A year later, in discussing the matter, President Eliot said: Wherever the fault and whatever the remedy, it is clear that the degree of bachelor of arts is taken in the United States later than in any other country in which the degree is used, and too late for the best interests of the individuals who aspire to it and of the institutions which confer it.1 In 1889-90, when the proposal was given full consideration, the college faculty recommended, "in the nature of a cautious experiment," certain provisions which would place the requirement of college work about halfway between the regular work of the first three years and that of the whole four years.2 Finally, in April, 1891, the proposals were acted on by the board of overseers, which refused its consent, it being clear that the steps proposed had not yet fully commended themselves to a sufficient number of the teachers of the university.3 In 1902, on the initiative of the board of overseers, the faculty reformulated their requirements for the degree of bachelor of arts, providing a means whereby students of diligence and ability could complete their work in three years, or in three and a half years at most. In commenting on this action President Eliot expressed the end to which the faculty had consistently held, in the following words: The faculty of arts and sciences has now done what it can to combat the great evil of too late entrance upon the professional careers or the business career. It has expressed its preference for the age of 18 as the age for entering the college and its conviction that boys can be well prepared for college by that age, and it has made it possible for any diligent student to get the degree of bachelor of arts in three years. These two measures combined should enable parents to get their well-trained sons into the learned professions by 24 or 25 years of age, and into business careers much earlier. To effect these improvements, however, the cooperation of parents, schools, and the community at large is essential.* The fourth of the measures employed to meet the problem of the increasing average age of college intrants was that of seeking to arouse among the school men of the country a willingness to condense their elementary and secondary courses. This movement was set in motion by President Eliot through his famous address of 1888, already alluded to. This address met with an immediate response, so immediate, indeed, that it led its author to say before the National Education Association four years later: On reviewing the progress of this reform since I had the honor of discussing the question, "Can school programs be shortened and enriched?" before this 1 Harvard Reports, 1888-89, pp. 20-21. 2 For a full and valuable discussion, see Report of the College Dean, in HarvardReports, 1889-90, pp. 103-107. 3 For a full discussion of the progress of the movement, see Harvard Reports, 189091, pp. 7-9. 4 Harvard Reports, 1901-2, pp. 24-28; and the Report of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, ibid., pp. 100-102. department of superintendence four years ago, I see many evidences that a great and beneficent change in public-school programs is rapidly advancing. The best evidence is to be found in the keen interest which superintendents and teachers take in the discussion of the subject. Through them the proposed improvements will be brought out in detail; their influence will be successfully exerted on parents, committees, and the public press; and their reward will be, first, the daily sight of happier and better-trained children, and, secondly, the elevation of their own profession.1 These proposals, advanced by the Harvard faculty as hopeful methods of solving a specific problem which was becoming increasingly serious, started discussions among educators that quickly carried the participants into a critical examination of the entire range of the educational system, developing thereby, during the last two decades, a body of educational comment of great brilliancy and worth. Influenced partly by Harvard's example and partly by the fact that the problem was common to all, the faculties of practically all the American colleges and universities took up the discussion of the problems that concerned each, arriving in course of time at the conclusions and plans of procedure which the local needs and traditions respectively determined. An examination of the files containing the proceedings of such organizations as the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Southern States, the Association of Colleges of the Middle States and Maryland, the North Central Association, and the New England Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools, shows that much of the time of the annual conferences of these organizations held during the nineties was likewise given over to a discussion of similar questions. The first organization of national prominence, however, to take up this examination was the National Education Association. Through the National Council, the Department of Superintendence, and the Department of Secondary Education, it made scholarly contributions to the literature of the discussion. At the suggestion of President James H. Baker, University of Colorado (then a high-school principal), the National Council appointed in 1892 a committee of 10 persons, of which President Eliot was made chairman, to arrange a series of conferences between the school and college teachers of each of the principal secondary subjects in order to determine the limits of each, the best methods of instruction, the most desirable allotment of time to the several subjects, and the best method of testing the pupil's attainments therein. Nine conferences on as many different secondary-school subjects were held, each in charge of a committee of 10. While the conferences were ostensibly held to discuss the period of secondary education, it was inevitable that many suggestions should be made 1 See address, Shortening and Enriching the Grammar-School Course, in Eliot, Educational Reform, p. 269. respecting the program of the elementary schools and of the college period. In consequence, the Report of the Committee of Ten covers in many significant respects the entire range of the school system. While the grouping of eight years in the elementary division and four years in that of the high school, now generally followed in the United States, had been sharply attacked prior to the publication of the committee's report,1 yet in all of the discussions comprising the report, the traditional grouping is assumed, although several of the subcommittees demanded an earlier introduction of secondary-school studies, and all desired to see given in the elementary schools broad surveys of their respective subjects. The Latiu conference compared the age at which Latin is begun in Europe and in this country, and expressed the hope that such a modification of grammar-school courses can be made without delay as to render it possible that the high-school course-and with it the subject of Latin-may be begun not later than the age of 14.2 The Greek conference voted to concur with the Latin conference in its recommendations as to the age at which the study of Latin should be begun, and asserted that the average age at which pupils now enter college should be lowered rather than raised. The conference on modern languages recommended that elective courses in German and French be provided in the grammar schools, beginning with the fifth grade. The conference on mathematics recommended that a course of instruction in concrete geometry be introduced into the grammar schools, and that some familiarity with algebraic expressions and symbols should be acquired in connection with the course in arithmetic.". The conferences on physics, chemistry, and astronomy, and on natural history would have the elements of those subjects begun in the first years of the elementary division and continued throughout. The conference on history, civil government, and political economy "especially recommends such a choice of subjects as will give pupils in the grammar schools an opportunity to study the history of other countries." In the spirit of the foregoing recommendations relating to an earlier beginning of secondary subjects the Committee of Ten concurred, in the following language: In preparing these programs the committee were perfectly aware that it is impossible to make a satisfactory secondary-school program limited to a period 1 See Shinn's discussion of Hill's paper, "What can be done to bring pupils further on in their studies before they leave school to go to work?" in Nat. Educ. Assoc., 1892, p. 660. 2 Report of the Committee of Ten, p. 61. 3 Ibid., p. 85. 4 Ibid., p. 76. of four years and founded on the present elementary-school subjects and methods. In the opinion of the committee several subjects now reserved for the high schools, such as algebra, geometry, natural science, and foreign languages, should be begun earlier than now, and therefore within the schools classified as elementary; or as an alternative, the secondary-school period should be made to begin two years earlier than at present, leaving six years instead of eight for the elementary-school period. Under the present organization elementary subjects and elementary methods are, in the judgment of the committee, kept in use too long.1 Not only did the committee take advanced ground in respect to the relation of the secondary schools to the elementary schools, but it set forth, with even greater emphasis and distinctness, its conception of the relation which should obtain between the secondary schools and the colleges, and in so doing it condemned, by implication at least, much of our present practice. The committee declares: The secondary schools of the United States, taken as a whole, do not exist for the purpose of preparing boys and girls for colleges. Only an insignificant percentage of the graduates of these schools go to colleges or scientific schools. Their main function is to prepare for the duties of life that small proportion of all the children in the country-a proportion small in number, but very important to the welfare of the Nation-who show themselves able to profit by an education prolonged to the eighteenth year and whose parents are able to support them while they remain so long at school.' And, again, the committee says: A secondary-school program intended for national use must therefore be made for those children whose education is not to be pursued beyond the secondary school. The preparation of a few pupils for college or scientific school should, in the ordinary secondary school, be the incidental and not the principal object. In short, the committee believes that the college should take the high-school student who has had four years of strong work where it finds him and without regard to the particular subjects which have comprised his curriculum, and that this "close articulation between the secondary schools and the higher institutions would be advantageous alike for the schools, the colleges, and the country." This unusually able and suggestive report was taken up immediately by the newspaper and magazine press, by the pulpit and platform, and by the foremost writers on education. In conséquence the report commanded from the first an interest so widespread as to become national in its extent. It is interesting to observe, too, that this study of the secondary division of the American public-school system, made by the Committee of Ten, came at a time when the same division in each of the French, German, and English school systems was undergoing sharp scrutiny. 1 Report of the Committee of Ten, p. 45. 2 Ibid., p. 51. 3 Ibid., pp. 51, 52. 4 Ibid., p. 53. In 1890 both France and Germany appointed national commissions to study the work of the secondary school, and simultaneously with the final sitting of the Committee of Ten there convened at Oxford the first national meeting of schoolmasters and university professors ever held in England. It is significant that the questions foremost in debate at Paris, Berlin, Oxford, and New York were the same,1 and that independently of one another the conclusions reached were in remarkable accord in important particulars. A few months before this report of the Committee of Ten was published (1893), the Department of Superintendence of the National Education Association appointed a committee of 15 on elementary education that frankly raised for discussion the traditional division of eight years elementary and four years high school and departmental teaching in the upper grammar grades. The members of this committee were divided into three subcommitteesone on the training of teachers, one on the correlation of studies in elementary education, and one on the organization of city school systems. Each subcommittee prepared and sent a questionnaire to representative school men and women throughout the country, and from the returns a report was prepared that was finally presented before the Department of Superintendence in 1895 at the Cleveland meeting. The only subcommittee which developed a discussion bearing on the function of the elementary division and on its relation to the secondary schools was the subcommittee on the correlation of studies, under the chairmanship of William T. Harris. Seventeen questions were submitted by it, of which four bore more or less directly on function: (1) Should the elementary course be eight years and the secondary course four years, as at present? Or should the elementary course be six years and the secondary course six years? (2) Should Latin or a modern language be taught in the elementary school course? If so, why (part of question No. 3)? (3) Should any subject, or group of subjects, be treated differently for pupils who leave school at 12, 13, or 14 years of age, and for those who are going to a high school? (4) What considerations should determine the point at which the specialization of the work of teachers should begin?? The responses to these questions, with a few exceptions, showed hesitation at departing in any marked way from current theory or practice. The objection to shortening the elementary course to six years, held commonly by those replying to the first question, was the fear that such a step would cause many children to leave school. Indeed, several would have had the course lengthened to nine years. 1 Mackenzie, in Sch. Rev., vol. 2, pp. 146-147, discussing the report of the Committee of Ten. * Report of Committee of Fifteen on Elementary Education, pp. 10-12. |