of these cycles the seventh-year course is entitled general history and geography; the eighth-year course, American history and citizenship; and that of the ninth year, history and problems of the Pacific coast. In the upper highschool division the tenth and eleventh year courses cover the history of western Europe, divided as follows: First semester, ancient period, to 800 A. D.; second semester, medieval period, to 1500 A. D.; third semester, struggle for religious and political rights, to 1815; fourth semester, the growth of democracy, nineteenth century; and in the twelfth year, the time is given over entirely to the course, United States history and Government.

The student should realize the antiquity of the race; what it has accomplished; that his own nation is only one element in the world; and that each nation should have certain ideals in dealing with its own citizens and with other nations. The object of each particular course in the history department must keep the general ideal of history in mind, and in addition must take some one step forward in realizing it.

What history content shall be given the lower high-school division? The student who graduates from the ninth grade of the public schools should be equipped with a knowledge of some of the most important names and facts in the development of our present-day civilization. For that reason we give him a year's course in general history and geography. It is the belief of an evergrowing part of history students that the time concept is not within the reach of students of this age. The place concept, however, can be grasped by all, and in addition to the names, Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, and others with which he is made familiar, comes the geographical knowledge of the parts of the earth in which man has developed his greatest civilization. We intend to make pupils more intelligent readers of books and magazines and newspapers and more intelligent and appreciative listeners to lecturers of worth in their later years.

In addition, we feel that the fundamental facts in the history and development of our own country are absolutely essential; also, the history and problems of our own locality. For this reason we will give them some training in the most important facts in the United States' history and in the machinery by which the United States is governed, and let them know that the problems of government in the future are going to be more closely involved with economic and industrial conditions than ever before, and that more time will therefore be needed on these phases of it with students who are to be voters within two years from the time they leave us.

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Seventh year (General History and Geography).-Pupils who are to leave our school system should at least be familiar with the great names in history, and in addition should understand what is meant by such expressions as The Protestant Reformation," "The Crusades," "Italian Renaissance," etc. In order to appreciate the rights we enjoy, they should at least know that there was a struggle in western Europe for the religious rights that we now have and for the most fundamental of our present-day civil and political rights. Pupils in this grade are too young to understand history in itself; that is, they can not grasp the meaning of cause and effect. After completing this course they should be able to read newspapers and magazines more intelligently. They ought to be readers of better books because the references of these writers will be known to them and if they are not familiar with some of the names they run across in their reading, they will know where to go to learn. They should be more intelligent listeners to those who will address them in lectures, political speeches, sermons, and so on. In a word, this course should so work itself out as to create a demand for a higher grade of reading and entertainment,

and the knowledge of the great men of other nations and races will in itself work against provincialism.

Eighth year (American History and Citizenship).-Some attention to American history in the last year of the grammar-school course is required by State law. The student must know the fundamental facts in the history of his country and should be brought to see somewhat clearly our foreign policy, tariff policy, and the fact that a particular tariff is not a panacea for all our political ailments. He should understand to some extent the history of the civil service and the movement for reform, and be led to appreciate the opportunities for further application of the merit system, both in the nation and in the local government; the pension system, its object, its cost, effects and abuses, and congressional appropriations and their abuses. This course should make him civicly healthy. It should make him a more vigilant citizen.

Ninth year (History and Problems of the Pacific Coast).-This course is now being worked out for the first time. The theory is that students whom we shall turn out of our schools will probably, for the most part, live on the Pacific coast, and so we believe that each should know something of the early history of his own State, of what it has cost to accomplish what we have accomplished, and of the mistakes we have made, and in addition that we should teach something in a brief way of the neighboring States and of the struggles and ambitions of the Latin American civilization to the south of him. It is the intention to discuss the problems of the entire Pacific coast, but especially with reference to those of our own State. In the second semester of the course will come up such problems as: The problem of oriental immigration, the value of the commerce of the Orient and of the Latin republics, the importance of Alaska and the islands, etc. The great difficulty to be overcome by the preparation of outlines by members of the department is the lack not only of textbooks, but of any systematically arranged material upon which to draw.

Tenth year (History of Western Europe).-The first semester of the tenth year is devoted to the ancient period and will follow for about five or six weeks a summary prepared by the department teachers. Reading will also be carried on in the library on the Greeks, and what they and other eastern peoples have contributed to western civilization. The political history will begin with Rome at the period of the Punic Wars, putting special emphasis upon the cause of failure in the Republic, upon the civilization of the ancient period, and upon the elements contributing to the downfall of the Roman Empire. The most important points in English history will likewise be taken up. The second semester will begin with the period of Charlemagne and treat the feudal system and the growth and importance of the church, with some attention to the beginning of national life, bringing the history down through the Italian Renaissance.

Eleventh year (History of Western Europe).-The first semester is devoted to the period of religious wars and the beginning of religious freedom; the development of strong monarchies and the beginning of the struggle for civil and political rights, culminating in the French Revolution. The work of this period ends with the downfall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The second semester's work deals essentially with the nineteenth century; the growth of commerce and industry, and the remarkable spread of the idea of democracy. It brings the history of Europe down to the present day.

In this two-year course in the history of western Europe students will have the opportunity of realizing the place of cause and effect in history. They will become familiar with the great names of history and learn that the entire civilization of the race is not lodged within the boundaries of our own Nation.

Upon finishing this course they should have a live interest in European affairs, be readers of histories and magazines, and of the foreign pages of the newspapers.

Twelfth year (History and Government of the United States).—This course deals with the facts in American history in more nearly a true historical perspective than does the course in European history, which, it will be noted, gives more attention to the nineteenth century than to any other like period of years. The second semester of the course is devoted entirely to the history of the country since the Civil War, with a good deal of attention given to the problems which have faced us in the way of the tariff, civil service, money, trusts, etc. In a word, the functions of government are considered of more importance than the machinery of government, and only so much attention is devoted to the latter as is necessary to enable future citizens to operate the Government intelligently. This course, then, is designed essentially for the training of those who will vote within a couple of years at most.

The purposes, as well as a summary of the content, of the English courses which are being developed in the Berkeley schools to conform to the reorganization plan of the school system are set forth by Miss Fannie McLean, the department head:

The English of the lower high school includes structural and cultural English; the study of the mother tongue, to the end of using it with vigor and ease; and the reading of noble literature, to the end of establishing a lasting desire for such reading.

It is assumed that in the first cycle of six years the pupil, through imitation and habit, has become possessed of a correct and simple expression of the thoughts of childhood. Imitation and habit continue to be potent teachers in the seventh, eighth, and ninth years, and an attempt is made to create noticeable progress in correct usage by assigning to each semester a definite number of grammatical constructions of peculiar difficulty, of words easily misspelled, and of conventional forms in writing.

The reasoning faculty, however, is now added to imitation and habit, for the pupil is at the right age to understand why one usage is correct and another incorrect. The same reasons that make this a good time for beginning the study of a foreign language make it an opportune time for analytical work in the use of the mother tongue. This introduction of the reasoning element distinguishes the language work of the lower high school from that of the

first six years. The child has become a youth and craves self-conscious power

in his use of English.

Somewhere on the road between the simple activity of early school life and the vivid, many-hued interests of the high school, pure, spontaneous, creative imagination, except in a few cases, is lost. In all probability this change is wrought in the seventh or eighth years of the school life, and could largely be prevented by proper composition assignments. That type of pupil is the despair of high-school teachers, who invariably asks when given a composition theme, "Where shall I read up about it?" The empty words of a perfunctory paper prove too clearly how atrophied the imagination has become. The ethical significance of such a state is comprehended when we reflect that most of the misunderstanding between people of different classes and trades, even in America, is due to lack of imagination, rather than to intentional unkindness. It is right at this point, then, that the childish imagination, beginning to wane, must be resuscitated into social imagination and foresight. The pupil's com

position exercises should be such as to necessitate his putting himself into the place of another or into some future place of his own.

Letters of friendship, invitations, courteous letters of gratitude, applications for summer boarding places or for summer work, the answering of real advertisements, the composing of graphic advertisements, open letters to the daily press or to the school paper on current topics, descriptions of interesting journeys or trips, comparisons of persons in stories to persons in real life, accounts of visits to factories or stores, writing of minutes of class meetings, discussions of school ethics, the telling of stories to illustrate some moral concept of the pupil-these are a few of the forms that social composition may take and continue to nurture the imagination while it relates the pupil to actual life. Accurate reports of what the pupil has read or heard are necessary, but such assignments should be given sparingly, and only under conditions that preclude the danger of plagiarism.

Since the lower high-school pupils are in no sense being trained as authors, the social aspects of their written and oral expression are of paramount importance.

The study of literature has two marks of distinction in the lower high school. First, the classroom reading of masterpieces becomes more intense, and therefore the number of selections smaller, while the home reading becomes broader and more varied. Secondly, the literary taste begins to take on a conscious development; the pupil, vaguely at first, and then more clearly, knows why he likes one piece of literature and not another, and struggles upward in awkward and touching attempts to express himself in the picturesque language or in the simple terseness of his favorite author, or to reach standards of admired excellence in his character. The boys become new Horatiuses, and long for bridges to cross; the girls are new Evangelines, and seek to add courage to gentleness; and boys and girls together live in a new world remote from their own, but strangely like it. This reading and the practically imaginative composition described in a previous paragraph unite in developing the imagination from childish crudity to social helpfulness.

The masterpieces studied in the classroom are divided into three groups, satisfying three demands of the growing literary hunger of the youth, and harmonizing with the history course of study, so that literature has its historical background and history its literary expression.

The first group comprises some early forms of literature, as the child's rightfu! human heritage. These are the simple, purely classical, and strongly imaginative forms; such as heroic epics, lays, and ballads. They are correlated with the study of world history..

The second group comprises American poems, stories, speeches, and essays, as the child's rightful national heritage, in order to inculcate principles of good citizenship and intelligent pride in his country. This work is correlated with the study of United States history.

The third group comprises English drama and romance as the child's rightful race heritage. Shakespeare and Scott are taken as the chief exponents of this form of literature. The short story is made a part of this year's course, as it is also of the seventh and eighth years.

If the pupil should leave school at the end of the lower high school, he would, through the classroom study of these masterpieces, and through his home reading from the supplementary list furnished, be well started on the road to culture. In other words, he would be in an attitude of mind conducive to further intelligent reading, because his interpretative and reasoning powers would have been liberated and his literary taste cultivated. He would have the beginnings of a comprehension of the relation of literature to history as

one of the most significant human products of a nation's civilization. And, best of all, contact with literature would have awakened, even at this early age, new ethical ideals, a social imagination, and a spirit of reverence for true greatness.

If his schooling ends now, he has established a permanent friendship with books, which magazines and newspapers alone will not satisfy. But, to prevent his separating literature from life, and to enable him to see the fineness, the beauty and the opportuneness of our best periodical literature, magazine reading is made a part of the course. The expository literature of the day, as seen in the articles upon social and economic questions-city planning, children's playgrounds, George Junior Republic, and similar topics-can be made use of, not only in relating the pupil to the best of the life of his times, but in showing him that the style of a piece is of service to the cause presented. In this he sees a practical reason for the study of English. He learns that such study is needed to perfect a social being and to make of him a citizen of the world.

In the upper high school the problem is a different one from that of the lower high school. Here the boys and girls are not only preparing to be potentialities in the world's business and social life, but they already feel themselves to be part of that life. The tide of the greater outside world flows through the high school, and though it is there only in creeks and bays, it is the same salt and tonic element that pervades the ocean outside. The high-school pupils have their party strifes and prejudices, their social gatherings, their student government, their public press, their dramatic entertainments. The problem that presents itself to the English department is this: How can the literature and composition be made to fix the attention of the pupils on the permanent soul of beauty and excellence underlying these "shows" of things, and also equip them with the means of moving with confident ease and power in the life of their fellows? How can we widen their vistas of life and make attractive to them the enduring ideals of humanity? If the study of English can make them self-poised individuals and social centers in the school life, they will continue to be such, whether they are graduated from the high school into the university or into business.

The composition of the upper high school, besides emphasizing, throughout the three years, by continual practice, oral and written, and by continual analysis, the principles and habits of a correct and vigorous style, begins now to adapt itself to the needs of individual pupils and of small classes of pupils. The special composition classes, which are to increase in number as rapidly as school conditions will permit, are to serve four purposes. The first is to correct and strengthen the style of those pupils noticeably below the standard in matters of form or of expression by giving them special attention. The second is to train such pupils as show peculiar literary ability in the elements of some form of literary composition-journalism, short story, essay, poem, or drama. In the student body, there are, at any one time, almost sure to be some few pupils who are fit for such instruction and can make use of it.

The third purpose is to adapt the composition work to the business or professional plans of the pupils, many of whom have already chosen their life work. The pupil who is to be a clergyman is given a theme on Hull House to write; the pupil who is to be a physician is given a theme on the sanitary aspects of the disposal of garbage; the pupil who is an artist writes on magazine illustrations and accompanies her article with illustrations of her own; the girl who likes dressmaking writes on costumes and illustrates her composition with colored pictures. Plans, diagrams, maps, and pictures are all en5930°-16-11