CHAPTER XIV

SYSTEMATIC STUDIES OF THE CURRICULUM

THE CURRICULUM BASED ON AUTHORITY VERSUS THE LIVING CURRICULUM

The six preceding chapters, which have dealt with the curriculum, make no pretense of presenting formulated courses which can be given to classes. Some reader may have been impatient because he did not find there an outline of arithmetic or geography or Latin or English. It has been the purpose of these chapters to deal only with general principles and general problems. The fact is that it would be absolutely futile to lay down a curriculum and say of it that it is the true curriculum. The curriculum of a school is a living thing. It is constantly undergoing readjustments. Its content is drawn from the social life to which it introduces pupils, and its arrangement depends on the ability of pupils of different ages and different capacities to grasp this constantly readjusted content.

There are some teachers who prefer to have the course of study handed down to them by some superior authority. There are many fifth-grade teachers, for example, who prefer to have the superintendent tell them just how many pages of geography to cover each week and how many minutes to devote to this subject. There are many Latin teachers who are satisfied to take from some college catalogue a statement of the number of pages to be read in Cæsar, to divide this number by the number of days during which the class meets, and then to plod through the assignments. The day of such teachers, unfortunately, is not yet past, but it is passing. The course in geography or Latin is not a quantitative matter; it is not a static affair; it is an organized body of material which grows and changes with the development of society. To the intelligent teacher a course of study is a subject of constant scrutiny and revision. Every detail must be weighed as to its importance and as to its relations to the whole series of topics and to the needs of pupils.

OLDER SUBJECTS PRODUCTS OF LONG SELECTION

Efficient teachers have always assumed toward the subject-matter of their courses an attitude of the type described. As a result there has been in every generation of schools some progress in organizing courses. Little by little experience has refined the practices of schools. Take, for example, Latin or any of the older subjects. Countless teachers have contributed to the organization of this subject. There is very little probability that pupils will encounter in first-year Latin anything that they ought not to be asked to learn, because the details have been tried out on successive generations of learners, and only that has been retained in first-year Latin which can be taught in that year. In the newer subjects, on the contrary, there is the greatest uncertainty. In his enthusiasm for the new ideas which come to his own mind, the teacher of biology rushes forward to generalizations which are too mature for his first-year classes. The subject-matter will have to be tried out and sifted before it is as well selected as is the course in Latin. The teachers of the new subjects will inevitably pass through a series of the same kind of sifting processes through which the teachers of Latin have passed. Even when some of the problems thus arising are settled, the new subjects will still be difficult of organization. Thus biology is changing by virtue of the evolution of the science at a rate which complicates the case very much more than it can ever be complicated in Latin.

SOCIAL NEEDS AND THE CURRICULUM

Further evidence that the curriculum is a living, changing institution is seen in the way in which courses are related to social demands. There was a time in the history of the secondary school and college when the course in Hebrew was regarded as universally desirable for every student of the social group which attended these institutions. That was in the period when the group was of a definitely vocational composition. For example, in the early days of Harvard College 70 per cent of its graduates entered the ministry, and Hebrew was a requirement. The later history of the student body explains why the requirement of Hebrew became obsolete. Two paragraphs from a recent bulletin of the Bureau of Education give some of the facts as follows:

From this it is apparent that those who founded the institution primarily had in mind a theological seminary. The professions of the graduates for the early period bear witness to the fact that this was practically what the institution was. The ministry was the one profession most necessary, most demanded by the society of that time, and this profession more than any other required an advanced education. It is not surprising, therefore, to find this profession dominant during the early years of Harvard’s history. This dominance continues for over a century, and not until the period immediately following the Revolutionary War does any other profession claim so many of the graduates as the ministry.

The curve representing this profession has three distinct tendencies. The first part, extending from 1642, the date of the first graduating class, to 1720, is slightly downward, with rather wide variation. This stretch of 80 years shows a decline from 70 per cent for the first three years, a percentage never again reached, to 60 per cent for the last five-year period. The second tendency is seen in the period of theological unrest, marked off roughly by the years 1720-1775. Here the downward tendency is clearly defined. It shows a decline from 60 per cent to less than 20 per cent. The variations during this period are not so marked. The third tendency extends from the Revolutionary War to the present. This shows a slow, persistent relative decline reaching well below 5 per cent by the end of the nineteenth century. The variations during this period, particularly during the last half, are inconspicuous.[63]

SYSTEMATIC STUDIES AS DEVICES FOR FACILITATING EVOLUTION OF THE CURRICULUM

The effect of this and like radical social changes is sometimes slow in actually modifying the curriculum because of the conservative tendencies discussed in earlier chapters. But the final effect is inevitable. The changing social order carries with it the school and its subjects of instruction.

The characteristic fact about the present generation of progressive educators is that they are undertaking certain studies which are designed to hasten the processes of selection. The curriculum is to be modified and improved, with every new accession of knowledge and with every new evolution in social life. How the improvement can be brought about most expeditiously and most productively is a problem which is engaging much of the attention and energy of school officers.

It will be noted that there is no opposition between the natural tendencies of growth and revision and the special investigations which are intended to hasten the process of adjustment. The purpose of scientific studies here, as in every other sphere, is to facilitate natural evolution and to give it rational guidance.

A STUDY OF REPRESENTATIVE ADULTS

One of the first methods of studying the curriculum is that of investigating the relation between school work and the demands of later life. The following description of a study made as part of a school survey teaches some very impressive lessons on the need of revision in the elementary curriculum:

The most serious defect of the present course of study, including some of the suggested revisions now under consideration, is that it makes thousands of children waste tens of thousands of precious hours in the laborious acquisition of facts for which they will never have any practical use. While the survey was under way the staff attempted to test the practical value of some of the subject matter taught to children in the elementary grades.

For this purpose short examinations were prepared from the material prescribed by the course of study and actually being taught in the upper grades in spelling, arithmetic, history, and geography. Through the coöperation of a woman prominent in social and intellectual circles of the city, 11 of the leading successful citizens were brought together one evening and asked to take these examinations. The object was to find out whether or not the material that the children of the upper grades were being taught was of the sort actually used by able men of affairs in the conduct of their daily business. For carrying out the test the most prominent and successful citizens were purposely chosen and in making up the examinations the most difficult material was purposely selected. The result of these examinations in spelling, geography, arithmetic, and history of the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades was that no one of the men examined made a passing mark in any subject. The reason is that the material on which they were examined, and which the children in the schools are daily learning, is of a sort that is seldom or never met with in the business of even the most successful men engaged in commercial and professional pursuits. The gentlemen who submitted to the examination were the following:

A state senator A former lieutenant governor The president of a manufacturing concern The former superintendent of parks A banker A physician A merchant A lawyer A newspaper editor An efficiency engineer and a clergyman

The test in spelling consisted of ten words taken from the spelling lists of the seventh grade. These words were as follows:

1. abutilon 2. bergamot 3. deutzia 4. daguerreotype 5. paradigm 6. reconnaissance 7. erysipelas 8. mnemonics 9. trichinæ 10. weigelia

Among the 11 men taking the examination, one spelled six of these words correctly. Three succeeded in spelling four words, two got three words right, one got two, three spelled one word correctly, and one failed on every word. It is not surprising that they failed so completely for no citizen in any ordinary walk of life needs to know how to spell these words. When the rare occasion arises that he needs to write one of them, he looks it up in the dictionary. These words and scores of words like them are studied in the classrooms as well as found in the spelling book.

The test described above was suggested by the experience of the director of the survey who went into a sixth grade room where an examination in spelling was being given. He took the test with the children. It consisted of 20 words, and he failed on six of them. These six words are included in the ten-word list used in the examination of the business and professional men. Some of the children in the schools can spell these words correctly but while they are laboriously learning to do it, many of them are still unable to spell short and common words as “which,” “separate,” and “receive.”[64]

A STUDY OF CURRENT REFERENCES

Another method of comparing school courses with common social needs is set forth in the following quotation:

At a meeting of the Committee on Economy of Time held in the fall of 1912 it was suggested that current literature could be profitably employed as a standard for determining the kind of geographical information that the school should provide. The proposal was to read current newspapers and magazines, record the geographical references, and determine from the frequency of these references the relative value of the various types of geographical information. Results of the application of the method presented at the meeting seemed to indicate that the content of geography as now taught in the elementary school would be greatly modified if materials were chosen upon this basis....

Miss Biester collected and classified the geographical and historical references and allusions in eighteen issues of the _Outlook_ and the _Literary Digest_, representing a period of seven years ending with 1913. She found in these eighteen journals a total of 2,237 geographical references. The distribution was as follows:

PER CENT

References to facts of location, size, direction, etc., which may be assumed to require for their understanding a knowledge of “place and location” geography 53.5 References to political divisions and facts of government which may be assumed to require a knowledge of “political” geography 25.1 References to industries, commerce, products, etc., which may be assumed to require a knowledge of “commercial” geography 5.8 References to people, customs, religion, education, etc., which may be assumed to require a knowledge of “social” geography 4.8 References to places as scenes of historical events, which may be assumed to require a knowledge of “historical” geography 1.7 Other references primarily of local or transitory interest 8.9

A grouping of this sort is obviously subject to the errors or peculiarities of individual judgment, but it may be said that the classification just presented is quite consistent with those furnished by other readers. Except for the absence of explicit reference to physiographical principles, this grouping represents fairly accurately the distribution of emphasis in the textbooks ordinarily used in the seventh and eighth grades. The physiographical principles, however, are precisely the “general” principles to which we referred above; that is, their function is broadly interpretive and adaptive; they “cover” a host of particulars too numerous in the aggregate, and too insignificant separately, to warrant specific attention.

Another suggestive grouping is based upon the frequency of references to the various continents. If one is to read intelligently the journals which formed the basis of this test, one will find occasion to apply one’s knowledge of the continents in approximately the following proportions (the maximum frequency of reference being represented arbitrarily by 100):

North America 100 Europe 73 Asia 13 Africa 4 South America 3 Australia 1

The principal European countries had an importance for the readers of the journals in question in the following proportions (giving England, as the country most frequently referred to, the arbitrary value of 100):[65]

England 100 France 80 Germany 70 Russia 35 Italy 32 Turkey 30 Austria-Hungary 24 Spain 22

A STUDY OF THE MISTAKES OF PUPILS

It is not merely the remoter needs of adult life which should be taken into account in determining the content of courses of study. Pupils in schools have certain urgent needs which should be met. A study was carried on in the schools of Kansas City, Missouri, which dealt with the needs of pupils in grammar. Teachers observed and noted the mistakes of pupils, and collected a body of written material which was carefully analyzed. The urgent needs of pupils were readily discovered and were found to be comparatively few. The following quotations give the gist of the matter:

Table M, which is based upon the oral and written errors of the children of the community, displays the items to be included in a course of study for the elementary grades. It assumes that all types of error were found and reported. That this assumption is absolutely correct is not probable. That it is approximately correct seems reasonably certain. To verify its accuracy further other studies would need to be made in Kansas City.

As the present course of study in grammar in the sixth and in the seventh grades of the Kansas City schools was materially simplified in the 1913-1914 session, it is now one of the simplest in the United States. Notwithstanding this fact, many items would be omitted from it upon the basis of Table K. These are included in Table L. The pages refer to “Grammar and Composition with Practical English,” by Robins, Row, and Scott (Row, Peterson & Company, Chicago), the text now in use in the sixth and seventh grades.

TABLE M

OMISSIONS FROM AND ADDITIONS TO THE PRESENT ELEMENTARY COURSE OF STUDY IN GRAMMAR IN KANSAS CITY

_Omissions_:

1. Exclamatory sentence, p. 2. 2. The interjection, pp. 16 f. 3. The appositive, pp. 37 ff. 4. The nominative of address, pp. 39 f. 5. The nominative by exclamation, pp. 40 f. 6. The objective complement, pp. 53 f. 7. The adverbial objective, pp. 56 f. 8. The indefinite pronouns, pp. 69 f. 9. The objective complement, p. 91. 10. The objective used as a substantive, p. 91. 11. The classification of adverbs, pp. 94 ff. 12. The noun clause, pp. 107 ff. 13. Conjunctive adverbs, p. 116. 14. The retained objective, pp. 128 f. 15. The moods (except possibly the subjunctive of _to be_), pp. 135 ff. and 152 ff. 16. The infinitive except the split infinitive, pp. 145 ff. 17. The objective subject, pp. 149 f. 18. The participle except the definition and the present and the past forms, pp. 162 ff. 19. The nominative absolute, pp. 165 ff. 20. The gerund, pp. 168 f.

_Additions_:

1. The pronoun _what_. 2. Proper and numeral adjectives.

The first, second, and third of the omissions affect punctuation; the first and second, the exclamation point; and the third, the comma. The exclamation point is used at the end of the exclamatory sentence and after interjections to express an intensity of feeling greater than that expressed by the period, and it is doubtful if children have the nicety of experience to understand the difference. If the point is absent, its omission cannot be counted as an error because the reader has no way of knowing how intense is the feeling that accompanied the sentence. Strangely enough, the children used the appositive hardly at all. Instead of saying, “Bill, the bandit, killed a deer,” they seem to prefer to say, “Bill was a bandit, and he killed a deer.”

To the omissions, tabulated in Table M, should be added such sentences for analysis and parsing as are given to children solely because they involve subtle points in grammar. This is true because the errors made by children seem to occur in the commoner and more easily classified constructions, as may be seen by an examination of Table I.

POSTSCRIPT

The content of the course of study in elementary grammar in the Kansas City schools is not dealt with here. The problem is simply and solely to find out what the course of study would be _if it were based upon the errors of the children_. The problem of the content of the course of study requires such serious consideration that it can be determined only by practical experience and opinion aided by other scientifically conditioned studies.[66]

PREREQUISITES FOR HIGHER COURSES

The problem of finding what is the best progression of studies within the curriculum is an important problem on which we have at the present time relatively little information. President Lowell of Harvard University collected some statistics on this matter which can be briefly summarized in three quotations from his article:

Harvard University is singularly rich in material for determining the relation of college studies to the work of the professional schools, because nowhere in the world have so large a body of undergraduates been so free, for so long a period, as in Harvard College to study whatever they chose, and to make any combination of courses they pleased. With the exception of one required course in English, and sometimes one in another modern language, the election of courses has been almost wholly free for a quarter of a century, and in fact the variety of combinations made has been almost limitless. Moreover, the Law and Medical Schools have contained a large number of graduates of Harvard College, and this is essential for a fair comparison of the results....

The statistics here presented cover, therefore, only bachelors of arts of Harvard College who graduated afterwards from the Harvard Law and Medical Schools, and they comprise only men who took twelve courses, or nearly three years’ work, in the college....

If, therefore, one can draw any inference from figures so small, the case of mathematics is singular. Unless some other element enters into the problem, such as an unusually high standard in the department, or an unusually vigorous intellectual appetite on the part of students who elect the subject, the result may be supposed to indicate, so far as it goes, that mathematics, altho rarely selected for the purpose, is a particularly good preparation for the study of law; perhaps because the methods of thought in the two subjects are more nearly akin than is commonly supposed.

Leaving aside this possibly exceptional case, the conclusions to be derived from the facts presented in this paper would seem to be that, as a preparation for the study of law or medicine, it makes comparatively little difference what subject is mainly pursued in college, but that it makes a great difference with what intensity the subject is pursued—or, to put the same proposition in a more technical form, familiarity with the subject-matter, which can be transferred little, if at all, is of small importance in a college education, as compared with mental processes that are capable of being transferred widely, or with the moral qualities of diligence, perseverance, and intensity of application which can be transferred indefinitely. The practical deduction is 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.[67]

ADMINISTRATIVE STUDIES

Other studies of the curriculum have been made which may be called administrative studies. The most elaborate investigation of this type which has been carried out is reported in a volume entitled “The Supervision of Arithmetic.”[68] Two of the leading students of the science of education have here reported an exhaustive study of the practices of various school systems in administering the arithmetic course. At the same time they have made an analysis of the textbooks which are commonly used in administering this course. Finally, they have supplemented this body of fact with numerous opinions from competent school people regarding changes which ought to be made.

It is not possible to take up in detail the various findings reported in this volume. One especially interesting set of facts, however, may be referred to as furnishing convincing evidence that the school curriculum is constantly in process of revision. The particular part of the book which shows this deals with the number of hours a week devoted to arithmetic in the course of study of various cities. If we compare the relative amount of time given to arithmetic in earlier years and at present, we shall have some indication of the movement which has been going on within the school curriculum. In 1888 New York City devoted 26 per cent of the total school time in the grades to arithmetic. In 1904 this had been reduced to 12 per cent, showing that the attention to arithmetic is in point of time less than half what it was at an earlier period. Boston, on the other hand, devoted to arithmetic almost exactly the same relative amount of time in 1904 that it did in 1888. In both cases about 16 per cent of the time of the course of study was given to this subject. Chicago shows a distinct increase in the amount of time given to arithmetic. In 1888 it was giving 9 per cent of its time to that subject. The time devoted to arithmetic in 1904 was 18 per cent, or just twice as much.

These statements confirm the remark repeatedly made in this volume that the course of study is constantly undergoing revision. The only intelligent way for the school system to deal with the problems of the course of study which are sure to come up is to make a careful examination of the movement which is under way, for this movement is usually guided by the personal judgment of some enthusiastic school officer or by the chance readjustments which arise out of the effort to bring new subjects into the curriculum. The result is a blind fluctuation, the magnitude and importance of which are wholly unrecognized until exact comparisons are set up.

Such general discussions as that summarized in the foregoing paragraphs are supplemented in the volume referred to, by detailed studies of such questions as the following: When should the teaching of fractions begin? How far should the elementary course deal with square root and cube root? What are the characteristics of a given textbook which make it available for a particular school system?

The kind of study which is here reported for arithmetic should, of course, be made for other subjects as well. The time allotment for the course in geography and the distribution of topics within that course are quite as important as the time allotment in arithmetic.

NEED OF BROAD, COÖPERATIVE STUDIES

It would be a serious mistake to advocate any one of the investigations referred to in this chapter as the sole basis for reform in the curriculum. There must be a broad consideration of social and educational conditions if the school is to arrange its materials of instruction in the most advantageous form. Furthermore, the individual teacher cannot make all the studies involved. The problem is one which involves coöperation and the organization of scientific methods which will give to each school officer the benefit of the experience of many schools.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

The best type of exercise which can be suggested in connection with this chapter is the analysis of a series of textbooks by members of the class. The following suggestions will aid in the attack on three classes of texts:

First, let the student get several sets of readers, beginning with primers and running up to the books designed for the upper grades. Note among other characteristics such matters as the following: Are the selections in the primers equally interesting? Are the vocabularies the same? What devices in the primer are adopted as aids in explaining the words? Are the sentences of equal length? In the readers for the upper grades is the emphasis on poetry the same? Is the reading matter equally appropriate for boys and girls? Does it fit all localities equally well? Is there any suggestion that would carry the pupil out of the book itself to other books?

Second, let the student take several geographies. Are the maps equally good? Are the pictures equally helpful? What is the order of topics? Is the treatment equally detailed in the various books? Is the attention given to the United States satisfactory both in point of gross volume and in point of details taken up? What is the degree of emphasis on physical geography and on man’s place in the world, that is, on commerce and civilization?

Third, take books in first-year Latin. What emphasis is given to vocabulary, to reading, and to grammar? How do books of this type differ from books on French and German? Is the choice of reading matter in the various books based on the same principle of selection? How far could the books be used by a pupil without a teacher? What is the contribution expected of the teacher; that is, what must the teacher know about Latin more than is given in the book? How are the pages of material related to assignments; that is, are assignments suggested by the text itself?

BAGLEY, W. C., and RUGG, H. O. “Content of American History as taught in the Seventh and Eighth Grades.” _Bulletin No. 16_, School of Education, University of Illinois, 1916.

Minimum Essentials in Elementary-School Subjects. Fourteenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I, 1915. The University of Chicago Press. Other types of study than those suggested in the above questions are outlined in this yearbook.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] Bailey B. Burritt, “Professional Distribution of College and University Graduates,” p. 15. _Bulletin No. 19_, United States Bureau of Education, 1912.

[64] Survey conducted by L. P. Ayres of the Russell Sage Foundation. “The Public Schools of Springfield, Illinois,” pp. 86-88. Published by the Springfield Survey Committee, Springfield, Illinois, 1914.

[65] W. C. Bagley, “The Determination of Minimum Essentials in Elementary Geography and History.” Fourteenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I, pp. 131, 134-135. The University of Chicago Press, 1915.

[66] W. W. Charters and Edith Miller, “A Course of Study in Grammar,” pp. 43-45. _Bulletin No. 2_, University of Missouri, Vol. XVI (1915).

[67] A. Lawrence Lowell, “College Studies and Professional Training.” _Educational Review_, Vol. XLII (October, 1911), pp. 220, 221, 233.

[68] W. A. Jessup and L. D. Coffman. The Macmillan Company, 1916.