trict, and a similar movement has been started in various parts of the South

UNIOR high schools and the consolidation of primary schools are two

heart of the present minister of education. The first of the junior high schools was established at Kowhai, a suburb of Auckland, where it has been in operation for a little more than two years, and the minister feels warranted in expressing its success in these terms: "From every quarter enthusiastic indorsements of the new system have been expressed. The parents of the children concerned are enthusiastic in their praise, and would view with positive dismay any suggestion to revert to the older system. Scholars, teachers, inspectors, and other officers of the department, as well as visiting educationists, have expressed warm appreciation of the results under the new arrangement of curriculum." A second school is to be established at Whangerei, in the far north of Auckland, and a third has been inaugurated in connection with the Waitaki Boys' High School, which is one of the most efficient secondary establishments in the Dominion.

Four Distinct Types Required The need of four types of junior high schools has developed:

(1) The junior high school at Kowhai is a separate institution under its own principal, and it contains about 900 pupils, meeting the needs of three adjacent schools. In the four largest cities several junior high schools of this type would need to be established. It would not be desirable to attach a junior highschool course to existing secondary or technical schools in those cities.

(2) In towns of from 5,000 to about 15,000 inhabitants the junior high school must necessarily be attached to existing secondary schools, for it would not be possible to maintain separate junior and senior high schools with adequate staffs owing to the small numbers of pupils.

(3) Arrangements are well in hand for the establishment of junior high schools in small towns in which there are mixed secondary schools. Thus, not only will the pupils of the junior high school be benefited, but the high school, or technical high school, as the case may be, will be made more efficient right up to the sixth-form stage.

(4) It is hoped to establish junior high schools in districts where at present there are district high schools with one or two teachers and a small number of scholars. In such cases the junior high school course will be attached to existing primary schools and attended by pupils from neighboring schools. This plan would strengthen a number of secondary departments of district high schools where at present the number of pupils and teachers is too small for effective staffing and organization.

As opportunity and the circumstances of finance make it possible these four types of junior high-school courses will be developed in all parts of New Zealand, the minister states, so that the time will come when throughout the Dominion the primary school course will branch off into the junior secondary school course at about the present fourth standard and when the pupils are about 12 years of age.

Of recent years considerable attention has been paid to the desirability of consolidating our small country schools in charge of one teacher, of which there are admittedly far too many. The need for giving a better education to the children of the "back-block" settler has been universally acknowledged, but the lion in the path has been the fierce determination of the aforesaid pioneer settler not to part with the advantages to his own bairns which the one-teacher school is supposed to give.

Successful Result of Consolidation is Anticipated

By persistent propaganda the superiority of the consolidated school, with its full teaching equipment, has been made manifest; and at last the department of education feels itself justified in initiating a plan for the consolidation of such schools. Such a school has been started at Otorohanga (Auckland), to which is attached a secondary department, and the pupils are conveyed to it by motor bus from their homes. "Everything points to a successful result,' says the minister, "and it seems certain that before long the department will be pressed in all directions to convey children to the more fully equipped centrally situated school."

Such another school will be opened early this year in the Taranaki education dis

"instead of the previous objections and opposition, the department is beginning to find that the people themselves are now convinced of the benefits of the policy, and

are urging its adoption."

Correspondence Instruction for Isolated Children

By way of giving the children of the "back-block" settler better educational opportunities the department has inaugurated correspondence classes for their special benefit, and the experiment has proved a decided success. Established in 1922, these classes have become very popular, and the number of pupils is increasing very rapidly. With a few exceptions-certainly less than 2 per cent of the whole-the children now taught through correspondence are those who could not attend an ungraded school, even of three to eight pupils under an uncertificated, untrained teacher.

These correspondence classes are conducted by six certificated teachers attached to the head office in the capital; and they send out a weekly or quarterly quota of work through the medium of the post office, with instructions for the guidance of the parents or those who may assist the children in their tasks. It is now

reported that "the progress made by the children of these correspondence classes during the past two years has been re

*

*

markable. The children take the keenest interest in their work, and it is not too much to say that this venture * deals effectively with a difficulty of the greatest national importance."

At last there is a movement toward the

reduction of the size of classes in the primary schools. It is more than 17 years since the writer of these notes, then a member of the education board of Olago, along with the then inspector general of schools (the late Mr. George Hogben), attended a Pan-British education congress that met in London, and we, on behalf of New Zealand, gave our whole-hearted support to a proposal to limit the size of classes in the common schools of the British Empire to a maximum of 46 pupils.

Little Reduction in Size of Classes

So far as this writer's knowledge goes, the only place within the British Empire that acted on that resolution was South Africa, which reduced its classes to 36. Be that as it may, however, the fact remains that New Zealand has done practically nothing in the interval; indeed, in

some education districts the evil has been magnified rather than decreased.

The time was when half the staff of our large city schools consisted mainly of pupil teachers, each of whom had on

the average the oversight of about 40 pupils. I have in my mind's eye several classes in large city schools that contained 120 pupils, in charge of an assistant and three pupil teachers. Of late years the proportion of pupil teachers has been sensibly reduced and assistants have superseded them. But the training colleges in the four centers have not succeeded in turning out a sufficiency of qualified teachers to meet the demand for assistants, and in consequence the unwieldy classes are still the order of the day-more's the pity of it. Now we are told officially that there are more than 1,200 trainees in the colleges, and the scandal (for such it is) of overcrowded classes will soon be at end. Last year

(1923-24) approval was given by the minister to the appointment of about 200 additional assistants to replace pupil teachers, and we are promised that there shall be a subdivision of the large classes.

Teachers are Graded Uniformly

The Dominion scheme of grading and appointment of primary-school teachers has been subjected to a further test of a practical character. The seven inspectors exchanged districts for a period of three months, during which they made a strict investigation respecting the uniformity or otherwise of the standard of grading of our primary school teachers. This work was thoroughly done, and at its conclusion the inspectors assembled in Wellington and reported unanimously that they found the standard to be uniform on the whole, affording a complete vindication of the system of grading of salaries.

The appointment of teachers based on efficiency has met with the almost universal indorsement of teachers. The objection appears to be confined to school committees, who resent the withdrawal of their right to be "consulted" when ap. pointments are made. But the Minister is warranted in asserting as the outcome of his own practical experience as a committeeman and as chairman of an education board that it ought to be recognized that if there is to be a Dominion system of appointment and promotion of teachers on merit alone and without any barriers of district or locality there must be a Dominion system of grading.

Two Years' Service Before Changing Places In this relation Parliament at its late session made an important alteration in the education law that gave umbrage to a section of the teaching profession, but gave profound satisfaction to all engaged in the administration of our primary-school system. Before the Dominion scheme of grading was promulgated the various education boards (Olago leading, Auckland following that lead, and the others falling into line) provided their own schemes of

grading positions and fixing salaries. Then no teacher could move into a fresh position till after two years' service in his original position. Under pressure from the New Zealand Education Institute, the official teachers' organization, the department reduced that period to one year.

The working of this regulation disorganized the school staffs by reason of the frequency of changes of teachers and greatly prejudiced the progress of bright pupils, especially those who were competing for scholarships, and there arose from education boards, school committees, and others interested a universal demand that the old two years' rule should be reverted to. The two branches of the legislature were divided on this issue, and several conferences were held before an agreement was reached. In the end common sense prevailed, and the two years' rule was restored. And since the act was passed it has come to the knowledge of the Minister that a similar evil has crept into the secondary schools, wherefore remedial legislation will be proposed this year.

Entire Dominion Open for Transfer

Another outcome of the dissatisfaction caused by the frequency of the changes in school staffing was the revision of the scale as far as positions and salaries of assistants were concerned. Instead of seven salary grades there are only three now, and salaries have been raised by £25 per annum. The Minister's latest report calls attention to the fact that "for the first time the whole of New Zealand was thrown open for the promotion of teachers on their merits; consequently many teachers who under the more parochial system that had largely existed previously were unable to secure promotion outside of their own district, are now able to do so. After this first general transfer it is fairly clear that the number of changes will be smaller, and the reduction of salary grades to three will further lead to a greater stability of staffs."

The total cost of education in New Zealand has risen to £3,350,000, compared with £3,268,000 the previous year, with £1,500,000 before the great war. Per contra, the attendance at the primary schools has risen from 158,134 in 1914 to 214,778 last year; the secondary schools had a roll number of 11,620 against 6,056; the technical schools 5,054 against 1,839; and the university colleges 4,202 against 2,257. Thus the aggregate roll attendance was increased by 40 per cent, while the figures for the post-primary grades showed an increase of more than 100 per cent.

Of course, the factors that account for this largely increased cost are only too apparent increase in population and greatly enhanced cost of living. The total cost of education per head of population was £2 10s. 5d. in 1923-24.

All private primary schools are now subject to Government inspection, and their standard-6 pupils are examined for proficiency and leaving certificates, just the same as the pupils in State schools. The number of children attending these schools last year was 26,010. Of those in standard 6, 71.5 per cent gained proficiency certificates and 13.1 per cent gained competency certificates.

House Allowances for Head Teachers

The primary State schools employ 5,656 teachers, of whom 1,865 are males and 3,791 females. The head teachers are 881 and 146, respectively; the assistants 529 and 2,669, respectively. The salary bill totals £1,588,582, all but £162,030 being divided among the adult teachers. Head teachers are paid from £180 to £520; assistants from £100 to £430. In addition from £20 to £60 is paid according to the individual's position on the graded list, and married assistants at an additional £40 a year. Head teachers, when not provided with a glebe or free house, receive a house allowance ranging from £30 to £60 a year. Like the rest of the civil service, when the roar of retrenchment went through the land in 1921-22 salaries were reduced by £15 to £20, but this is being gradually restored.

For the first time the Terman group test of mental ability was applied to all first-year pupils in the post-primary schools. The number tested was 8,657, and we are told that "on the whole the results correlated to a remarkable degree with the more elaborate entrance examinations."

The technical high schools were attended by 5,054 pupils, an increase of 852 over the previous year. The other technical colleges held 18,117 pupils, compared with 16,664 in 1922-23. Of the 18,000 odd, 9,653 gained admission through the "free-place" system. Grave complaint is made that the pupils do not stay longer than one year, and the Minister expresses his belief that the evil "will probably persist as long as employment is open to children under 16 years of age." Here, again, pointed reference is made to the increasing tendency of our adolescents to go in for the learned and genteel professions. The slogan of "back to the land" has no attraction for them.

Many Chinese schools have failed to open this year and others have been greatly hampered in their work by the disturbances in the country and lack of funds. The educational department of Peking University, however, has continued its work, with an attendance of 600 students, and steady progress has been made on the new buildings and teachers' residences under construction.

TE

By BEN D. WOOD

HE CONTINUING high percentage of failures, semifailures, withdrawals for unknown causes, and transfers from one course of study to another in our colleges and professional schools, with all the waste of educational effort and sacrifice of human energy and happiness that these things imply, is a constant reminder to both teacher and administrator of the inescapable demands of vocational and professional guidance. It is a goad which forces us to the disheartening admission that in our zeal for teaching and educating we have failed to meet our first obligation to the beneficiaries of our educational efforts. This first duty of the educator is not to teach but to learn to learn what the student can learn, to discover what he should try to learn and how he may be most efficaciously helped to learn. That we have no exact information even as to the number of failures that our colleges turn out annually is a fact which might be interpreted by an unsympathetic critic as indicating that our excusable failure has thus far very probably been accompanied by inexcusable neglect.

Reflex Influence of Failure

It is estimated that about 35 per cent of those annually admitted to college fail to achieve the goal for which they entered college. If this estimate is only approximately correct, it means that about a third of each college class is the victim of educational administration. When we consider the reflex influence which this predestined third has on the other twothirds in dragging standards of scholarship downward, in diverting a disproportionately large fraction of the teaching energy of the institutions from fertile soil to barren, but not otherwise irreclaimable, land, and the general lowering of the morale of the whole college community,

the crucial character of the need for an immediate and comprehensive attack on the guidance problem is clear.

Delivered before the Association of American Colleges, Chicago, January 9, 1925.

The question which has been assigned to me for discussion this morning is "What can the college curriculum do for educational and professional guidance?" My answer is that we do not know, but that there is sufficient promise in the guidance potentialities of the curriculum to make it worth serious study. A number of experimental and statistical studies have been made during the past 15 years, of which one of the most important is that reported by President Lowell of Harvard, in the 1911 volume of The Educational Review. President Lowell studied the records of about 2,000 gradu

ates of the Harvard Law and Medical Schools who had previously been graduated from Harvard College. He divided these students into four groups, (1) those who had majored in literature and languages, (2) those who had majored in history and political science, (3) those who had majored in natural sciences, and (4) those who had majored in philosophy and mathematics.

Too Much Stress on Subject Matter With respect to law graduates, there was not a sufficiently large number of cases in the last two groups to make the results worthy of confidence. His study, therefore, narrows down to a comparison between the professional school achievement of those who had majored in literature and languages and those who had majored in history and political science. His findings were briefly that these various groups of students did equally well in professional school, and his final conclusion was that "in the administration of our colleges, and, indeed, in all our general education, as distinguished from direct vocational or professional training, we have laid too much stress on the subject, too little on the excellence of the

work and on the rank attained."

This conclusion seems to me to be unwarrantably pessimistic with regard to the guidance potentialities of the curriculum for reasons which will be stated

in a moment. In order to check up on the findings of President Lowell, the research staff in Dean Hawkes's office made a study of 300 graduates of the Columbia Law School who had previously been graduated from Columbia College. These students were divided into groups just as in President Lowell's study. We found that all four groups achieved exactly the same average grade, B-, in both law school and college. Again it is to be noted that there were only two students each in the natural science and

philosophy and mathematics groups. Apparently these findings indicate that there is no relation between collegiate subject matter and professional school which may afford a basis for professional guidance. However, in reality, they mean very little, if anything. In the first place both studies are based upon more or less arbitrary groups of courses. They do not deal with specific subject matters. Indeed, the groups of students compared are such as would constitute approximately random samplings of students, and the findings are not far from what we should expect from pure chance selections. But the major weakness of both studies is due to the character of the

educational measurements used.

Conclusions of Low Reliability

Every study that has been made of college and professional school grades has invariably indicated that they are extremely subjective in all respects, of unknown significance, of unpredictable variations in standards, and of very low reliability. These vitiating features of the original data are greatly magnified by the mixing of records and standards derived throughout a period of 20 years. These are in brief the reasons why I do not believe that President Lowell's study offers any real evidence against the value of the college curriculum as an instrument of vocational guidance. It should be said, of course, that President Lowell's study was considerably colored by the then much-mooted question of the transfer

of training and that his study was dominated by the concept of college subject matters as preparation for higher studies. The modern attitude toward college courses considers them not as preparatory disciplines but, in so far as guidance is concerned, as a means for displaying particular abilities and effective interests, and it is from this viewpoint that there has been a great revival of interest in the last few years in the college curriculum.

Correlation of Success Lowest in French

What we need to know is not so much

the comparative achievement in professional schools of students who happen under the present arrangements to choose particular groups of courses, but rather the relationships which obtain between success or failure in specific collegiate subjects and success or failure in particular professions, and in particular branches of such professions. It was with this question in mind that in this investigation we studied the relation between success in Columbia Law School and success in various courses and groups of courses in Columbia College. None of the obtained correlations are very high but they range in magnitude from 0.18 to 0.56, thus indicating within the limits of reliability of such a small-scaled study as this that there really may be significant

differences between various collegiate subject matters with respect to professional guidance potentialities. Taking these correlations in order of magnitude, we begin with French at the bottom of the list and finally reach the total average college grade at the top, with history and political science a close second.

These figures are in themselves not important. I cite them merely as one small bit of evidence which indicates and justifies a widespread revival of interest in the specific achievement of students for vocational guidance. Since the Great War we have had a great efflorescence of research, with intelligence tests and special-aptitude tests of all sorts. In spite of the large measure of success which our experiments with such tests have enjoyed, there is, in my humble opinion, a definite turning to the subject matters of the curriculum for vocational

guidance data. It is to be noticed that this new tendency is not a break from the testing technique; it is, on the contrary, a natural and logical development of the testing technique.

Intelligence Tests Satisfactory in Columbia

In Columbia College, for example, the intelligence tests have been used continuously since 1919. The Thorndike test of intelligence for high-school graduates has been found to be the best single criterion for admission to college that we have used in Columbia College. Similarly, the Thorndike special intelligence test, used in the Columbia Law School,

predicts success in law school better than the average college grade does. These intelligence tests predict success during the first two college years approximately as accurately as the first year in college predicts success in the second year-that is, 0.67 as compared with 0.70. It is clear from these figures that the admission criteria can not be very much improved until the measures of success in college are more accurate and significant. The logical next step, therefore, would be to study methods for measuring higher educational achievement, and such studies have been going on in the office of the dean of Columbia College for more than three years past. The new type tests are now a regular part of the examination machinery in more than a dozen departments of Columbia College and in several of the professional schools of Columbia University. In these departments reliability of the college grades has been raised from an average of about 0.60 to an average of about 0.85.

A study of the relationships between achievement in specific college courses and achievement in the specific professional courses, based upon these more reliable grades, might result in such high correlations as to give us decisive bases for educational and professional adviceparticularly if used in combination with all other types of available information. Something of this sort is indicated by the history of the placement tests which have been used in Columbia College experimentally for two years.

The revival of interest in the achievement of students in particular subject matters is merely one manifestation of the desire of educational administrators to get as complete a picture of the individual student as possible. There was a time when at least mild hopes were entertained that some test or tests might turn out to be panaceas to cure all the misfits and maladjustments in the whole educational ladder. This hope, if it ever realization that in so complex a problem, existed, has given way to the sober into which so many currents and cross currents of personality and interest and there can be no panacea, and that the social and economic opportunity enter,

best we can do is to increase and make more exact and more conveniently available information about the individual students that we are concerned with.

Little Use Made of Students' Records

The

In this connection it has recently been widely noticed that very little use is made, and that very little use can be made under the present system, of the previous school records that students present. chaotic character of these records, dependent as they are upon local standards and local curricula, called into being such examining agencies as the college entrance examination board, the Middle States board, etc. We still hear invidious comparisons made between the prophetic powers of high-school records and of college entrance examinations. In general the faith of colleges seems to favor the college entrance examinations more than In the the secondary-school records. great cosmopolitan colleges which draw their students from all parts of the country

and political science students (not majors only)___

Total average college grade____

Thus it appears that status in the history and political science group is almost as good a prediction of later success in law school as the average of all the college grades together, whereas the status of students in French has very nearly a pure chance relationship to later success in law school. The inference is clear that in professional guidance we must not only emphasize general excellence, but also take account of the subject matter in which achievement is excellent.

E

the college entrance examinations do predict college sucess better than the average high-school grades. But wherever a large number of students goes from one first-class high school to one college, the high-school record has been found to be a very much better prediction of college success than the college entrance examinations. This would seem to indicate that while our lack of faith in highschool records is justified, our lack of faith in the value of the high-school experience is not justified. More positively it indicates that if we had more accurate and more complete records of the high-school experience, college entrance examinations might not be necessary. Our recent experience with new methods for the measurement of specific achievement is sufficient to convince us that it is now possible to secure objective, reliable, significant, and comparable measures of specific achievement throughout the whole educational ladder, and it is only natural that there should be a strong demand for the realization of these much-hoped for possibilities.

Knowledge of Individuals Essential

In my opinion our teaching would be several times as efficient as it is now if a fourth of the present teaching energy could be diverted from teaching individuals to learning individuals and to making the results of such learning available in understandable terms at the right time and place.

Recognizing the fundamental prerequisite for vocational guidance to be accurate measures of all educational products, since the knowable value of all prognostic devices ultimately depends upon their correlations with school products, we are setting the whole energy of the research bureau in Columbia College under the leadership of Dean Hawkes, to the task of developing means for the measurement of achievement in colleges and professional school courses which may give us reliable and comparable data. In the last analysis the quality of our guidance depends upon the character and completeness of the data which are available on each individual student.

It may be of value to attempt a specific and detailed answer to the question "Why is our college guidance so ineffective, and what is the remedy?" The first part is easier to answer than the second, but the answer to the second depends on the answer to the first.

Information Obtained Too Late for Use

1. Our guidance is bad, in the first place, because the information that we do have comes to us too late. I have heard college deans say that very often they knew enough about a particular student in his 33407°-25-2

senior year to advise the student wisely about his college education. Even if this information were available at the beginning of the Freshman year, it would in many cases be too late to help matters very much, because by that time the student's habits are fairly well set. Even Phi Beta Kappa material may be degenerated into college failures, partial or complete, by misplacement throughout the grammar and high school years.

2. The information is never complete. Not only are the important factors of habits, character, and attitudes left to the oblivion of the opinion of comparative strangers, but many of the significant and extracurricular experiences of the student are generally omitted from the records.

Inaccuracy a Crying Fault

For

3. It is very often inaccurate. those who have read the scientific literature of the past decade on school examinations this assertion needs no comment.

4. It is rarely, if ever, stated in com

parable units for any large body of students such as the average American college has to deal with.

5. In addition to these weaknesses, it is rarely possible to guess successfully the meaning of many of the grades on the record card of a given student. A grade in a given course may really mean almost anything from actual achievement in that subject matter to the private personal opinion of the teacher about the student. 6. The information about students, such as it is, is frequently scattered and not available at the time and place where it could be used. I estimate that less than 1 per cent of the significant information which high school teachers learn about students reaches the college at the right time and in understandable units. There is neither a common language between lower and higher education, nor an adequate liasion system.

Only an Instantaneous Picture Available

7. At their best, the records which we get give only an instantaneous picture of the individual; that is, his reaction to certain examinations taken at the end of his high-school course: They give us no reliable intimations of how the capacity for making such a reaction developed, nor how representative of the student that reaction is.

8. The records consist too much of opinions and general feelings of teachers about students, and too little of actual facts about those students especially in regard to personality and character qualities and effective interests.

9. Finally, even the very best prognostic tests given at college entrance time are very unreliable, because of the advanced age and variations in the age of students

entering college. Other things being equal, the testing of students becomes more difficult as we go up the chronological age scale. The personality of the student becomes much more complex, and his capacities become hedged about with a multiplicity of habits and interests, all of which have to be penetrated by tests given in the college years. We should, of course, give tests during the college years, but my point is that these tests would be much more illuminating if they were preceded by many other tests given during the grammar and high-school years.

These loopholes in our present system of guidance define the first remedial steps. We must have closer cooperation between the colleges and the lower schools. The collegiate personnel problem is only an indivisible part or aspect of the whole educational personnel problem, and it can not be hopefully attacked other than as a continuous part. The center of gravity of the educational personnel problem is in the junior high school, and I feel that the major part of the collegiate personnel problem can be solved economically only during the high-school years.

Cumulative Records of Achievement Required

The lower schools should make reliable and comparable measurements of the abilities of their students available to the colleges. We should demand cumulative records of achievement based on objective and reliable measures of known significance. A fair number of secondary schools are already in a position to give us cumulative records of such objective measures, but no channels of communication exist whereby the colleges might get them at the right time in usable form. In some cases our colleges have not provided administrative facilities for using to full advantage the information which lower schools are able and willing to furnish.

When all lower schools are able to furnish adequate records, consideration of college admission may begin where they should always begin, during the first highschool years. There will then be time to

separate the college material from the rabble and the most advantageous grooming given to those who must in future bear the intellectual burdens of civilization. Admission may then become active selection rather than passive acceptance of the best of those who happen for one reason or another to apply for admission to college.

More than 5,000 students are enrolled in German, French, and Spanish classes at the University of Wisconsin.