individuals.

The readings which are most stimulating to students who have never faced the problems of school organization are those which call in question present school practices.

Dewey, John. The School and Society. The University of Chicago Press. This is one of the most stimulating demands for a reorganization of the school which has ever been written.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques. Émile. D. Appleton and Company. This is a book of great historical significance. It is an indictment of formalism in education and a vigorous advocacy of naturalism.

Spencer, Herbert. Essays on Education. D. Appleton and Company. This is a demand for a thorough reform of the school curriculum. It is now nearly sixty years old, but it is modern in its spirit.

[CHAPTER II]
SCHOOLS OF OTHER COUNTRIES AND OF OTHER TIMES

The Comparative and Historical Methods

The scientific methods of studying school problems, which were illustrated in the last chapter, can be supported and supplemented by a comparison of the schools of the present with the institutions of earlier times, and by a comparison of the schools of different countries with one another. Such comparisons seldom serve as an adequate basis for the reorganization of school practices, because the conditions in one generation and in one country are so unlike those of others that direct transfer of methods of procedure is dangerous. Comparison serves, however, to set in clear perspective the characteristics which distinguish each situation from every other. If an American wishes to see the school system with which he is familiar from a new point of view, the comparative method furnishes a kind of outside station from which he may look back and see facts which were by no means clear in their meaning when viewed from near at hand.

The American Textbook Method of Teaching

One very impressive difference between the schools of the United States and the schools of Europe is to be found in the fact that class exercises in our schools are commonly based on assignments in textbooks, while in Europe the chief method of instruction is oral exposition by the teacher. The word “recitation,” which is often employed in describing a classroom exercise, is an American term. It originated at the period when devotion to the textbook was even greater than it is now,—when the pupil was expected to repeat verbatim the passage from the text. In British books on education the word “recitation” appears only when referring to American practices, and usually takes the form “the American recitation.” In the German educational vocabulary the word has no equivalent.

The unique American method of reciting lessons learned out of a book can be contrasted with the European method by taking a concrete case. If one goes into a geography class in a German school, one finds in the hands of the pupils no book, except that in the schools for the richer classes there may be an atlas; commonly the wall map serves. The teacher lectures on some section of the country, and follows the lecture by questions which the pupils answer. The advantages of the European method are that the pupils become trained, attentive listeners, and are able in answering questions to talk coherently for long periods, imitating the continuous discourse of the teacher. The disadvantages are that the information supplied is limited by the individual teacher’s training, and the pupils cultivate little or no independence in the collection and sifting of information. The influence of the teacher is always dominant—often oppressively so.

Independence of Thought based on Reading

The contrast here pointed out is one of fundamental importance. It can be adequately understood by a study of the history of American schools. When the colonists came to New England they were bent on securing for every individual independent personal contact with the truth. They had left their European homes because there dominating authority always stood between the individual and the sources of truth. One of the first acts of the colonists, therefore, was to provide for the training of every boy and girl in that power which would make him or her independent, especially in religion. The early legislation shows unequivocally this motive. Thus in 1650 Connecticut passed a law which had a preamble very much like that of the Massachusetts law of 1647. The preamble is as follows:

It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from a knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times, keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times, by persuading them from the use of tongues, so that at least, the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded by false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers [the court decreed that whenever a township increased to fifty householders they should employ someone] to teach all such children as shall resort to him, to write and read.

So strictly did the early schools devote themselves to reading that arithmetic and, in some cases, even writing were neglected in the exclusive cultivation of the one art of reading. Later generations of American teachers and pupils have experienced a great expansion of the content of the course of study, but the method of instruction has always been predominantly the reading method. The large number of supplementary readers used in history, in geography, and in nature study keep up the traditions of a school which was from the first a reading school.

The social consequences of this emphasis on reading can be seen in the fact that public opinion in America is controlled largely by an appeal to the people through reading matter. The importance of this kind of public opinion can hardly be overemphasized. In a democracy there must be ability to form independent opinions, and this is possible only where there is the widest training in reading.

European Schools Caste Schools, American Schools Truly Public

A second characteristic of the school system of the United States which distinguishes it from the systems of Europe is described by the phrase, coined in England, “the educational ladder.” There is no limit in the American system to the possibility offered the individual pupil of going on to higher institutions. The boy or girl who has completed the elementary course can go on to the high school and from the high school to the college and university. This is not true anywhere in Europe. There the school systems are sharply divided into two wholly different and distinct lines of advancement. The children of the common people go to one school; the children of the aristocracy and richer classes go to a different school. The school for the common people is limited in time and opportunity, and does not lead into the universities. Thus the Volksschule of Germany, which gave instruction before the war to 92 per cent of the total school population, is an eight-year school, teaching only the common branches. The pupil who enters the Volksschule cannot look forward to entering any one of the professions or any civil-service position. He cannot be transferred from the upper grades of this common school into the secondary school. The common school of Germany is a social instrument for the perpetuation of a caste system. The common people know their place because they learn it when they enter school.

Fig. 3. Diagram showing the organization of German schools and American schools
The subdivisions of the lines indicate a year in each case. Certain of the important items of the curriculum are set down under the years in which they are first introduced

Fig. 3. Diagram showing the organization of German schools and American schools
The subdivisions of the lines indicate a year in each case. Certain of the important items of the curriculum are set down under the years in which they are first introduced

The European school for the aristocracy, on the other hand, is organized from its earliest years with a view to preparing its pupils for the higher callings. It is difficult for the American to understand how distinct this school is from the common school. The term “secondary school” is sometimes applied in educational writings to both the high school of the United States and the aristocratic schools of Europe. But the secondary school of Europe is entirely different from our high school. It takes little children in the lower grades and carries them through. Thus the German Gymnasium takes boys of the age of six. These are received into what is called a Vorschule, or preliminary school. After three years in the preliminary school the pupil begins his nine-year course in preparation for the university. In some of the states of the German Empire the pupil may be transferred into the Gymnasium from the earliest grades of the common school, but from this point on there is no commerce whatsoever, in teaching staff, in course of study, or in pupil constituency, between the common school and the school of the aristocracy. The division in France is quite as strict. In England transfer in the later years of the common-school course can be made, but only on the basis of examinations.

The social consequences of such a division within the school system need no detailed exposition. The hard-and-fast lines of caste are drawn very deep in any country where the boys and girls are marked from the beginning of their training by separation in opportunity.

Influence of European Schools on the Educational System of This Country

It is not enough that we should see this contrast, however; we must learn its fuller meaning by looking into the history of our own school system. The fact is that we have not broken entirely away from the traditions of Europe. Our elementary school was borrowed directly from the Volksschule of Germany, and many of the readjustments which we are making to-day are nothing less than efforts to shake ourselves free from that disjointed scheme of education.

The time of this borrowing of the German Volksschule is clearly marked in our history. In the first three decades of the nineteenth century American schools were at a low level of development. A vivid picture of conditions in 1801 can be given by quoting from one of the earliest school reports that we have. The superintendent of the city of Taunton, Massachusetts, in a recent report reproduced this interesting historical document, of which we may quote certain sections in order to show the kind of school organization which prevailed at that date.

REPORT OF THE VISITING COMMITTEE OF TAUNTON IN 1801

The committee chosen by the town to inspect the schools beg leave to report their situation and examination....

January 6th, 1801. Your committee visited a school kept in Rueben Richmond’s house instructed by Mrs. Nabby Williams of 32 scholars. This school appeared in an uncultivated state the greater part of the scholars.

On the 26 of Feb., visited Mrs. Nabby Williams’ school the second time and found that the scholars had made great proficiency in reading, spelling, writing and some in the grammar of the English language.

Nov. 10th, the committee visited and examined two Schools just opened; one kept in a school house, near Baylies works, of the number of 40 scholars, instructed by Mr. Philip Lee. This School we found to have made but small proficiency in reading, spelling and writing, and to be kept only six or seven weeks; upon inquiry why it should be taught no longer, we were informed that the ratio of school money for this School was and had been usually expended in paying the Master both for his service and board, and in purchasing the fire wood which is contrary to the usual custom of the town.

The other School, visited the same day, was kept near John Reed’s consisting of the number of between 30 and 40 Scholars instructed by Mr. William Reed; This School, being formed into regular classes, appeared to have made a good and pleasing proficiency in reading, spelling, writing, some in arithmetic and others in the Grammar of the English language. This School’s share of school money is expended to pay the Master for his service only, so that the School will be continued three months.

On the 8th day of December they visited a School kept in a School house near Seth Hodges, in number 30 Scholars instructed by Mr. John Dunbar. This School appeared in a good way of learning, and to be kept four months.

---

On the 22nd of December your Committee visited two more Schools just opened, one in a School house near Samuel Pett’s of the number of 40 scholars instructed by Mr. Rufus Dean, and to be kept three months. This School appeared to be in a promising way of learning in reading spelling and writing and to be regularly taught.

The other School is kept in the home of Mr. Paul Chase and taught by Mr. Nicolas Stephens, consisting of 30 Scholars, and appears quite in a good way of learning especially in Spelling for scarcely a word passed a scholar misspelled, in writing some did very well and others in arithmetic appeared attentive.

January 8th, 1801 visited two Schools for the first time, one in the home of Mr. William Hodges of the number of 37 Scholars, instructed by Mr. Lovet Tisdale, the other in the home of Mr. Daniel Burt, of the number of 25 Scholars, instructed by Mr. Benjamin Tubbs. These Schools appeared in good order and attentive to their learning.

---

Feby. 26th, visited Mr. Dean’s School 2 times, the Scholars were crowded into a small room, the air was exceedingly noxious. Many children were obliged to tarry at home for want of room and though the school was kept only a few weeks they were deprived of its advantages. A want of books was the complaint. The committee were anxiously desirous that this evil might have a remedy and were of opinion it may be easily done. The Scholars appeared to increase in knowledge & claim our approbation.

March 5th, visited two schools, one kept at Mr. Aaron Pratt’s of the number of 30 scholars instructed by Mr. Philip Drown. This school appeared quite unimproved and uncultivated in reading and spelling, some of them did better in writing. This uncultivated state did not appear to be from a fault in the children but, as your committee were informed, from the disadvantage of having had masters illegally qualified for their instruction; of which class is their present master unauthorized by law.[7]

The situation here described was typical of all the settled towns. How much worse it was in sparsely settled districts one can easily imagine. Briefly put, one can say that up to 1830 schools throughout the country held short sessions in the middle of the winter when the pupils were otherwise unoccupied with home demands. There was no supervision except by visiting committees, no course of study, little or no material equipment, and small outlook for a higher education.

Adoption of the German Model

During the decade 1830-1840 there was an effort, especially in Massachusetts under the leadership of Horace Mann and in Michigan under John Pierce, to improve the common schools. In an illuminating historical treatise on this subject Mr. F. F. Bunker has reproduced some of the evidences that the changes made at that time in the schools of America were largely influenced by German models. The following quotations indicate how the movement began:

Charles Brooks, a man whose influence in Massachusetts was great, and who may be said to have prepared the way for the work of Horace Mann, did very much to disseminate knowledge respecting the Prussian system. He was primarily interested in establishing a normal school after the Prussian model, yet, during the campaign which he carried on for this purpose between the years 1835 and 1838 he did not limit himself to the consideration of the normal school alone, but sought to acquaint the people with the details of the German system of elementary education as well. His account of the return trip from England, which he made in company with Dr. H. Julius, of Hamburg, indicates the esteem in which he held the Prussian system:

A passage of 41 days from Liverpool to New York (with Dr. Julius) gave me time to ask all manner of questions concerning the noble, philosophical, and practical system of Prussian elementary education. He explained it like a sound scholar and a pious Christian. If you will allow the phrase, I fell in love with the Prussian system, and it seemed to possess me like a missionary angel.

Just at the time that Charles Brooks was laboring so diligently to incorporate in the Massachusetts system the results of Prussian experience, another man, John D. Pierce, in Michigan, also an enthusiastic believer in the preëminence of the Prussian organization, was laying the foundation for an educational system in his own State and building into it the best features of Prussian practice. It was mainly because of his suggestions to the chairman of the committee on education in the convention that framed the State government in 1835 that the article in the constitution respecting education was framed and provision made for the office of superintendent of public instruction. Mr. Pierce was appointed to the superintendency in 1836 and at once began the work of preparing a plan for a complete school system.

Before framing his recommendations, which were submitted in 1837 and which were approved for the most part, he visited the schools of New England, New York, and New Jersey. Prior to this, however, he had learned of the Prussian system through an English translation of Cousin’s report. This report of Cousin’s was first made known to the English-speaking people by Sir William Hamilton, who, in the Edinburgh Review, July, 1833, commended the report highly and quoted at considerable length therefrom. The next year (1834) that part of the report which treated of Prussian practice was translated into English by Mrs. Sarah Austin and appeared in London. A New York edition of the same translation was issued in 1835 and widely distributed. It was a copy of this edition which, falling into Mr. Pierce’s hands, profoundly influenced him in framing the system he later submitted to the Michigan Legislature. In describing his entrance into public life Mr. Pierce speaks of this circumstance:

About this time (1835) Cousin’s report of the Prussian system, made to the French minister of public instruction, came into my hands and it was read with much interest. Sitting one pleasant afternoon upon a log on the hill north of where the courthouse at Marshall now stands, Gen. Crary (chairman of the convention committee on education) and myself discussed for a long time the fundamental principles which were deemed important for the convention to adopt in laying the foundations of our State. The subject of education was a theme of special interest. It was agreed, if possible, that it should make a distinct branch of the government, and that the constitution ought to provide for an officer who should have this whole matter in charge and thus keep its importance perpetually before the public mind.

Mr. Pierce’s indebtedness to Prussia for many of the ideas which he worked out in the system which he organized is thus set forth by a later superintendent of the Michigan system, Francis W. Shearman, who, writing in 1852, said:

The system of public instruction which was intended to be established by the framers of the constitution (Michigan), the conception of the office, its province, its powers, and duties were derived from Prussia.[8]...

Results of the Adoption of the German Example.

It is a striking fact that all this borrowing had to do with the common school. Nor was it inappropriate at that period that emphasis should be on the school for the common people. In the young states there was relatively little higher education, and the need was great for an improvement of the common schools.

The consequences of this borrowing were momentous for our history. There are two characteristics which our American schools of elementary grade took on in imitation of the German model, which characteristics have determined in large measure their subsequent development down to the present. In the first place, the German common school was strictly a vernacular school, and, in the second place, it dealt only with rudimentary subjects. The Gymnasium, or the school for the aristocracy, was not a vernacular school. Latin and Greek and modern foreign languages were taught in even the lower grades of the Gymnasium. Furthermore, the Gymnasium alone taught such “higher” subjects as the higher mathematics, while the common school confined itself exclusively to arithmetic as the rudimentary branch of mathematics. In point of time the German Volksschule, as noted above, conducted a course eight years in length. The pupils completed this course at fourteen years of age, when they were confirmed in the Church.

The common school was the institution which America borrowed in 1830-1840. The common school was set up in the United States as an eight-year school devoted exclusively to the vernacular and to rudimentary subjects. But the American system developed. The length of the school year increased, and the number of pupils who are ambitious to go on into the higher schools has enormously increased. In 1917 we were told by the Commissioner of Education of the United States that more than 1,300,000 of the young people in this country were in the high schools. Even now, however, the eight-year vernacular rudimentary school of Germany has its stamp on our American life. As a rule our American schools do not permit a pupil to study foreign languages in the lower school, even when we know that he is going on to high school. The general exclusion of languages is due to the tradition that the elementary school is a vernacular school, not to inability on the part of pupils to learn languages. We will not permit algebra to be taught in the elementary school, because algebra is not a rudimentary subject. To be sure, we have had a hard time trying to keep arithmetic in its position of exclusive domination of the elementary course. We have grafted into the arithmetic all kinds of economic information about insurance and banks and foreign exchange. We have exercised our ingenuity to the limit in inventing examples of a complicated sort in order to keep the pupils in the upper grades at work in arithmetic. But through it all we have been kept from a rational development by adherence to the tradition of the German common school,—the tradition which treats higher subjects as the exclusive property of the aristocracy.

The Reorganization of American Schools

The day of reform is, however, at hand. Social pressure has gradually been making it evident to all that in America the elementary school cannot be a caste school. The people are demanding that pupils who are to have only a limited schooling be admitted to some of the higher subjects. Furthermore, there are enough pupils who go on into the high school to make it evident that the American scheme should be organized not with a view to distinguishing between the elementary school and the high school, but with a view to combining the two into a continuous institution.

Within the last five years there has spread rapidly a movement known as the junior-high-school movement, or the intermediate-school movement. This is essentially a reform of the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, and consists, first of all, in the introduction into the course of study of material which formerly belonged to the high school. In the second place, this movement recognizes the maturity of pupils in a variety of ways. It adopts a form of discipline which throws responsibility on them. It departmentalizes the teaching and offers electives, thus securing the advantages of specialization. The movement promises to reorganize our whole school system in such a way as to give us a new kind of national education. America has at the present moment a closer approximation to a continuous educational ladder than any other country, but the ladder needs a little splicing. With the present enthusiasm for national development the splicing is likely to be facilitated.

Origin of the High School

The foregoing statements extracted from the history of the elementary school may be supplemented by references to the history of the high school. The first schools of secondary grade in this country were patterned after the classical secondary schools of England. The Boston Latin School and the Hopkins Grammar School of New Haven are examples of early foundations of the kind in question. These schools were vestibules to the colleges, and the boys who attended them—for they were schools for boys—were looking forward to one of the learned professions, usually, in the early days, to the clergy.

The Latin school charged tuition, as do all the European secondary schools to-day. It was an exclusive school. It was not a part of the popular movement toward general education. In an important sense it was a vocational school and illustrates the general fact of history that higher schools always had a vocational motive back of their organization, whereas the people’s schools of elementary grade were at first always missionary enterprises intended to spread religious training rather than vocational training.

Parallel with the Latin school and growing out of an entirely different motive was another institution which was very much more genuinely American in its character. This was the academy. The academy was often a boarding school to which boys and girls alike went for an extension of their education. Later the village in which the academy was situated took it over or made arrangements to pay for all the pupils, and it became a free academy.

There were some other experiments in the extension of school opportunities. In New England, the oldest and economically most forward section of the country, a ninth grade was added to the elementary school. There are to-day in Maine, and to some extent in other New England states, elementary schools with a nine-year course. But the ninth grade never succeeded. It was cramped by the German definition of the elementary school as a vernacular and rudimentary school. To try to spend nine years rather than eight on the three R’s was not productive. The academy, on the other hand, knew no limits of this kind. It reveled in such subjects as French and music and literature and history.

At last the Latin school and the academy fused in the American high school, and the high school took its place at the end of the elementary-school course. The influence of the academy in determining this form of organization was very great, for the academy was from the first connected with the elementary school, while the Latin school was in its early days an institution quite separate from the common school both in its organization and purpose.

Education of Girls

These sketches of school history could be supplemented by other discussions. Perhaps it will be well to comment briefly on the unique American attitude toward the education of girls. In Europe girls have only very recently been given opportunities of higher education, and even now the opportunity is limited to the few. We have undoubtedly made the mistake in this country, in our enthusiasm for equality of opportunity, of administering to girls a course of study originally designed for their brothers. In due time we shall learn how to give to girls an education suited to their needs, but there can never be any question among us about the wisdom of a higher education for women.

Higher Education Free

It has also been noted incidentally that with us all education is free. This has not been attained without much discussion and much legislation. We shall later have an opportunity to treat more at length the fiscal policies of American schools. At this point it is enough to note that American schools are what they are because they are free.

An interesting contrast can be drawn here between the practice in England and in the United States. In England vast sums of money make a free education accessible to certain selected individuals. The higher schools are not free to all comers, as ours are, but a bright boy—it is usually only the boy—who can pass a competitive examination is given a stipend, which provides his tuition and often enough more to get books and, if necessary, pay for transportation. The English theory is that it is the duty of the public to pay for selected boys, but not for boys in general. To the American it seems a little hazardous to select the leaders of the nation by competitive examinations given to eleven-year-old boys. On the other hand, the English think of our plan as wasteful because we postpone selection longer than they think we should. The contrast here pointed out is enough to draw our attention to the unique attitude of American schools, which are free to all and in this sense far more democratic than the higher schools of any European country.

American Public Schools Secular

Finally, we may point out that our schools are secular. Some of our own fellow countrymen do not believe in secular schools. We are familiar with the practice of organizing parochial schools. France and England have in recent years purchased secularization of their schools after long and bitter controversy. Germany gives instruction in religion as an important part of every course of study. In some sections of Germany the distinction between religious beliefs is carried into the school organization in such a way that one finds public schools set aside for the children of this and that sect. In all schools the pupil has a right to instruction in his own particular type of religion.

In the United States the complete democratization of the schools has been possible because differences in religion have been rigidly excluded. There is a common body of knowledge which can be administered in public schools without involving religion. The decision for such a separation was made long ago in this country and is one of the characteristic facts in our school system as well as in our general civic life.

The School System and its Domination of the Teacher

The facts outlined in this chapter ought to create in the mind of the reader a vivid notion of what is meant by the words “school system.” The schools of America or any other country have a kind of colossal personality. The teacher who teaches a fifth grade or a sixth grade or a high-school class does not determine the character of the education given at these points in the system. To be sure, the teacher can do his or her work effectively or inefficiently. The special methods employed may be well or ill adapted to their ends. But above and beyond the individual teacher is the system which controls the pupil’s progress in many subtle ways and determines all the main lines of his training. The teacher who would succeed must understand this larger influence. Especially is it necessary that the teacher who aims to contribute to the rational development of the system through the scientific study of detailed problems become acquainted with the present characteristics of the system and comprehend something of the conditions which have produced these characteristics.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

Among textbooks there are such striking differences that the student will be able after even a superficial analysis to see that their authors had very different ideas about the use of texts. Find a textbook which is intended to give the pupil a start in a study rather than a complete discussion of the subject. Find a text which is intended to be learned rather than merely read. What parts of a textbook are addressed to the teacher and constitute teaching devices rather than material for students?

Contrast the ways in which different teachers use textbooks. Are there teachers who neglect the book very largely? When should a teacher lecture? Find specific examples of lessons which can best be taught (1) by questions and answers, (2) by written work, and (3) by lectures.

With regard to a given high school it is important to find out when it was established. What was its first course of study?

With regard to courses for girls, it is interesting to inquire how far classes in an elective system are chosen by boys and how far by girls. Why are conditions as they are?

The foregoing questions are asked on the assumption that the contrasts presented in the chapter are of value only when they make students keenly aware of the facts in their own environment. The facts of history are valuable chiefly because of the light they throw on the present.

Brown, E. E. Making of our Middle Schools. Longmans, Green, & Co. This is the only history of American secondary schools.

Bunker, F. F. “Reorganization of the Public School System,” in Bulletin No. 8, United States Bureau of Education, 1916. This shows how our present school system was organized.

Farrington, F. E. French Secondary Schools. Longmans, Green, & Co.

Farrington, F. E. The Public Primary School System of France. Teachers College.

Judd, C. H. “The Training of Teachers in England, Scotland, and Germany,” in Bulletin No. 35, United States Bureau of Education, 1914.

Monroe, W. S. “Development of Arithmetic as a School Subject,” in Bulletin No. 10, United States Bureau of Education, 1917. This bulletin tells of the origin of the present methods of teaching arithmetic.

Parker, S. C. The History of Modern Elementary Education. Ginn and Company. This is a very good summary of the facts regarding the development of American schools.

[CHAPTER III]
EDUCATION AS A PUBLIC NECESSITY

The Primitive Attitude One of Neglect

One does not have to go far from the door of any educational institution to find people who look on reading and writing—to say nothing of higher forms of education—as luxuries rather than necessities. There is the parent who is willing to take his child out of school for the sake of the wage which the child can earn. There is the negligent parent, often himself illiterate, who is utterly unconcerned about the education of his sons and daughters. Another kind of example appears in the boy or girl who goes out into the trades after a limited schooling and fails to keep up the type of intellectual activity which was cultivated in the school. Many a child who has been taught through years of instruction how to read makes very little use of his training in mature life.

An appeal to the history of civilization reveals the fact that there was a time when the opinion prevailed that education was unnecessary for the common man. The earliest schools were for the aristocracy and for the professional classes. Schools for all the people are of comparatively recent date.

Compulsory Education

In striking contrast with this attitude of neglect and indifference is the fact that to-day there are laws in all the civilized countries of the world compelling children of every social grade to attend school. Society as a whole does not share the slight esteem of reading exhibited by the man who takes his child out of school. Indeed, society has gone so far as to set aside that man’s judgment and to assume control of the child to the extent of insisting that the rudiments of an education shall be made universal.

Society still leaves it to the individual to decide whether he is to study higher branches. One may take algebra or not as one elects, but not so with arithmetic. The common interests of our common life dictate that everyone shall be able to count and to make accurate numerical statements. People must know some arithmetic; they must be able to read, or they are a menace to public comfort and safety.

Compulsion of Communities

The full acknowledgment of the fact that education is a public necessity has developed gradually. History shows us the steps by which this fact has been recognized in legislative action. The first step was the adoption of laws requiring communities to provide schools. We may put the matter in terms of contemporary conditions by referring to communities which would to-day be backward in this matter if it were not for state control. Thus there are sparsely settled districts or poor districts which cannot afford good schools, or, indeed, any kind of a school. The state is vitally interested in seeing to it that the untoward conditions in these regions do not deprive the children of an education. In the later years of their lives the children from these districts will surely scatter to other parts of the state. They will be less productive than they would have been if they had been educated. It is much more economical for the state as a whole to take a hand in the training of the children than to have to support even a small number of dependent adults during the unproductive period of later life when the consequences of poor schooling appear.

In some cases the delinquency of a community is due not to economic stress but to shortsighted frugality. Here again the higher authority of the larger community must take control and force the backward group to give the children such training as will bring them to reasonable productivity.

The earliest legislation on this matter is of the type which was quoted in the last chapter, where reference was made to the Connecticut law of 1650. Such legislation was addressed to the community and enjoined on it the obligation to provide schools.

Later Stages of Compulsory Legislation

Such compulsion of the community was followed, but at a much later date, by legislation compelling the child to attend school; and finally the period was reached in the midst of which we live to-day, when the state is taking a hand in the supervision of schools for the purpose of insuring as high and as uniform a grade of education as it can afford.

American Education to 1850

The first period of our national life, during which we were very gradually evolving the conception of a need for public education and were setting up the requirement of schools in every community, extended down to the decade before the Civil War. Professor Cubberley has given a very illuminating description of this period, from which we may quote the following extracts:

During the early decades of the nineteenth century, schools and the means of education made little progress. There were among the founders of our states certain far-seeing men who wished for general public education, but it was well along toward the middle of the century before these men represented more than a hopeful minority in most of our states, and in the South little was done until after the Civil War....

To be illiterate was no reproach, and it was possible to follow many pursuits successfully without having received any other education than the education of daily work and experience. A large proportion of the people felt that those who desired an education should pay for it. As the Rhode Island farmer expressed it to Henry Barnard in 1844, it would be as sensible to propose to take his plough away from him to plough his neighbor’s field as to take his money to educate his neighbor’s child. Others felt that at most free education should be extended only to the children of the poor, and for the rudiments of learning only. Still others felt that all forms of education would be conducted best if turned over to the various religious and educational societies of the time. A system of public instruction maintained by general taxation, such as we to-day enjoy, would not only have been declared unnecessary, but would have been stoutly resisted as well. The best schools, and often the only schools, were private schools supported by the tuition fees of those who could afford to use them, and most of these were more or less directly under church control.

Not until after the beginning of the nineteenth century was education regarded at all as a legitimate public function....

The different humanitarian movements which arose after 1820, and which, among other things, demanded public tax-supported schools for all, had not as yet made themselves felt. The people were poor, and indifferent as to education.

Gradually, and only after great effort, this condition of apathy and indifference was changed to one of active interest, though the change took place but slowly, and differed in point of time in different parts of the country. The Lancastrian system of monitorial instruction (by which a single teacher with the assistance of his best students, called monitors, taught hundreds of pupils), introduced into this country from England about 1806, for the first time made an elementary school training for all seem possible, from a financial point of view....

The idea that free education was a right, and that universal education was a necessity, began to be urged and to find acceptance. The land grants of Congress to the new states for the benefit of common schools greatly stimulated the movement. The published reports of those who had visited Pestalozzi’s school in Switzerland, and had examined the new state school system in Prussia, were extensively read. The moral and economic advantages of schools were set forth at length in resolutions, speeches, pamphlets, magazines, and books.

Just when this change took place cannot be definitely stated. Roughly speaking, it began about 1825 and was accomplished by 1850 in the Northern states. It was a gradual change rather than a sudden one, though rapid advances were at times made. The movement everywhere was greatly stimulated by the educational revival inaugurated by Horace Mann in Massachusetts in 1837. In the Southern states, with one or two exceptions, little was accomplished until after the Civil War and the Reconstruction Period were over. Almost everywhere it took place only after prolonged agitation, and ofttimes only after a bitter struggle. The indifference of legislatures, the unwillingness of taxpayers to assume the burdens of general taxation, the small sense of local responsibility, the satisfaction with existing conditions, the old aristocratic conception of education, the pauper and charity-school idea, and frequently the opposition of denominational and private schools,—all of these had to be met and overcome. The referendum was tried in a number of states, and sometimes more than once; in others, the question of free schools became a vital political issue....

By 1850, the principle of tax-supported schools had been generally accepted in all of the Northern states, and the beginnings of free schools made in some of the Southern states. Six state normal schools had been established, a number of states had provided for State Superintendents of Common Schools and for ex-officio State Boards of Education, and the movement for state control of education had begun. It may be said that it had not become a settled conviction with a majority of the people that the provision of some form of free education was a duty of the state, and that such education contributed in a general way, though just how was not at that time clear, to the moral uplift of the people, to a higher civic virtue, and to increased economic returns to the state. A new conception of free public education as a birthright of the child on the one hand, and as an exercise of the state’s inherent right to self-preservation and improvement on the other, had taken the place of the earlier conception of schools as merely a coöperative effort, based on economy, and for the instruction of youth merely in the rudiments of learning.[9]

Compulsory Attendance

The second stage in the development of a public educational system was reached when the states began to see that children must be compelled to go to school. In 1852 Massachusetts passed the first compulsory-education law. In 1864 the District of Columbia followed. In 1867 came Vermont; in 1871, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Washington.[10] From that time on the other states have been enacting such laws. The Southern states, which before the Civil War had practically no public-school system and after the war were economically depressed, were the last to pass compulsory-attendance acts.

Without attempting to deal with the remoter historical development of such legislation, it is possible to show by reference to contemporary reports the difficulties in securing and enforcing such laws. Two quotations from the reports of the Commissioner of Education of the United States indicate the present conditions with regard to compulsory attendance. The report of 1915 makes the following statement:

The year 1915 was a notable year for the cause of compulsory school attendance. Four States—South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, and Texas—which did not have laws on the subject, enacted laws at the last sessions of their legislatures. This new extension of the compulsory attendance area carries required attendance at school into the section where it has hitherto met the most stubborn resistance; the area now practically includes the entire United States, Georgia and Mississippi alone remaining without laws on the subject.[11]

The report of 1916 supplements this statement as follows:

Efforts were made to secure the enactment of attendance laws in both of these States [Georgia and Mississippi] in 1916, and in the former the effort was successful. The new law of Georgia, in brief, requires the attendance of every child between 8 and 14 years of age for four months each year. Exemptions from this requirement apply to those who have completed the fourth grade of school work; those upon whom needy members of the family are dependent for support; those whose parents or guardians are unable to provide the necessary books and clothing, unless the same are otherwise provided; those whose services are needed for farm emergencies; those who are mentally or physically incapable; and those who reside more than 3 miles from school. Boards of education of counties and of cities and towns are intrusted with the enforcement of the law in their respective jurisdictions.[12]

Obstacles to Enforcement of Compulsory Attendance

The enactment of laws is only one step in securing attendance. Especially is there difficulty where local authorities are intrusted with the enforcement of the laws. The records of school operations in the Northern states show that compulsory education was not really enforced until in the ’80’s and later. The sort of difficulty encountered is clearly illustrated by a clipping from the Statesman, a daily paper of Austin, Texas, which sets forth the situation late in 1916 under the Texas law, which was then just beginning to be effective.

The compulsory school attendance law will be effective during the coming year. The compulsory term of the first year of the law’s operation will be three months, or 60 school days, and the board of trustees of each school has the authority to specify the months during which attendance shall be compulsory. The Austin City School Board has ruled that the compulsory term shall begin January 1.

The matter of providing truant officers has not yet been dealt with, either by the City School Board or by the County Board of Education. The law provides $2 a day as remuneration to the truant officer for the time actually served by him. The City Superintendent believes that the logical procedure for the city will be to secure the services of the county probation officer, provided it is found practicable for him to take on the additional duties.

The County Board of Education meets next Monday and will probably discuss this matter. It cannot act, however, except on the petition of fifty citizens. In case no such petition is presented, the County Superintendent says that it will devolve on each school principal to report to the County Superintendent those children who are not in school, and she can call on any peace officer to execute the law. It is not thought likely that the probation officer will find it possible to act as truant officer for the county.

The reason why the beginning of the compulsory period was placed so late as January 1 is that many of the children likely to be affected—largely Mexicans and negroes—will be needed in the cotton patch during the fall. Also in the city, many poor boys and girls will be able to earn something during the Christmas holidays. There are serious objections to the plan, however, since the child who enters school so late in the session will be at a serious disadvantage, and the extra attention he will demand of the teacher will work a hardship on the other pupils. Moreover, in the city the school session is divided into two equal periods, the first of which ends only a month after the child is required to begin attendance. This will involve serious difficulties.

The compulsory attendance law applies to children eight to fourteen years of age, with certain exceptions. The compulsory term the second year will be eighty days, the third year 100 days.

Defective children are exempted; also rural children more than 2½ miles from a school, and on the written statement of a parent that the services of her child of twelve years or more who has reached the fourth grade are needed for the mother’s support, such a child may be exempted.

Even a casual reading of this quotation calls attention to the fact that there is the keenest competition between employment and education. The modern industrial system finds children profitable for certain purposes and uses them. If society is to enforce its judgment that these children ought to be in school, that judgment will have to express itself in mandatory terms. The federal government has recently taken a hand in the matter. It is difficult or impossible in some states to get suitable legislation against the exploitation of child labor by unprincipled employers. State legislatures have too often shown themselves subservient to the dictates of such employers. In 1916 the Congress of the United States passed a law restricting child labor in all trades which produce commodities intended for use in interstate commerce. This federal law is another expression of the judgment of civilization that childhood is a period which should be devoted to education.

It is also shown in the Texas quotation that the machinery for keeping account of children is complicated. The ordinary school authorities cannot deal with the matter without adding attendance officers to their staff. These officers must be supplied with adequate information. This in turn calls for a special school census, because the ordinary national enumeration and even the state and city enumerations are not frequent nor complete enough. One of the most progressive of the New England states has recently adopted legislation looking to the creation of a more adequate system of records. This new law is described in the Commissioner’s Report of 1916 as follows:

In order to facilitate the enforcement of its attendance law, Massachusetts provided in 1916 for the registration of minors. City and town school committees are required under the new law to ascertain the name, age, and other essential facts respecting every child between 5 and 7, between 7 and 14, and between 14 and 16 years of age, and respecting minors over 16 years of age who cannot read and write. A card giving these data must be kept for every child or minor. The attendance officer is required to examine these cards and see that children attend school as required by law. Supervisory officers of private schools must within 30 days report the enrollment of children of compulsory attendance age, and when any child withdraws from school must report the same within 10 days.[13]

Newer Legislation recognizing Complexity of Problems of Attendance

Definitions of the period of compulsory attendance are usually based on the number of grades in the elementary school. Laws commonly specify the age of beginning as six and fix the age of fourteen as the upper limit. Sometimes the age of beginning is higher. For example, the 1915 law in South Carolina is thus described by the Commissioner of Education:

The 1915 act of South Carolina is a local option law. Upon petition of a majority of the qualified electors of a district or “aggregation of districts,” the county board of education is required to declare the law in effect in such district or districts, or, on petition of one-fourth of the electors, an election must be held to determine the matter. All children between the ages of 8 and 14 who are physically able and who reside within 2½ miles of school are required to attend for the full term, or at least for four months. Children between the ages of 14 and 16 are required to attend unless lawfully employed or if they can not read and write simple English sentences.[14]

The provisions of this law show how complicated is the social situation with which the community deals in its compulsory laws. The assumption that it is simple to define the necessary schooling for a future citizen is easily refuted by a little consideration.

In the first place, pupils do not go through the elementary schools without interruption; hence the mere specifying of a given age such as fourteen is not enough. Non-promotion, or the removal of the family to another town, or some misfortune such as sickness may delay the pupil so that he reaches the age of fourteen in one of the lower grades. Intelligent legislation is, accordingly, taking this into account. In some states it is required that the child shall finish a certain grade,—usually the sixth,—otherwise he must go to school until he is sixteen. Or, as in South Carolina, he must stay in school until he has acquired the ability to read and write.

In this connection a complication in legislation may be pointed out which is of profound social significance. The definition of adulthood which is given in labor legislation has usually set the age at which a boy may be regularly employed, at sixteen, while the education law of the same state often requires school attendance only up to fourteen. The result is that the youth between fourteen and sixteen has been sadly at sea. He has not had the judgment to stay in school after he was freed by the compulsory-education law, and he has not had the opportunity to enter on regular employment. He has therefore drifted about, working at odd jobs and learning the bad habits of the unproductively employed.

Supervision a Necessary Corollary to Compulsion

Such considerations as these lead to a clear understanding of the reasons why the state is undertaking in increasing degree the supervision of the details of school work. It is not enough that communities should open schools or that pupils should be compelled to attend; the quality of education must be such as to justify the expenditure of public money and the investment of the pupils’ time and energy in the business of schooling.

Compulsory education implies obligations both on the side of the pupil and on the side of the community. It would manifestly be inequitable to compel children to go to school if the community failed to provide suitable, safe, and sanitary buildings. Because local wisdom in such matters is often limited, and local judgment biased by considerations of expense, the state has dealt with the matter both through general legislation and through vigorous inspection.

In like fashion it would evidently be indefensible to require pupils to go to school and use inferior textbooks or be instructed by unqualified teachers. Here again the larger community has found it necessary to take a hand. State adoption of textbooks is not uncommon, and state certification of teachers is becoming universal.

More important, perhaps, than anything else is the choice of the subject-matter of instruction. To the ordinary man, as indicated in an earlier chapter, subject-matter seems to choose itself; but it does not. Nor can the local community be expected to know the larger needs of its children. A very striking example of this is furnished by the fact that the federal government has recently set aside vast sums of money for the purpose of subsidizing and directing agricultural and industrial education. The theory back of this action is that even the states, and more certainly cities and towns, are unable to deal with the problems of adequate training for practical life. The largest unit, namely, the whole country, is so much concerned with the efficiency of its citizens in industrial matters that it has undertaken to subsidize and supervise this phase of education.

Such examples make clear the principle under which state laws define the minimum course of study and under which state departments of education are erected to supervise the administration of the course of study. They make clear also the justification for the statement that the control of education ought to be increasingly centralized.

Higher Education and Public Control

There is one aspect of the educational demands of a community which is usually thought of as lying entirely outside the scope of the compulsory-education law. It is ordinarily thought that higher education is a purely individual matter. In the older parts of the country the state has been slow to provide higher schools. Colleges have often been provided for by denominational organizations or by purely private endowments. Even in the field of higher education, however, it is becoming evident that public interests are involved. In medicine, in law, and in training of teachers, the state has been obliged to assume increasingly supervisory powers, and of late the financial provision for such education has been more and more accepted as a public obligation. The result of this evolution is the broader provision out of the public purse for all kinds and all stages of education.

Public Control Adequate only when directed by Science

Enough has been said to show that much is involved in the establishment of a public-school system. The problems which arise in the teaching of pupils are intricate; but when one thinks of education as a public necessity, to be purchased with public funds and to be administered in the interests of the broader community, one sees new justification for the demand that all school problems be managed with wisdom. This demand can be met only when school problems are made subjects of exhaustive scientific study.

Fiscal Problem Typical

The subsequent chapters will take up briefly the problems involved in organizing a school system. The first and most general problem is one of securing funds for the maintenance of the schools. It will be well to reiterate the statement with which the first chapter began. The pupil seldom thinks of costs. The teacher usually overlooks the fact that the community is interested in what schools cost. Yet funds are a prime necessity in organizing a public-school system. We turn, accordingly, to fiscal problems as among the first and most concrete examples of educational problems which must be studied by one who would be intelligent about the school system.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

Whose duty is it to enforce school attendance in the community in which you live? When was the last school census taken? What is the ordinary ratio of school population to the total population? What percentage of children of high-school age are in high school? What percentage of eighth-grade pupils go on to high school? What percentage of high-school graduates go to college?

The ordinary reader will perhaps find it difficult to get answers to these questions. He should make himself a student of the reports of the Commissioner of Education of the United States and of the superintendent of schools in some city which publishes an annual report.

From some school record find out what percentage of enrolled pupils attend school regularly.

If there is a school nurse or a school physician, find out what time in the year is most likely to exhibit small attendance. Verify the finding from the school record.

What substitutes for attendance on public schools are permitted? How many children in the town attend schools other than public schools, and why?

Ayres, L. P. Child Accounting in the Public Schools. Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation. (Copies may be secured from the Russell Sage Foundation.) This is one of the volumes of the Cleveland survey and is the only brief statement of the whole matter that there is.

Reports of the Commissioner of Education should be studied as suggested above.

[CHAPTER IV]
INVESTING PUBLIC MONEY IN A NEW GENERATION

The Cost of Educating an Individual

We all know something about how much the family invests in its sons and daughters. The provision made by the father for his children is recognized as an expression of the parent’s willingness to give to the second generation as good a start in life as the family can afford. We are less likely to realize the extent to which the community is drawing on its material resources for a similar purpose. The city of Chicago—to choose a single example—gives to each boy or girl who goes through elementary school and high school an aggregate of six hundred and thirty dollars. If a child were notified to go to the city hall when he is eighteen years of age and receive this sum of money, we should recognize what it means for a community to pay for the education of its new generation. We should understand that the children of a city are its wards. When the matter is obscured by the complexities of the social machinery through which this bonus is distributed, we lose sight of the magnitude and directness of public expenditures for education.

The example of Chicago can be pursued even further. The sum stated above is too small, for it is based on the annual expenditures for conducting the schools; it does not include the large outlay for school buildings and for real estate which the city is called upon to make in order to provide rooms in which the education may be given. Nor do the figures cover irregularities. If the pupil does not get through each year’s work in regular order, the city is often called upon to provide more than the normal number of years of training.

One further item is to be added to the calculations above given, in the case of those who go to the city normal college. For these teachers-in-training the city pays an additional two hundred and twenty-eight dollars a year, raising the aggregate expended on such a student to nearly eleven hundred dollars.[15] Such students are typical of a vast number of young people who are attending at public expense state normal schools, state universities, and public technical schools. Indeed, even where students attend endowed institutions and pay tuition, the actual cost of their education is commonly borne in very large measure by the community, which in the last analysis is the source of the endowment.

Total School Expenditures in the United States

Another method of presenting the facts is to deal with totals. The figures which represent the expenditure for public education in the United States are so large that the individual who reads them usually passes them over with little comprehension unless he is given some background for comparison. Perhaps this background can be furnished by recalling the statement quoted in the last chapter, where it was pointed out that a century ago there was practically no conception of the principle of free public schools. Schools were supported in large measure by charity or by tuition. Most communities provided only a very short term and collected a rate bill, or personal tuition, from the pupils to supplement the small fund secured from taxation. During the quarter of a century before 1850 there was a widespread movement in the Northern states which gradually secured in the face of much opposition full public support for schools. Rate bills did not disappear entirely until 1871, the last state to abolish them being New Jersey, but at that date the principle of support through general taxation was completely established.

In 1870, as we are told by the Commissioner of Education, the total expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools had reached sixty-three million dollars.[16] Nineteen years later, when the population had increased about 60 per cent, expenditures had more than doubled, reaching one hundred and forty millions. Since that time expenditures have increased by leaps and bounds, far surpassing increases in population, as indicated by the following table:

TABLE I. EXPENDITURES FOR PUBLIC ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS COMPARED FOR A PERIOD OF YEARS, INCLUDING ALSO A COMPARISON OF POPULATION FOR THE SAME PERIODS

These gross figures indicate a growth in schools that has never been paralleled in the history of any country. The doubling of expenditures between 1900 and 1910 is due in part to the rapid evolution of high schools. Elementary schools, however, have shared in the development. Teachers are more highly trained than ever before, new courses have been added to the curriculum, and better hygienic conditions have been provided in school buildings. There can be no mistaking the evidence that American communities are willing to support schools in a program of expansion and improvement.

Cost a Determining Consideration in School Organization

An adequate comprehension of the meaning of the statistics of educational costs will make it impossible for the teacher of Latin to sit apart and say that it is not his duty to think of the community. The teacher of science cannot ask for unlimited equipment for laboratory exercises; the teacher of music or arithmetic cannot say that he is interested merely in spiritual and intellectual affairs and that he has no reason to consider material matters. The impressive fact is that a great public trust has been committed to the hands of teachers. The community has erected schoolhouses and taxed itself to the point where school expenditures have come to be looked upon as a serious burden in many a section of the country. It is a professional obligation resting on the teacher, be he of high or low degree, to think of his relation to this matter of public expenditures. The public is likely to become more and more insistent in the demand that public expenditures be absolutely purged of waste of any kind, either the waste that arises from extravagance or the waste that results from inefficiency.

New York

Chicago
Fig. 4. Proportion of public money spent for public schools and other items

Relation of School Expenditures to Other Public Expenses

There is still another way in which the facts regarding the magnitude of the public investment in education can be formulated. In 1913 the Bureau of Census secured figures to show what proportions of the total funds spent by cities are devoted to various departments, such as general government, police, fire, and so on. For the larger cities it appears that about one quarter of the public revenues go to maintaining schools; in cities of smaller size the fraction is larger, reaching in some cases nearly one half. For purposes of our present study a few examples will suffice. These are given in Table II. Two cases are exhibited in Fig. 4.

TABLE II. PER CENT OF TOTAL GOVERNMENTAL COST PAYMENTS DEVOTED TO VARIOUS CITY DEPARTMENTS[18]

These figures show why it is that the business man and the taxpayer are addicted to criticisms of school expenditures. It is difficult for the ordinary citizen to get this great expenditure of public money out of the center of his vision. He can, perhaps, be interested by some enthusiast in the introduction of domestic science or civics or some other new course of study; he may even become convinced of the need of improvements in the equipment of school buildings; but sooner or later, when the enthusiast has ceased to speak, the persistent fact that it costs a great share of the revenue of the city to conduct the schools will reassert itself as a dominant item in his thinking.

Urgent Demands for Economy and Efficiency

In not a few cases the problem of financing schools has in recent years become especially acute. Communities are in many cases at the limit now permitted by state laws controlling the levying of taxes. The maintenance of schools even at their present level is very difficult, and all the time there is the urgent push within the system for enlargements and improvements. Other communities which see the rapid increase in school expenditures, even while they are willing to tax themselves more for schools, are asking for clear evidence that school work is being done efficiently.

Such an attitude appears, for example, in a resolution passed by the citizens of Portland, Oregon, at a regular annual meeting of the voters held December 27, 1912:

Whereas, the average daily attendance at the public schools of this district has increased from 10,387 in 1902 to 23,712 in 1912, and the annual disbursements have increased during the same period from $420,879.61 to $2,490,477.28; and whereas, it is of the utmost importance that the public schools should be kept at the highest point of efficiency.

It is hereby declared to be the sense of this meeting that a full and complete survey be made of the public school system of this district.[19]

Many other examples could be given of school inquiries which have grown out of the demand for either better administration of finances or more efficient training. In 1910 the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of New York ordered a survey of the schools of that city because the Board did not believe itself to be in possession of adequate information on which to base appropriations for education and because, to use the words of the resolution,

It is the sense of this Board that efficient and progressive administration of the schools ... is indispensable to the welfare and progress of the city and that generous appropriations ... are desirable in so far as assurance and evidence can be given that such appropriations will be expended for purposes and in a manner to promote the efficiency and welfare of the schools and to increase the value and effect of the instruction given therein.[20]

Such quotations show the intimate relation between finance and teaching, between the attitude of the community toward expenditures and the modern demand for a scientifically conducted school system.

Expenditures in Relation to Wealth

Returning to the detailed study of school finance, it may be laid down as a fundamental principle that in general school expenditures are related to the ability of a community to pay taxes. Taking for purposes of illustration the three largest cities, we find that they have different degrees of wealth. New York City has an average wealth of $1765.28 per inhabitant; Chicago has only $1604.20; Philadelphia, $953.65. Evidently the capacity of these cities for supporting schools is very different. The differences in wealth correspond roughly to the varying scale of expenditures for elementary schools in these three cities. New York expends $45.67 per pupil; Chicago, $37.58; and Philadelphia, $32.22. The less wealthy cities commonly spend less on schools.

There is a certain equity in the variation in expenditures above noted. But there are conditions under which the variations in wealth are so great that if expenditure depended on the ability of a community to pay for schools, the children would suffer. In such cases the state must take a share of the costs and must, in the interests of the general community, pay for better schools than the city or district can itself afford.

If one thinks of a mining town, for example, where the population is made up entirely of laborers with large families and where the homes are crowded together in a small area, it will be recognized at once that the ability to support schools is very different from that of a well-to-do manufacturing city or of a sparsely settled, fertile farming region where the children are few and the taxable wealth is comparatively great. In the case of the mining town the state must step in to equalize in some degree the educational opportunities of the children. It is not to the advantage of the state as a whole that the many children of that town should be seriously limited in their schooling, because they will in due time scatter to other communities, and the safety and progress of these other communities require that there shall be adequate educational opportunities in the mining town.

This one example is enough to suggest the problems which arise in the study of support for schools. The sources of these funds and the equitable distribution of state school taxes constitute one of the large problems of public finance and call for careful scientific study. Such questions as the following arise and must be answered: Shall state grants be determined by the pupil enrollment, by the average attendance, by the aggregate attendance, or by the number of teachers employed?

Costs of Different Levels of Education

Turning to details of expenditure, we find a new set of problems. Perhaps the most impressive fact is that there is a wide discrepancy in every city between the average expenditures per pupil in elementary schools and high schools. Again, we may select as typical the facts for the cities referred to in an earlier table. These average figures are less striking than some which could be cited. In Los Angeles, California, the cost per pupil in the high school, at the same date as that for which the figures in Table III were compiled, was $285.67 as contrasted with the cost of $59.41 per elementary pupil.

TABLE III. COST PER PUPIL IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND HIGH SCHOOLS IN SELECTED CITIES[21]

It requires very little consideration to explain why there is a difference between these two types of expenditures. High-school classes are often small, teachers receive higher salaries, and equipment is more expensive. It requires much more consideration to justify the difference. There are some who hold that the elementary school is being sacrificed to the high school. Indeed, there are some people so extreme in their views that they would make all high schools tuition schools. They hold that Boston is in expenditures much less open to criticism than St. Louis. In St. Louis, on the other hand, it is pointed out that a most elaborate scheme of high schools has been organized with a view to providing every high-school student in every section of the city with the broadest possible opportunities. By way of further answer to the critics of the high school, it is asserted that the community gets back in public service from the student who has taken higher courses more than such courses cost. Certain it is, as the figures in Table III show, that cities are making expenditures on a most generous scale for the maintenance of high schools; and the total amount of this expenditure is greater than the table indicates because there are large initial appropriations for school buildings which are not taken into account in these statements of current expenses.

Costs of Different Subjects of Instruction

Pursuing the matter further, we find that there are the widest discrepancies in costs due to differences in the subjects taught, to differences in the number of pupils assembled in class, and to other less conspicuous differences.

In order to bring out the differences between subjects in the same school, Professor Bobbitt has calculated the cost, per thousand student hours, of instruction in twenty-five medium-sized high schools, and presents in Table IV the median[22] cost of each subject.

TABLE IV. COST, PER THOUSAND STUDENT HOURS, OF INSTRUCTION IN HIGH SCHOOLS IN THE VARIOUS SUBJECTS OF THE CURRICULUM[23]

Translating this table into the form of a series of questions which school authorities and communities must face, we may ask: Is it desirable that shopwork be supplied in a school when it costs nearly twice as much as English? Is Latin enough better than modern languages to justify its retention in the program of a school when it costs eight dollars more per unit of instruction?

Like series of facts for the elementary schools can be borrowed from an unpublished study by Mr. G. Lee Fleming of Hibbing, Minnesota, and are reproduced in Table V. Certain selected facts are also exhibited in Fig. 5. The table shows that reading absorbs nearly two thirds of the expenditures of the first grade, while in the third grade the same subject gets a little less than one third of the expenditures, and in the sixth grade about one sixth. Opening exercises require about the same expenditure in all grades. Geography comes into prominence first in the fourth grade. A study of the table will show that financial statements of this type are indexes of academic organization.

TABLE V. THE PORTION OF EACH THOUSAND DOLLARS SPENT FOR INSTRUCTION IN EACH SUBJECT IN EACH OF THE FIRST SIX ELEMENTARY GRADES[24]

Fig. 5. Distribution in the various grades of each thousand dollars expended for instruction
The relative expenditure in six grades of the schools of Hibbing, Minnesota, for four of the chief school subjects is shown by the height of the columns

Costs of Classes of Different Sizes

A second determinant of costs is the size of the class. One of the simplest ways of reducing expenses is to give a single teacher a large number of pupils to care for. In 1916 the superintendent of schools in St. Louis calculated that the reduction of elementary classes in the schools of that city by an average of one pupil per class would cost the city $65,000 per year. Los Angeles and Indianapolis have small elementary classes, the averages being 23.7 and 24.7 members per class respectively. The cost of elementary instruction is very high, being $59.41 and $50.45 respectively. St. Louis and Chicago have much lower costs, namely, $37.21 and $37.58 respectively. These low costs are secured in a very large measure by grouping children in large classes of 37.6 and 40.3 average membership per class.

Salaries

Teachers’ salaries differ in different cities and affect the problems of cost; the number of hours that teachers teach is another cause of variation.

Books and Supplies

Certain cities supply the pupils with books and materials, while other cities require the children to bring their supplies from home. In the long run, the cost falls on the community in either case, but it is differently distributed. In the first case, the taxpayers pay for the supplies as they do for school buildings, each taxpayer contributing according to the assessed value of his property. In the second case, parents pay for supplies according to the number of their children and without regard to their property.

In regard to general supplies, there are also differences in policy. Some cities are lavish in furnishing maps and reference books and specimens for nature study, while others are very economical in these respects, sometimes justifying their policy by saying that they put all they can afford to expend into teachers’ salaries. The question is thus raised: How far is it legitimate to spend money in providing material equipment, and how far should it be devoted to the payment of high-salaried teachers? Is it well, for example, to ask a teacher of good training in geography to instruct a class without any wall maps? Is it economical to ask a teacher of history to conduct his classes without books of reference? Or, comparing various kinds of material equipment with each other, one may ask whether it is more essential to spend money on well-lighted, well-ventilated rooms that are barren of apparatus or to put up with old buildings and purchase laboratory equipment.

The Meaning of Financial Organization and Educational Accounting

One reason why it is important that questions like those in the foregoing paragraphs be explicitly formulated is that many citizens think of school finance as wholly distinct from school organization. Very often members of the board of education will disclaim any knowledge of the course of study or of the qualifications of teachers and say that it is their sole duty to supervise expenditures. Consideration of the real problems of school finance soon brings to the surface the fact that financial expenditures are merely means to the end of supplying adequate opportunity for all the children who are required by legislation to attend schools. School finance is one aspect of school organization.

In recent years there has been a movement in the direction of better accounting systems which are designed to reveal the needs of the schools and the ways in which these needs are being met. The financial records of progressive school systems, instead of throwing together expenditures in general accounts, are keeping items of supervision distinct from items of teaching. Costs of supplies of various kinds are kept apart. Thus, janitors’ supplies are kept separate from crayon and other educational supplies. The cost of coal is used as a means of checking the efficiency of janitors.

The Bureau of Education of the United States has prepared bookkeeping forms, and a number of school systems are keeping uniform records of expenditures. This will greatly facilitate comparisons and scientific studies in the future and will help to make school finance more than a mere haphazard distribution of public money.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

What would it cost to supply all the members of a college class with free textbooks? Would it be equally just to supply a college class with notebooks? with writing paper?

Why is a laboratory fee charged in certain courses? Is a laboratory fee just in a class in physics? in chemistry? in drawing?

In case a boy is going to become a plumber, is the public under any obligation to train him so that he will become an expert? How about a doctor? What steps does the public take to insure efficiency in teachers? in railroad engineers? in mail clerks?

What are the state laws with regard to the amount of tax that may be levied for schools? Are upper limits really necessary?

A certain town is about to build a new schoolhouse. The building will cost in the aggregate about $30,000. If the building is provided with a sightly lawn in front and with an ornamental pattern in the brick, it will cost $400 more than if it is perfectly plain and the yard is made of gravel. If the corridor is made sixteen feet wide rather than twelve, the cost will be $400 greater. Shall the two expenditures be made or not?

Clark, E. Financing the Public Schools. The Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation. (Copies may be secured from the Russell Sage Foundation.) This is a volume of the Cleveland survey.

Cubberley, E. P. Public School Administration. Houghton Mifflin Company. This deals with the problems of public-school organization, including the general principles of finance.

Rugg, H. O. Report on the finances of the school system of Grand Rapids in the “School Survey, Grand Rapids, Michigan.” Board of Education, Grand Rapids.

Rugg, H. O. Report on the finances of the school system of St. Louis in the “School Survey, St. Louis, Missouri.” Board of Education, St. Louis.

[CHAPTER V]
DELEGATING RESPONSIBILITY FOR CARRYING ON SCHOOLS

Class Instruction given over to the Teacher

Although the community as a whole recognizes the need of education, and is willing to supply the necessary financial support, it cannot manage directly the details of school operation. The community cannot decide what seven-year-old children shall study. The community cannot decide what ought to be done with a disorderly pupil. It becomes necessary, therefore, for the community to devise some method of picking out suitable representatives who can carry on the schools.

The first task to be thus delegated was that of classroom instruction. One reads in the records of the early town meetings of New England how the whole community participated in the discussion of all financial matters and of many problems connected with the course of study. For example, the site of a schoolhouse, its cost, and its plan have always been subjects of community discussion. Again, the community has often decided whether it wants geography taught or certain branches of mathematics. But when it came to the daily routine of school work, the community employed a teacher and turned the children over to him.

Supervision

The next stage of representative control was reached when the community came to a recognition of the necessity of some kind of intelligent supervision of teachers. Visiting committees were appointed, usually including the clergyman of the town, to look into the work of the classes and report to the town meeting.

So long as communities were small and fairly homogeneous in their social and intellectual characteristics it remained possible to get on with direct town-meeting control of the schools in all except the details of teaching classes and the supervision of teachers. One reads, to be sure, of disagreements at times between the town meeting and the teacher. The visiting committee and the teacher sometimes had a clash, and the supporters of each presented their views with vigor before the whole community. Problems of organization and administration were not lacking even in those simpler days, but the machinery of school management was fairly direct and simple.

Sketch of Development of a School System

How this direct control of schools became impossible with the growth of communities can be illustrated by a single example. In the city of Chicago in its early years the schools were independent of each other. Indeed, in the first years immediately after the incorporation of the town, the schools were private schools to which the taxpayers paid a stipulated sum out of the proceeds of the sale of school lands or out of district levies. The variable character of the teaching which was secured under this plan led to the adoption in 1835 of a partially centralized system of inspection and management. The districts were left independent in all financial matters, but a central board of inspectors was provided which was to unify the schools of the town. This central board was continued after the incorporation of the city, in 1837, but the districts were left independent in financial matters even after that date. The districts voted on the amount to be paid to teachers, on the housing of the schools, and on other matters relating to taxes. There were district committees to care for these local financial matters.

Even though the city government was centralized by the incorporation of 1837, the schools remained distinct. The central board of inspectors adopted certain textbooks, but it appears that the schools paid little attention to this action. How meager was the district provision for schools appears in the fact that it was not until 1845 that the first public-school building was erected.

It is not difficult to imagine the chaos under which such a system suffered. In 1851 the city council took away from the districts the power of hiring teachers and gave it to the central board of inspectors. It also appointed a business manager. The board of inspectors thus gained in power and influence, but they found themselves confronted by educational problems which they could not solve. In 1853 they adopted the plan which was relatively new in American cities, but was coming into vogue, of appointing a superintendent of schools. This officer at once graded the children, organized a uniform course of study, and took steps to equalize instruction in the schools of the city.

The Community Slow to delegate School Control

The historical sketch outlined above gives us a clear insight into the way in which problems of school organization arise. The community must delegate the work of carrying on schools. There is a natural hesitation in intrusting this important work to anyone. As a result, the community is constantly taking a hand, even in these latter days, in all kinds of school discussions. Sometimes the whole city is drawn into a discussion of school matters. Sometimes the individual parent, in his capacity as a citizen, attempts to take into his hands the authority of the community, especially when the way in which the schools are being managed seems to him to be unfavorable to the interests of his children.

Limits of Authority and Responsibility not Clear

The various officials who are created in the process of developing a representative system of school control often find themselves unable to determine the limits of their authority or responsibility. For example, it is almost impossible to determine where the duties of a business manager end and the functions of the superintendent begin. Thus, when it comes to the employment of teachers and the determination of salaries, the question arises whether these matters should be settled on educational grounds or on financial grounds, or on both.

Especially acute is the problem of determining the proper relation of the board of inspectors to the teachers and superintendent. The inspectors, or the board of education as they have come to be called, are chosen as the immediate representatives of the community. They are citizens in whom the community has general confidence, but they are not charged, as was pointed out above, with the daily tasks of teaching. The board must accordingly appoint teachers and a superintendent. These latter are selected because they have training and technical qualifications which the community needs in the schools. The technical officers have in an important sense an independent place in the educational system. It will be remembered that the teacher was the first one to whom the community delegated responsibility for the schools. Not infrequently the community finds its board of representative citizens on one side of a school issue and its technical officers on the other side.

Take a commonplace example. In the development of the course of study it has come to pass that many new subjects have been introduced which cost a great deal. Manual training and domestic science, as was shown in the last chapter, are expensive. Superintendents and teachers are enthusiastic about the educational value of these subjects. Sometimes the board of education has to curtail the expenditures involved because the community does not seem to be prepared to pay the price. If the board is supreme and the superintendent is its servant, how can a campaign of explanation be organized which will show the community what is needed? On the other hand, if the superintendent is at liberty to go directly to the community without the consent or sympathy of the board, complications arise which are not difficult to imagine.

Statement by a Public Education Association

A series of difficulties in the administration of the schools of Chicago brought out from the Public Education Association of that city a statement of the relation between the board of education and the technical officers of the schools which illustrates so clearly the matters discussed in the foregoing paragraphs that it may properly be quoted at length.

WHAT IS A REPRESENTATIVE BOARD OF EDUCATION?

Some people want the school board to be large, so that everyone may be represented. They think that it is desirable that there should be members on the board from every district in the city, every nationality, the various trades, and the various professions.

A board cannot be made into a representative body in this sense. It would never be large enough to include everybody, and it would be unwieldy in action. What is needed is a small board that will be broad in its interests, that will ask many questions covering all sections of the city, and that can act promptly. This board should have laid before it carefully drawn plans touching all the interests of the community.

This small board has to decide general policies and select the people to carry out these policies. It should not operate the schools but should see that they are operated. It should require evidence from the people who operate the schools showing that they are doing it successfully. It should demand and issue reports that are clear and intelligible to the whole community.

THE FUNCTIONS OF A BOARD OF EDUCATION

The functions of the board of education have never been fully understood in American cities because it has been thought of as the means employed by the people to conduct the schools. This is a wrong notion. The people want trained teachers and trained officers to conduct the schools. The people want the board of education to organize the schools so that they shall employ the most expert people who can be secured.

HOW A GOOD BOARD GETS THE WORK DONE