THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
By
G. VERNON BENNETT, A.M., J.D.
Gty Superintendent of Schools, Pomona, Cal.
Lecturer in Education, University of Southern California.
BALTIMORE
WARWICK & YORK, Inc.
1919
Copyrizht. 1919
By WARWICK A YORK, I»c.
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CATTFORNlA
SANTA BARBARA
PREFACE
The author is frank to admit that this book is not a com-
plete treatise on the junior high school. To write such a
treatise there would have to be available a vast mass of facts,
statistics, , and experimental data about the subject. The
junior high school is too new an institution to have had time
and opportunity for the accumulation of such scientific ma-
terial. There has been an insistent demand for a reorganiza-
tion of our school system. It did not seem as if those de-
mands could be met under the 8-4 plan of grouping grades.
There arose — in response to the demand — a new institution,
the junior high school, created to carry out the reorgan-
ization.
It was not as if an old institution had been asked to do
new work. Not at all. It was pretty well decided before-
hand what was needed to be done. The problem was, can
the present organizations do the things needed ? Some edu-
cators said, yes. Others said, no, and proceeded to create a
new school to do the work. Since then Professor Johnston's
statement that "the junior high school movement is sweep-
ing the country" has become literally true.
There have been some precedents in Europe and in this
country for the creation of this school. These fore-runners
are briefly described by the author. It is not pretended, how-
ever, that these were real junior high schools.
This book is put forth as a guide for the study of the
junior high school movement. It is full of suggestions, full
of arguments, full of enthusiastic hopes. It is put forth as
a pathfinder. The author has necessarily drawn largely on
his personal observations in his own schools at 'Pomona ; but
VIII THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
he has also had the pleasure of visiting .the junior high
schools in Los Angeles, Berkeley, Detroit, Houston, and Salt
Lake City.
The author wishes to thank the many superintendents who
have responded to his requests for information. He wishes
especially to thank Dr. David P. Barrows, formerly Dean of
the Faculties of the University of California, now Major,
Chief of the Intelligence Department, Philippine Islands,
and 'Prof. E. E. Lewis and Prof. T. H. Briggs, of Teachers'
College, Columbia, for valuable suggestions, criticism and
inspiration. For faults in the book the author wishes himself
solely and alone to be held responsible.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PACK
CHAPTER ONE — THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION i
1. Definition of junior high school i
2. The problems 3
A. Leakage from school 3
B. Selecting the wrong vocation 4
C. Delayed entrance into skilled vocations 5
D. Evils growing out of adolescence 6
3. Preventing leakage by the junior high school 7
4. Vocation selection through the junior high school 14
5. Shortening the preparation for skilled occupations 17
6. Adapting education to the needs of adolescence 20
A. Education of boys 20
B. Education of girls 23
CHAPTER Two — HISTORY OP THE MOVEMENT 26
1 . Foreign systems 26
2. Various plans of grouping grades 29
3. Supt Bunker and the Berkeley plan 33
4. The Los Angeles plan 35
5. Work of the National Education Association 36
6. The junior high school throughout the country 38
7. Varying plans in operation 40
CHAPTER THREE — OBJECTIONS TO JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ANSWERED 43
r. The same results obtainable under the old plan 43
2. Greater distance of pupils from school 46
3. Unfavorable effect upon elementary teachers 48
4. Difficulty of obtaining college-trained teachers 50
5. Difficulty of inducing ninth grade pupils to attend junior
high school S3
6. Additional expense for buildings, grounds, and equipment 54
7. Conservatism of the public 56
CHAPTER FOUR — EFFECT OF THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL MOVEMENT
UPON THE ELEMENTARY GRADES 58
1. Foundational subjects covered in grades I-VI 58
2. Kindergarten preparation required 60
3. School attendance better enforced 62
4. An all-year session 64
5. Excellent teachers employed 66
6. Teaching how to study 68
ix
X THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
PAGE
7. Specific changes in the elementary courses 70
8. Non-essentials in particular subjects eliminated 73
Summary 74
CHAPTER FIVE — COURSES OF STUDY 76
1. Preliminary considerations 77
2. Physical education 80
3. Manual and sense training 84
4. English 86
5. Foreign languages 90
6. Mathematics • 92
CHAPTER Six — COURSES OF STUDY, CONTINUED 96
1. History and politics 96
2. The sciences 08
3. Culture subj ects . . 101
4. Vocational subjects 108
CHAPTER SEVEN — PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 114
1. Manning the junior high school 114
2. The principal 115
3. The teachers 117
4. College-trained vs. normal-trained teachers 118
5. A teachers college for junior high school teachers 120
6. An organization of junior high school teachers 123
7. Literature on the junior high school 125
8. Heads of departments 128
CHAPTER EIGHT — TEACHING IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 131
1. Aims and purposes 131
2. The teacher 132
3. The class-room 135
4. High school textbooks not adapted to junior high school. . 138
5. Certain qualities developed in pupils 141
A. Acquisition of habits of industry 141
B. Development of sense perception 142
C. Acquisition of motor skill 142
D. Health and development 143
E. Acquisition of information 143
F. Reasoning, retentiveness, alertness 144
G. Skill in expression 145
TABLE OF CONTENTS XI
PAGE
H. A liking for wholesome pleasures 145
I. Purposefulness 145
6. The method of the recitation period 146
CHAPTER NINE — ADMINISTRATION OF THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 150
1. The faculty 150
2. Supervision 152
3. Organization of the schedule 154
4. Clerical work 155
5. Student organizations and activities 158
6. Accessories of teaching 160
7. School interruptions and exercises 162
8. Moral guidance 164
CHAPTER TEN — RELATION TO SENIOR HIGH AND JUNIOR COLLEGE 167
1. The senior high school and the tenth grade 167
2. The upper secondary school's tendency to become
college-like 168
3. Nature of the people's college 170
4. Effect of the people's college upon the junior high school
curriculum 174
5. Effect of the people's college upon the junior high schools
in cities 175
6. Relation of people's college to junior high schools
outside of cities 177
CHAPTER ELEVEN — AN IDEAL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 181
1. The city 181
2. Board of education 182
3. The superintendent 183
4. The grounds 185
5. The pupils 186
6. The buildings 187
7. Accessories of teaching 188
8. The faculty 189
9. Conclusion : Results 191
APPENDIX. JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL COURSES OF STUDY 195
BIBLIOGRAPHY . 208
CHAPTER ONE
THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION
1. Definition of Junior High School and Outline of
the Subject: A junior high school in the fullest sense in
which it is commonly used has the following characteristics :
(a) It is a separate educational institution, with a dis-
tinct organization and corps of officers and teachers.
(b) It embraces the seventh, eighth and ninth grades (or
years of work) and sometimes the tenth.
(c) It has a curriculum in the seventh and eighth
grades enriched by the presence of several high school sub-
jects or by the broadening, culturizing or vocationalizing of
the so-called common branches.
(d) It promotes by subject even in the seventh and
eighth grades.
(e) It permits and encourages a differentiation of courses
for the different pupils.
It is with the above meaning that the term will be used
in 'this book. Many schools that fall short of all these char-
acteristics by one point are called junior high schools. But
in practically all cities where the movement for establishing
these schools has gotten well under way, the ideal toward
which the authorities are working embraces all of these
points.
In California the term originally used was "intermediate
high school," later shortened to "intermediate school," but
the term "junior high school" is rapidly supplanting the
others. In New York City the "intermjediate school" is not
properly a secondary school, although it is tending to become
such.
i
2 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
The reader must bear in mind that the junior high school
movement is so new and is undergoing so many modifica-
tions and improvements that what is true of it this year
may fall far short of the truth next year.
The subject of the junior high school will be treated
first as an educational movement, and second as an institu-
tion. In the first division we shall treat, in this chapter, the
causes leading to the birth of the movement; in the second
chapter, the history of the movement ; in the third chapter,
the objections raised to the creation of a junior high school;
in the fourth chapter, the ascertained and prospective effects
of the movement upon the elementary school.
Jn the second division — the school as an institution — we
shall devote chapters v and vi to the curriculum and
courses of study; chapter vil to the preparation, selection
and organization of faculties ; chapter vm to problems of
teaching; chapter ix to administration; chapter x to the
relation of the junior high school as an institution to the
senior high school ; and chapter xi to the author's conception
of an ideal environment, housing, equipment, and officering
(of a junior high school.
In this chapter we shall take up the causes that produced
the junior high school movement. We shall find that society
has made certain demands on the public schools with which
the school system found it impossible under the 8-4 organ-
ization successfully to cope. The junior high school came
into existence to meet these demands. The four most
important demands were: (i) That the enormous leakage
from school in the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth grades
cease ; (2) That an effort be made to destroy the influences
•of schools which tend to send young men and women into
unsuitable and worthless vocations and that a positive effort
'be made to guide them into suitable and worthy occupa-
THE PROBLEM Of THE SOLUTION 3
tions; (3) That the modern tendency to lengthen the period
of preparation for skilled vocations be checked and some
method be found for shortening the period so that men may
become self-supporting and society-supporting at an earlier
age; and, finally (4) That the school system check the
physical, mental and moral evils that accompany and grow
out of adolescence.
After showing how bad were the conditions that caused
these demands to be made, we shall proceed to explain how
these demands are being met by the junior high school.
2. The Problems. A. Leakage in the seventh and
eighth grades and in high school. The records in Los
Angeles City, where compulsory attendance is more strictly
enforced than in most cities, show that in the years 1896 to
1911, inclusive, there was an average dropping out, as fol-
lows : From the fifth grade, 18 per cent of those registered
in that grade ; from the sixth grade, 20 per cent ; from the
seventh, 30 per cent; from the eighth, 17 per cent. As the
eighth was the last grade of the elementary school, the
dropping out after graduation would greatly increase the
percentage above the 17 per cent here recorded. The law
required children to attend school up to the fifteenth birth-
day ; but there was a large number of Mexican children who
reached that age in the fifth 'and sixth grades. The statistics
of Los Angeles do not show how many dropped out at the
end of the eighth grade; but in Grand Rapids 24 per cent
of eighth-grade graduates failed to enter the ninth grade,
and in Evansville, Indiana, 44 per cent. In the Franklin
School of Berkeley, California, 59 per cent of eighth-grade
graduates did not enter high school.
Thorndike's statistics show that for the country in gen-
eral, out of every 100 pupils finishing the sixth grade only
4 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
79 finish the seventh and only 59 finish the eighth. Ayres'
figures show 79 and 57, respectively.
As to leakage in high school, the record in Cincinnati
showed that of the 1766 pupils enrolled in the ninth grade
in 1912-13, only 1128 enrolled in the tenth grade the next
year, and 714 in the eleventh grade in the following year.
This shows a loss of 36.1 per cent the first year and 23.5
per cent the second year. The leakage in the tenth grade,
however, was 36.7 per cent of those that entered it. The
statistics of Los Angeles from 1896 to 1911 show that 54
per cent of those who entered the high school dropped out
before the end of the first year ; and of those who remained
to take up the tenth grade, 45 per cent dropped out before
the end of the year. The Minneapolis report showed similar
results.
Thorndike's figures for the entire country show that
between the end of the eighth year and the end of the ninth,
out of every 100 pupils 33 dropped out, and during the next
year 25 more dropped out. Ayres' statistics show that out
•of every 100 graduates of the eighth grade 22 dropped out
fin. the ninth grade and 42 in the tenth. While these accounts
.differ in detail, in final result they agree that about 60 per
cent of elemientary-school graduates fail to reach the third
year of high school.
B. Selecting the wrong vocation in life. Another
social problem that presses for solution is that of getting
each person into the occupation that will serve best his own
interests and those of society. The good of both the indi-
vidual and of society requires that boys and girls find at a
reasonably early age the vocation for which they are best
adapted and that all preparation possible be made for that
.occupation.
There is a large number of failures in business attributable
THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 5
to the unfitness of the employer and the employees for
carrying on that business. In 1915 there were 22,156 such
business failures in this country. There are other contribu-
tory causes, of course, but un fitness stands out as a principal
one. The vast armies of idle poor that hang about city
employment offices testify to the failures in fitting for the
right employment. Competent authorities state that a large
proportion of men change their occupations two or three
times before they get into the right ones. If a man does not
decide upon his vocation until he reaches twenty-five or
thirty years of age, he has only natural aptitude to rely on ;
he has not time then to prepare himself adequately for an
occupation.
Not only is the misfit unsuccessful in the occupation into
which he is driven, but he finds it irksome. He is unhappy
in his work. This unhappiness and poor remuneration affect
his family relationship, disturbing its equilibrium and bring-
ing about pessimism and distress. Society also finds itself
cheated out of what it expects and demands of each indi-
vidual. It may even have to support the individual or his
family and is thereby burdened with pathological and cura-
tive measures — a condition that prevents the carrying out
of its creative and developmental program. Society feels
the loss of such a man's monetary contribution to its
progress.
C. Delayed entrance into skilled vocations. We
hear in these days a constant complaint of the system of
schooling that prevents young men from getting started in
their professions or occupations until late in their twenties.
With twelve years for public education, four for college,
and three for professional training in the university, a man
finds himself ready to begin work at twenty-five years of
age if he has been fortunate. If, however, he failed to pass
6 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
some lower grade; if his parents moved from one state to
another, or from one city to another, entailing a loss of a
grade; if he did not enter school until he was seven years
old; or if sickness or other causes interrupted his steady
advance in school, he will not finish his university work until
he is twenty-six or twenty-seven. It takes so long to get a
start in the professions or in business, that often he is well
past thirty before he finds himself self-supporting. All
these things tend to delay marriage to middle age, and
sometimes entirely prevent it. If, by misfortune, the young
man should marry in his early twenties, he is condemned to
such cruel privations and struggles that his chances for suc-
cess are slim.
This is true not only in the professions, but equally so in
many lines of agriculture. Orchards require several years
to mature, and farms cannot be stocked short of three or
four years. If the young man has neither the land nor the
capital to start farming as soon as he is graduated from the
university, he will find that he must wait several years
longer before his education will yield him any permanent
income. Most young men, foreseeing this long delay, go
directly into agriculture without taking a university course
at all.
D. Evils growing out of adolescence. These are of
three kinds though closely inter-related. The physical evils
result from (a) arrested development, caused by some
disease, from overstudy, fright, etc. ; (b) perverted sex
habits, as self-abuse; (c) habits arising out of the adoles-
cent's sudden induction into manhood which gives him the
adult's desires and freedom to satisfy them but not the
adult's restraining will power, such as the habit of keeping
late hours, smoking, chewing tobacco, drinking liquor, eat-
ing rapidly, and choosing irregular diet; (d) a reaching and
THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 7
straining to do things that their elders do, without proper
judgment, such as running endurance races; and (e) im-
proper actions by girls at delicate bodily periods and neglect
of bodily needs through a prudish sense of modesty.
There are several mental evils that grow out of adoles-
cence: (a) Arrested mental development caused by the
physical changes incident to adolescence or caused by worry
over those changes; (b) mental weakness caused by exces-
sive indulgence in sex thoughts and habits; (c) habits aris-
ing out of the adolescent's sudden induction into manhood
which gives him freedom to do much as he pleases, such
habits as idleness, irregularity in work, fickleness, weakness
of will; (d) mental stagnation resulting from the youth's
leaving school and entering unskilled work; (e) the "big-
head," contempt for the opinions of others, unwillingness to
learn, a feeling of "knowing it all."
The moral evils are more definite and far-reaching. Many
writers insist that they are actually worse now than ever
before and are steadily getting worse. The following are
some of those moral evils arising directly from adolescence :
(a) Lying to parents and weaving webs of deceit; (b) dis-
obedience to parents and general outlawry against the
home; (c) playing "hookey" from school, cutting classes,
chafing against restraints of any kind; (d) habits arising
out of the freedom and independence that come with adoles-
cence, such as the reading of trashy novels, frequenting bad
moving picture houses, smoking, gambling, drinking, stay-
ing out late at night, indulging in excessive social affairs,
stealing to meet the unusual need for spending money; (e)
perverted sex habits (ranging from mere "looseness" of
actions to downright "shamelessness").
3. Preventing Leakage by the junior high school.
The leakage in the seventh and eighth grades is attributed
to several causes, of which dislike for school as taught under
8 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
the old plan is the principal one. This dislike for school
arose from the fact that the pupils were tired of going over
and over the common-school studies, that they disliked to
associate with the little children who had no community of
interest with them, and that they wanted some real, telling
work to do, work which was to be found only outside the
walls of school. There were, of course, other contributing
causes. Many children had to go to work to help support
their families, and they felt that the longer they stayed in
the old-time school the less fit they were for taking the
small jobs which children can readily secure.
This leakage in the seventh and eighth grades the junior
high schools were organized to check. They plan to reduce
the dropping out of school by keeping children interested in
school work. The common branches, if taught at all in
these two grades, are to be so effectively changed in nature
that the pupils will not recognize in them their old enemies.
If arithmetic appears at all, it is as elementary accounts,
bookkeeping or commercial arithmetic. If it is served to
them in this way, the boys and girls enjoy the feast. Other
subjects are added — subjects that appeal to the ambition of
the young people. The two grades are taken from the
grammar school building and housed in new quarters where
the pupils will have only children of their own ages or older
children to associate with. The real, telling work of the big
outside world is brought into these new schools, and the
youngsters have their legitimate ambitions satisfied in school
work. Finally, the junior high schools are being so con-
ducted as to make it possible for boys to help the parents, as
in Los Angeles, either by part-time work in stores or by
selling the product of their manual training or school-gar-
dening work.
We have available some statistical records of the influence
THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 9
of the junior high school in retaining pupils in school.
Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a city in which school attend-
ance was kept up to a very high standard even before the
institution of the junior high school. The following statis-
tics are taken from an article by Paul C. Stetson in the
April, 1918, SCHOOL REVIEW, but arranged by the author so
as to show the facts which he wishes to bring out. His
figures show that the elementary school enrollment remained
practically stationary from 1908 to 1916, the increase being
almost entirely in grades VIII to XII, inclusive. He
states that the junior high schools were established in 1912.
Not all seventh and eighth grade pupils were at once
assigned to the junior high schools. The enrollment in the
seventh grade remained about the same until 1913, when it
began to grow by leaps and bounds after feeling the effects
of the junior high school upon it. The eighth grade had
hardly been able to hold its own until 1914, when the effect
of the junior high school began to be felt. Here are the
figures. We have underlined the figures where the junior
high school's influence is felt.
Seventh Grade Eighth Grade
1908 1091 946
1909 1087
1910 1063
1911 1161
1912 1082 1072
1913 1262
1914 1188 1140
1272
1916 1346 1296
The next case to which we wish to refer is that of
Macomb, Illinois, as reported by Superintendent V. L,
IO THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Margun. In this city the junior high school was established
in 1915-16, the results showing in 1916-17 in the seventh
grade. The enrollment in the seventh grade had been at a
standstill while the population of the city had been steadily
increasing — as shown by the enrollment in grades I to VI.
The following are the results:
Grades I to VI Grade VII
1913 731 83
1914 745 82
1915 745 82
1916 748 81
1917 743 I23
In order to show how the junior high school is to solve
the problem of the great mortality in high school, we must
be able to say what is the cause of the dropping out
in the first and second years of high school. The following
seem to be the most usual and best known: (i) The de-
partmental system is confusing to the new pupils. (2) High
school lessons are so much harder than those of the grade
school that failures are far more frequent. Lessons
are longer and require much home study. (3) High school
teachers are thought to be less sympathetic — in fact,
cold and indifferent to the success or failure of students.
(4) Pupils are thrown immediately upon their own responsi-
bility in the preparation of their work ; they neglect, stumble,
flounder, become discouraged, drop out. (5) It seems a
long time before they will finish — four years — therefore
they lose heart. (6) The desire is so strong in the breast of
the adolescent really to "do" something, that cultural studies
seem a waste of time.
At first the student likes the change from grades to high
school. There is greater freedom, greater school spirit and
activity, everything is new, the buildings and equipment are
THE; PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION n
fascinating, there is a thrill of joy about the whole institu-
tion. If the pupils had no work to do and could dabble in
the things that they like, their interest would not flag. The
days would be one long dream of pleasure ! But, alas and
alack, the state does not support costly institutions merely to
amuse young people in their "teens." The evil days speed
on apace ; there comes a time of reckoning about the end of
the first quarter, when the report cards show low grades and
failures. The pupil feels that he has been mistreated, that
the lessons were too hard and too long, that the teacher
takes little interest in the freshmen and in him in particular,
that he should have been warned that he was failing, that
the teacher did not give him help, that he got a late or wrong
start through no fault of his own, that he should have been
made to study and not allowed to drift. Finally, he con-
cludes that four years spent in hard work upon senseless
studies are a waste of time for him, he cuts classes, stays out
of school a day or two at a time, sulks while in school,
answers the teacher's questions with an abused "I dunno,"
which implies that no person in his right mind could know
anything about such meaningless stuff as is found in text-
books, and finally leaves school.
The junior high school is undertaking to prevent this
enormous dropping out of pupils in the ninth and tenth
grades by bridging the chasm through gradual department-
alization, by introducing new and difficult studies gradually,
by spreading subjects over a longer period so that each
lesson will be short enough to be prepared under the school
roof, by employing sympathetic teachers of boys and girls,
by slowly extending the individual responsibility of the
youth, by cutting in two the long period of time required
to finish school, so that graduation is not so far in the future^,
and by giving the adolescent work that will appeal to his,
interests and ambitions.
12 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Departmentalization should begin gradually and in a
school where the pupil and not the subject is the prime con-
sideration of the teachers. The first year of high school is
evidently not the best place for its abrupt beginning. De-
partmentalization should be pretty well developed by the
time the ninth grade is reached; but it should be a matter
of development, not of abrupt change.
The junior high school offers to solve this problem for us
by taking the one-teacher-taught pupil and sympathetically
and gradually introducing him to departmental teaching. A
sympathetic class adviser teaching him one solid subject and
two or three minors like penmanship, spelling, and oral Eng-
lish, or teaching him two or three solids in the seventh
grade, will make the transition easy and pleasant and safe.
The other teachers, too, with the right interest in children,
will appreciate his difficulties and help him over the yawn-
ing chasm), even at the expense of strict requirements of
the curriculum.
The effect of the junior high school on enrollment in ninth
grade in Grand Rapids is shown in the following table. The
population of school age was practically stationary during
the years 1908-16. We underline the years in which the ninth
grade was affected by the establishment of junior high
schools.
Ninth grade enrollment Gain per cent
1908 635 i. plus
1909 626 10. "
1910 693 3. '
1911 713 I2- '
1912 804 12. "
1913 829 3- "
1914 984 18. '
" '-"35 J5- "
THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 13
In further proof of the efficacy of the junior high school
plan in holding pupils in school, may be cited the following
figures from the Pomona schools. There is a law in Cali-
fornia compelling children to attend school until they reach
their fifteenth birthday. It is so strictly enforced that we have
not used figures that concern the number of sixth-grade
entrants who enter seventh grade. The junior high schools
were established in 1914, and in 1915 affected seventh-grade
entrants who entered eighth grade; eighth-grade entrants
who entered ninth grade were also affected that year. Ninth-
grade entrants who entered tenth grade were not affected by
the junior high school until the fall of 1^916; and tenth-
grade entrants who entered eleventh grade, not until 1917.
We have underlined the percentages affected by the junior
high school.
7th to 8th 8th to gth gth to loth loth to i ith
Sept. 1914 ............ 92% 86% 93% 84%
Sept. 1915 ............ 100% 99% 87% 80%
Sept. 1916 ............ 93-9% 92% 92% 71%
Sept. 1917 ............ 88.3% 905% 967%
Pomona is a rsidential city and began to be affected by
the European war in the spring of 1916, when many families
moved away to the industrial and mining centers. This loss
of pupils accounts for the counter movement shown in the
table. It is seen mpst plainly in the first, second and last
columns. In the first column under the same influence the
percentage sank from 100 to 93.9 and then to 88.3 per cent.
In the second from 99 to 92 and then to 90.5. In the fourth
column, under unvarying influences, the percentages sank
from 84 to 80 and then to 71. In every grade the junior
high school immediately raised the percentages as soon as
14 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
the change began to affect it. In the eighth grade the per-
centage was raised from 92 to 100 per cent; in the ninth
grade from 86 to 99 per cent ; in the tenth grade from 87 to
92 per cent; and in the eleventh from 71 to 95 per cent.
Superintendent P. W. Horn, of Houston, reports to his
board as follows: "The most easily measurable result of
the junior high schools is in the matter of attendance. In
1913-14 the attendance of white children in the high school
of Houston was 1341. In 1916-17 the high school enroll-
ments, not including seventh-grade pupils in junior high
schools, was 2091. This shows an increase of 56 per cent
in high school enrollment in three years, which is more than
double the rate of increase in the elementary schools." To
understand the correctness of Superintendent Horn's state-
ment, it must be explained that Houston has no eighth grade.
The seventh, first high and second high school grades are in
the junior high schools, while the eleventh and twelfth are
in the senior high schools.
4. Vocation selection through junior high school.
Hitherto, when the importance of vocational guidance was
not appreciated or even understood, the selection of high
school courses was left either to the child or to the eighth-
grade teacher. Of course, the high school principal was in
no position to guide the pupil, for the pupil was probably
entirely unknown to him before the first day of school. The
eighth-grade teacher, with her lack of close touch with high
school progress, is also not a safe guide. The child's selec-
tion of a course must necessarily be haphazard unless infor-
mation has by chance fallen into his hands.
There is no more important step in the life of an indi-
vidual than that in which he starts upon a high school
course. He may some day, after paying a fearful penalty,
THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 15
overcome a mistake made at this time. There may be some
high school courses so general that they will meet the needs
of a large percentage of a group of a hundred beginners. In
some schools there may be a chance for readjustment later
on. But these cases represent the exception, not the rule.
There is undoubtedly great need for careful vocational
and educational guidance. The best time for an adviser to
study the boy is in the period of early adolescence, just
before he enters high school. The best opportunity for
such study is when the student is "exposed" to various
stimuli. Let a boy take a fair amount of several subjects,
and then have the vocational adviser watch carefully the
effect. It should place him in a position to diagnose the
case with small chance of making a mistake.
The junior high school is such an institution as will allow
the greatest opportunity for this study. We have the boy
or girl at just the right age. There are plenty of short
courses which the pupil may take. If he is ever going to
have an aptitude or liking for anything, it will surely show
in the period from twelve years old to sixteen. With pre-
engineering, pre-medical, pre-agriculture, pre-business, pre-
everything in the curriculum that he has to take in the
junior high school, he should show a response to something
or to several things. A few may not respond to any of
these subjects. Some superior authority, such as the parent
or adviser, may well take in hand pupils of this kind and put
them through a rigid general curriculum in high school,
finding out thereby the things they respond to least. By a
process of elimination, just what is needed by such pupils
may be ascertained.
If it be true, as some educational writers assert, that early
adolescents retain very little of what they learn — get in fact
very little benefit from study — then it is no waste of
l6 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
time to use this period for experimentation with them. It
would at least be far better to use this period for experimen-
tation and save the pupils to the high school, than to let
them drop out or to drive them out by our past methods.
But we are convinced by what has been done in vocational
guidance through the intermediate high schools of Los
Angeles, Grand Rapids, Houston and Pomona, that the
richest and most valuable results are obtainable by the use
of the early adolescent years of school children.
Here in the junior high school, the vocational adviser has
his class in vocational information and guidance. At least
one semester should be devoted by each pupil to this class.
In Pomona this subject is taken by every pupil during the
semester preceding his graduation into the senior high
school. The pupils learn about the world of occupations,
the kinds of work, the compensation of each, and the advan-
tages and disadvantages of every vocation. Interest is
aroused in the whole field of occupations, and the pupils
begin to see the importance of their life careers. Here also
they find that society's interests are worthy of their consid-
eration. They awaken to the fact that they themselves are
of importance in the progress of civilization.
The vocational adviser becomes well acquainted with the
pupils whom he is to advise and guide. The boys and girls
are also stimulated to study themselves and their own apti-
tudes. Guidance therefore becomes a co-operative task, in
which the pupil takes an active part. In such a class he
learns to study himself and measure his character, abilities
and likings. This habit of introspection is of value to him,
whether or not he hits upon the proper vocation at this time.
The vocational information acquired and the choice of
occupation made by the pupil are immediately put into use
in planning a curriculum to be taken in the senior high
THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 17
school. The plan is to select such courses as will best fit
the boy for service for himself and to society. The chosen
vocation is to be the central object, but of course not the
only object. The subjects are to be grouped about the main
purpose of his education. When completely planned, this
curriculum becomes the concrete result of the whole process
of vocational guidance in the junior high school.
5. Shortening the course by means of the junior high
school. We have spoken of the demand that men get into
their life work earlier. The junior high school proposes to
do its part by shortening the time required by an entire
year. The university, however, feels that three or four
years are already too short a time in which to give a profes-
sional course that is well-rounded and thorough. Moreover,
the universities are insistent on at least two full years of
college work as a preparation for the university course. On
the other hand, educators insist that children should not
enter school at an earlier age than six, while the laws of
many states forbid earlier entrance. Long experience has
shown that the tools and foundations of education are not
obtainable in less than six or seven years.
The junior high school has undertaken the task of saving
a year of time. It proposes to do the work of four grades in
three years. In some places this plan takes the form of
doing the work of the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth
grades in three years, leaving the senior high school the
tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades to deal with. Richmond,
Virginia, has worked out this plan very satisfactorily. The
plan has many things to commend it to parents. One in
particular is, that the tradition of an eight year elementary
school is not changed. The children and the parents are
not called upon to make any sacrifices or to change their
ideals. When the child is graduated from the elementary
i8
THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
school he enters the tenth grade instead of the ninth grade.
The plan that commends itself to many educators and
thinking parents as the best is one in which the work of the
seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth grades is done in three
years. In such a plan the elementary school ends with the
sixth grade and the secondary school begins with the sev-
enth. If the elementary school has done its work properly
the pupil will not need much further work on the funda-
mental operations in arithmetic or the foundational ideas in
the other subjects. Reading, of course, is continued in
literature; language in English (composition and gram-
mar) ; historical stories in history ; arithmetical application
in bookkeeping and practical accounts. Cultural subjects,
such as Latin, algebra and general science, may be begun at
once, with considerable simplification of the beginnings.
The following plan — the one first adopted in Pomona —
will illustrate this shortening of the course:
FIRST SEMESTER SECOND SEMESTER THIRD SEMESTER
English (non H. S.) English (non H. S.) English (non H. S.)
U.S. Hist. (nonH.S.) U. S. Hist, (non H.S.) Civics (non H. S.)
Latin (% H. S. Cr.) Latin (% Cr.) Latin (% Cr.)
Algebra ( Vs Cr.) Algebra (% Cr.)
FIFTH SEMESTER SIXTH SEMESTER
Accounts (non H.S.)
English II (% Cr.)
Latin (% Cr.)
PI. Geom. (% Cr.)
Gen. Science (% Cr.)
Anc. Hist. (% Cr.)
Manual Tr. (% Cr.)
Cooking (% Cr.)
Music (% Cr.)
Art (% Cr.)
Mec. Draw. (% Cr.)
two courses in each semester are re-
quired, and three of the last eight courses must be elected.
During the first three semesters, the pupil completes the
applications of the foundation subjects and earns two high
Algebra (% H.S.Cr.)
FOURTH SEMESTER
Accounts (non H!S.)
English I (% Cr.)
Latin (% Cr.)
PI. Geom. (% Cr.)
Gen. Science (% Cr.)
Anc. Hist. I (% Cr.)
Manual Tr. (% Cr.)
Cooking (% Cr.)
Music (% Cr.)
Art (% Cr.)
Mec. Draw. (% Cr.)
Note: The first
Physiology (nonH.S.)
English III (% Cr.)
Latin (% Cr.)
PL Geom. (% Cr.)
Gen. Science (% Cr.)
Anc. Hist. (% Cr.)
Manual Tr. (% Cr.)
Cooking (% Cr.)
Music (% Cr.)
Art (% Cr.)
Mec. Draw. (% Cr.)
THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 19
school credits. During the second three semesters, the pupil
earns five high school credits. He graduates into senior high
school with seven credits, which give him eleventh grade
standing. By taking four courses through the next two
years he has upon graduation from senior high school fifteen
credits, or enough to enter college. As he takes physical
education, unprepared oral English, and singing throughout
the five years, he is given an additional credit in a combina-
tion of these courses.
This curriculum is cited only as a type of plan whereby
the work of four grades may be done in three years.
Another plan that helps to shorten the time of preparation
for university work is that of promotion by subject in the
seventh and eighth grades. While promotion by grade in the
elementary grades may be defensible, such a plan is bad
after the fundamentals of education have been mastered. In
the lower grades harmonious development is the chief aim
of the child's study ; in the secondary school the chief aim
is development of individual characteristics. Promotion in
the elementary school may possibly be best only when the
pupil attains a certain minimum standard in all subjects.
Such a plan followed in the secondary schools would defeat
the purpose of truly secondary education.
Promotion by subject begun with early adolescent educa-
tion will tend to shorten the entire secondary curriculum.
Failure in one course will not hold the pupil back in all his
courses. A second failure in the same course is a pretty
good indication that the pupil's best education does not need
that subject, provided, of course, that the teacher has done
his part properly.
Shortening the time consumed in completing the curricu-
lum by a year and promotion by subject are possible only in
some form of junior high school.
2O THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
6. Adapting education to the needs of adolescence
through the junior high school. The practical application
of this plan consists in introducing vocational work into the
curriculum to meet the growing demand for real, occupa-
tional work; departmentalizing instruction for the better
development of the individuality of the pupil and for the
better teaching of the rich content of secondary subjects;
enriching the curriculum by new and mind-broadening sub-
jects, such as the cultural and civic subjects; and by adapt-
ing all school life to the needs of adolescence — physical,
mental, moral, and religious.
We shall discuss these various junior high school methods
in connection with certain demands of the adolescent nature,
first for boys and then for girls.
A. The education of adolescent boys is based upon
their psychical and physical needs. To the educator or to the
social reformer planning the proper education of boys, one
must commend the proverb, "A little child shall lead them/'
To know what to do, we must study the child and let his
needs tell us what kinds of training should be given.
1 i ) The boy's tendency to grow and be active is encour-
aged. In school the boy is taught that the home should
provide plenty of well-cooked, nourishing food, and should
not provide for much sweets, highly seasoned diet, stimu-
lants, or rich dishes. The junior high school sees to it that
the police make it impossible for him to secure liquors and
tobacco in any form. The school and the playground pro-
vide plenty of physical exercise and culture, athletics, games,
and manual and physical labor.
(2) The feeling of adultness and the desire to be consid-
ered grown up are not suppressed, but are used for character
building. Boys' organizations like the Scouts, Baraccas,
and Corn Clubs are formed in school. The school allows the
THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 21
boy certain elective studies within a safe and sane range,
and under proper vocational guidance. The organization of
student self-government may afford a satisfactory method
of allowing boys self-expression in their desire for adult-
hood. Here also belong the vocational aspirations that need
direction.
(3) The widening of the reasoning faculties is allowed
expression in debate, orations, argumentation, and mathe-
matical studies. Historical, political and economic studies
afford excellent material for the development of these
faculties.
(4) Rapid fluctuation in temperament is reduced to a
minimum by the school in requiring definiteness of studies
and continuation of a course through at least several months.
The school assigns tasks that require regularity and persist-
ence. The worst thing that can be done is to coddle the boy
and encourage him in feeling that he has real cause for
grievance. Such indulgence will inevitably lead the boy to
take a pride in the obstinacy of his temper, his sulking, his
fits of gloom and despondency, and his changeful moods.
The junior high school injects a little more iron and stern-
ness into its dealing with boy delinquents than does the
elementary school.
(5) The strong physical emotions of adolescent boys
are developed into higher aesthetic emotions. Boys like rag-
time and noisy music; they are led to enjoy good music by
the right process in school and in their clubs. Boys like the
touch sensations felt in rubbing, wrestling, and swimming.
Care must be exercised not to allow these touch sensations
to become degenerate or unhealthy. Boys like rugged
scenery, bright lights, and gaudy colors. The school attempts
to direct this taste into the highest lines.
22 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
(6) Boys sometimes feel as if the world rested upon
them and the welfare of society depended upon their opin-
ions and actions. This feeling is seized and made use of—
not for the benefit of society, but for the reflex action upon
the boy. What he plans, the reforms he advocates, the
changes he so valiantly champions, may never be brought
to pass ; but the fact that he plans, advocates, and champions,
has a great effect upon his character. This impulse may be
directed toward the home, the school, the church, etc., but
cannot issue in anything. It is turned upon the boy's debat-
ing society, his club, his ball team, the rules of the game he
plays, etc., with good effect.
(7) The distinct sensory feelings of the adolescent are
worthy of careful cultivation and practical use. The school
through its classes manages this activity. The sciences
appeal to the boy whose senses of sight, hearing, weighing,
feeling, smelling, and measuring, are keen and alert. So it
is also with drawing, mensuration, surveying, manual train-
ing, and geometry.
(8) The religious awakening in boys at this age is prob-
ably associated with the emotional development of the
period. Induction into church membership usually comes in
the early adolescent stage, and a feeling of moral responsi-
bility arises. The boy begins to long for a purpose in living
and to plan for the future. The school teachers and advisers
seize time by the forelock and gain the boy's confidence, and
put him to work in some purposeful way, and show him how
he can be a power for good, a leader in the battle for right.
The fighting spirit in boys of this age will spur them on to
enter any undertaking that smacks of battle and war. They
delight to be enlisted as Christian soldiers, but they must
have real fighting or they will turn away in disgust at the
THIC PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 23
hollowness of the cause. The school has its part in the
development of religious feeling and moral courage, and
should not shirk it.
B. Education of the adolescent girl. Even more than
with the boy, we shall find this a problem of physical
development — a problem that involves not the girl alone,
but the future generations descendant from her. We must
keep constantly in mind the fact that we are educating the
mother of the race. It is important that she should have an
ideal environment in which to mature her body. We insist
on this to such a degree because almost the opposite has
been true — the girl's physical development has been neg-
lected and her mental development has been overstimulated,
to the great detriment of the race and to the great unhappi-
ness of the individual girl. We mean, of course, that the over
schooling of girls has lessened their chances of marriage at
the proper time for women to marry; and that home and
society have combined to educate women in senseless styles
of dress, in vicious dietary habits, in unsanitary prudery,
and in physical flaccidity to a very considerable extent.
The junior high school attempts sensibly to give physical
education of the right sort. A good diet, exercises, proper
elimination, sleep, and dress are the principal positive fac-
tors ; moderation in study, in social functions, in physical
labor, in standing, and climbing stairs is the principal nega-
tive factor. These matters are all worked out carefully and
put into practice by persistent and wise co-operation of all
concerned. Instruction in the care of the body should espe-
cially be insisted upon during the period of adolescence.
Next in importance comes the vocational education of
girls for the vocation that is to engross thirty years of their
life in ninety out of every hundred lives — home making. In
school, girls are taught domestic science, sewing, and home
24 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL,
economics. They are given lessons in buying, shopping, de-
tecting shams from realities, resisting the solicitations of
salesmen of goods not needed ; they are also taught how the
government can assist in the training of girls for home life
by eliminating the economic conditions that draw, or drive,
girls into the industries.
As girls' senses are wonderfully acute at this time, their
education involves the cultivation of flowers and shrubbery.
They have the opportunity to hear and learn to appreciate
good music, vocal and instrumental. They see works of art —
pictures, statuary, and buildings. This is the period when
deftness of the hands is developed by means of needlework,
crocheting, fingering the piano, painting and drawing,
bandaging, molding, kneading, massaging, dressing -the
hair, braiding.
Singing, playing the piano, drawing, and jpaintmg
belong here. These may be supplemented by decorating,
designing, draping, trimming, arranging of flowers, sculp-
turing, pounding of brass, and wood carving. Millinery,
costume design, book binding, art-metal work, musical
composition, versifying, dancing, and dramatization, all are
taught in the junior high school and are very closely related
to the natural life of the adolescent girl.
The gregariousness of girls at this period is used to
advantage by the junior high school. They must have
cliques and societies, with secret signs and mystery. Girls'
clubs, French-speaking circles, girls' moral-training classes,
taffy-making parties, girls' camps, are all necessary to this
adolescent period. Through these organizations many valu-
able lessons are learned — co-operation, neighborlines?,
hygienic living, sociability, tact, self-possession, and organ-
ization.
THE PROBLEMS AND THE SOLUTION 25
More will be said later concerning the training of both
boys and girls in good physical, mental and moral habits.
Too much insistence cannot be placed upon the necessity for
careful supervision by teachers of all youthful activities and
watchful <(big-brotherliness" twenty-four hours a day.
CHAPTER TWO
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT
The plan of this book is first to explain the junior high
school movement, and then to describe the school as an insti-
tution. The first four chapters are devoted to the first topic.
In chapter I, we explained how conditions alleged to be
caused or permitted by the school system had become so
bad that the public made certain specific demands upon the
school. The school system organized on the 8-4 plan did
not seem to be able to meet these demands, hence the reor-
ganization of the school system and the creation of a junior
high school. The newly created school undertakes to bring
about the desired reforms.
In this chapter we continue to discuss the junior high
school movement. We go into its history from its inception,
describing its prototypes in (Europe and America and the
establishment of the first successful junior high schools in
this country, and relate how the National Education Asso-
ciation, after deliberating over the problems for many
years, finally took fire and became a mighty crusading force,
how the new schools sprang up all over the land. The
chapter closes with a brief description of the various plans
being tried in the widely scattered parts of our country.
1. Foreign systems. As the new division of the
twelve grades of the American school system into two
groups of six years each was largely suggested by European
schools, it seems proper to describe briefly the German and
French plans.
In Germany there are two distinct types of schools — one
for the lower class of society, the other for the upper class.
The first embraces nine years of study, beginning at the
26
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT 27
age of six and closing normally at the age of fifteen. The
curriculum is divided into two parts, an elementary school
of six years and an upper division of three years. The upper
division is therefore begun at the age of twelve, or at the
very beginning of adolescence. The six preliminary classes
only are taught in the common schools. The six elementary
grades and the upper three grades are taught in the Biirger-
schulen. The upper division is distinguished from the lower
by the introduction of English and Latin in the first year
and by an increase in the number of recitations per week.
The second type of school, i. e., that for the upper classes,
has also a curriculum embracing nine years, but it takes the
pupil at nine years of age and carries him through to
eighteen years of age. The pupil enters this school able to
read and write and with some knowledge of numbers. This
type of school is divided into three divisions — a lower stage
of three years, an intermediate stage of three years, and a
higher stage of three years. There is no sharp distinction
between the lower and the intermediate stages, but in gen-
eral it may be said that somewhere near this dividing line
the study of French, English, or Greek is begun ; the number
of recitation periods per week is greatly increased; history
and algebraic and geometric mathematics are taken up ; pen-
manship is discontinued ; and pupils are allowed a certain
amount of election of subjects. There is no break whatever
between the intermediate stage and the higher stage, unless
the increase from thirty-five to thirty-six recitation periods
per week can be so considered.
The fact stands out clearly that what we call secondary
education begins with the twelfth year of age in both lower-
class and upper-class schools in Germany. The intermediate
stage of the schools for the children of the upper-class
people corresponds to the highest division of the Burger-
28 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
schulen in all essential points, and both are of three years'
duration. This intermediate school work stands out dis-
tinct and clear from the foundational type of work that
precedes it.
In France there are free schools and pay schools. The
elementary free or common school begins at six years of age
and extends through to eleven or twelve years of age. A
primary diploma is awarded. This takes the child to the
beginning of adolescence. The common schools provide for
two or three years of further education in what are called
higher primary schools: complementary course, superior
primary school, professional school, and manual arts appren-
tice school. The complementary course is conducted in the
same building as the elementary school, but the other courses
are in separate buildings. To enter these higher primary
schools, the pupil must be twelve years of age and must have
completed the elementary school. The curricula are all of
three years' duration and are marked by their enrichment
with what we should call secondary school subjects and with
vocational or prevocational subjects.
The pay schools are partly supported by the nation or by
the nation and community. They are variously called lycee,
colleges, or secondary schools. They provide separate
schools for boys and girls. In general the length of these
curricula is five or six years for girls and seven years for
boys. The curriculum is divided into two stages or cycles.
The first stage contains three years for girls and four years
for boys. Boys are received as young as ten or twelve years
of age, and both boys and girls normally complete the first
cycle by the time they are fifteen. Under the same roof that
covers the lycee or college (the French college must not be
confused with the American college) is conducted a primary
HISTORY OF THE; MOVEMENT 29
school for well-to-do children, to prepare them for the sec-
ondary school.
The first cycle of the secondary school — lycee, college, or
secondary course — is quite sharply marked off from primary
schooling in that there is given an election of studies, foreign
languages are begun, the number of recitations per week is
increased, religion is taught, and more attention is given to
the sciences and mathematics. There is no sharp division
between the first and second cycles.
There is a marked resemblance between the three-year
higher primary school course and the first cycle of the lycee
and college. They both cover the same years of early ado-
lescent life ; they are both distinctly marked off from primary
education; they are either in entirely separate buildings
from primary children or are conducted as distinctly differ-
ent classes.
The reader must be struck by the parallel in the following
three classes of schools:
GERMAN FRENCH AMERICAN
Upper division of Higher primary Junior high school
Burgerschulen school or intermediate high
Intermediate stage of school
school for the upper First cycle of lycee
classes or college
GERMAN FRENCH AMERICAN
Three year course Three year course Three year course
Age 12 to 15 Age n or 12 to 15 Age 12 to 15
Distinct from pri- Distinct from pri- Distinct from pri-
mary course mary course mary course
Merges into upper Merges into second Merges into senior
stage cycle high school
Some election Some election Some election
Foreign languages Foreign languages Foreign languages
Higher mathematics Higher mathematics Higher mathematics
and sciences and sciences and sciences
2. Various plans of grouping grades in the United
States. In the United States the general standard plan has
been eight years of elementary education and four years of
3O THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
high school. However, in the New England states the
grouping was until recently quite generally nine and four.
In the Southern states financial distress following the Civil
War prevented the communities from offering more than
seven years of elementary instruction. So they have been
forced to be content with a 7-4 plan. In a canvass taken in
1911 of the 669 cities of 8,000 population or over, 489 had
the 8-4 plan, 86 had the 9-4 plan, 48 had the 7-4 plan, 4 had
the 8-5 plan, and the remainder had various modifications of
these forms. Dr. Frank F. Bunker's monograph, from
which the above data are taken, points out that ordinarily
where the elementary course is nine years in length, the
child starts to school at five years of age ; where the course
is eight years in length, he starts to school at six ; and where
it is seven years in length, he starts to school at seven.
In every case the pupil normally finishes his elementary
course at fourteen years of age, or two years later than his
French and German cousins. As adolescence begins here at
twelve as in Europe, we have ignored the point that they
everywhere observe, namely, that adolescent education
should be different from pre-adolescent.
However, Dr. Bunker's investigation shows that even
before 1911 several educators had begun to attempt to make
a change in the grouping so as to adapt education to the
needs of the two periods of pre-maturity pupils. Not only
had the professors of education in our great universities
and normal schools rebelled against the old plan, but even
the administrators in our great school systemte, restricted as
they were by conservative public opinion, had accomplished
something toward a reorganization. Still it was only an
attempt, and in many cases with no clear vision of just what
was needed. In some cases the changes were made because
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT
local conditions made it necessary — empty high school and
overflowing grade buildings, the need of men teachers for
the upper grades, or a grade building suddenly emptied by
the erection of a larger one near. But it must not be for-
gotten that in some instances the public actually took the
lead and forced the superintendent and school board to do
something.
We give below a summary of these changes made prior to
1911, and the principal features of each plan:
City or School Supt.
Boston Latin
School
Chicago
Richmond, Ind. Mott
Saginaw, Mich. Whitney
Providence
Baltimore, Md. Van Sickle
Year Plan Features
1635 6 yr. Purely college pre-
11. S. paratory. Admitted
pupils at 10 or 11
years of age. Still
thriving.
1894 6yr. Purely college pre-
1896 H. S. paratory. Courses
of study based upon
an elementary 6 yr.
curriculum.
1896 6-2-4 H. S. subjects in 7th
and 8th grades. Pro-
motion by subject.
1898 6-6 One year of college
work. Plan aban-
doned.
1898 6-2-4 College-prep, courses,
with foreign lan-
guages and algebra
in 7th and 8th
grades. Reg. H. S.
9-12 years.
1902 6-3-2 Only brighest pupils
permitted at end of
6th grade to enter
these 3-yr. junior
high schools. At end
of two years of Jr.
H. S. only the best
pupils permitted to
take the 3d yr. in
junior high school.
THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
City or School Supt.
Kalamazoo, Mich. Hartwell
Muskegon, Mich. Frost
Peabody, Mass. Albt. Robinson 1905
Philippine Islands D. P. Barrows 1905
Marshalltown, la. Palmer
Aurora, 111.
Bardwell
Issaquah, Wash. Bennett
Selma, Ala. Harman
Roanoke, Va. Hart
Rah way, N. Y. Bickett
Clean, N. Y. Slawson
Ithaca, N. Y. Boynton
Concord, N. H. Rundlett
New York State A. S. Draper 1910 6-2-4
Year Plan Features
1902 7-3-2 One central senior H.
S., several bldgs.
containing first
seven or ten grades.
1904 6-1- Seven grades all in
2-3 one building. 8th
and 9th grades in H.
S. annex.
8-5 Change from 9-4.
6-4-2 College subjects in
last 2 yrs.
7-1-4 8th grade depart-
mentalized and con-
ducted in H. S. bldg.
8-5 Some H. S. subjects
in 7th and 8th gr.
Fifth H. S. year,
college work.
1906 6-5 Two grammar grades
taken into 3 yr. H.
S. and department-
alized.
1909 7-5 Change from 7-4.
1910 6-2-4 Work of 12 grades in
1 1 years.
1910 5-3-3 H. S. subjects in 7th
and 8th grades.
Apart from H. S.
Promotion by subj.
7-5 Best pupils finish H.
S. at end of nth
year of school.
6-2-4 H. S. subjects in 7th
and 8th grades.
Apart from H. S.
1910 6-2-3 The "2" and the "3"
year schools in sep-
arate bldgs. Short-
ens course 12 to n
years.
Elem. education com-
pleted in six years.
Real secondary
work begins in 7th
grade.
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT 33
City or School Supt. Year Plan Features
New Albany, Ind. Buerk 1910 7-1-4 Merely a grouping of
all 8th grade pupils
in one bldg. De-
partmentalization.
Alameda, Cal. Wood 1910 6-2-4 7th and 8th grades in
same building with
lower grades but de-
partmental i z a t i o n
and principle of
election introduced.
Los Angeles, Cal. Moore 1910 6-2-4 Languages in 7th and
8th. Departmental-
ization.
From the above it will be seen that the new day was
beginning to dawn even before the first decade of the twen-
tieth century; that between 1900 and 1910 various plans
were tried out, mlany of them containing one or more of
the elements of the junior high school as described in Chap-
ter One of this work. When at last the new plan did come
into being, it came to two cities at the same time.
3. Superintendent Bunker and the Berkeley plan. In
1908 Frank F. Bunker was elected superintendent of schools
for the city of Berkeley, California, after having served a
year as assistant superintendent in Los Angeles under
Superintendent E. C. Moore. He was a careful student of
education, and was especially interested in a reorganization
of the system of schools so that each grade would have a
particular function and could accomplish the end desired of
it. His study led him to the belief that the seventh and
eighth grades had not been functioning — in fact, had been a
stumbling block in the way of education ; so much so that a
large percentage of children were dropping out during those
years and during the early years of the high school as a
result of the failure of the public schools to do their work
in the seventh and eighth years of the pupil's school life.
34 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
In January, 1910, upon the recommendation of Superin-
tendent Bunker, the Berkeley School Board established the
first junior high school in America. The plan did not at
first meet with general approval, and there is little wonder
that it did not. There was to be no new building in a cen-
trally located part of the city. If there had been such a
building just completed and ready for occupancy, doubtless
the problem would have been less difficult. Instead, an old
grade building had to be used, and even then not all of that.
The neighborhood insisted that it be allowed to continue to
send its smaller children to this building: consequently only
a part could be used for the junior high school classes.
Not only was this building unsuitable for the depart-
mental work of an intermediate high school and only in part
usable for that purpose, but seventh and eighth grade chil-
•dreti of other neighboring buildings had become so attached
to their own schools that they objected to being shifted.
This objection was met by allowing such children to decide
by^classes whether they would attend the one-teacher grades
.to w'hich they had been accustomed, or go to the junior high
school. After the system was once established, however,
•pupils finishing the sixth grade were required to go to the
•central intermediate high school buildings. Soon the ninth
>grade also was retained in these buildings.
So great, however, were the difficulties, so new the plan,
and so fundamental was the change, that it became neces-
sary to appeal to the people for a ratification of the scheme.
A campaign of enlightenment was undertaken, and dozens
of public meetings were held to discuss the matter. Parent-
teacher associations, mothers' clubs, neighborhood clubs,
.and churches became interested in the question. At last
favorable resolutions from all these organizations and
.assemblies were presented to the board of education, and
HISTORV OF1 THE MOVEMENT 35
the six-three-three plan became permanent in Berkeley.
There are now several large buildings devoted entirely to the
junior high school work.
4. The Los Angeles plan. Supt. E. C. Moore, who
had inspired Bunker with enthusiasm for a reorganization
of secondary education, was to awaken a similar interest in
J. H. Francis. While Mr. Francis, at that time principal of
a large polytechnic high school in Los Angeles, was travel-
ing in Europe in 1909, he wrote from Italy a detailed report
to Superintendent Moore on his investigations in Europe
and advocated the six-three-three plan for the schools of his
city. Mr. Francis approached the conception from an
entirely different point of view from Mr. Bunker. He was
interested in the vocational phase of the question. If boys
and girls will drop out of school at fifteen or sixteen years
of age, they should get, while in school, some practical infor-
mation and some technical skill that will help them to earn
a living. Good as were the technical, commercial, and
applied art courses of the high school, they very largely
failed to reach the largest class of boys and girls who would
use that type of education, for that class ordinarily leaves
school at the end of the eighth or ninth grade.
In the summer of 1910 Mr. Francis was elected superin-
tendent of the city schools of Los Angeles, and at once
launched his plans. Influential with his board, he readily
got it to embark upon a course of establishing intermediate
high schools. These met, of course, the same conservative
opposition that had characterized the inauguration of the
plan in Berkeley. But Los Angeles was so large and so
rapidly growing a community that new school buildings
were constantly being built. Several of the new buildings
were used as junior high schools. These very attractive
36 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
homes for the junior high school at once aroused the enthu-
siasm of pupils and parents.
In Los Angeles the ninth-grade pupils living in certain
sections are permitted to attend high school if they prefer.
About 50 per cent elect to go to the high school. Pupils
expecting to continue in school through the twelfth grade
generally leave the intermediate school at the end of the
eighth year; pupils electing vocational or prevocational
courses take their ninth-grade work in the junior high school
and then leave school and go to work. There is, however,
a growing tendency for all pupils to remain their full three
years in the lower school, especially now that they can in
these three years earn six or seven high school credits as
well as coniplete the work of the seventh and eighth grades.
Superintendent Shiels has, during his administration, given
great impetus to this movement so that the junior high
school in Los Angeles has come to be a decidedly secondary
.school in character.
5. Work of the National Education Association.
Although the National Education Association started late to
; interest itself in the work of the junior high school, it has in
•the last three years given considerable acceleration to the
movement. In 1911 there was presented a report on the
Articulation of high school and college. This opened up
such a large number of questions that a commission was
appointed to work out a reorganization of secondary educa-
tion. The commission's preliminary report made in 1913
concerned itself with the subjects then taught in the four-
year high school and gave almost no indication of a con-
sciousness of the so-called 6-3-3 movement that had already
.appeared in several cities. But the 1914 report indicates that
the commission had practically become committed to the
vnew plan, saying: "The traditional plan of devoting eight
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT 37
years to elementary education is rapidly becoming obsolete.
.... Consequently it will be necessary for each committee
[the commission was divided into committees] in preparing
its report to indicate how its recommendations may be ad-
justed so as to meet the needs of schools under both plans."
In 1916 two committees of this commission reported. The
one on English in the Secondary School advocated a six-
year course in English beginning with the seventh grade.
The committee on Social Studies recommended a six-year
secondary school program adapted to both the 6-3-3 an<^ the
8-4 plans.
Meanwhile the committee on Economy of Time, under the
chairmanship of Superintendent H. B. Wilson, reported in
1913 on several plans for shortening the elementary curri-
culum. Professor Judd of the committee reported a plan
which was being tried out in the University of Chicago
training schools whereby the eight years of elementary
work were being done in seven years and work of grades
nine to fourteen, inclusive, in five years. In 1914 the com-
mittee reported that actual progress had been miade in
formulating plans for economy of time in the various
elementary subjects. Significant also was the report of a
similar committee of the National Council of the National
Education Association which had been working on the prob-
lem since 1908. This report recommended the division of
educational curricula as follows :
Elementary Education Ages 6 to 12
Secondary Education (2 divisions — 4 yrs. and
2 yrs.) 12 to 18
College 18 to 20
University (graduate and professional) '..... 20 to 24
In 1916, at a meeting of the Department of Superintend-
ence in Detroit occurred two most interesting and far-reach-
38 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
ing debates. The first was a debate on the question:
Resolved, That the best organisation for American schools
is a plan which shall divide these schools into six years of
elementary training and six years of secondary training.
The affirmative was upheld by Professor Charles H. Judd,
Director of the School of Education, University of Chicago,
and the negative by President Carroll G. Pearse, of the
Milwaukee State Normal School. With all due regard to
the abilities of the negative speaker, the fact that such a
well-known educator as Dr. Judd should publicly advocate
the junior high school so eloquently and convincingly was
epoch making. Hundreds of city superintendents left the
convention with the intention of establishing the new plan
in their cities. The next day the delegates to this convention
of three thousand superintendents were privileged to hear a
joint discussion of "The Minimum Essentials vs. the Differ-
entiated Course of Study in the Seventh and Eighth
Grades," by Doctors Coffman, Bagley, and Snedden. These
addresses at Detroit and the very strong paper by Pro-
fessor Johnston at the New York City gathering in the fol-
lowing summer, beginning, "The junior high school move-
ment is sweeping the country," have brought the subject of
this monograph into a position of the greatest prominence
in the National Education Association.
6. The junior high school throughout the country.
To trace the history of this movement from the time that
the first real junior high school was established in Berkeley
in 1910 would be like an attempt to count the springing up
of mushrooms on a spring morning after a rain. Notable
among the cities that have committed themselves to the plan
are Houston and Detroit. Two new and beautiful buildings
were constructed in the former city to accommodate 1,000
pupils each. In the fall of 1914 all the pupils of the three
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT 39
grades following the sixth were housed in these splendid
homes. Detroit has built five such junior high school build-
ings at a cost of over half a million dollars. Salt Lake City
has organized three large schools of this type. Former
Superintendent Brumbaugh recommended to his board that
the Philadelphia school system be organized on the 6-6 basis
with junior and senior high schools of three years each. The
University of Michigan is encouraging the establishment of
junior high schools by offering to accept three entrance
credits earned in seventh and eighth grades — that is, the
first two years of intermediate high school. St. Paul like-
wise has just adopted the plan, and is constructing a build-
ing to accommodate a large junior high school, with one of
the largest athletic fields in Minnesota. In that city the sev-
enth, eighth, and ninth grade pupils are called Juniors and
the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders, Seniors. Lewiston,
Idaho, has a well-matured junior high school with a splendid
curriculum. It forms one of the two wings of a large cen-
tral building that also houses the senior high school. There
are different principals for the two schools, but the instruc-
tors teach in both schools.
By the summer of 1916 almost every state in the Union
had one or more of these junior high schools. Reports show
them distributed among the several states as follows:
Indiana 24 New Jersey 6 Iowa 3
Minnesota 24 Ohio 5 Connecticut 2
North Dakota 20 Oklahoma 5 Kentucky 2
Pennsylvania 16 Tennessee 5 Maine 2
California 15 Texas 5 Vermont 2
Kansas 13 Colorado 4 Alabama I
New York 13 Missouri 4 Arizona i
Illinois 9 Montana 4 Arkansas I
Massachusetts 8 South Dakota 4 Florida I
Michigan 8 Utah 4 Georgia I
Oregon 7 Virginia 4 New Hampshire .. i
Idaho 6 Wyoming 4 Rhode Island I
Nebraska , .6 Washington 3
38 STATES HAD 254 JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS
4O THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
The latest available statistics at the end of 1917 showed
that 365 school systems, including most of the largest cities,
had organized junior high schools on the general plan
described in this book. The states of Vermont and Okla-
homa are reorganizing their entire school systems to include
these new institutions in every city and town. When this
work is completed the number of junior high schools in the
country will approximate 1,000.
7. Varying plans in operation. The reader will at
once see the possibilities of variety. The simplest is the
Berkeley system of arranging the seventh, eighth and ninth
grades in the lower division, and tenth, eleventh and twelfth
grades in the upper division, each grade consuming a year
of time. This scheme contains all the points mentioned in
Chapter One except the saving of a year of time. The Los
Angeles plan attempts to do in three years the work of the
seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth grades, and consequently
leaves only two years for the senior high school proper.
Detroit and most Eastern cities follow the Berkeley plan.
Houston completes the twelve grades in eleven years. Its
secondary system might be stated as follows : The seventh,
ninth, and tenth grades in the intermediate school ; the elev-
enth and twelfth in the senior high school. The eighth
grade does not, and never did exist.
In New York City in 1913 there were 61,262 pupils en-
rolled in the high school. During that year there had been
20,326 pupils who failed to complete their courses. Of
these, over 12,000 were in the first year. The result of this
loss of pupils has brought about in that city some radical
changes from the former plan.
The intermediate school was introduced, largely to reduce
this loss of attendance. It also plans to save a year of time
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT 41
for the pupils. The sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth grades
are to be grouped into an intermediate school, and the work
done in three years. This is to be accomplished by certain
modifications in the grammar school curriculum, promotion
by studies, and other features that are common to the junior
high school.
Practically this same plan exists in Richmond, Virginia,
where, however, the nomenclature is different. In Rich-
mond the name "intermediate school" applies to a school in
which just the fifth grade is taught. After finishing this
intermediate school the pupils pass into the junior high
school, which covers the work of the sixth, seventh, eighth,
and ninth grades. The work, however, of these four grades
is done in three years. This junior high school has most of
the characteristics that were described in Chapter One of
this book as being essential to such an institution. It seems
that in Richmond the purpose of the "intermediate school"
is to prepare pupils better for the junior high school. The
former, however, does not form any part of the latter. One
of the earliest junior high schools established in that city
was the Bainbridge School. For a while, at least, the fifth
grade was taught under the same roof.
In Fitchburg, Massachusetts, there are maintained inter-
mediate schools which are more or less independent of the
high school. The curricula offered in them are, however,
largely finishing curricula, although the schools maintain
literary courses that lead directly to the senior high school.
The purpose of the Fitchburg intermediate school is to
keep children in school and to afford an opportunity to give
a semi-vocational education to over-age children. There are
similar intermediate schools in Cleveland, Albany, and
Rochester. Little attention is given to grading in any of
these schools. The thing that counts for entrance is age.
42 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
The intermediate schools do not form an essential link in
the school curriculum. They aim to deal with special cases,
although academic work is given in connection with the
industrial work.
Then there is the plan that makes no break in the middle
of the secondary curriculum but completes the six upper
grades in six or even in five years.
Finally, there is the plan adopted in Pomona, California,
which is the one that seems to be ideal to the writer. This
plan completes the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth grades
in three years, and then devotes four years to the eleventh,
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth grades. This normally
carries the student to his nineteenth birthday, and gives him
a strong taste of college life, vocational education that
carries him well on toward maturity, and qualifies him to
begin university work where it should begin, with the junior
certificate. Such a plan when adopted creates not simply one
new institution but brings into life at one and the same time
two new institutions, a junior high school and a "senior high
school — junior college." In this way the high school is not
merely robbed of its first or first and second years, but is
abolished altogether as not meeting the highest purposes,
and in its place and in the place of the seventh and eighth
grades and the junior college appear two entirely new insti-
tutions profiting by the successes and failures of the schools
they displace.
CHAPTER THREE;
OBJECTIONS TO JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
ANSWERED
In the general plan of describing the junior high school
movement, we have spoken of the conditions that gave rise
to the movement and have described its history. In this
chapter we shall treat of the obstacles — real and fancied —
that have stood in the way of the progress of the movement
and the manner in which these obstacles have been, or may
be, removed. The first obstacle has been the belief on the
part of many educators that the desirable results claimed
for the junior high school are obtainable under the 8-4
plan. The second obstacle has been the objection of some
parents to the new school arrangement because it caused
their children to have to walk farther to attend school. The
third obstacle to its success has been the alleged unfavorable
effect that it is having upon elementary-school teachers.
The fourth obstacle is the difficulty of obtaining college-
trained teachers ; and the fifth the difficulty of inducing ninth
grade pupils to attend a junior high school. A sixth
obstacle is the expense of additional buildings, grounds, and
equipment. Finally, it is asserted that the conservatism of
the public will render the establishment of junior high
schools well nigh impossible.
1. The same results obtainable under the old plan.
Some educators maintain that this new institution is a fad
and will soon be out of style. They say that all the good
things claimed for the 6-3-3 P^an can ^ secured without
changing the old general plan and especially without creat-
ing a new institution. They say that in many grade schools
the work of the seventh and eighth grades is taught depart-
43
44 THE; JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
mentally, with the result that pupils are prepared for the
departmental work of the high school. They argue that
there would be nothing to prevent the course of study of
such a school from being enriched by the addition of a
foreign language, algebra, and other good things. In such
a school the idea of vocation-selection could be .carried out
as easily as if it were a separate institution.
To these arguments it may be interposed that there is no
particular harm in having a new institution. The kinder-
garten, the night school, summer sessions, continuation
classes, and the high school itself were new institutions at
one time and can hardly yet be considered old or unchange-
ably established. Even the public school as a state-sup-
ported institution is comparatively new. There can be no
serious objection to the junior high school because it is new,
or because it adds one more to the number of institutions
already existing. As for departmentalizing the seventh and
eighth grades in a grade building, it must be admitted by
our opponents that this is very difficult in the ordinary grade
building where there are no more than two teachers for the
two — seventh and eighth — grades. Moreover, the rooms
are often dismally large and unadapted to classroom use.
Most objectionable is the utter heterogeneity of such a
school, with its six-year-olds getting in the way of the
strenuously physical adolescents.
As for enriching the curriculum under the old plan, the
matter of getting good grade teachers to teach subjects
that are really high school branches would be difficult. It is
hard enough to get junior high school teachers to venture
to teach algebra, Latin, and ancient history to seventh-grade
pupils. The natural conservatism of teachers would well-
nigh prevent regular grade school teachers from undertak-
ing to teach such immature ( ?) children the higher ( ?)
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 45
branches. Besides, the grammar school course of study has
in many states become a state adoption, so that ambitious
cities and towns would find themselves handicapped on every
hand if they attempted to try something radically new and
different. In California, a progressive state, Berkeley and
Los Angeles under the old laws found themselves so hedged
about by statutory restraints and state textbook laws that
they were prevented from working out new curriculums on
a broad basis. We refer to such laws as required the use of
state-published textbooks in United States history, geogra-
phy, arithmetic, etc., in the seventh and eighth grades, and
to the law requiring twelve and one-half hours out of the
twenty per week to be devoted to the common branches.
Vocation selection could not succeed under the old plan.
In the first place there could be little or no election of sub-
jects. A grade school with even four teachers and 160
pupils in the seventh and eighth grades could not offer a
large number of subjects. With such a limited number of
pupils many classes would be so small that they could not be
maintained even if there were seven or eight teachers. Each
half grade would contain approximately 40 pupils. Of these
the elections as tried out in Pomona run : English, 40
(compulsory); bookkeeping, 25; algebra, 15; ancient his-
tory, 8 ; domestic science, 8 ; Latin, 8 ; Spanish, 29 ; German,
3 ; manual training, 20 ; general science, 7. This necessitated
two classes in English; two in Spanish, and one in each of
the other subjects — a total of twelve classes in the B 7. But
in the two grades as a whole, owing to conflicts in the pro-
gram due to failures, etc., the total number of classes was
51 in solids and five in music, drawing, etc. — 56 classes or
nine teachers for only 160 pupils ! And yet without election
of subjects and a wide variety of options no real vocational
traits can be discovered.
46 THE) JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Finally, the argument against a separate institution for
pupils of ages twelve to fifteen leaves out entirely the ques-
tion of the ambition of adolescent children to lead a life
urrtfammeled and unhampered by the restrictions and re-
pressions incident to the elementary school against which
they now chafe with bitterness and which prompts them in
- large numbers to leave our old-time grade schools.
2. Greater distance of pupils from school. This is
usually true when a building that has been used for grade
school purposes is taken entirely for junior high school pur-
poses. Superintendent Bunker, of Berkeley, tells of his
troubles in this matter. He wished to use a certain grade
school building for an intermediate school, the pupils to be
drawn from the seventh and eighth grades of several other
grammar buildings in the vicinity. The thought was then
to fill the rooms of those buildings with the lower grade
pupils who had formerly attended the central building now
to be used as a junior high school. This plan would necessi-
tate a number of changes in the boundaries of districts ; but
most objectionable of all changes was that which took the
primary children who lived within a stone's throw of the
central building they had been accustomed to attend, and
required them to walk several blocks to another building.
The parents objected to this change, and the matter was
adjusted by leaving the smallest tots in the central building,
so that only the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade young-
sters had to walk the greater distance.
Not only did this work hardship on the grade children
transferred, but it required the seventh and eighth graders
to go much farther to attend school. We may conceive of
a group of nine buildings, A, B, C, D, H, F, G, H, and I,
arranged as they probably would be in a city so that /
would be in the center of the town, or, if a large city, in the
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
47
center of a ward. The other schools would be equi-distant
from I, so that each occupied the center of a district of, let
us say, sixty-four blocks. The whole town, or ward, would
appear somewhat as in the diagram :
A
B
C
H
I
D
G
F
E
It is desired to convert / into a junior high school, draw-
ing all seventh and eighth grade children from A, B, C, D,
H, F, G, and H, a total of sixteen rooms of children. If
each building had sixteen rooms, the six lower grades would
probably occupy fourteen rooms in each building. When
the change is made, the fourteen rooms full of younger
children from school I would be distributed among the
eight other buildings, rilling the two rooms in each building
that would be left vacant. The upper-grade children living
between buildings A and /,, B and /, etc., would not be
seriously inconvenienced; but those living beyond building-
A, building B, etc., would have much farther to go and
would feel greatly inconvenienced. At first they would be
greatly annoyed, especially in foul weather.
48 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
The problem of the smaller children can be solved as it
was in Berkeley and other cities, by leaving the very smallest
children in 7; and it can be permanently solved by leaving
all the six lower grades in building / and then building a
new school-house for the junior high school pupils, some-
where near the center of the whole district. The problem of
the larger children has no solution ; it cannot be avoided,
unless the school department provides free transportation
for the seventh and eighth grade pupils. However, there is
compensation for the longer distance these upper-grade
children have to go in the fact that the ninth-grade pupils
would not have so far to go as they would if they attended
the senior high school, which would be at the center of a
much larger district. There would, of course, be compensa-
tion in the better schooling and the greater advantages
offered by the junior high school to seventh and eighth grade
pupils than they had in the grade buildings.
Finally, it may be said that these same problems arose at
the time of the creation of high schools. It is within the
memory of many who read this book that the high school
was conducted on the upper floor of a grade building and
was later housed in a building by itself remote from the
homes of many students. Nowadays it seems to be the
fashion to build new high schools at the edge of town or in
the suburbs of a city where plenty of ground can be bought
cheaply for agricultural and playground purposes. We hear
little complaint of this custom, and we are likely to hear
little complaint of the junior high school hardships after the
benefits are fully realized.
3. Unfavorable effect upon elementary school teach-
ers. Those who seem to want to find every source of oppo-
sition to the junior high school as a distinct institution claim
that there is a strong feeling against it among grade
teachers. It is alleged that they oppose the plan (a) because
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 49
it overworks them and the children in getting the pupils
ready for the intermediate high school in six years ; that is,
that they have to do the eight grades in six years, (b) Sev-
enth and eighth grade teachers unable to secure higher certi-
fication are compelled to accept assignment to lower-grade
work, for which they are unprepared and unadapted and
which is distasteful to them in the extreme, (c) The crea-
tion of a new institution diverts funds from the elementary
schools, which are already suffering for want of equipment,
and this prevents a raising of the salaries of elementary
teachers and a consequent raising of the standard of the
teaching profession.
In answer to these alleged objections of elementary school
teachers it can be shown that (a1) by elimination of the non-
essentials from the elementary curriculum, by reorganiza-
tion of the work, and by removal of the decidedly over-age
pupils to the intermediate high school, neither the pupils nor
the teachers will be overworked in preparing for the junior
high school in six years. We shall go into this matter in
detail in the chapter on "The Effect upon the Elementary
Grades Preceding the Junior High School." As the seventh
and eighth grade work has heretofore been very largely a
repetition of that done in the lower grades, it is absurd to
say that this upper-grade work is to be crowded upon the
elementary school. Furthermore, the junior high school is
to take the children as they come and build upon the prep-
aration already -attained, not dictate what that preparation
must be. The principal and teachers of the intermediate
high school will have no authority to reject any pupil sent
to them. They must take all entrants and do the very best
for them that is possible.
(b1) Occasionally, one must admit, a hardship may be
worked upon a few teachers by the inauguration of a new
5<D THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
arrangement of work. As a general rule, however, the
former seventh and eighth grade teachers have been taken
over into the junior high school. Most of the teachers that
have chosen this upper-grade work in the past were teachers
who had had some college work or who were ambitious
enough to attend summer sessions of the universities to
broaden their mental horizon. In several cities with which
the author is familiar, the upper-grade teachers were given
a choice between taking a lower-grade assignment, or pre-
paring for intermediate work. In all cases they were given
several years in which to make the adjustment. In Pomona
they all elected to prepare for the junior high school work,
and none complained that it was a hardship to him. They
are thoroughly enjoying the added professional interest and
zest that the change has aroused.
(c1) In answer to the objection raised that the junior
high school's support will take from the elementary funds,
it may be answered that in California it has had just the
opposite effect. In this state the junior high school is sup-
ported entirely out of high school funds, which have been
increased by entirely new revenue in order to meet this addi-
tional burden. The elementary school funds have remained
the same as they were before the new law ; but with only six
grades to support, instead of eight as formerly, the ele-
mentary school funds are proving ample. In fact, there is
such a surplus that new buildings are being built, better
equipment is being bought, and teachers' salaries are being
raised.
4. Difficulty of obtaining college-trained teachers.
It is claimed that the authorities have found difficulty in
securing college-trained teachers for this new institution.
They want high school positions and consider it beneath
their dignity to teach the younger pupils. There is, of
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 51
course, a real problem here, but by no means an unsolvable
one. The problem really arises from a lack of understand-
ing of what junior high school work is, on the part of college
graduates who have fitted themselves to teach in high school.
They object not so much to teaching younger pupils as to
teaching the common school branches. Unless they are
familiar with this modern trend in education, they imagine
that it is grade school work. They want to teach algebra
and geometry, not arithmetic.
Of course they object to the lower salaries ; but the matter
of salaries is largely determined by the laws of supply and
demand. Where there is a large supply of new teachers
and few positions in high school open, they are compelled
to accept the lower salaries. A survey of the cities will
reveal the fact that hundreds of teachers holding high school
certificates are teaching in the elementary grades. As a mat-
ter of fact, many such teachers learn to like work with the
smaller children and do not care to change.
When it comes to a matter of choice, many high-school-
certified teachers choose to accept positions in the junior
high schools of cities and large towns rather than go into
remote districts for strictly high school teaching. This they
do in spite of the higher salaries paid in the remote high
school districts. And well they might, for the chance of
appointment to city senior high schools from the interme-
diate high schools of the same community is better than
from a rural high school. The reason is clear : The super-
intendent and supervisors come to know the teacher's quali-
fications better when in the same city than when he is in a
remote town or village. Some city boards of education
make it a rule that vacancies in the senior high school shall
be filled by transfer from the junior high schools.
Nevertheless, it is confidently asserted by the opponents
52 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
of the 6-3-3 Plan tnat school authorities will never get men
to teach in the junior high schools, and that these new
schools will be over-femininized. We cannot admit that this
will be the case. It is not so much that the elementary
schools have paid lower salaries or that men do not like to
work with small children that men have been kept from
entering the lower-grade work; it has been a matter of
supply and of custom. There has been a larger supply of
efficient women teachers than of even mediocre men teach-
ers. The result has been that boards have employed the bet-
ter teachers. The custom once established of employing
women in the grades, men have shrunk from competing, and
boards have shrunk from breaking the custom.
Now the intermediate high school, as an entirely new
institution, starts its career bidding for an equal number of
men and women. Men will not regard it as trespassing
upon woman's special field of acitvity; and we may expect
young men to seek and secure junior high school positions
along with women. The adolescent children need the men
teachers as well as the women. With men already employed
in these schools in large numbers, young college men will
look upon such teaching as affording an attractive career.
We predict this with certainty, for we see it already going
on.
Finally, both womten and men are being taught in train-
ing schools to be teachers of boys and girls, and less of sub-
jects. Even the college-educated man or woman will readily
see that it is a far nobler occupation to train the youth of the
land than to impart information or to add to the sum total
of human knowledge by research in the universities. When
this becomes their dominating, all-absorbing passion, they
will long for the opportunity of coming into contact with the
young folks at the very earliest adolescent period.
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 53
5. Difficulty of inducing ninth grade pupils to attend
junior high school. When the intermediate schools were
first established in Pomona, the boys and girls who were
ready for the ninth grade were given a choice as to whether
they would take the next year's work in intermediate school
or go on to high school. They were unanimous to go to
high school. They explained that they had for several
years been looking forward to the time when they could
experience all the broader life of the high school, including
participation in high school athletics, that they would dis-
like to have to wait another year.
At the end of another semester the pupils of the class
finishing the eighth grade were again permitted to choose
what they should do. In this case 20 per cent of the pupils
elected to remain in the junior high school; the others chose
the high school. Meanwhile there had been a campaign on
the part of high school pupils to induce the above class to
choose the high school for the ninth grade.
At the end of another semester, the class was required to
stay in the intermediate school. There was some complaint,
several students dropping out of school rather than remain.
But fully 85 per cent of the pupils stayed in school to the
end of the ninth grade, entering the senior high school in
February, 1917. Several have requested that they be per-
mitted to stay one year more in intermediate high. The
next class, though not given a choice, voted unanimously to
stay in the junior high school for their ninth-grade work.
They entered the senior high school, at the end of the year,
with seven credits.
The explanation of the results given above are simple.
Pupils accustomed to the old grade system through the
eighth grade want to enter high school. Pupils that have
been accustomed to the advantages of the junior high school
54 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
in their seventh and eighth grades prefer to remain through
another year. Many will then be loath to leave, for they will
have become attached to their intermediate school. But, if
we close the intermediate work with the end of the tenth
grade, all the pupils who can will go on to senior high
school.
This objection to the junior high school, then, falls down
when the pupils become accustomed to the new plan. The
large life, the social spirit, loyalty, athletics, interesting sub-
jects of study, attachment to building, excellent and sympa-
thetic teachers, all will combine to make the pupil happy to
remain in his junior high school through the ninth and even
the tenth grade.
6. Additional expense for buildings, grounds, and
equipment. To make a success of a junior high school, it
is claimed by its opponents, there must be central grounds
provided, a specially designed building constructed, and
expensive equipment bought. In a small city of 20,000
inhabitants, where there would be approximately 1,000
pupils in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, two such
plants would be necessary, in order to serve the community
well. If ample grounds were provided in central locations,
the cost would be at least $20,000. Two buildings, each large
enough to house 500 students doing departmental work,
would cost approximately $100,000; while the equipment
for libraries, laboratories, gymnasiums, desks, etc., could
not be provided for much short of $20,000. In other words,
there would be an outlay of $140,000, for which the city
would have to bond itself, all as an additional expense
caused by adoption of the 6-3-3 plan.
It must be admitted that in a city that has reached its
maximum population and wealth, or in one that is decreas-
ing in both population and wealth, the purchase of grounds
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 55
and the erection of two such buildings as described would
entail an entirely additional expense upon the community.
Such an additional outlay of funds might, however, be justi-
fied on the ground that the old buildings would be annually
deteriorating, would possibly already have passed beyond
use. A new building to take the place of an old one might
already be imminently necessary. At any rate, some build-
ing in such a stationary community of 20,000 people would
be old and dilapidated — possibly one that had been built to
accommodate the city's children when there were not more
than 500 of them in all. Such a building would be out of
date and should be condemned and wrecked.
That this is not random supposition is more than evi-
denced by the survey recently made of the Denver schools.
That survey speaks of a large number of Denver's school
buildings as entirely unfit for school use. If a live young
community like Colorado's capital contains many buildings
that should be condemned, surely a city that has become sta-
tionary or that has begun itself to decrease in population
would contain at least two buildings unfit for further occu-
pancy. The new buildings needed for junior high schools
would therefore not be additional expense, but would be
taking the place of outworn structures that would have to
be replaced anyhow.
But most of our American cities are growing in popula-
tion or wealth or both. Others that are not increasing in
total population are growing in number of school children.
Many of our Western cities that were formerly made u;>
almost entirely of adults now have a normal population of
children. In such communities a new school building is
needed every few years. Long Beach, California, a city of
40,000 people, has built on an average one school building
every year for the past twenty years. This is not at all an
56 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
unusual case. In such cities, to construct two or four junior
high schools instead of so many ward or grade buildings,
would not entail any additional expense whatever. The
present ward buildings when relieved of their seventh and
eighth grades would be commodious enough to accommo-
date the normal growth in school population for several
years. The junior high school buildings would merely ab-
sorb the excess growth of school children, and would be in
lieu of grade school buildings.
7. Conservatism of the public. The greatest obstacle
to the success of the junior high school idea is the conserva-
tism of the public. It has not been difficult to convince
educators of the desirability of introducing the plan. But
fathers and mothers and the great mass of adults look with
disfavor upon changes in our educational system. To the
enthusiastic teacher it seems incredible that there are still
to be found large numbers of people who regard anything
besides the three "r"s as the "frills" of education. There
are those who regard with disfavor the high school, indus-
trial education, the kindergarten, playground work, agricul-
tural courses, athletics, college training, dramatics, manual
training, printing and newspaper courses, domestic science
and art, and comimercial education, to say nothing of the
newer things that educators regard as essential. It takes
years — aye, generations — for these things to get into the
blood of a people. It is no wonder that the people look upon
the junior high school with apathy and in some cases with
actual hostility.
There can be only one answer to this objection; namely,
that all new things have been opposed. But by one method
or another, great, compelling institutions become established,
take root, and grow. In one community a campaign of en-
lightenment may bring about adoption of the thing desired.
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 57
In another community the board of education may establish
it by main force, and continue it in existence until opposition
ceases. In still another community it may be brought about
quietly and without any violent change through a mere
alteration of the curriculum;. In one state it has been virtu-
ally compelled by state legislation giving financial aid to
those communities establishing the institution. Occasion-
ally the chamber of commerce or some local philanthropist
brings about the change by financial or other assistance.
Finally, the junior high school idea is in the air. Edu-
cators are thinking hard about it; universities are offering
courses treating of it ; and many school administrators have
just put it into their school systems. The leaders and advo-
cates of the movement are multiplying rapidly. The public
cannot long resist what is proving to be such a strong factor
in the proper education of the new generation.
CHAPTER FOUR
EFFECT OF THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL MOVE-
MENT UPON THE ELEMENTARY GRADES
We have now carried the discussion of the junior high
school movement through three of its phases: The causes
giving rise to it, its history, and the obstacles to its success.
There now remains to be discussed the effect of the move-
ment upon the elementary school grades. Our exposition
of those effects will reveal the facts that the foundational
subjects will have to be very largely covered in grades I-VI,
that kindergarten training will become compulsory, that
school attendance will have to be better enforced, that all-
year school sessions are already being carried on, that there
is existing a movement for increasing greatly the excellence
of our teachers, that more emphasis is being placed on teach-
ing pupils how to study, that certain specific changes in the
elementary curriculum are being made and others are sure
to be made, and that non-essentials in the subjects taught
will have to be eliminated.
1 . Foundational subjects largely covered in grades
I-VI. If secondary school work is to be begun in the first
year of the junior high school, then the foundational courses
must be completed in the grades preceding it. Of course,
this does not mean that the work of eight grades must be
compressed into six years. Unfortunately it has been repre-
sented to the public that the new system is to bear down
heavily upon the children, overcrowding them with study
and overtaxing their tender strength. It has been pictured
to us that babes and innocent children who should be spend-
ing their time in joyful play will be rendered nervous and
58
EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 59
prematurely serious by the pitiless taskmasters, trying to do
the work of eight grades in six years.
As a matter of fact it never should have required eight
years to complete the eight grades of the common schools.
The old courses of study, the old branches of study, and in
cases the textbooks have been padded and repeated so as to
keep the children busy for eight years, when they could have
done, without strain, all the really foundational work in six
years.
The pre-secondary education of our public schools should
provide the pupil with the tools by which cultural and voca-
tional education are to be worked out later. The pupil is to
be able to read silently and with rapidity the books on
scientific, literary, and historical subjects that will contain
the messages and suggestions of secondary education. He
is to be able to work things out for himself with the aid of a
dictionary only. He is to be capable of obtaining a secondary
education if left alone on an island with merely the books
relevant to the subjects, a library, including dictionaries and
encyclopedias. He is not only to be able to read with ease
and facility, but also to write so that others can read the
record of his thoughts and so that he himself at a later time
can also decipher his writings. This writing will include
not only the formation of his letters and other characters,
but the spelling of words correctly, the composition of sen-
tences and their punctuation — so that no misunderstanding
can ever arise as to what his writings actually mean. Besides
being able to express his thoughts on paper, he is to be
able to express them clearly in oral speech.
Foundational education must also include facility and
accuracy in computations that involve the fundamental
operations of arithmetic — addition, subtraction, multiplica-
tion, and division — and that involve fractional as well as
60 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
whole numbers. In this age of expressing fractional num-
bers by the decimal system, the pupil should master deci-
mals and possibly percentage in the elementary grades.
There are certain other foundational ideas and concepts that
should be acquired — such as the place ideas of geography,
the fundamental concept of the universe, the historical con-
cept that we are living at the end of a past that stretches
back hundreds and thousands of years, the political concept
that we are a part of a state governed by regularly consti-
tuted authorities, the nature sense that we are related to all
creatures in the world of nature, the feeling of physical
health and the knowledge of the laws that govern it, and the
vocational idea. These are all fundamental. The body and
the mind must be trained through physical education and
manual training.
That this foundation can be laid in six school years must
be patent to an impartial observer. That the physical and
mental growth through the progress of advancing age is
more fundamental than even the acquisition of knowledge is
also patent. The amount of knowledge to be acquired in
the elementary school should not retard the child beyond
the six or seven years laid down by nature as the time to
mature the six-year-old into an adolescent. Fortunately we
have data now to show that children can in six years
acquire the foundational education described above.
2. Kindergarten preparation required. We hesitate
somewhat to use the expression "preparation" in connection
with any period of education. The newer conception of edu-
cation that makes the schooling period not a preparation for
real life, but real life itself, meets with ready acceptance by
the author. The child is as really living as is the mature
man. And yet, without denying this truth, can we not
regard each period of life as a preparation for all the sue-
EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 6l
ceeding periods? The mind, as well as the body, may be
carefully prepared to do certain tasks; or it may be unpre-
pared to do certain tasks. If it is unprepared at this time to
do certain tasks, then it may be prepared for those tasks by a
certain course of training. In this sense we may speak of
the kindergarten training as preparing for the foundational
work, the foundational training as preparation for a voca-
tional curriculum, the vocational training as preparation for
the pursuit of the particular vocation aimed at. In turn, the
practice of that vocation might become a preparation for
some other vocation to be pursued later. In this way every
course of training enters into the fiber of the man and pre-
pares him for well-rounded mature manhood.
The rapid and persistent growth of kindergartens is
resulting in establishing the kindergarten year of training as
a regular part of the public school course. In some cities
today a parent would no more think of sending his child to
the first grade without a year of kindergarten training than
most parents would think of sending their children to the sec-
ond grade without their having had a year of primary grade
schooling. The laws may some time make it possible for
school authorities to require one year of kindergarten as
preparation for the primary class. And unless the child
receives at home the training of mind and hand necessary
to do first-grade work, the school should require that it be
done in a "sub-first" grade. We realize that all the prob-
lems connected with kindergarten have not been solved, but
it is coming to be generally recognized that the child gets
in it something that he needs and something that he does
not ordinarily get elsewhere.
It is outside the province of this book to argue for a
change in the kindergarten to adapt the work to the
needs of the first grade, or to argue for a change
62 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
in the primary so that the powers acquired in the
the kindergarten will not be dissipated or left undeveloped.
It is sufficient to know that these adaptations are being
worked out to the great benefit of the children. In the new
curriculums the kindergarten training is useful and usable.
It becomes the first school grade, taking the child at five
years of age. When he becomes proficient, when he has
acquired the abilities aimed at, vhe is promoted to the first
primary, which may now be called the second step or grade.
3. School attendance better enforced. In section one
of this chapter, we outlined the mental and physical develop-
ment to be required for entrance to the junior high school.
This standard is the minimum requirement to be exacted of
the normal child having a normal opportunity. It has been
tested and found possible of accomplishment in six years,
beginning at the age of six. We shall now describe the con-
ditions which would make it easier to accomplish the devel-
opment in six years. If all these conditions are present, 100
per cent of normal children should reach the junior high
school at twelve years of age in 100 per cent mental and
physical condition. Practically all children slightly below
normal at the beginning of school age should make their
grades in the process of these six years of schooling and
should enter the junior high school with their first grade
classmates. Those above normal or above the average could
acquire the knowledge required and the necessary develop-
ment in six years, even though several of the conditions
described in this chapter were lacking.
The first condition is a year, more or less, of kindergarten
training as a foundation for the work of the primary. This
year of work should constitute Step One of a regular series
of seven steps leading to the junior high school. Steps Two
to Seven, inclusive, would then include the six years of grade
EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 63
school work in which the tools should be acquired — tools
that will serve to build the superstructure of secondary edu-
cation as carried on in the schools, or will, in a pinch, so to
speak, serve to build a vocational education and a cultural
education, while the pupil is earning a livelihood, if the
builder has the strength of character necessary.
The second condition is regular school attendance. A
large percentage of retardation is brought about by failure
to attend school regularly. A day's absence can not easily
be made up; a week's absence may so break the continuity
of the mental development that the individual will feel the
gap through life. The wound may heal, but the scar will be
painfully apparent. A month's absence is in many cases
fatal: the pupil would do well to repeat the whole semes-
ter's work rather than try to struggle through with the
handicap. Happy is that pupil who lives in a
community where promotions are made every eight or ten
weeks ; or, better still, perhaps, where Dr. Frederick Burk's
anti-lockstep methods prevail. This injury is just as great
whether the absence comes all in one large block or is scat-
tered along through the semester a day or a half day at a
time. Nor does this interruption in consecutive mental de-
velopment take account of the injury to the habits of work
sustained by the pupil. If anything, this weakening of the
habit of continuous application is more injurious to the
pupil than is the damage to the continuity of his mental
development.
Aside from the loss to the individual, one must consider
the loss to society and to the State. Nearly every state in
the Union has a compulsory-attendance law, and it may be
assumed that the State and society regard a common school
education as vital to their interests, else they would not be
so insistent on enacting laws rendering it compulsory and
64 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
in some cases actually writing it into the constitution. The
State, it is said, regards an educated electorate as necessary
to the perpetuity of democratic government. Many of the
evils that have befallen popular government are traceable to
the lack of a common school education on the part of the
voters. We may assume, then, that society through the
organization of the state is in deadly earnest when it enacts
laws compelling parents to send their children to the public
schools until those children secure an education.
Regular attendance on the part of every pupil every day
that school is in session is essential to the welfare of the
individual and of society. Self-interest of the individual
demands it ; society, with all the authority of organized gov-
ernment, requires it by drastic laws and the exercise of its
irresistible police power.
4. An all-year school session. The normal child with
a normal opportunity may still find it inconvenient to attend
school in certain seasons. Many children find it harmful to
their health to brave the winter's severe cold and snow;
others have to stay out to help with the planting or with
the harvests ; while still others need their vacations not in
the summer, but in the winter, spring, or fall. Then, there
is a large group of children who find the long summer vaca-
tion irksome and unprofitable. It is believed by some edu-
cators and parents that children would be better off if they
could attend school through the year, with short vacations
of a week or a fortnight at regular intervals, say at Christ-
mas, Easter, in early July, and in October. The year might
be divided into four or more equal terms, and promotions
made more frequently than at present.
Suppose that the year were divided into six terms of eight
weeks each, and that one week's vacation should be given as
indicated above. There would still be a few holidays scat-
EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 65
tered through the year sufficient to break the monotony.
Then let it be provided that four terms' attendance be the
minimum required by law. Forty weeks' work might then
be equivalent to a grade. This number of weeks' work
would be somewhat more than the average at present. While
thirty-five or thirty-six is the average for the cities, twenty
seven or twenty-eight is the average for rural districts and
smaller towns. If a child in a village school can now com-
plete a grade in twenty-eight weeks, surely forty weeks
should be ample anywhere.
The six-grade elementary course could then with ease be
completed by the normal child in six years of forty weeks
each. The subnormal or the slower pupil might take six
years of forty-eight weeks each to do the work. The bright-
est pupils might possibly do the six grades in six years, some
of only thirty-two weeks attendance and others forty weeks,
or some of forty-eight weeks and others of sixteen weeks.
This would give opportunity for the parents of the brightest
pupils to travel with their children. Or pupils, needing the
country life, might be sent to a ranch or farm for a few
months at a time when the weather would be agreeable. One
could multiply indefinitely the advantages to be derived from
such a plan.
Some decided advantages in the plan as a whole should
be pointed out as bearing upon the success of the six-six,
or six-three-three, or six-three-four plan that we have been
advocating. We have repeatedly said that it is vital to this
plan that children enter upon the secondary course at twelve
years of age; that is, at, or immediately before, the begin-
ning of adolescence. It is also much to be desired that all
pupils complete the foundational courses of study before
they enter the secondary school. Any arrangement that will
66
contribute to making1 both of these possible should receive
the favorable consideration of educators and the public.
There is the case of the child whose parents move fre-
quently, perhaps from one state to another. These pupils
often form a considerable part of our Far-Western pupils.
In moving they find it difficult to get an exact adjustment.
Many Western schools have an established rule of placing
the newcomer in a class at least a half grade below the one
which he would have been entitled to enter in his Eastern
home. This is a common practice, and has much justifica-
tion from the point of view of the school teacher and in
advantages to the pupil. Ordinarily it takes some time to
become adjusted to a new school and a new plan of work.
It ought not, however, in all conscience, to take a half year.
If the terms are short, say of two months' duration, the
pupil will be put back only eight weeks, and these eight
weeks he can easily make up in one forty-eight-week school
year.
While not essential to the success of the six-year elemen-
tary school plan, an all-year school of forty-eight weeks with
six promotions to the year, will contribute greatly to making
it function properly and adequately.
5. Excellent teachers employed. In the new system
of things we must have teachers who are in sympathy with
progress even though it clash with their preconceived ideas.
For instance, a teacher who has not been teaching percent-
age in the sixth grade might conceivably set the whole
weight of her convictions against succeeding in getting- the
pupils to grasp the subject in that grade. But most normal-
trained teachers are open-minded and glad to try sympatheti-
cally any plan that looks toward a more practical education
for her pupils. Normal schools have in several cases
.adapted their organization to meet the needs of an elemen-
UPON ELEMENTAKY GRADES 67
tary course of six years. It is important that the co-opera-
tion of teacher-training institutions be secured in furthering
the success of the six-six plan.
The kindergarten teacher of the future should receive in
normal school a general professional training that will in-
clude methods in the lower primary grades. She should do
some practice teaching in the primary — sufficient to get the
point of view of the primary teacher and to understand the
needs of the children. Only in this way will she realize
what is expected of her in the kindergarten. While this is
an age of specialization, it is also an age of co-operation, of
doing things by team-work. The teacher of Step One must
feel that she is doing a foundation work without which the
steps higher up cannot be expected to succeed.
The primary teacher should likewise study in the normal
school the m'ethods and aims of the kindergarten. In teach-
ing pupils of Step Two, she should have in mind what has
been accomplished in the previous year of the child's life.
She should be careful not to bore the pupils with doing the
things they have already done; but knowing the faculties
that have been trained in the kindergarten, she should give
new work to continue the development. Constant associa-
tion with Step One teachers will keep her fresh in the knowl-
edge of the accomplishments of her pupils. Interchange of
teachers may occasionally be for the best. Certainly primary
teachers may profit by having the kindergarten teachers
come into their rooms to give certain lessons in concentra-
tion, motor control, handwork, etc.
All along the line the teachers must adapt themselves and
their methods to the new point of view. The uppermost
thought must be: We must lead the pupils through the
foundational work in six years; we must not be slaves to
our textbooks ; we must feed the child's mind and body as
68 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
fast as its development will permit; we must not withhold
what the child is ready for, we must not repeat when repeti-
tion will deaden. The motto must be: See to it that the
child works up to its full capacity. Anything short of that
is wasted time.
6. Teaching how to study. The largest problem is
teaching the pupils how to work. In most cases this means
teaching them how to study. However, it may be easier to
teach other forms of work than study. The same principles
are involved: Concentration, overcoming inertia, keeping
at the thing, an ever present feeling of progressing in the
job, revolving the matter in one's mind, relating it to one's
store of information, analyzing the problem, getting the solu-
tion, reviewing what has been done. In these days when
supervised study is the topic uppermost in the minds of
teachers, and with several good books on the subject, school
men and women ought to find it an easy matter to think out
or work out methods for teaching children how to study and
work.
The best time to teach children how to work is in the
'grades, and before they have formed bad habits. Some one
has said that it is worse for the individual to get a lesson in
the wrong way than not to try to get it at all. The corollary
is that a bad habit once formed is harder to overcome than
a good habit is to acquire. At any rate, bad habits of work
should be discouraged, and every effort made to help the
pupil early to form good habits.
Good methods of work can be learned in the kindergarten.
Wasting or scattering one's interests and attention should
be prevented. The teacher herself should set a good example.
One thing at a time, is a very good rule. The most orderly
school room is where the hum of industry is ever present.
'The teacher must early learn to distinguish disorderly noise
UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 69
from orderly noise, a vacant look from rapt attention, a
mind carelessly passing from one thing to another from a
mind with a definite goal in view, accidental success from
organized success. No matter how much the teacher may
believe in free and undirected work from her pupils, she
must understand from the beginning that many children
must be led time and time again through the process of doing
a piece of work — which is, of course, solving a problem.
Originality is a quality decidedly to be developed and en-
couraged; but ability to work, to study, and to solve prob-
lems is of greater importance.
There is not space in this brief section to go into methods
of teaching pupils how to study. Nevertheless, it occurs to
the writer that the approach to the task may be most easily
made through teaching the pupil how to work at some task
other than getting a lesson out of a book. Some of our
most difficult problems are not propounded to us from the
pages of a book. There is fundamentally no difference be-
tween these problems: Roping a trunk, reading (remember
that reading is getting the thought) a passage of Browning,
solving a problem in algebra, sewing a patch on an apron,
building a house out of blocks, writing a sentence using the
word "cat." But there is a good deal of difference in the
ease with which you can teach a child how to do these vari-
ous tasks. There is less concentration required of a person
in working with an object that he can reach all around than
with one that is on a flat surface ; with the latter than with
one that you can neither see nor feel, that exists only in the
mind.
Let us illustrate by reference to a study of art. Suppose
you wish to bring to a person's mind a concept of a battle.
The easiest way would be to take him to an elevation and
let him witness a real battle; the next would be to act it
7O THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
upon a stage; the next to have it represented by statues of
men and figures of cannon, etc. ; the next would be in bas-
relief ; the next in painting ; and most difficult of all, in writ-
ten or printed language.
Likewise the approach to study should be first with real
things, then with symbols in the order we have mentioned
above. Also this is true with the method used in teaching
the child to solve problems, to work, to concentrate. The
earliest task in the kindergarten is to construct something
real, then something that resembles the real, then a picture,
finally a verbal description or explanation of the thing con-
structed. In the same order will he get his thoughts, his
ideas of things.
If study is approached in this way, the child will have
acquired good habits of study before he reaches the point
where he is to get lessons out of a book. When he does
reach that point, he will apply the same principles and habits
to studying a printed lesson that he has been applying to an
object lesson. He will meet with the same success. He will
be able to study effectively.
7. Specific changes in the elementary courses of
study. Assuming that the subjects will remain the same
as in the immediate past, it may be worth while (pending
the evaluation of these subjects) to suggest some necessary
changes in the curiculum brought about by making the sec-
ondary courses start with the completion of the sixth grade.
Several foundational subjects that had been delayed until
the seventh or eighth grade must be hereafter taught before
the seventh grade is reached, and other adjustments will
have to be made.
In many schools oral reading from seventh and eighth
readers has been carried on in the corresponding grades.
Oral reading as a formal subject will close with the end of
EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 71
the sixth grade. When one considers the small use a person
makes of oral reading, the wonder is that it has continued
so long to occupy the serious attention of upper-grade pupils.
Spelling as a subject occupying a recitation period will, and
should, be discontinued before the end of the new elemen-
tary course. By careful measurement Ayers has ascertained
that sixth-grade pupils can spell correctly 92 per cent of the
975 words that the average intelligent adult uses in writing.
One does not necessarily need to know how to spell words
that he never writes but uses only in speaking. The eighty-
five words that a particular pupil of the sixth grade does not
know how to spell correctly should be ascertained in each
individual case. That pupil may then learn in ten lessons
how to spell the words that he did not know how to spell.
What drudgery and loss of time for a pupil to study and
recite on words that he has known how to spell for years !
Besides, there is still some hope that a sensible form of
simplified spelling may come into fashion in the near future.
Geography mlust be carried lower in the grades, and all
the essential information conveyed in our present textbooks
must be gathered by the pupil before reaching the seventh
grade. This may necessitate the rewriting of our textbooks
in more simple language. The large output of easily under-
stood geographical readers that we are at present enjoying
will contribute greatly to the success of this new plan. Books
of travel, descriptions of customs and manners of foreign
people, stories of the industries, interesting accounts of
things grown from the soil, bird books and animal books,
and pictures that really tell things — all adapted to the under-
standing of elementary school children — are pouring from
the press. God bless the devoted men and women that are
toiling ceaselessly to bring things within the comprehension
of the little folks !
72 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
It is pleasing to note the success that teachers are having
in teaching addition and subtraction in the second grade,
multiplication and division in the third. The fourth grader
masters these operations, memorizes the tables, and passes
on to fractions. The fifth and sixth graders with a good
foundation in arithmetic do the processes of fractions, deci-
mals, and percentage. True, they cannot untangle the com-
plicated problems often found in textbooks (but never found
in actual business) ; but, if the textbook writers really wish
to demonstrate their ingenuity in making up puzzles, let
them insert them in books on higher mathematics or in com-
mercial calculuses, books intended to develop logic and pro-
found reasoning faculties. We are not expecting the
child to perform all possible operations in the grade school ;
we wish merely to give the child command of the tools with
which to work. Anyhow, it is an injustice to the pupil to
make him work out nerve-racking problems by arithmetic,
when he is to be shown an easier way later through algebra.
Finally, history (if the biographies and exciting events
contained in historical readers can be classed as history)
may be begun in earnest in the fifth grade, read and studied.
Take any one of the several very effective books now on the
market, work through the stories and biographies of the
period of discoveries and the colonial period in the first
semester, and through the national period in the second
semester. The pupil will then have a good grasp of the
story of the United States. A good textbook on the back-
ground of American history in Europe to the settlement of
Virginia could be completed in the first three fourths of the
sixth grade. The last one fourth could be spent in studying
the settlement and development of the colonies and the
causes, events, and immediate results of the Revolution. A
year of real national history, including civics, could be re-
EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 73
quired of first, second, or third year junior high school
pupils. This last year's work could be so thoroughly done
that senior high school American history could be a fairly
analytical study of some short but important period — as the
post-Civil War period — or of some important movement or
institutional development.
8. Non-essentials in particular subjects eliminated.
It is highly important to the success of the six-year elemen-
tary curriculum as well as to the children of our country
that the work of eliminating the padding should be prose-
cuted with vigor. Stripped of the non-essentials, most com-
mon school subjects can be mastered in the first six grades
without crowding or overworking the pupils. Thanks to
several enterprising school men and textbook producers, we
now have good sets of "minimum essentials" in nearly all
the subjects. Nevertheless, this pruning must go further,
and more dead limbs must be cut from, the branches.
It seems 1o the author that geography, history, arith-
metic, English composition, manual training, and art need
complete revision. What joy it would be to lop off from
elementary school geography all the motions of the earth,
mioon, winds, and currents, also names of insignificant capi-
tals, rivers, capes, bays, and the impossible-to-be-remem-
bered minerals and manufactured articles of the hundred or
more states and countries of the world ! An excellent eighth-
grade teacher confessed to the author that he had to look up
very carefully the causes of the seasons, eclipses, tides,
winds, and o:ean currents every time he came to these sub-
jects in his teaching of geography, and he had been teaching
this grade for twelve years ! What joy to lop off names and
dates of discoverers and explorers that mean nothing to us ;
names, dates, locations, and misfortunes of all the colonial
enterprises; Indian massacres back in New England and
74 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Virginia ; the colonial wars ; battles, generals, size of armies,
maneuvers, terms of surrender; expositions, presidential
trips, cabinet officers, fires, floods, and other disasters ! What
joy to lop off apothecaries' and avoirdupois weights, paper-
ing and plastering of imaginary walls, multiplication and
addition of denominate numbers, bank and true discount,
square and cube root, longitude and time! And so with
description and narration, exposition and argument, when
the pupils cannot even write complex, compound, or even
simple sentences! Then there is the making of hatracks,
bootjacks, and bric-a-brac, with planes, vises, and draw
knives, when the home will never need the useless product
and will never possess a single one of the tools! It would
seem better to learn how to sharpen pencils with a jack-
knife and to use a screwdriver, a handsaw, and a hammer.
Lastly, how much time we waste and what bad habits we
form in dabbling in paints, making incongruous and absurd
valentines, paper napkins, masks, penwipers, and calendars !
From the foregoing paragraphs it is evident that much
courageous, painstaking work is before us, but we must
give credit for mJuch that has already been done. A good
start has been made ; but we must not stop until the task is
finished. The junior high school movement is reacting on
the elementary school. The time is auspiciots, the oppor-
tunity is inviting. Where are the daring spirits to blaze the
way ? They will make mistakes, they will be severely criti-
cized, their plans will have to be reviewed anc thoughtfully
worked out by practical teachers in the field ; but eventually,
all credit to those who dare to be pathfinders !
Summary. With this chapter we close our discussion of
the junior high school movement. We have analyzed the
causes that gave rise to it and that justify its continuance.
We have briefly traced its history. We have examined the
EFFECT UPON ELEMENTARY GRADES 75
objections that have been raised against it. We have dis-
cussed the actual and prospective changes in the elementary
school necessitated by this movement.
We proceed now to a treatment of the junior high school
as a functioning institution.
It was asserted in the first chapter of this book that four
of society's many problems are to be solved, and to some
extent are being solved, by the junior high school as an insti-
tution. We have tried to give the reader a clear idea of those
problemte. Later we showed that the rapid adoption of the
junior high school by so many cities and towns and its
advocacy by so many educators have made its success all
but certain. Through all these practical applications the
school has remained true to its purposes, although it has not
in every case tried to do all that is expected of it. Mean-
while there have arisen many objections, obstacles, and
aspersions to which we were compelled to devote a chapter.
The objections have been answered, the aspersions refuted,
and plans given for removing the obstacles. The reor-
ganization of secondary education and the establishment of
a junior high school have necessitated many changes in the
elementary schools. Some of these adjustments have already
been started and are well under way. For the others we
have offered such suggestions as our limited space and the
exceeding newness of the problems would permit.
The junior high school is not a panacea for all social and
educational ills. For the limited ills set forth we believe
that this school will prove, and is to a very considerable ex-
tent already proving, a cure. It remains for us, in the chap-
ters that follow, to show how the junior high school acts in
operation, how it mteets the demands placed upon it. We
shall discuss these matters under the head of curriculums,
principal and teachers, teaching in the school, administra-
76
COURSES OP STUDY 77
tion, and relations with the higher secondary school. Finally
we shall sketch our ideas of an ideal junior high school.
In discussing the subjects to be taught in junior high
school we adhere to the terminology as defined by the Com-
mittee on College Entrance Requirements. "Program of
studies" refers to all the subjects taught in the secondary
school without reference to organization of these subjects.
A "subject" is a branch of learning separate and distinct in
subject-matter, as Latin, algebra, or history. A "course" is
the subject-matter of a subject offered within a definite
period of time, as first year Latin, second year algebra,
ancient history, (since this course by general usage is known
to be a definite year unit of high school study). A "curri-
culum" is any systematic arrangement of courses which ex-
tends through a number of years and which leads to a
diploma of graduation.
1. Preliminary considerations. Two phases of the
program of studies demand attention: What subjects are
to be taught? When is each course to be taught? In
answering the first question, one must bear in mind the
psychology of the adolescent student and the effect upon the
evolution of society. If a subject does not contribute richly
to the development of the boy or girl, or will not serve to
advance society, it should be discarded, no matter how much
the children may like it or how many teachers have pre-
pared to teach it. The fact that the college or university
may require for entrance a certain subject of small value
will serve to bolster up that subject for a while; but sec-
ondary school authorities should endeavor to have the col-
leges change their entrance requirements in respect to such
a subject and should plan to eliminate it after a reasonable
time for adjustment.
Not only must we determine what subjects are to be
78 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
taught, but we must also decide when they are to be taught,
at what age, in what year of the curriculum. Here it must
be kept in mind that many subjects are to be left for the
senior high school and junior college or even for the uni-
versity. Other subjects can be best taught in the junior
high school. In considering each individual subject, we
shall try to determine to what school it properly belongs and,
if to the lower secondary school, to what year.
In making out a curriculum to suit a particular student,
it must be decided how many courses he should carry. This
will depend upon the capability of the student and upon his
needs. Some pupils will be able to carry six courses suc-
cessfully, but may need only five to complete their plan of
work. Others may be able to carry only four, but may need
five. In the latter case the course must be adjusted to the
boy's capabilities so that he can carry as many courses as he
needs. For him much extra material would have to be elim-
inated. For instance, if the reading of five books a year
should be the normal requirement in English, his require-
ment would have to be reduced to four or to three. Or if
David Copperfield were the standard, he might substitute
Oliver Tztnst or some other shorter and easier novel. On
the whole, however, it may be safely predicted that the nor-
mal student will be able to carry as many normal courses as
he needs.
A decision based upon the experience of several cities
that begin the secondary course with the seventh grade indi-
cates that through the intermediate high school age — twelve
to fifteen — pupils successfully carry twenty-five recitation
hours per week where each lesson is two-thirds the difficulty
of a senior high school lesson. In the schools of Pomona, a
pupil earns in the first three years of the secondary school
an average of two and two-thirds credits per year, in the
COURSES OF STUDY 79
next two years (eleventh and twelfth grades) he earns an
average of four credits per year, and in the last two years
(thirteenth and fourteenth grades), an average of five. If
the curriculums for the junior high school were based on
this plan, the normal adolescent would be expected to carry
successfully five courses, each for one year and a half. A
course carried for one year and a half would be equivalent
to the same /course carried for one year in senior high
school, where only four different subjects are taken at one
time. Expressed in another way, the senior high school
student does as much in one fourth of a year as a junior
high school pupil does in one third of a year.
There is also the matter of election of courses. Shall
there be a free election of courses by the pupil? or, shall
there be certain required courses? If the pupil has an elec-
tion, how often may he elect? Must he continue an elected
course until he finishes it, or may he drop it at the end of a
semester and elect another in its place.
We wish to advocate quite a large freedom of election by
the pupil under the guidance of parent and teacher or of
vocational adviser. One or two courses should be required
of every pupil unless he is thorough master of them. The
most generally required courses are two years each of physi-
cal education and English. Even if these are in general
required, it would be unwise to impose them on a student
who does not need them. The other four subjects should be
elective; but a pupil should be expected to take a course
that he needs. If a boy has not mastered the fundamentals
of arithmetic, he should be expected to take such a course
in -junior high school. Hence, we need a wise counselor to
help the student in electing subjects and courses.
We should advocate that a pupil be required to take a
course until he has completed it or has put on it a reasonable
80 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
amount of effort. Here, again, the youth needs a guide and
adviser in the principal or parent. Instinctively a pupil
wants to drop a course in which he is failing or which he
dislikes. He also wants to avoid the subjects taught by the
teacher whom he dislikes. In these matters a principal will
exercise careful discretion. It is by no means certain that
a pupil should be compelled to take a subject with a teacher
whom he dislikes. We do not compel our college or uni-
versity boy to do it ; yet he surely could be expected to over-
come his prejudice more easily than the early adolescent.
We must not forget that the junior high school is the
trying-out school where young people are expected to find
themselves. We must, then, be insistent upon exposing the
student to as many subjects as possible without allowing
him to become fickle or flabby, changeable and always seek-
ing the easiest course.
2. Physical education. From the principle set forth in
the first chapter it must be evident that the subject of physi-
cal education should have a large place in the intermediate
high school. The purpose of the course is to develop the
body, to make it fit for the uses for which God's plan seems
to intend it. Athletics and gymnastics are by no means all
there is to this, the subject of paramount importance.
Schools should attack this problem in a scientific spirit, with
the fullest appreciation of its worth and value to the happi-
ness of the individual pupils, to the improvement of the
race, and to the health and morality of society. Looking at
the subject in this way, we find that it deserves full discus-
sion at this point.
There is a theoretical or "book" side to physical educa-
tion. Physiology and hygiene have long had a place in the
school curriculum. That place must be enlarged and
strengthened. Physiology might well be offered in the sec-
COURSES OF STUDY 8 1
ondary school as a formal subject, independently or in con-
nection with biology. But somewhere in the junior high
school pupils should be taught the functions of the organs of
the human body, their pathology and hygienic care. In
such work the boys and girls should be in separate classes,
the boys under a man teacher, the girls under a woman
teacher. In this way the right kind of appeal may be made
to the young people.
There should be an interesting, instructive, and thorough-
ly trustworthy textbook. The book selected should be writ-
ten, not with an idea of frightening boys, but with the seri-
ous purpose of informing them on matters pertaining to
their health and strength. Science does not bear out the
scare-head statements of old physiologists on alcoholic
drinks, narcotics, and stimulants, or the still more unreliable
twaddle of quacks concerning the results of sexual errors.
The plain truth is sufficiently alarming. Boys frequently
point to the facts that there are many healthy old men who
smoke tobacco and drink liquor, and scientific physiologies
must square with these facts.
The physiologies should have something to say about diet,
candies, gum chewing, endurance running, cosmetics, self-
poisoning, bad air, soiled underwear, children's lunches,
over-exercise for girls, greediness, climbing stairs, regular
habits of bowels and kidneys, lying in bed in the morning,
irregular eating, late parties, thin dresses, care at the
monthly periods, incorrect posture in reading, decaying
teeth, bicycle riding, tight lacing, tight shoes, high heels,
coffee drinking, standing long, straining the vocal cords,
abrasing the skin, abuse of the hair, neglect of colds, hard
blowing of the nose, lack of sleep, unnecessary exposure of
the head to the sun (especially dangerous among light-com-
plexioned people), wet feet, over-study, eyestrain, con-
82 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
tagious diseases, mosquitoes and flies, impure food. It will
be seen that many of these matters refer especially to girls.
It seems to the writer that undue emphasis has heretofore
been placed upon dangers to the health of beys, whereas it
is equally intportant that emphasis be placed upon dangers
to the girls. Men are by their very nature and by the out-
door active life they lead far more immune to constitutional
ailments.
In this connection sanitation and community physiology
should form a part of the intermediate course in physical
education. The disposal of sewage, the healthfulness of the
home, the care of public toilets, the purity of the water
supply, the inspection of public markets and groceries, the
prevention of factory smoke, the sanitation of bakeries, meat
markets, confectioneries, and hotel beds, and the quarantine
of contagious diseases are matters that children should study
about early in the teens. Closely associated with the pre-
vention of sickness is the improvement of health. Here the
selected text should tell of measures to improve the strength
and virility of the race. Such measures include a wide
variety of public activities,. such as the planting of parks in
cities ; the growing of shrubbery, flower gardens, and lawns
about the homes ; recreation centers and athletic clubs ; pub-
lic baths; paving'and widening of streets, public driveways,
bridle paths, promenades, water courses ; public excursions
to the open country and to the mountains; mountain play-
grounds for children and adults ; "better babies" campaigns ;
eugenic marriage campaigns ; roof gardens on tenement
houses; boys' and girls' camps; compulsory military drill
in schools; county and state -athletic tournaments; and all
other measures that tend to make the race healthier and
stronger.
COURSES OF STUDY 8;»
The above courses are to be regarded as theoretical physi-
cal culture. Applied physical education aims to do in school
all that can be done (i) to keep boys and girls healthy, (2)
to restore to health those who are not well, (3) to correct
physical deficiencies, (4) to develop muscle and bodily con-
trol, (5) to inure the young people to physical labor, (6)
to develop moral courage and squareness. No system is
complete or even passably satisfactory unless it does all
these things well. This is a big program, one not to be
carried out by a teacher whose sole qualification is a knowl-
edge of football and a record as a star on a college team.
The teacher should excel in a seriousness of purpose and a
fullness of plans on how to accomplish all the points given
above.
The author does not presume to know how all these things
can be done. He does know that they are being done in
some cities and that they should be done in all, especially in
those with junior high schools, if the next generation and
the following generations are to be benefited. There must
be gymnasiums, shower baths, playgrounds, equipment and
paraphernalia, testing and measuring machines. Above all,
there must be a master organizer to plan the work so as to
reach every pupil — a person who can also act as the
director.
How often should formal exercise be required ? For how
many years? Should credit be given? How long should
each exercise be? Should the exercises be in the morning,
afternoon, or after school ? May anybody be excused ? Can
other work be substituted for physical culture? Should
dancing be allowed in school? If so, should it be required
of children whose parents object to it on moral grounds?
Should military training be required? Optional? Should
pupils furnish their own suits, or should the school district
furnish them? Should girls be permitted to wear silk
84 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
stockings in the gymnasium? Should Rugby, American,
or soccer football be adopted ? Should girls play basketball ?
Should boys and girls play together ? Should girls be direct-
ed by men teachers ? Should physicians and dentists exam-
ine school pupils? Is a woman nurse preferable, especially
for girls? These and dozens of other questions must be
left to the intelligence of the director. It is not the sphere
of this book to discuss them, much less to , answer them.
Some of the questions, such as those with regard to years
in the curriculum and (amount of time, must necessarily
answer themselves in the very nature of the needs of the
individual boy or girl.
3. Manual and sense training. Even a slight study of
the psychology of adolescence will reveal the importance of
sense awakening in that period. With the natural acute-
ness of the senses of touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste,
and of muscularity, at pubescence and on to adulthood, the
school has a wonderful opportunity to get results from their
education. We have spoken in the preceding section of
physical education, which is among other things an edu-
cator of the muscular sense. We wish in this section to
discuss the education of the senses of touch, feeling, sight,
and measurement.
In no sense has the traditional manual training developed
these senses to the proper extent. For instance, let us take
the touch sense /alone. There is as much development of
this sense in playing a piano or guitar, in writing on a type-
writer, in painting or drawing, in kneading bread ;dough, in
molding clay, in writing shorthand, or in sewing and knit-
ting as there is in manual 'training. But the possibilities
are by no means exhausted in all these lines. Take the art
of reading with the ringers from raised type. Why confine
this method of reading to the blind? Why should it not be
COURSES OF STUDY 85
taught in school to all children suffering from eye-strain or
defective vision? If such pupils could be taught to read in
that way, how much it would save their eyes.
Reading with the fingers is only one of the many possi-
bilities of sense training. Accurate measurement with the
eyes is also an undeveloped possibility that could be gen-
erally tried. This sense can be developed to the extent of
accurately estimating a room's width, the length of cloth
or rope, the distance across a field, the height of a tree. To
distinguish this sense training from others, we may call it
mensuration.
A very useful development of the sight is the recognition
of colors and their proper blending. A great deal is done
in art along this line; but many boys who do not want art
could profit by such an eye training. Color matching or
visual harmony could well find a prominent place in a gen-
eral course on sense training.
Sawing boards straight, joining, planing, shaping, lining,
boring holes, properly driving nails, designing and making a
piece of furniture — traditional manual training — form only
a part of sense training. Certainly the time has come to
evaluate the subject of manual training and to work out a
richer content for the course. Along with these matters
may profitably be included such useful arts as wood sawing
and wood splitting, shoe mending, basket making, mat
weaving, puttying, paper hanging, plaster mending, calcimin-
ing, japalacking, and converting worn-out socks into mit-
tens.
If such a course can be devised and organized with litt'c
cost, most superintendents and boards of education will
gladly make it a required subject in the junior high school.
Leaving the vocational phase of hand work to the senior
high school, the course (in sense training for boys may be
86 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
completed in one and one half years in the intermediate
school. As other matter is constantly added to this course,
a longer time will have to be provided. Certainly pupils
can well afford to spend three semesters on this enriched
subject. If confined to traditional manual training, there
should be scarcely more than one semester required of boys.
The place of sense training in the junior high school must
depend upon the age and development of the boy taking it.
If boys enter the intermediate school at twelve years of age,
sense training should be placed as late in the curriculum as
possible, so that there can be a reasonable certainty that
adolescence has well set in before the subject is begun.
4. English. In America we lay great stress on the
teaching of the vernacular. In some English-speaking lands
the people are not so proud of the mother tongue and not so
insistent upon its being spoken with a certain inflection or
even upon using standardized words. In some parts of Eng-
land, for instance, they are prouder of their brogue than of
the great universal language; they say that the newspapers
and railroad travel will soon enough break down differences
in dialects, and consequently they put forth no conscious
effort to conform to the standards of good literature and cul-
tivated conversation. In a land as large as America we
realize the importance of aiding nature, and our schools
become the dynamic factor in universalizing the English
language. Other nations go a step further by the creation
of academies that speak authoritatively on what is and
what is not good Spanish, French, or what-not. In the
United States our schools undertake to teach standard Eng-
lish, but each teacher is left to decide for himself what is
standard.
English, as a subject to be pursued in the secondary
schools, covers a number of branches that were formerly
COURSES OF STUDY 8"
spoken of as separate subjects. We used to have grammar,
spelling, reading, composition, rhetoric, etymology, oral
English, literature. Still farther back in the past several
of these were sub-divided into two or more subjects. The
tendency of late has been to group all these matters under
the one head of English. Along with this custom has gone
the making of English a required subject throughout the
grade school and the high school. And now have come in
very recent years certain additions to the general subject of
English, such as debate, public speaking, private speaking,
dramatics, and journalism. Many high schools that require
four years of English permit pupils to earn additional credits
in these extra subjects. It would be possible to earn eight
credits of a necessary fifteen for graduation, in the field of
English and its related subjects. All these subjects have
as their main object the improvement of the students in the
vernacular.
This tendency has alarmed conservative school men to
such an extent that a reactionary movement has set in to
compel English to "keep its place" and not monopolize the
curriculum. This reaction has set in just at the time when
a strong progressive current in education is sweeping the
old subjects off their feet and is threatening to drown those
whose heaviness prevents them from swimming. Some of
these may be rescued by clinging to a more active, virile sub-
ject, and thus may be restored to life after being considered
for some time dead. Latin and German have a chance in this
way to survive the strong current of modern progressivism.
And strangest of all, they may be saved by clinging to their
greatest competitor for favor — English. We refer, of
course, to making Latin and German part of the English
course, to be studied briefly for their value as parents of
modern English.
88 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Makers of curriculums for secondary schools are, there-
fore, finding the four years of high school entirely inade-
quate for the mastering of the vernacular. The junior high
school movement, tending to lengthen the secondary course
to seven years stretching from the beginning of the seventh
grade to the end of the junior college, offers us a solution of
the problem. Pursued as one subject through seven years,
English can be made to cover conventional English plus
dramatics, journalism, oral English, public speaking and
debate, and a semester of backgrounds of English in Rome
and in Saxon England.
We arrive at the conclusion that English should be pur-
sued as a subject through the seven years of the secondary
school. We believe that it should be made compulsory. But
if we argue for making it compulsory, we must allow cer-
tain elections of courses. Better still, the wise teacher will
give to each pupil what he needs most. Not all by any
means need exactly the same things. One boy will require
grammar; another will be so correct in speaking and writ-
ing that he will not need grammar. Some girl will need
dramatics, while another will profit more from debate and
argumentation. Suppose the English courses embraced
twenty-six semester units as follows : ( I ) Latin back-
ground, (2) Anglo-Saxon background, (3) grammar, (4)
spelling and etymology, (5) oral English, (6) composition,
(7) heroic narration, (8) heroic poetry, (9) Merchant of
Venice and Julius Caesar, (10) description and narration,
(li) exposition and argument, (12) history of English
literature to the Romantic Period, (13) Romantic Period to
the present day, (14) public speaking, (15) debate, (16)
journalism, (17) Macbeth and Hamlet, (18) the essay, (19)
history of American literature, (20) private speaking, (21)
dramatics, (22) the drama, (23) applied journalism, (24)
COURSES OF STUDY 89
the novel, (25) Shakespeare, (26) current literature. Boy
A may need i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, n, 14, 15, 21. Boy B
may need i, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, n, 12, 13, 17, 18, 24, 25. Both
boys and all other pupils would take English through the
seven years.
It now remains to determine which of these courses shall
be offered in the junior high school. If certain of these
courses are less difficult or simpler than others, they should
precede the more difficult. If some are more adapted to the
pubescent period, they should be given in the junior high
school. We may pick i, 2, 3, 4 as foundational in character
upon which others have to be built. We find that 5 is
simpler than 15 or 20; that 6 is simpler than 10, n, 16, or
23. It is evident that 7 and 8 are adapted to the period of
emotional awakening at the beginning of adolescence. We
may feel quite sure that i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 belong to the
intermediate school period ; although we may entertain some
doubt about Anglo-Saxon backgrounds until the course
shall have been organized and tried out. Units 9 and 10
are being taught in junior high school with success, and may
be left on the borderland, to be taken in junior or senior
high school as circumstances dictate.
One more question must be answered. In case a pupil
needs i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 — eight semesters of work —
how shall he get them in three years ? This question is sus-
ceptible of just two answers. The most obvious is that he
should be permitted to take two units at one time until he
shall have worked through all eight. The second answer is,
that such a pupil should spend three and one-half or four
years in the junior high school. He would enter the senior
high school with probably more than eight of the sixteen
credits required for entrance to college.
9O THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
5. Foreign languages. What foreign languages, if
any, shall be taught in our secondary schools ? Why should
any foreign language be taught? If any is taught, where
shall it be placed in the curriculum? How much of each
language shall be taught? These are questions that are
challenging the best thought and the widest investigations
of educators.
The range of foreign languages thinkable as subjects for
our secondary schools embraces Greek, Latin, German,
French, Spanish, Italian, and Russian. These are languages
said to have cultural value, disciplinary value, or practical
value to Americans. Greek has by common consent been
dropped from public secondary schools. The demand for
it has been so small that it has been found impracticable to
organize classes in it. Russian and Italian, though growing
in popularity, may be left out of consideration. Whatever
decision is made in the remaining cases will be applicable
to these two modern languages if they fulfill the same end.
If any foreign languages are to be taught in our secondary
schools, they are Latin, German, French, and Spanish.
Why should any foreign language be taught? There is
a growing sentiment that no foreign language is of practical
value. This is particularly true of German and French. The
number of German-speaking people in the United States is
diminishing so rapidly that except in sections the language
is not widely heard spoken. Furthermore, nearly all Ger-
man-speaking Americans can speak English sufficiently well
for all ordinary purposes ; and, if the wide-spread movement
of societies for the education of the foreigner continues, the
non-English-speaking Germans will shortly be a negligible
number. Frenchmen are even more scarce. A questionnaire
elicited the fact that few German-taught or French-taught
students ever find any use for those languages ; and nearly
COURSES OF STUDY QI
all returned the reply that in the many years since they had
left college, they had never even had an opportunity to con-
verse in German or French!
There is also the other angle. If it were granted that Ger-
man and French are practical languages in America, can a
boy acquire in school the ability to speak the language?
After two or three years of high school German, how many
boys could understand a German conversation, or could
carry on conversation in German? The probability is that
not one in ten can do it. The same is true of Spanish.
The practical or usable value of a foreign language as
taught in our secondary schools is, therefore, very little. The
doctrine of formal discipline has been given such body
blows that we refuse to defend the foreign . languages on
the ground of their having disciplinary value superior to
other subjects. The culture, the humanitarianism, the
broader outlook upon life gotten by two or three years of a
foreign language is so doubtful, is so negligible in quantity
or quality that we could not justify the taking up of so
much of the pupil's time on that ground alone. Certainly
it could not weigh in the balance against the narrowing, the
deadening effect of hours upon hours spent upon looking up
the meaning of words in the lexicon — looking up the mean-
ing of the same word a half-dozen times if it occurs that
often en a single page.
The truth is that the foreign languages have been kept in
the curriculum because the colleges and universities have
required a foreign language for entrance and because the
children take a fancy to the idea of getting a smattering of
a language not known by everybody. These are unworthy
reasons for having any subject in the secondary schools. A
more justifiable reason for electing a foreign language is
that it is usually taught by an excellent teacher — a teacher
92 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
who could teach and inspire boys and girls through the
medium of any subject whatsoever.
For the junior high school there is a strong justification
for some Latin and possibly for some Old English on the
ground that they have an excellent reflex action upon Eng-
lish. Through them the pupil learns to understand the
grammar of his own language, he gets a larger insight into
the meaning of English words, and he strengthens and ex-
tends his English vocabulary. One semester of each would
probably be sufficient, especially if they were taught with
this end in view.
We reach the conclusion that in some parts of the United
States a certain foreign language if mastered may have
some practical value; but that on the whole, foreign lan-
guages should be dropped from the curriculum of secondary
schools ; that the process of dropping languages must be
done gradually so as to permit colleges and teachers to ad-
just themselves to the change; and that a semester of Latin,
of German, of French, or of Old English may be retained
permanently for the value to English. Until foreign lan-
guages shall disappear altogether from the secondary course,
they should be made optional in the junior high school and
should be taken by such pupils only as are compelled to have
them to meet college requirements.
6. Mathematics. In an earlier chapter it was seen that
boys have strongly outcropping at adolescence the measur-
ing sense which is connected with the observation faculty on
the one hand and the reasoning faculty on the other. This
is generally interpreted as the age for mathematics, and the
boy is usually able to grasp the principles of algebra and
geometry and apply them to objective problems. A careful
trial of teaching pure mathematics to early adolescents re-
veals the pupil's lack of ability to solve the problems that
COURSES OF STUDY 93
require an application of the principles of algebra and
geometry. The chief difficulty here is that the pupil is un-
able to unravel the mysterious wording of the problems so
as to get his first statement.
Girls often excel in algebra and geometry, sometimes far
outstripping the boys of the same class. An investigation
of a case of this kind revealed the fact, however, that the
girls were somewhat older than the boys and were more than
a year advanced in physical maturity. But girls are more
variable in their mathematical proclivities. Far more girls
are found wanting in ability to grasp algebra and geometry
than boys. It is also true that girls do not like mathematics
so well as boys do.
In Pomona we have tried a progressive system of ex-
tending algebra lower and lower in the grades. It was tried
first in the A8 grade, then in the B8, then in the A/, finally
in the B/. The most interesting result was obtained in the
B8 grade. A B8 class was started in algebra at the same
time as a BQ. There was no appreciable difference in the
character and preparation of the pupils. If anything the
ninth grade was more of a "picked" group than the eighth
grade — picked in the sense that the poorer children had been
eliminated. At the end of one semester the two classes
stood together ; during the second semester, the most intri-
cate problems being eliminated for the eighth graders, the
two classes kept together, reaching quadratics at the same
time. The number of intricate problems eliminated, how-
ever, did not exceed twenty. Both classes finished the course
without one student failing to reach a grade of 75 per cent.
Our course is so arranged that pupils may begin algebra
in the 67 grade if they have indicated strength in sixth
grade arithmetic; otherwise they take arithmetic in the 67
and begin algebra in the A7 grade. Pupils who do not wish
94 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
to take algebra in the 67, may take household accounts
through the seventh grade, and bookkeeping through
the eighth and ninth grades. If a pupil taking book-
keeping has a change of heart at the end of the A7 or
B8 semester, he may start algebra at the beginning of the B8
or at the beginning of the A8 semester. Wherever he begins
it early, he spends three semesters on the subject, algebra
being one of the five subjects that he carries. There was
some doubt in our minds whether the average child could
commence algebra at the beginning of the junior high school
and complete the subject in one and one-half years. In one
of our schools all the children of the beginning seventh
grade qualified on the basis of proficiency in arithmetic and
have successfully carried algebra. In the other school forty
out of sixty qualified for algebra and have successfully car-
ried it. The other twenty made such slow progress in arith-
metic that they were not considered ready for algebra at the
beginning of the Kj grade.
The conclusion is inevitable that, in a course allowing
three semesters for algebra, the beginning of the junior high
school is the time to commence the subject. The best two-
thirds in arithmetic of the sixth grade will carry algebra
without failure; the weak one-third will do better to take
up algebra at the same time. Out of a class of thirty poorly-
prepared seventh graders, probably twenty will do the
algebra satisfactorily. The other ten should probably drop
algebra for a semester, coming back to it at the beginning
of the eighth grade. All in all, the proportion of failures
among seventh graders taking algebra is no greater than
among ninth grade high school pupils.
We naturally expect to have geometry taken up by those
A8 pupils who have finished algebra. In Pomona we have
no data as yet on the success of this plan. In Los Angeles,.
COURSES OF STUDY 95
however, they have been successful in teaching concrete
geometry (under the name of mensuration) to eighth grade
pupils. Simple theorems are successfully demonstrated by
the classes. In case our plan proves successful, the three
years of the junior high school course will be divided into
two equal periods — the first period for algebra, the second
for plane geometry.
CHAPTER SIX
COURSES OF STUDY (Continued)
1. History and politics. There are a number of con-
siderations making the teaching of history and politics
imperative in the junior high school. Among them are the
incompleteness of the elementary school course, the grow-
ing reasoning powers of adolescents, the desire to be con-
sidered grown up, the budding desire to assume the burdens
of society, the desire for a voice in government, the love of
the heroic. Out of the many possible courses in this field,
what shall be taught in the junior secondary period?
The following are the units collated from the published
courses of study of half a hundred cities and towns: (i)
European backgrounds, (2) colonial period of American
history, (3) national period, (4) community civics, (5)
state history, (6) early ancient history, (7) late ancient his-
tory, (8) medieval history, (9) early modern history, (10)
i8th, ipth, and 2Oth century history, (n) English history
to 1700, (12) English history since 1700, (13) advanced
American history to 1828, (14) advanced American his-
tory since 1828, (15) advanced civics, (16) elementary
economics, (17) sociology, (18) problems in American
democracy, (19) problems in American democracy, con-
tinued, (20) advanced economics, (21) economic and social
problems, (22) constitutional history of England, (23)
Europe igth Century, (24) sectional history. If we follow
the recommendations of the Committee of Eight, we will
assign European backgrounds to the sixth grade, probably
carrying the work to the American Revolution in that grade.
It must be assumed that in the fifth grade the children have
had a narrative and biographical account of American his-
96
COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) 97
tory through the entire range of white men's existence on
this continent. If I and 2 have been done in the sixth grade,
3 might occupy the first semester of the junior high school,
followed by 4 in the second semester; 5 might occupy the
third semester, while 6, 7, and 8 — covering the conventional
first year high school history — would occupy the fourth,
fifth, and sixth semesters of the intermediate high school,
leaving Modern European History to the senior high school.
In substance the above is a commonly used plan, and would
meet the requirements of a junior high school that embraced
the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades of one year each.
The well-worked out Berkeley plan gives 2 and 3 in the sev-
enth grade, 4 and 5 in the eighth grade, and 6, 7, and 8 in
the ninth grade.
The Pomona plan places I and 2 in the sixth grade. The
other units taken in the six corresponding semesters of
junior high school are as follows: unit 3 in first semester;
4 and part of 6 in second semester ; the remainder of 6 and
all of 7 in third ; 8 in fourth ; 9 in fifth ; 10 in sixth. In this
way the conventional two high school years of world his-
tory are given in the intermediate school. The senior high
school- junior college is then left free to pursue advanced
American history and economic, social, and political prob-
lems.
How much of this work should be required of all pupils?
If there were sufficient time, everyone should be required
to take these six semesters of history. As it is, a minimum
amount should be fixed — probably two units. If two units
only are required, undoubtedly they should be 3 and 4, the
last half of American history and all of community civics.
If general history is not taken, the student will be greatly
handicapped thereafter. However, the youth will have had
European backgrounds which in a general way covers world
98 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
history. He will also have an opportunity later to take Eng-
lish history, English constitutional history, and Europe in
the i Qth and 2Oth centuries. These cover the ground pretty
thoroughly. If, however, the school is not organized on the
seven-year secondary plan, more pressure should be brought
to bear upon the pupil to take world history in the junior
high school.
Will the pupil have opportunity to get the things he
needs as summarized in the first paragraph of this topic if
he does not take general history in the intermediate school ?
The love of the heroic may be satisfied in heroic fiction and
verse ; the desire for a voice in government, in student self-
government and other student organizations. The other
tendencies may be satisfied in debate, public speaking, and
church activities. The ripening reason may find develop-
ment in mathematics, in the sciences, and in English. The
results obtainable are not so good as they would be in world
history, nor would the outlook upon life be so broadened.
Boys especially should be encouraged to take history, not
so much because they are future voters but because all
through history and civics can the boy express his masculine
traits of character. In community civics one gets an under-
standing of social benefits and obligations, and puts into
practice the principles learned.
2. The sciences. The investigating inquisitiveness of
the adolescent coupled with the awakening senses of sight,
hearing, etc., drives the boy inevitably toward science. If
he does not get it in school, he finds it outside of school.
Nothing can keep the normal adolescent boy from studying
nature and nature's laws. The school has wisely taken over
the sciences and is endeavoring to assist the young people to
get a knowledge of nature by real scientific methods. Not
the least benefit to the student is the scientific habit acquired.
COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) 99
The foundation of a vocation may also be laid by studying
the underlying scientific principles. Thus science is the
basis of cooking, mechanical arts, agriculture, mining, and
many other occupations.
The sciences commonly taught in the secondary schools
are general science, agriculture, biology, chemistry, zoology,
botany, physical geography, and physics. The difficult
mathematics of chemistry and physics have forced these
subjects into the eleventh and twelfth grades. Zoology and
botany have likewise tended toward the maturer years of
youth. By common consent physical geography, biology,
and elementary agriculture have settled down in the ninth
and tenth grades ; while general science as a foundation
science has until recently occupied the ninth grade and is
now tending downward into the eighth and seventh grades.
We have shown in a previous chapter the natural tendency
of geography, that is, to merge gradually into history and
disappear as a separate subject. After history has effec-
tually swallowed the descriptive and geologic parts of
geography, general science finishes the dissolution by ab-
sorbing the physical element of geography. Only in rare
cases now do we find schools offering courses in physical
geography : general science has taken its place in the curri-
culum.
General science as a teachable subject has not been stand-
ardized; it is still in a pliable, yes, plastic condition. And
while it is still in this state, it will be easy to adapt it to what-
ever grade to which it may be assigned. There are textbooks
on the market purporting to be intended for fifth grade chil-
dren. There would be a danger of such a course falling to the
level (developmentally) of nature study. It might teach and
inspire a love for nature but could scarcely develop the scien-
tific method or embody a group of facts suitable for a foun-
IOO THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
dation upon which to build a science. General science must
go far beyond nature study, be a science in fact.
If general science should occupy the last three semesters
of the junior high school course, it would not need to differ
from the subject as now taught in the first year of high
school. It would, indeed, correspond precisely to that age,
and such text-books as have been written for ninth grade
could be used in the course. The plans outlined, the labora-
tory manuals, and the laboratory equipment would be the
same.
On the other hand, if general science is to occupy the first
three semesters of the junior high school, a considerable
change in the course, text-book equipment, and manual would
have to be made. The pupils could not understand the lan-
guage of the text ; the materials in the laboratory would have
to be less complex; and a simpler approach to the subject
would have to be made. In the Pomona schools we are
trying out this plan after having successfully taught it in the
last three semesters of the junior high school. We are using
a high school text-book, however. The success of the work
is not assured as yet.
Elementary agriculture as a text-book science and as a
science requiring no experimental farm is teachable in the
intermediate school. It has been taught with success in the
ninth grade of high schools, and, as was said in discussing
general science, it would not need much change to adapt it
to the last three semesters of the junior high school. If,
however, general science should have to be taught in the
last three semesters of the intermediate school, an unsolved
problem would arise as to whether agriculture could be
taught successfully, profitably in the first three semesters.
It seems upon the face of the question that general science
should precede agriculture, but the reverse may become
COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) IOI
necessary. Elementary agriculture in the seventh grade
would be in danger of falling to the level of school garden-
ing— a subject belonging to the elementary school. It can-
not be too much insisted upon that elementary agriculture
shall be a science in the true sense. It is decidedly a basic
science upon which vocational agriculture may be built ; and
the teachers should not forget that it is a science as well as
an art.
In case the junior high school course includes the tenth
grade, biology would probably be offered in the last three
semJesters. Biology that includes the elements of zoology,
botany and physiology would probably fill a demand in the
lower secondary school. Many educators urge that a one-
semester course in physiology should be required of all. In
the preceding chapter we insisted strongly on the teaching
of physiology and hygiene in connection with physical edu-
cation. If pupils were required to elect between general
science and biology, one semester of the two courses might
be made common to both, and physiology be made the sub-
stance of the semester's work. Where physiology and
hygiene can be made a part of the course in physical educa-
tion, biology and general science would then touch but
lightly on those matters.
3. Culture subjects. Under this heading we include
those subjects that are studied for culture only — those that
open new fields for intellectual and emotional enjoyment
without any thought of their utilitarian value. It is an
open question as to whether the public schools are justified
in teaching on public funds subjects that contribute merely
to the development of capacity for enjoyment. But the cul-
ture subjects have so long been a part of our curricula that
they cannot be dropped without disorganizing the school
system. Under this head would come the foreign languages,
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
IO2 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
which have such a fascination for the young people of our
country. The ability to utter a few phrases in French thrills
the emotions of youths. It is very noticeable, however, that
the hard grind necessary to the 'mastery of a foreign lan-
guage does not greatly appeal to our young people. There
are other culture subjects that produce the same tingle and
yet do not involve such deadening drudgery.
(a) Music. Most of our young people now arrive at
the beginning of adolescence with an ability to read music of
considerable difficulty. As music and other culture subjects
have a tendency to raise the mind above the sordid and
carnal things of life, we may safely assume that they will
be taught in the adolescent period as a deterrent if for no
other reason. Music is par excellence a culture subject.
Classes in vocal music can be taught with inconsiderable
expense, the child carrying his instrument around with him.
The vocal music of the adolescent school should be free from
grinding labor. The joy and inspiration in singing will be
sufficient to offset such mental application as may be neces-
sary. Choral singing lends itself to this period best, blend-
ing and harmony being necessary to the making of adol-
escent music. Occasionally one finds a soloist of the "back-
fisch" age, but it is very exceptional. Duets and quartets
are difficult to produce from among these young people.
Boys and girls should hear good music at this age ; but should
not be surfeited with classical compositions. One easy grand
opera should be heard while the children are in junior high
school. It will be epoch-making in its effect.
This is the heyday of instrumental music. If possible, the
school should own instruments of all kinds to be used by
pupils with or without means. The youth cannot well afford
to purchase an expensive instrument, which in all probability
will be laid aside in a couple of years. While the frenzy lasts,
COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) IO3
however, the opportunity should be afforded to learn to play.
It will be hard to work instrumental music into a schedule
of studies, because much of the teaching must be done by
appointment with the instructor. Nevertheless, many schools
teach it successfully, and thus help to build up a band and
an orchestra of real merit.
The fact that "music hath charm to soothe the savage
breast" has wide application in the adolescent period. Many
a boy has found solace in music when his growing body
seemed aflame for more sensual sensations. Many another
boy too anaemic for athletic honors has found himself lion-
ized and happy as a musician in the school band. Besides,
there is much healthy physical development in singing or
playing for it strengthens the lungs, enlarges the chest,
straightens the back, and induces a posture of body condu-
cive to strength and symmetry.
(b) Art. Much that has been said for music may be
said with equal emphasis for art. Art as a culture study is
justified in that it opens up a large field for high emotional
enjoyment. Next to harmony of tones, beauty of color
and form attracts the adolescent. In art girls find joy
earlier than boys. In fact, art thrust upon boys of the
adolescent period, may produce a revulsion, rather than an
ecstacy, of feeling. A taste for art can frequently be culti-
vated. Most girls take readily to art: it is an outcropping
of budding womanhood, a symptom of adolescence.
In the order of natural development, painting comes first,
painting with striking colors and bold contrasts. Soon fol-
low blending of shades and harmony of color. Drawing is
more or less a drudgery at first, but the necessity for
accuracy of perspective, for correct form, for light and shade
soon dawns upon the pubescent girl. Paper and canvas give
way to wood, leather work, weaving, metal work, clay-
IO4 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
moulding, and jewelry. A large proportion of girls would
take to this work if it were open for election, and no culture
is healthier for the girl, compelling, as it does, out-door
sketching, work-shop habits, physical exercise, and sense-
education. It may be made of practical value, the girl
carrying the work into womanhood and the home. Trimming
of hats, designing of one's own dresses, draping of curtains,
and decorating of the home — all are rendered easier and
more successful by a course in art.
At least three semesters of art and freehand drawing
should be open to girls and boys in the junior high school.
(c) Literature. One phase of this subject has been
discussed in connection with English. It is mentioned here
again as a culture subject, aside from its bearing on the
student's learning to speak and write well in the vernacular.
Whenever literature has failed, in the past, to give the boys
and girls a love for reading good books, it has been very
largely because they have been taught forms of literature
far beyond their developmental stage. We have been ex-
pecting children of fourteen and fifteen to like books whose
cultural appeal is to adults. It is folly to try to get boys
and girls interested in philosophical poetry or problem nov-
els. Their intellectual and moral experience is too limited
to comprehend the author's meaning. It is idle to attempt
to interest early adolescents in Carlyle's Essay on Burns,
Emerson's and Macaulay's Essays, Macbeth, Hamlet, much
of Milton's, Wordsworth's, Browning's, or Tennyson's
poetry, to say nothing of Pope, Addison, Ruskin, Shelley,
Keats, and Thackeray.
And why try to interest pupils in, to them, such dry read-
ing when we have dozens of writers and hundreds of books
graduated to the adolescent mind. Here, too, it must be
remembered, boys and girls begin to diverge in their likes
COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) IO5
and interests. Girls are fond of Miss Alcott's books, George
Eliot, Scott, Whittier, Longfellow, Hawthorne, J. G. Hol-
land, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Paul Leicester Ford,
Myrtle Reed, Owen Meredith. Boys like Stevenson, Scott,
Cooper, Longfellow, Conan Doyle, Poe (prose), Dickens,
Washington Irving, Aldrich. These authors should not be
"studied," but merely read. Poetry will have to be read in
class or with assigned lessons. As a matter of fact poetry
should always be read aloud and in sufficient quantity to tell
a story. Heroic poetry should predominate.
Dr. Stanley Hall shows in an interesting diagram that
girls reach their quantitative maximum of reading at thir-
teen and boys a little later. This fact should lead us to
conclude that this early adolescent period is our opportunity
for introducing young people to good authors. How much
shall we expect the boy or girl to read ? Hall's investigation
shows that each twelve-year-old will read twelve books in a
year, and the thirteen-year-old, fifteen books. Let us see
what books a girl could read in the two years : Jo's Boys,
Little Men, Little Women, Silas Marner, Romola, Ivanhoe,
Kenilworth, Snowbound, Hvangeline, Miles Standish, Great
Stone Face, Blithedale Romance, Scarlet Letter, Bitter
Sweet, Katrina, Little Lord Fountleroy, Hon. Peter Stir-
ling, Lavcndar and Old Lace, A Spinner in the Sun, Lucile,
and seven others. Boys could read Treasure Island, Ivan-
hoe, Wavcrly, Rob Roy, Last of the Mohicans, The Path-
finder, The Prairie, Miles Standish, Firm of Girdlestone,
Hound of the Baskervilles, The Great Shadow, The Gold
Bug, Oliver Twist, Martin Chuzzlewit, Tour of the Prairies,
Astoria, Adventures of Captain Bonneville, Prudence Pal-
frey, and nine others. One could be quite certain that the
boy or girl would find at least one author whom he would
want to complete.
io6 THE; JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
This is the period of life when there should be some
guidance in reading- current literature. There are many
magazines whose stories are very wholesome for adoles-
cents ; there are others whose stories would be exceedingly
harmful to those whose characters are not yet formed. The
law ought to step in and prohibit certain story magazines
being sold to children under eighteen, for the danger is cer-
tainly as great as in the case of cigarettes or liquor. Love
stories that are insinuatingly suggestive, adventure stories
that arouse the desire to steal or commit semi-criminal
pranks have the same demoralizing effect as liquor and
tobacco. The school has done a great good in arousing pub-
lic opinion against the latter: it should commence a legis-
lative campaign against the former.
(d) Dramatics. The study of dramatics for its cul-
ture value is beginning to book large in the high school.
Such a course is carried on along parallel lines. There is
the theoretical side of the study, dealing with the history of
the stage, the mechanics of drama writing, the elements of
the drama, method of producing a play. On the theoretical
side comes also the study of certain great type dramas —
tragedy, melodrama, romance, comedy, and farce. Such a
course in theory is called in the curriculum the drama. The
other side might be regarded as the application of the prin-
ciples of the drama to practice. It would involve the actual
work of staging a play and would include making the
scenery, stage construction and management, making-up the
actors, and acting the play on the stage. Much of the class-
room work would be the study of a play to get at the mean-
ing of the words, then the interpretation of that meaning in
speech and action. This practical side of the subject might
be called dramatics. Both the drama and dramatics con-
tribute to the broadening of the student's field of enjoyment.
COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) IO/
The beginning of this subject may well be undertaken in
the junior high school, not perhaps as an organized course,
but as a school activity. The pupils of this age may well be
permitted to attend one good play a year. In all probability
their parents will take them to half a dozen poor plays and
to dozens of picture-shows. There will well up in the ado-
lescent a desire to act on the stage, and mass action will be
wholesome and good for such young folks. A warning
should be uttered against choosing a "star" or "leading
part'' from among intermediate pupils : their heads are so
easily ''turned" that there is danger of ruining the boy or
girl ior any more prosaic work.
(e) History and geography. From one point of view
history and geography may be regarded as cultural sub-
jects. One who learns in school to love the movement of
events, descriptions of many lands, and all their attendant
concomitants, will have a source of great enjoyment when
he grows to adulthood. These joys will not consist entirely
in reading history and geography, but in travel, in collecting
local historical mjaterial, in constructing and reading maps,
in visiting industrial plants, and in learning the methods of
producing from the soil in places where he happens to
sojourn.
(f) Sciences. All busy men and women have their
avocations which they love and enjoy. Many an office-man
finds rest and pleasure in pursuing at home some scientific
investigation. It may be chemical experiments, collecting
flowers, stuffing birds, inventing mechanical devices, classi-
fying geologic specimens, or testing building materials. It
is to provide men and women with such enjoyable avoca-
tions that many culture subjects are taught in school. In
this sense the sciences may be regarded as culture subjects.
IO8 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOI,
(g) Manual training. What has been said of the
sciences may be said of what is taught under the broad term
of manual training. Dentists worn out with the tedious
day's work find recreation at evening in wood-work; physi-
cians, in metal working ; lawyers, in electricity ; teachers, in
basketry, plastering, gas engine construction and repair. In
this sense manual training is a culture subject, and, in pass-
ing, it may be said that many more boys will use it as an
avocation than as a vocation.
4. Vocational subjects. For the purpose of this dis-
cussion we define a vocational subject as one that is taught
chiefly for its contribution to making a student fit for doing
the work of an occupation, and is pursued by the student
with the same aim. Algebra is not a vocational subject be-
cause its main raison d'etre is not to prepare the youth for
engineering (the only occupation in which algebra could
be used). Stenography is a vocational subject because the
main reason for teaching it is to prepare the pupil for the
gainful occupation of a stenographer.
The main vocational lines teachable in the junior high
school are homemaking, dressmaking, agriculture, the com-
mercial occupations, and the trades of the artisan. It is not
claimed that any one of these occupational courses can be
completed in the three years of intermediate school or at the
tender age of early adolescence. A good beginning can be
made, however — a beginning that will materially shorten the
period of apprenticeship or that will lay a good foundation
for a finishing course in the same line in the senior high
school- junior college.
(a) Homemaking. There have been many objections
to the boys learning an occupation in the junior high school,
the chief being that it forces the boy to choose at too early
an age. This objection cannot be levied against homemaking
COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) IO9
for girls. Such a large proportion of girls become home-
makers that those who do not may be disregarded as being
a negligible quantity. No parent could object to his daugh-
ter's learning the household arts. It is therefore put first in
the list of vocational subjects. (It is not necessary, I think,
to point out that manual training does not stand in the same
relation to boys that homemaking does to girls. Manual
training, as such, is not an occupational course at all; and
only a few boys follow a vocation that can be remotely con-
nected up with it. We have pointed out in preceding pages
that manual training has its chief value as a training of the
senses, and is more closely related to art, music, and draw-
ing than to any purely vocational subject.)
The home-making branches best fitted for early adoles-
cent girls are cooking and sewing. These subjects have a
well standardized content and need not be discussed in full
in this connection. The chief problem is where to place them
in the three-year course. In high school sewing is usually
taught in the ninth and cooking in the tenth grade. In some
schools the two courses are taught through the two years
but on alternate days. It may with assurance be stated,
then, that these two subjects should be taught in the last
two years of the junior high school, whether it has a three
or a four year curriculum.
As many school systems provide sewing one day per
week in fifth and sixth grades, and some junior high schools
continue sewing on the same scale through the first year
of the intermediate curriculum, many girls want a change at
the end of that time. There is, on the other hand, no good
reason why cooking should not precede sewing as a five-day-
a-week course. Therefore, in three-year junior high schools
(seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth grades), cooking may
best be taught in the second year and sewing in the third,
IIO THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
it being understood that the work be taken for ninety min-
utes each day and that credit for one full year of high school
work be allowed for each of the two subjects.
(b) Dressmaking. Only the very beginnings of a
course in dressmaking can be given in junior high school.
It would be taught under the name of sewing. No differen-
tiation need be made in sewing as a branch of the general
vocational course of home-making from sewing as part of
a dressmaking course.
(c) Agriculture. We have discussed the subject of
elementary agriculture as a science. While it should be
taught as a science, and should be adapted somewhat to a
class of students who do not have farming in mind as an
occupation, its chief raison d'etre in a public school curri-
culum is laying the foundation for vocational agriculture in
the senior high school- junior college. A valuable product
of the course is the vocational guidance result. That is, the
course may open to the boy such an enchanting vista in soil
cultivation that he may be led to select agriculture as his
life-occupation.
Elementary agriculture should make use of a laboratory
and propagation house. The pupils must see plants germi-
nate and grow. This objective teaching is especially desir-
able with pupils of the intermediate school age. The prepa-
ration of the soil, the propagation of plants, the cultivation,
irrigation, and enrichment of the ground — these are elements
of vocational training par excellence. Computation of the
costs and profits of farming is also a valuable aid to occu-
pational training as well as to vocational guidance.
(d) Commercial vocations include a large number of
occupations, only a few of which can be taught directly in
the junior high school. The most successful beginnings can
be made in preparation for the vocations of stenographer,
COURSES Of STUDY (CONTINUED) III
typist, bookkeeper, clerk, and merchant. The best voca-
tional results can be obtained where the pupil puts in part
of the day in the practical application to business of the
principles and facts learned in the school-room. But, the
courses are usually planned with the idea of the work being
continued by the student in the senior high school. In
many cases, however, a finishing commercial course will
have to be planned to fill the needs of young people who
have to go to work at fifteen or sixteen years of age.
In the regular curriculum provision may be made for the
pupil's taking household accounts in the first year, elemen-
tary bookkeeping in the second year, and business accounts
in the third year. A more conventional course would give
commercial arithmetic in the first year and bookkeeping in
the second and third years. Of course the courses in com-
mercial work would be elective.
Typing is a very attractive subject to young people. It
may be advisable for all the pupils to take lessons on the
typewriter until they can all write with ease and rapidity.
This sort of work can be done in odd hours and before and
after school. But as a vocational course, it must be pursued
by the pupil with greater avidity and with more serious pur-
pose. Accuracy and speed must be attained; great skill in
variety of work must be acquired ; and the mechanism of the
machine must be thoroughly understood. These results can-
not be secured in less than three semesters' work of at least
sixty minutes per day. Ordinarily, the first three semesters
of the junior high school course would be the time for
typing.
Shorthand appeals to the adolescent instinct for a secret
code or language. There is great practical utility in the sub-
ject. There is a possibility of doing all our writing with
pencil in the shorthand code : it would save time and paper.
112 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
As a vocational subject it is of great importance. Commer-
cial accuracy, speed, and readability cannot be acquired in
less than three semesters of one hundred and twenty minutes
per day. If the pupil is going to work at the end of his
junior high school course, he should take his stenography
during the last three semesters that he is in school. If the
pupil is going to senior high school, his intensive study of
shorthand had best be delayed until the last year of his
school course.
The principles of clerical work may be learned in connec-
tion with bookkeeping, typing, and stenography ; pupils may
get practice in clerical work through working in the prin-
cipal's office, and in connection with student body finance
and school records. Business principles and practice may be
gotten in the same manner, and in the management of stu-
dent affairs, especially of a co-operative book and supplies
store, or of a cafeteria. Work in stores or in the management
of a paper route gives some practice in business and clerical
work, and is worthy of encouragement if it does not inter-
fere with regular school work.
(e) Artisan's trades may be begun in the junior high
school in a small way, especially shoemaking, cobbling, plas-
tering, paper-hanging, building, carpentry, cabinet-making,
glove-making, corset-making, concrete-mixing, mat-weav-
ing, basketry, pottery, book-binding, printing, tinning, ma-
chine-repairing, blasksmithy, plumbing, electric-wiring,
sign-painting, upholstering, barbering, "practical"-nursing,
laundering, housekeeping, and manicuring. The beginnings
of these vocational courses can be gotten in connection with
the regular courses described in this and the preceding chap-
ter. The whole physical, nervous, and mental being of the
adolescent cries out for these things. Without them the
boy or girl becomes stunted and unnatural; with them,
COURSES OF STUDY (CONTINUED) 113
growth is normal, school life becomes real life. These voca-
tional activities are a tonic for a constitution fearfully
shaken by the ferment of adolescence going on within.
(f) Practical arts. Finally, music, art, dramatics, pub-
lic speaking, English composition — though taught as cul-
ture subjects — become vocational subjects for those students
who plan to become musicians, artists, actors, public speak-
ers or writers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS
1. Manning the junior high school. One of the first
problems confronting the superintendent who has secured
his board's adoption of the six-three-four plan is that of
providing a faculty and manager for his junior high school.
If he plans to place at once the seventh, eighth, ninth, and
tenth grades in the new school, he must secure men and
women of unusual tact, interest, and ability. Unless he can
use all his former high school faculty in his "senior high
school-junior college," he may need to shift several high
school teachers to the junior high schools. This may be
difficult. Such teachers regard it as a demotion even if
they had formerly taught only the lower classmen. How-
ever, out of a high school faculty of fifty, there will be a
normal resignation of five or six per year. These vacancies
may be left unfilled until the enrollment in the "senior high
school-junior college" justifies an increase in its faculty
up to fifty.
The expense of carrying on a senior high school of two
years with forty-five instructors, when the four year high
school had only fifty will probably operate to convince the
superintendent that it were better to reduce the number of
years in the senior high school gradually. A plan similar to
the following might be arranged :
Grades Jr. H. S. T'ch'rs. Grades Sr. H. S. T'ch'rs.
1st Half Year of the 7th and 8th 20 9th, 10th, llth, 12th 50
Experiment
2nd Half Year 7, 8 and B9 24 A9, 10, 11, 12 48
3rd Half Year 7, 8
4th Half Year 7, 8
5th Half Year
1st Half Year 7, 8
2nd Half Year 7, 8
3rd Half Year 7, 8
4th Half Year 7, 8
28 10, 11, 12 44
9, BIO 32 A10, 11 12 42
9, 10 35 11, 12 38
or, better still
20 9, 10, 11, 12 50
B9 24 A9, 10, 11, 12, B13 48
9 28 10, 11, 12, 13 46
9, BIO 32 A10, 11, 12, 13, B14 44
5th Half Year 7, 8, 9, 10 35 11, 12, 13, 14 42
114
PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 11$
In case, however, that grades 7, 8, 9, and 10 are com-
pressed into a three-year course, the junior high schools
will not need so many teachers. On the other hand, the
greater number of pupils that will stay in school may require
a still larger faculty.
The senior high school being taken care of by the natural
resignation of teachers, the increase in the faculty of the
junior high school will be taken care of by adding new
teachers drawn from the universities and teachers' colleges.
The nucleus of this teaching force will be the grade teachers
that are taken over when the seventh and eighth grades are
transferred to the junior high schools. Experience has
shown that these women develop into the very best type of
junior high school teachers. With further college education
secured in summer schools and with a greater breadth of
view brought about by the spirit of the new institution, these
teachers become the very models for the new additions to
the faculties.
2. The principal. So much depends upon the principal
of the junior high school — an institution so new that there
are , no precedents by which to go — that a separate para-
graph must be devoted to the subject. Unless an unusual
woman can be found, the principal should be a man. On
account of the war the faculty must for years to come be
largely of women, and yet the boys of the adolescent age
should come in personal, intimate touch with at least one
man. ;Even the girls should feel the fatherly hand in the
guidance of their young lives. The principal should be a
man of maturity and of considerable teaching experience.
There are two attitudes either of .which the principal may
assume toward his pupils — that of the firm but sympathetic
father or that of the intimate but protecting elder brother.
The one he chooses must depend upon his age, experience,
Il6 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOI,
and character. An unmarried principal, of thirty-three years
or under would scarcely fail to make himself ludicrous in
the role of father. The married man of over .thirty-three
would scarcely make himself less ridiculous in the part of
elder brother. But any other attitude must be cautiously
avoided, especially that of boyishness, of the gallant, of the
suspicious moral guide, of the indifferent employer, of the
easy grandfather, or of the indulgent father or brother. An
experienced man may mix among the boys, inspiring their
respect for his vast accumulation of information, for his
bravery and hardy manhood, much as the scoutmaster among
the Boy Scouts. Valuable is the principal who can coach the
boys in athletics taking active part and 'showing them how
the thing is done. At the very least, he must have a real
interest in boys' sports and must be active enough to get out
with them to advise, encourage, discuss, and appreciate.
The principal must be a good thinker and a good organ-
izer. He must have ideas on education worked out with the
aid of his reading and personal experiences. He must be-
lieve in the plan he is called upon to put into practice. He
must not regard his present position merely as a stepping
stone to a high school principalship. He should be a leader
in the perfecting of the junior high school as a functioning
institution. He must inspire the confidence of his teachers
and of the public. He is not merely an institution manager,
a chief clerk, a detective, a police officer, an executioner, a
maker of programs, an executive ; but he is the 'leader in
school matters, the truest judge of adolescent nature, the
one head through which all departments, all classes, all
activities are correlated. He must have a vision or an ideal
toward which his school is to be |led to tend ; he must be
PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 117
tactful in his relations to the elementary schools and to the
senior high school. He must be close in the confidence of
the superintendent.
3. The teachers. What shall be said of the kind of
teachers we want for our early adolescent children? For
our boys, do we want all women ? For our girls, do we want
all men? Can we get what we want or what the children
ought to have ? There seems to be a feeling growing, to the
effect that our schools are overfemininized, that we should
have strong, manly men for our boys and even for our girls.
"Leave it to a board of education composed of men," said
a woman candidate for election as a board member, "and we
shall soon have only women teachers. We want a few men
teachers who will excite the right kind of admiration from
both boys and girls." We seem to be getting just now a
higher type of men in the profession of teaching. As teach-
ers' salaries rise, the profession will attract more and more
young men ; as more and more men enter the profession,
young men will come to regard it a man's job and will pre-
pare for it.
At present in high school the field seems to be divided
by comtmon consent. Boys' physical culture, commercial
branches, manual training, the sciences, seem to be men's
subjects; English, domestic science and art, Latin, girls'
physical culture, and art seem to be women's subjects; while
history, mathematics, modern languages, and music seem to
be neutral ground occupied jointly by both sexes. On the
whole, however, even among the neutral subjects, civics,
higher mathematics, Spanish, and band and orchestra music
are in most cases taught by men, while European history,
algebra, German, French, and vocal music seem to be in
women's .province.
If this seeming division is carried down into junior high
school the proportion will be about three women to one man ;
Il8 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
if carried up into junior college, the proportion there will be
the reverse. This would fulfill the desire and belief of those
who believe that the educational system should start with
all women and end with all men teachers. In kindergarten
all women and no men ; in the elementary schools, 90%
women teachers, 10% men (manual, physical teachers, and
principals) ; in the junior high .school, jo% women, 30%
men; in the senior high school-junior college, 30% women,
70% men ; in the universities, colleges, and normal schools,
10% women, go% men; in the research foundations and
experimental stations, practically no women, all men.
Whether this is logical or not, it seems as if it might be a
safe guide at least when the war is over.
A question that the superintendent must consider is, shall
I seek for junior high school, young or old teachers, fresh
graduates or teachers ,of long experience? One superin-
tendent has signified in an article contributed to a profes-
sional magazine his attitude. He wants older and more ex-
perienced teachers for the early adolescents than for senior
high school. He believes that the first year of the secondary
course is so important, such a delicate time for the pupil that
it would be fatal to leave it to inexperienced teachers. Many
will agree with this plan, and it will for the present easily
be carried out by having all seventh year work taught by
the grade teachers that are taken over from the elementary
school. Such new teachers as are added to the corps might
be assigned to eighth, ninth, and tenth grade classes.
4. College-trained versus normal-trained teachers.
In nearly all states high school teachers are selected from
among college and university graduates, grade teachers from
normal school graduates. The result has been that normal
schools have devoted their efforts to teaching elementary
school methods, management, and problems. The depart-
PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS IIQ
merits of education in colleges and universities have con-
centrated their attention on high school methods and prob-
lems. The junior high school embraces two grades that
were formerly in the 'jurisdiction of the normal school and
one or two that were formerly in the province of university
tutelage. Arguments are now offered pro and con as to
which institution shall train the junior high school teachers.
The university has assumed that it is its work because the
junior high is a secondary school in which the high school
branches are taught, and because it has 'the machinery for
instructing ninth and tenth grade teachers which may now
be extended to seventh and eighth grade teachers without
additional effort or equipment, and because the teacher can
secure in the university without changing schools all the
advanced extensions of the cultural branches he will have
to teach. It is argued that the normal schools have become
purely professional institutions, and that a person planning
to teach in junior high school would have to take his higher
academic training in a college or university and then trans-
fer to a normal school for his professional training.
The normal schools, on the other hand, lay the emphasis
on the kind of teacher to be produced. They say that the
university training tends to make the teacher interested
principally in the subject to be taught and not the child,
while the normal school studies the child and concentrates
upon teaching the child. They argue that they will not need
to give anything but professional training, for the teacher-
students will come to them with sufficient academic educa-
tion secured in the junior colleges of the cities and lar;,v
towns The normal school will then maintain a course for
graduates of the twelfth grade who wish to teach in the
elementary schools and a course for graduates of the four-
teenth grade who wish to teach in junior high school. In
I2O THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
the latter courses the emphasis would be placed upon study
of the adolescent child.
The university asserts that the normal school has become
an institution for women only and cites such cases as the
San Francisco Normal School with only a dozen men in a
school of a thousand women. Such a school could not hope
to attract men in adequate numbers for the needs of the
many junior high schools. The university is already pre-
dominantly a men's school and the proportion of men over
women is increasing. ;A man wanting to become a teacher
would be proud to attend university, glad to have the chance
to mingle with other men preparing for other professions.
The normal, school replies that the pendulum is beginning
to swing back, that a reaction has already set in. Once the
normal schools had a goodly number of men students, lost
them through the university's assumption of the training of
high school teachers, and is now beginning to get them back
by establishing classes and equipment for the training of
teachers of so-called special subjects — manual training,
printing, business and clerical work, vocational courses lead-
ing to the trades. The training of junior high school teach-
ers will fall in line with this movement.
The question has not been settled. Its solution will large-
ly lie with the superintendents of our cities and towns and
will depend upon the kind of teachers they want for their
junior high schools.
5 . A teachers' college for junior high school teachers.
Another attempt to solve the problem presented in section 4,
is the establishment of a college designed especially for the
training of teachers of both elementary and high schools.
Such an institution is Colorado Teachers College at Greeley,
which prepares its graduates to teach in both classes of
schools. It is a professional school — a normal school, in
PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 121
fact — but maintains two distinct courses, one for the elemen-
tary school teacher, the other for the high school teacher.
Its success has been tremendous. Peabody College for
Teachers is another such institution. In a state that already
maintains several normal schools, one could be singled out
to become a college for junior high school teachers. Or,
the agricultural college could add the new courses 'necessary
for training teachers, this especially in a state whose single
large industry is farming.
There seem to be two distinct movements connected with
the university development — one toward centralizing all
state-supported professional schools in ;one university, the
other toward grouping the schools in two or three centers.
In a small compactly settled state, the former tendency seems
to be the stronger ; but, in the larger states where there are
two or three quite distinct centers of population, the latter
tendency seems to prevail. Massachusetts would be an
example of the first, where the tendency is to group the pro-
fessional schools about Harvard ; Washington is an example
of the latter where the two centers of population, Seattle
and Spokane, separated by a high range of mountains and
by many miles of space, tend to create two professional
school centers. Seattle is the seat of the university, where
most of the professional schools are located and where a
school of forestry and a school for high school teachers are
sure to become powerful. Spokane, on the other hand, has
a right to be the center for agricultural education, for the
training of elementary teachers, and should expect to be-
come the seat of an institution for training junior high
school teachers. California and Texas are states that may
be expected to exhibit the two-centers idea. In California
San Francisco Bay is the seat of the powerful university and
of two large normal schools. Los Angeles, with its million
122 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL,
people, can expect to group about its normal school other
state colleges. Here should be located its teachers' college
to supply the needs of the junior high schools of the state.
Such a state teachers' college might offer courses that
would be extensions of the courses offered in junior high
school. In all probability, however, the local junior colleges
will be ample to provide sufficient instruction along this line.
A teacher who has four years of academic work beyond what
he is to teach will have sufficient subject-matter knowledge.
What he will then need is a wide knowledge of methods of
teaching those subjects, a large professional interest, and
practice in teaching under the careful advice and suggestion
of a master teacher. The, college instructors should be men
and women with wide experience in teaching and unusually
versatile. They should be capable of meeting any emer-
gency that might arise in an ordinary class-room ; they
should inspire their pupil-teachers with the greatest desire
to teach ; they should put their students into possession of
numberless plans and ideas connected with the teaching of
the subjects to be taught; but above all they should lead
those student-teachers to understand adolescent boys and
girls, and how to treat the various problems likely to arise.
The physiology and psychology of the adolescent should be
thoroughly understood by teachers graduating from such
an institution.
Such a teachers' college should be so located that a study
of boys and girls, practice teaching in junior high schools,
and an intimate acquaintance with the chief vocations of
the state may be possible to the student-teachers. A large
city surrounded by farm lands would be ideal in a state
like Iowa. A large city accessible to mines and factories
would be ideal for Pennsylvania. It is deplorable that so
many state schools have been distributed as political sop to
PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS I2J
keep alive communities that would otherwise languish and
die. Such a location is decidedly bad for a normal school.
We want for our children teachers who are alive and
progressive, teachers who have seen the busy world, teach-
ers who are urbane not rustic, teachers who know more than
our children and who live in the twentieth century. For
our own rural and village schools we want teachers who
know farm activities ; for manufacturing cities we want
teachers who can explain things to the children in the terms
used in the industries ; for mining camp towns we want
teachers who understand the hearts that beat under the
rough exterior of miners. Finally, the vocational life of a
community re-acts upon the schools, especially its secondary
schools, and vocational or pre-vocational courses must book
large in determining the tone of the junior high school.
6. An organization of junior high school teachers.
Nothing will contribute so much to the high character of
the junior high school teaching body as an institute devoted
to their interests. A convention of all such teachers within
a large city or within a county embracing several communi-
ties should be held three or four times a year, perhaps every
month. At this institute well prepared programs should be
provided in which wide discussion may be given to their
problems. There are so many questions unsettled as yet that
such a convention could scarcely fail to find a plethora of
interesting and valuable subjects. Organization, purpose,
courses of study, methods of teaching, grades and promo-
tion, textbooks, relationship to the lower and higher schools,
student-government, student activities, records and files,
finance, part-time pupils, supervised study, length of periods,
length of school year, frequency of promotion, making the
transition from the grades easy and pleasant — these and a
J24 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
hundred other subjects might well be discussed to the great
profit of all teachers concerned.
During the year and as often as possible, conferences
should be held among the principals , of junior high schools,
or among the teachers of a certain subject, or among teach-
ers of the new pupils, or among teachers of special pupils.
These smaller committees concentrating upon limited sub-
jects of interest will be able to work out very idefinite plans.
A committee of five or ten members, each member represent-
ing a distinct community or section or school, will find itself
suited to doing definite things, settling definite questions. In
this way there will come to be a standard tending to uniform-
ity among the schools. The distinct problems of each
school may be relied upon to offer opportunity for sufficient
originality and initiative.
Teachers' organizations are subject to some dangers,
temptations that, if yielded to, may discredit them before
the world. One of these temptations is to use their strength
for selfish purposes. It may be to raise salaries, secure
shorter hours of work, exclude outsiders from positions,
restrict a line of work to one sex, to unmarried persons, or
to graduates of some one institution. Nothing injures the
profession more than selfish aims of teachers' clubs. Some-
times these clubs are secret in their meetings and in their
operations. A suspected organization of graduates of a
certain state university to secure all the best positions in the
Philippine service resulted in a deterioration of the esprit
de corps of the excellent body of Americans teaching in the
Islands. Nothing so discourages a worker as the feeling
that promotion will be determined not by merit but by mem-
bership in some organization organized to promote the selfish
interests of its members.
PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 125
Junior high school teachers should be represented in state
and national educational associations ; and a promiment place
in the, programs of the annual meetings should be secured.
This new institution must become national ; it meets a uni-
versal need, but cannot render its best service unless the
widely scattered schools come together in a single purpose.
7. Literature on the junior high school. The output
of literature on the six-six plan is already considerable, but
chiefly in the form of contributions to educational maga-
zines. One has to subscribe ,for a large number of such
publications in order to get such information as has been
published. Some school book publishing house would do
great service to the profession if all these articles could be
collected and printed in' book form, filling probably two or
three volumes. Permission to reprint this material could,
very likely, be easily obtained from the authors and pub-
lishers. In this way every school could possess a source
book on the junior high school idea and plan that would be
of great value to teachers.
But there is -need for much more material on the subject.
There is need for concise descriptions of the actual exper-
iences of school superintendents in getting the plan adopted
by the board and approved by the people. Such a mono-
graph as Superintendent Bunker's Reorganisation of Sec-
ondary Education is of the very greatest value, and espe-
cially the chapters that tell of his actual experiences in
Berkeley in working out his curricula and in .'making a go
of the plan. A volume devoted to Superintendent Francis'
experiences in Los Angeles, another to Superintendent
Chadsey's experience in Detroit, and still another to Super-
intendent Horn's work in Houston would prove of large
value. Such an enterprise would be welcomed by thousands
of teachers, and school administrators. Books of this kind
126 TH£ JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
should be minute and personal, describing actual conditions
that prevailed, and giving the success and difficulties in the
inauguration of the scheme step by step.
Then we need books or exhaustive articles written by
principals of junior high schools the country over on the
detailed work of their offices, of the establishment and build-
ing up of their schools, of the kind of teachers they find best
suited to the teaching of adolescents, of the attitude of the
pupils themselves toward the school and toward the new
plan, of the reaction on the community. We need pages and
pages of statistics that are unflinchingly accurate and that
really tell us something about the number of young people
saved to the higher schools, the reduction of retardation, the
raising or lowering of grades, the effect of the various new
studies upon the pupils, the logical place of certain studies
in the curricula, the length of the school day, the success of
supervised study, the hundred other questions that are upper-
most in our minds. We want these statistics in detail first ;
then we want the superintendent and principals to draw in-
ferences from those statistics. We want to know their inter-
pretation of why the figures are so and so. We want the
local coloring, even the personal equation which is always
present in every group of statistics, and is of immeasurable
value. We are not so much interested in proving our point
in all this, as in ascertaining the truth. Lincoln's attitude
should be ours. We are not concerned so much as to
whether God is on our side as we are to know whether in
this matter we are on God's side.'
Finally, we want to hear from the teachers on the many
questions that they alone can answer. What do they think
about the textbooks ? What are their experiences in adapt-
ing the high school subjects to early adolescents? What is
the re-action upon them of the longer school day, of the
PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS 127
all-year school term? What difficulties do they encounter
in getting at various pupils? With what classes do they
like best to work? In their actual experiences do they find
some children "born short?" What methods and plans do
they use in teaching this subject or that? — in teaching chil-
dren how to study? — in directing religious education? — in
helping adolescents to acquire proper moral standards?
What is the effect of teaching in junior high school upon
men and women? Does it keep them sweet and human or
tend to make them other-worldly? What is its effect upon
the marriageability of women? — men? Is this last question
of any value to the race ? — to society ? — to the success of the
junior high school plan? — to the pupils that come under the
influence of such teachers ?
It may be seen that we are only at the beginning of a
period of flood — a deluge of books, pamphlets and maga-
zine articles dealing with the problems of the junior high
school. It will be well for the cause if the writers of these
publications have originality and some literary ability. It
is so much easier to get a pamphlet read if it be made easy
reading. Nevertheless, a lack of literary grace should not
deter any teacher from setting her experiences and best
thoughts down in writing. Not all of the half-million teach-
ers in America will read these writings. No one has time
to read all the educational publications. Nevertheless there
is a growing tendency for teachers to read professional
books and magazines more widely. Some school superin-
tendents require a certain amount of educational reading
each year, say one book on general professional subjects, one
book on the special field in which the teacher is working, and
twenty-five magazine articles or pamphlets dealing with
child-study or methods of teaching. Such a requirement is
128 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOI,
not burdensome, and in many cases is far below what the
teacher voluntarily does.
Just one more word along this line — that may be relevant
or irrelevant. Public school administrators — the men that
are actually doing things — are letting college professors get
ahead of them in the matter of writing books. It is high
time we were hearing from the men and women in the
field! Of course we are grateful to the college professors
for publishing their theories and their investigations. We
would not have them stop. They should even do more pub-
lishing. But so also should superintendents, principals and
teachers. What a travesty on life to find in Who's Who the
name of a mediocre professor in a small western university,
and not the mention of the name of a certain school superin-
tendent of a city of half a million people — a man who has
effected a revolution in education ! Again, casually looking
over a list of the hundred contributors to a certain one of
the five volumes of the best encyclopedia of education
printed in America, we find not a single public school super-
intendent or principal ! Imagine an encyclopedia of medi-
cine written by a hundred men with not one of them
a practising physician or surgeon !
8. Heads of departments. The matter of creating
heads of departments in high schools has not met with uni-
versal approval. In large schools where a department might
have eight or ten teachers, the advantages of having a head
teacher are obvious. There are also some arguments against
the plan — it removes the principal too far from the teacher ;
it converts the principal into a mere business manager; it
departmentalizes rather than humanizes the teaching; it
robs the teacher of his individual responsibility in matters of
selecting textbooks and planning his work. In high schools
with fewer than thirty teachers in all, the plan has even less
PRINCIPAL AND TEACHERS I2Q
to commend it. If a head has only one or two assistants,
there is little excuse for his existence. In such a school the
principal may well attend to the actual supervising of teach-
ing. A moderate-salaried clerk will relieve him of the cleri-
cal work of his office. In some high schools of fewer than
thirty teachers, there are often heads of departments with
no assistant teachers. In these smaller schools the practice
of having heads often becomes a mere excuse for paying
one teacher more than another, or of rewarding a merito-
rious teacher by giving him a high-sounding title. If this is
all there is to it, the end may be accomplished in a more
creditable way.
Shall there, then, be heads of departments in the junior
high school? If such a school had two thousand pupils and
a hundred teachers, there might be some reason for it. But
even then the danger of making the instructors teachers of
subjects rather than of children would be a strong argument
against it. As we are committed to the advocacy of the
small junior high school with a faculty not to exceed thirty
or forty teachers, we cannot regard the practice of creating
head teachers in such schools as anything but pernicious,
with no good effects and many bad ones.
It has been suggested by an able thinker and a capable
administrator that the head of a department in the senior
high school extend his authority over the teachers of those
subjects in the junior school. With great deference
to the opinions of this administrator, we cannot concur in
this advice. The junior high school must be independent,
not dominated by the school above it. Moreover the tend-
ency in the senior high school is toward strict depart-
mentalization, toward making the subject-matter the im-
portant thing. Any policy that would tend to give the lower
school such a tendency would be harmful. Finally, the
130 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
teacher in the lower school will teach in two or more fields.
A teacher would probably teach several classes of English
and several of history. If subject to a head in the higher
school, he would have a divided allegiance that would not be
for the happiest results. Such a plan would defeat the policy
of closely correlating the subjects in the junior high school.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TEACHING IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
1 . Aims and purposes. In a most instructive book on
methods of teaching in high school, Professor Parker, of
The University of Chicago, gives as the ultimate aims of
teaching in secondary schools the endowing of students with
social efficiency, good will, and capacity for innocent enjoy-
ment. Social efficiency embraces economic, domestic, and
civic efficiency. Putting it in another way, the aims of sec-
ondary education are efficiency, morality, and culture.
As the proximate or immediate aims of teaching in the
junior high school, we shall give the following: (a) The
acquisition of habits of industry; (b) the development of
sense perception; (c) acquisition of motor skill; (d) health
and physical development; (e) acquisition of valuable in-
formation ; ( f ) development of the faculties of reasoning,
retentiveness, alertness, and quickness; (g) acquisition of
skill in expression; (h) the development of a liking for
clean, wholesome pleasures; (i) and the endowment of boys
and girls with a deep sense of the purposefulness of their
lives. Some of these purposes of educating the young are
best taught through certain subjects ; others, through other
subjects. Each teacher will ponder over this matter thor-
oughly. If he finds (that the subject which he is assigned
to teach lacks in the qualities to accomplish the desired aims,
or if he finds that his subject is anti-educational in its
influence upon pupils, he should in all conscience refuse to
teach it. Surely no superintendent would compel a teacher
to teach a subject contrary to the conscience of the teacher.
Before proceeding to a further discussion of methods of
teaching the various subjects so as to accomplish the results
132 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
given above, some attention must be given to the mechanics
of teaching, which will be treated under the headings of the
Teacher, the Class-room, Textbooks, Libraries and Labora-
tories.
2. The teacher. The teacher must be introspective.
Before beginning to teach he should get acquainted with
himself, make an inventory of himself. He might address a
questionnaire to himself, the questions running somewhat
as follows :
Am I going to teach for the money there is in it?
Do I like adolescent boys and girls?
I>o I understand adolescents? (If so, make a brief in-
ventory of the principal physical and mental characteristics
.-of (a) the adolescent boy, (b) the adolescent girl.) Do
1 Teally love to teach children? — or is it the subject, thait I
love to teach ?
Do I simply know the subject-matter of the subject? — or
do I appreciate the large, vital purpose of that subject?
Have I thought out what things touching the subject
/should be taught, and what omitted ?
AWhat should be the effect of my teaching of this subject
•upon the pupils of my class ?
If all teachers teach this subject as I teach it, what will
be the effect upon society and upon the human race?
Are my physical, mental, and moral qualities such as
will set a good example for my pupils?
Am I familiar with a large enough number of methods of
teaching that I can vary my teaching when I see that I am
not getting right results?
The teacher should be able to answer all of these questions
: satisfactorily.
Then the teacher should have an eye to external appear-
ances. He is to be before his class every day for several
TEACHING IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 133
months ; his appearance and actions will have a great effect
upon his pupils. Dr. Hall cites a case of several brothers
living in an interior town wanting to go <to sea, one after
the other. This desire was considered unaccountable until
it was learned that a picture of a fine ship at sea had hung
in the bedroom of these boys during their years of ado-
lescence. How much more will a human, living teacher
effect those who look at him day after day?
The teacher in the junior high school might well take
an inventory of his appearance by asking : Am I in as good
health as I can be ? Am I vigorous, active, alert ? Do I keep
my body well-groomed? Do I dress befittingly? Do my
movements betray purposef ulness ? How do I act when I
am unconscious of what I am doing? Do I have any odd or
disgusting habits that bob up when I am off guard? Am I
stiff and formal, or, am I informal and familiar? Do I
act as if I am lazy, careless, slovenly, hot-tempered, sarcas-
tic, conceited, humble, over-bearing? Do I act as if I would
countenance cheating, flirting, inattention, slothfulness,
familiarity? Am I noisy and blustering? Is my voice loud,
harsh, whining, or lacking in strength? Do I hear and see
perfectly? Do I show weariness readily? Do I display
anger and irritability quickly? Does my lip curl in scorn
without due provocation? Do my appearance and actions
indicate that I have been beaten in the race of life ? — or that
I regard teaching as the most desirable of careers?
While the class will size up the 'teacher, the teacher must
not neglect to size up his class, to know his pupils. Some
teachers seem never to know but a few of their pupils. Even
after several months' teaching them, they do not recognize
the pupils outside of the class. It is highly desirable that
a teacher should know each pupil, know the pupil's other
activities, home influences, and standing with his associates.
134 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
For purposes of this kind, a teacher could well afford to
keep a private card system on which to note his impressions
of the various pupils. In this way the teacher will come to
focus his attention upon the children more than upon the
subject he is teaching. By noting the impressions, gradually
the card will be filled out with valuable data. Teachers may
then consult among themselves about the pupil, and com-
pare each other's experiences. A principal could readily
check up the teacher's attitude toward teaching by looking
over the notes on the cards. Warning, however, must be
offered against becoming too minute in analyzing the pupils.
There is danger that the teacher will come to regard them as
so many pawns upon the chessboard, will come to regard
them as somtething apart from himself, detached, inhuman.
The teacher must not become merely an experimenting
psychologist; he must be warm in his sympathetic relation
to his pupils.
The teacher must prepare lesson-plans. No matter how
well a teacher may know his subject, he cannot afford to go
before his class without knowing just what he wants to bring
out in teaching the lesson before him. Each lesson must be
a unit, must aim to accomplish some definite object. The
lessons day by day must proceed toward some realizable
goal ; and both pupils and teachers must feel that they are
making progress. In order that the pupils may realize that
each day's work is a step toward the accomplishment of the
whole task, the teacher must have the whole course mapped
out. This course-mapping should be done before the term
begins so that no time will be lost. If the teacher has never
before taught the course, he should make a general plan at
the beginning of the term, a more definite plan at the be-
ginning of each week, and an exact outline each day. If
this arrangement is carried out, it will not take more than
TEACHING IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 135
fifteen or twenty minutes each day for the teacher to lay
•out the lesson. He will then have an abundance of time
•to assemble all the tools necessary for the successful conduct
.of the recitation. Without such systematic preparation, the
teacher's work is apt to be unsatisfactory.
3. The class-room. The following matters connected
with the class-room need careful attention: Size, ventila-
tion, heating, light, seating, conveniences, inlet and exit,
acoustics.
A small room where the pupils are cramped for space is
an abomination ; a large room with great distances and un-
used spaces is barn-like. Assuming the number in the class
to be thirty, a room devoted to class recitation should have
from 9,000 to 12,000 cubic feet of space. An extremely
high ceiling is not desirable; fifteen feet is high enough.
Such a room would have from 600 to 800 square feet of
floor space. This means a room approximately 24x25 or
25x32. These dimensions may be regarded as the mini-
mum and maximum. A shop-room for manual training of
this size would accommodate about sixteen pupils at benches.
A gymnasium for forty pupils should have floor space of at
least 2,160 square feet. A cooking room for twenty girls
should contain at least 800 square feet of floor. A sewing
room should be the size of a manual training shop. A class-
room suited for laboratory demonstration or experiment
should contain approximately 200 square feet of floor space
more than the specification for classes.
Ventilation may be by forced circulation of air, driven by
fans through air shafts. In such a case the in-take should
be located where the air from outdoors may be secured in
purity; should then be passed through a spray wash;
heated ; and driven by fans to the various rooms in sufficient
volume completely to change the air of a room every fifteen
136 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
minutes. The air currents should be tested and measured
frequently so as to be sure that the ventilation is perfect.
The bad air is forced by the pressure of in-coming air to
pass out through a shaft rising to the top of the building.
To facilitate this rise, the bad-air shaft may run up through
a larger shaft in whose outer chamber passes the hot smoke
or fumes from the furnace.
The heating of a room 'may most properly be done by the
system described in the preceding paragraph. The washed
air is heated by passing over a furnace-heated surface, or
in a chamber-oven. The heating of air has a tendency to
dry it ; but the air is saturated with moisture when it passes
through the spray wash. There are many other heating de-
vices— steam, hot-water, gas-radiators, and electric radia-
tors. They are said to be very satisfactory.
The lighting of a room is from windows, from sky-lights,
fromi electric lamps, or from concealed lights. While the
last is best for the eyes, it is probably impracticable for
school lighting. Sky-lights should be used as the last resort.
The lighting from windows must be carefully controlled.
The windows should be placed all on one side of the room
and at the pupils' left. It is better if no window is farther
forward than the front pupils' desks. Cross-lights are to be
absolutely prevented, also lights that the children have to
face. Glaring lights are bad not only for the eyes of chil-
dren but also for the health of all white people. Dark green,
brown, or yellow shades are best, depending somewhat upon
the amount of light needed.
The seating is of considerable importance. If stationary
desks are used, they should be adjustable so that each pupil
may have his desk and seat at the proper height for him.
The seats should be arranged in rows the long-way of the
room. There should be considerable distance — at least seven
TEACHING IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 137
feet — between the front desks and the front wall of the
room. Better still, however, are the movable desks, that
may be grouped in any way to serve the purpose of the reci-
tation. They may be grouped close about the teacher's desk,
or turned so as to give opportunity to see a demonstration
at any part of the blackboard. They may even be removed
from the room, giving space for physical culture, play,
laboratory exercises, or other work.
The acoustic properties of a class-room must be carefully
adjusted. Nothing is so conducive to disorder, misunder-
standing, and downright distress as poor acoustics. It should
be that every child in the class-room may hear every word
of the other pupils and of the teacher without the least
straining. Of course, nothing can take the place of alert
attention and interest. But a pupil cannot be expected to
give close attention when he cannot hear well what is said.
If the acoustics are now poor in the class-room, padding
the walls or stretching wires from front to back of room
will help matters. The teacher will do well to study his
class-room, test the acoustics, and, if anything wrong is
found, study the principles of the subject and apply the
remedies.
Every recitation room, gymnasium, and study-room
should be provided with conveniences suitable to the sub-
jects taught. Shelves for books, cases for supplies, black-
boards, globes, electric lights, wall-maps, suitable floors,
closets, dictionary racks, teacher's desk, filing cases for
papers, cards. If the room is not already provided with these
and other necessary conveniences, the teacher should see to
it that they are secured or make them himself. The teacher
as well as the school will be judged by the business-like
arrangement of the class-room. The very appearance of the
138 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
room will be an important factor in the pupil's attitude
toward the teacher and his own work.
Finally, a word should be said about the entrance-way into
the room and the means of egress from the room. Each
class-room should have two doors for convenience as well
as for safety. Pupils should enter by one door and leave
the room by the other. That door is best, however, that
swings both in and out. The doors should have automatic,
noiseless closing devices. The doors should be kept locked
when the teacher is put of the room ; but a slit in the door
for depositing papers, like a letter box, should be provided.
The glass in doors should not be so transparent that per-
sons walking in the halls will attract the attention of the
class in the room.
It would be well if every teacher could be provided with
a private study or consultation room adjoining his class-
room. Such an office would give him privacy, and would
permit pupils to consult with a teacher without attracting
attention or disturbing others. Such an office would per-
mit the teacher to work in the building after recitation hours
when the janitor is sweeping his class-room.
4. High school textbooks not adapted to junior high
school. Although a subject formerly pursued in the ninth
grade may be more profitably placed in the seventh grade,
it is true that the same textbook cannot to best advantage
be used. As a matter of fact there is a maturing of mind
and body that goes on with increase of age irrespective of
the training they get in or out of school. This fact is all
important when we come to consider the books through
which we expect to teach the various subjects The last few
years have seen an appreciation of this fact in the large out-
put of books adapted to small children from adult originals.
Take the fairly complete story of Robinson Crusoe now
TEACHING IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 139
written for boys of eight years of age. The original is hard
reading for a mature mind ; it was impossible to the young-
ster who would appreciate it most. Dozens of stories have
recently been rendered into child language to the enrich-
ment of our children's minds, to their enjoyment, and, inci-
dentally, to the financial profit of the editor that did the
rewriting.
On the other hand there are many textbooks and classics
used in high school that are too simple to exercise properly
the mental powers of such mature boys and girls. We all
know of several that have actually been finding their way
down the grades toward the place where they belong. We
have in mind such classics as Gulliver's Travels, Snow
Bound, and Last of the Mohicans. These were formerly
taught in the tenth grade, and then found their way into
the ninth. They were gradually dropped from first one,
then another high school curriculum, only to bob up in the
eighth grade. They are now beginning to find a place in the
first year of the intermediate school. WTe know of one
beginner's Latin text, one English composition book, one
textbooks in economics, and one in general science that were
written for certain grades in the high school. They have
all been dropped down a grade or two, or have been dis-
carded as too immature. In history this is almost univer-
sally true of high school textbooks on American history.
Sometimes authors have over-shot the mark. This has
been especially true of college professors who have written
textbooks for high school. One could almost wish that
there could be a law compelling college professors to teach
their books to the classes for which the books are intended
by their authors. Rare is that university teacher, who,
never having taught ninth grade pupils, can yet write a
I4O THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
textbook fitted to the comprehension of young people of
that age.
It is not sufficient that the language of textbooks now in
use be simplified for the junior high schools. Simple lan-
guage, simple style, yes — but these new books must be writ-
ten from a different angle with an entirely different concep-
tion. Again we must apply the standard of educating the
boy and the girl, not diffusing knowledge through the world.
Let us illustrate :
We have before us a new textbook on ancient history —
one of the least offensive, so we were told by the agent. In
the few pages devoted to Greece, we find the names of
ninety-one men and women. The time to be devoted to
4he subject of Greece is intended to be about thirty lessons.
On an average three new persons appear each day in the
study as it proceeds. Here are a few of the persons whose
names are mentioned and whose deeds are described : Cimon,
Alcibiades, Gylippus, Pelopidas, Epaminondes, Aratus,
Zeuxis, Parrhasius, Thales, Zeno, and Hippocrates. There
are many others whose names might profitably be omitted.
Many school boys for the excitement of the game would try
to retain every name and every deed. Their memories
might be stored with more profitable information. These
are husks that inflate, but do not develop, the mental powers
of youth.
Not only must the child to be trained occupy the center of
the stage, but it is the early adolescent child who is begin-
ning to develop an ego, who is beginning to feel that he has
a big purpose in living, who is restless to try his strength
on something worth while, whose emotions are sensitive to
the appeal of heroic lives 'that have affected the progress of
the world. The right kind of history and literature would
book big in the life of the adolescent boy or girl. But facts
TEACHING IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 141
are not the things wanted. They want episodes with strong
coloring and of great consequence. There must be a hero
to give reality to it all.
Then there are textbooks on science, pure and applied.
At this age it had better be reversed. There are a thousand
things that are beginning to have a new interest to the
pupils. Curiosity is strong. Let science reveal to them the
relationship of man to nature and to the race ; the relation-
ship of nature to man and to the race. The so-called prac-
tical things will appeal strongly to the early adolescent. In
the abstract he cares little for the winds and wind currents.
But wind currents that affect the crops, that affect the con-
struction of buildings, that affect the location of sea-ports,
irrigation dams, and sailing-vessel routes — such wind cur-
rents will make a strong appeal to him. Let him proceed
from the concrete to the abstract, from the effect to the
cause. This is the point of view text writers must have in
writing textbooks.
Algebra and geometry must be justified to the adolescent
boy or girl from another standpoint. In the first place these
courses use symbolic language, and adolescents are fond of
secret signs. In the second place, these branches of mathe-
matics give promise of new, direct and easier ways of solv-
ing problems. This side of the subject must be made much
of. They are practical subjects for the mechanic, draughts-
man, engineer, architect, artist, chemist, electrician. Text-
books must not fail to appeal to the adolescent's growing
demand for real life ; and yet they can and should make an
appeal to the game and puzzle interests of youth.
5. Certain qualities to be developed in pupils.
A. Acquisition of habits of industry. This purpose of
teaching is realizable through every subject, but its success
depends very much upon the teacher. A fine habit to acquire
I42 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
is one of working with full steam ahead when working, and
playing hard when playing. The teacher will do well to ob-
serve the following points in teaching pupils to be indus-
trious : The teacher must be a fine example of industrious-
ness himself; there must be a regular, fixed time for the
pupil's reciting and studying; a definite assignment of a
lesson must be made so that the pupil will waste no time in
getting to work ; a limited time should be allowed the pupil
for doing a task ; the pupil should be taught how to study
and work so as to save time ; the pupil should be compelled
to work when he does not feel like it, for the feeling of
laziness will soon pass away and be forgotten, but habit of
resisting one's lazy impulses will remain as an abiding bless-
ing; pupils should be required to carry through a program
once undertaken. If a pupil be permitted to follow his own
whim, work when the spirit moves him, procrastinate, dissi-
pate his energies, mope over his tasks, he will soon be
"beyond easy redemption.
B. The development of sense perception is best secured
through music, art, manual training, sewing, craft-work,
typing, and mensuration. In these subjects great stress
should be placed upon keenness, accuracy, and swiftness of
feeling, hearing, seeing, measuring. The teacher will begin
with crude material and proceed in all three of the above
lines toward greater and greater proficiency. Daily exer-
cises must be provided and practice constantly insisted upon.
The teacher must have as an ideal a degree of perfection
far beyond what has been attained up to the present time.
C. Acquisition of motor skill is secured best through
physical culture, manual training, printing, penmanship,
shorthand, instrumental music, mechanical drawing, sewing,
typing, and craft-work. The aim here is to secure accuracy,
swiftness, delicacy, dexterity, power, and endurance. Here,
TEACHING IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 143
likewise, it may be said that the past records must be broken
and the unbelievable attained. The rank and file must be
raised beyond mediocrity, must in fact press close upon the
heels of the specially gifted.
D. Health and development belong principally in the field
of physical culture, athletics, physiology, domestic science,
domestic art, sanitation, vocal music, folk-dancing, public
speaking, theatricals, military training, dietetics. Corrective
measures should be prominent in physical culture, as well as
further development of the already healthy body. Athletics
promote health, strength, and physical perfection, as well as
physical courage and control. Domestic science works out
a healthful diet and reveals the evils of a wrong diet.
Domestic art gives the girls an ability to dress themselves
becomingly without resorting to such evil practices as tight
lacing and pinching of the feet with too small shoes. Vocal
music develops the lungs and throat, gives correct breathing.
Public speaking and theatricals promote correct posture and
grace.
E. Acquisition of information of a usable sort comes
through a study of vocational, civic and cultural branches of
learning. In the past culture was stressed ; now civic infor-
mation is coming into its own. Vocational knowledge has
broadened from the professions to include practically every
honorable occupation. The information of every subject
should be worth while if it is to be continued in the curri-
culum); but for each pupil there is a field of knowledge most
worth while. The well-educated student, we say, should
have a knowledge of the history of the world in general and
of our own country in particular so that he will understand
the present and profit by the experiences of those who have
gone before. He should understand the institutions under
which he lives and must work out his place in the universe.
144 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
He must know the necessary facts and principles connected
with his probable future vocation, and should know consid-
erable of the contributory facts as well as related vocations.
He should understand the general principles of the scientific
and material world about him — physical, chemical, biologi-
cal, mechanical. He ought to learn to appreciate the beauties
of nature and art — music, art, literature, drama, and to be
familiar with the great masterpieces.
F. In discussing the development of the faculties of
reasoning, retentiveness, alertness, and quickness of percep-
tion, we realize that we are on dangerous ground. We
shall, therefore, not enter into the controversy concerning
formal discipline, but shall assume that the question has not
yet been proven against the possibility of developing the
faculties of the mind. For the reasoning power, then, there
are no better subjects than algebra and geometry. We must
not rely upon these two subjects entirely, but should include
exposition and argument in composition, grammar, economic
problems, debate, and problems in science and mechanics.
For retentiveness, we may use all the subjects to advantage,
but in particular the memorizing of poetic and prose selec-
tions, the exact wording of geometric propositions, formu-
lae in mathematics, meaning of words in language, and the
converse — that is, the word for a certain meaning — spelling,
mathematical tables, symbols in chemistry, laws and rules
in all subjects. Drill in alertness should accomjpany all
branches, but 'must especially be developed by the mathe-
matics and language teachers. Quickness of perception is
closely related to alertness, and is the opposite of sluggish-
ness, dullness, sloth. Teachers must keep always in mind
the development of this faculty by practice and drill, never
by exhortation and nagging.
TEACHING IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 145
G. Skill in expression is especially within the field of
English and its related subjects, debate, oratory, explana-
tion of the solution of problems, economic and historical
discussion. Oral and written composition deal constantly
with this problem ; and, although the ability to think may be
placed first in the aims of a composition course, certainly
skill in expression is the other great aim. The importance
of this acquisition cannot be too much insisted upon. The
teacher must constantly keep it in mind. We do not mean
that he should interrupt the pupil's talk to make corrections,
for the teacher will use a more tactful device than that. The
pupil must be taught to turn his own mind in upon his own
language before he can acquire ability to express himself
well. He may be awkward at first, but speaking effectively
will soon become a habit and will not require close attention.
H. The development in the pupils of a liking for clean
wholesome pleasures is especially the duty of teachers in the
junior high schools. It is the age for forming tastes. Hence
culture subjects should book large at this time, providing
that we do not aim too high and thus miss the mark.
Through physical education may be developed the love for
physical sports and athletic games. In manual training
should be aroused a pleasure in making things with the
hands. In English, a love for reading good literature; in
art, for looking at paintings, statuary, architecture, scenery,,
landscape ; in music, for hearing music of the better class ;
in foreign languages, for reading and conversing in an alien
tongue ; in history, for following the great, stirring deeds
of the heroes of nations ; in science, for collecting specimens
and making experiments.
I. Purposefulness of life. The last aim of teaching to
be discussed is one that affects deeply the lives of all boys
and girls of the adolescent period. Why do I live? For
146 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
my own pleasure or for a greater purpose? Are the two
ideas antagonistic or complementary? What can I do now
to accomplish these purposes? How shall I prepare for
carrying out the great plan? What effect will my present
daily life have upon it? What effect will industry, self-
denial, good habits have upon it? What effect will over-
indulgence, bad habits, and vice have upon it? Is it a fact
that everything I do or think now has its effect which will
appear later? If so, does it not behoove me to consider well
what I do, not solely with the thought of its present effect
but also of its future effect ? Every thought and every deed
should be purposeful. The pupil should decide what effect
he wants to produce and then go about doing the things that
will bring that result about.
6. The method of the recitation period. We have
used the expression "recitation period" because it is a term
widely understood, and not because we believe that in any
sense it should be a recitation to the teacher, of facts learned
by the pupil in private study of an assigned lesson. On the
contrary, we regard the period as a space of time allotted
in the program to the concentrated study of some particular
subject. The teacher is to teach through the medium of a
certain subject, habits of industry, motor skill, health and
development, usable information, reasoning, retentiveness,
alertness, quickness of perception, skill in expression, a lik-
ing for wholesome pleasures, or life purposes, or a combina-
tion of several or all of these things. We shall draw no
clearly defined line between the study part of the period and
the so-called recitation part. In fact, the whole period must
be regarded as a study period in which the pupil is making
progress every minute toward the working out of some
problem.
TEACHING IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 147
It may be accepted as a truism that a pupil will attack with
greatest avidity, and will get most out of, that in which he
has the largest interest. It follows that the first business
of the teacher is to arouse the pupil's interest in the problem
or subject. Attention both precedes and follows interest;
but the first attention may in some cases be compelled atten-
tion, although in many instances it is aroused attention. A
globe on the teacher's desk, apparatus on a demonstration
table, a few notes sung by the teacher, the explosion of a
chemical gas — all serve to attract the attention and arouse
the interest of the class. The period's problem is then pre-
sented by the teacher or thought out by the pupils. There
is the excitement of a game as the problem gradually unfolds
itself to the pupil and he begins to see clearly what he has
to do. One of the necessities of careful preparation by the
teacher lies in the laying out of a definite problem for his
pupils. The solving of this problem is the work of the "reci-
tation period." There should be no more literal recitation
than is absolutely necessary — just enough for the teacher to
make sure that the pupils all do and understand the work.
Viewed in this sense the whole period may be one of
supervised study. Many of the pupils will do the work
without much direct supervision. Others will need the close
supervision of the teacher, who may need to watch the
pupil's solution of the problem step by step. Ten or fifteen
out of a group of twenty-five may need to have the teacher
accompany them paragraph by paragraph through a history
lesson, help them look up all the references, and see that they
get the real point out of each reference. The wise teacher
will avoid interfering with the pupil who works well by him-
self. Such pupils may work in the library or elsewhere dur-
ing part of the period, coming to the class-room for a sum-
ming up of their gleanings. This kind of school-work may
148 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
be regarded as self-propelled education and is highly desir-
able. The object of the supervised study should be to pro-
duce self-propelling students out of all the pupils. This
method does not imply that certain students shall go faster
than others ; it will, however, result in some students putting
far less time upon certain subjects than other students will
have to do.
This method of teaching is more analogous to the labora-
tory method than to the recitation. We are all familiar with
the laboratory method as applied to the sciences and with its
counterparts, the library method as applied to history, the
shop method as applied to manual arts, and the gymnasium
or playground method as applied to physical education
courses. Supervised study would not interfere with these
plans and methods: it would apply many of the principles
of the laboratory method to other subjects, such as English,
mathematics, the languages, and the vocations. Teachers
sometimes object to it as requiring more preparation and
planning on their part. This seems to us to be an argument
in its favor.
The introduction of supervised study will not eliminate
the review recitation altogether. It is highly desirable that
the class be got together two or three days each week for a
conversational review of the work covered. The question
and answer method may prevail at these meetings, but the
pupil should be encouraged to ask the teacher questions also.
Such questions mlay be jotted down and handed to the in-
structor before the review recitation begins. While con-
versational reviews are essential and experienced teachers
are expert in the management of them, the principal should
insist that they be not engaged in too frequently.
Finally, a modified lecture recitation should be used occa-
sionally in all subjects. It may be presumed that the teacher
TEACHING IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 149
has had wide experience and that it would be to the benefit
of his pupils if he would tell his pupils of those experiences.
This will be entertaining as well as instructive and will draw
teacher and pupils close to each other. Possibly the teacher
may have carried on careful investigations in college or out-
side, the data from which would be of considerable value to
his pupils. The best teacher will have done wide reading,
the results of which should be retold to those who study
under his tutelage. In many cases the teacher may secure
outsiders to come in and talk to his classes along certain
lines. Care must be exercised that the right persons are
chosen and that the matter is presented in a clear and inter-
esting way. This supplementary information drawn from
the teacher's experiences or from outsiders is well worth
while for the education of the young people. It correlates
school with life, and serves to stimulate and inspire boys
and girls at an age when they are in greatest need of stimu-
lation and inspiration.
CHAPTER NINE
ADMINISTRATION OF THE JUNIOR HIGH
SCHOOL
1. The faculty. We wish to discuss the subject of the
administration of the junior high school not so much from
the point of view of the city superintendent as of the prin-
cipal of the school and those who aid him. We may in this
chapter consider that we have a school of three hundred to
six or seven hundred pupils and from fourteen to twenty-
five teachers. With such a school and a faculty already
appointed and assigned to his building, the principal has
certain problems demanding solution.
It is not conceivable that he undertake all the details of
administration. He must delegate powers and duties to
teachers, janitors, and pupils ; and the most successful prin-
cipal is he who can delegate most functions while he main-
tains control and supervision over all. In delegating these
functions he must use great wisdom in selecting the persons
to do the work. They become his authorized agents ; if they
fail, he is, and should be, held responsible.
The largest working body — as agent of the principal —
is the faculty. This does not need any formal organization.
All the teachers of the school are per se memibers of the
faculty. The faculty holds meetings only upon the call of
the principal, either at regular intervals or when necessity
arises. The principal acts as chairman of the faculty meet-
ing. Where many questions are to be discussed, it is some-
times advisable to have a recording secretary, perhaps the
principal's stenographer. The principal delegates to the
faculty as many matters as he deems wise. If he feels that
the judgment of the faculty is good, is better than his own
ADMINISTRATION 151
acting alone, he will do well to ask the teachers to pass upon
many questions of importance. If the faculty lacks good
judgment, is prejudiced, or is divided, it were better for the
principal not to refer important matters to it. Through
these meetings the principal communicates to the faculty his
plans of organization, his ideas on educational policy, and
instructions that come from the superintendent. It is best
not to burden a faculty with too many questions for it must
be borne in mind that each teacher has his own teaching
work to do and plans to make.
Some principals find it worth while to divide the faculty
work among committees of the faculty. He appoints these
committees and outlines the work desired. The author,
when principal of a secondary school, appointed faculty com-
mittees on codification of rules and customs of the school,
on preparation of plans for student self-government, on cur-
rent educational progress, on discipline, etc. These com-
mittees made their reports and recommendations to the
principal, who adopted them, rejected them, or referred
them to the faculty as a whole. Valuable information is
gathered in this way, and unity of action is secured.
It is well to assign to the various teachers duty as regis-
tration officers, or as class advisers. The principal will soon
learn which of his teachers are adapted to this kind of work.
A registration teacher needs to be exact, methodical, firm,
a good judge of child nature, and active. A class adviser
must be in sympathy with young life, must appreciate its
pleasures and troubles, must be a good organizer, and must
have a winning personality. Such teachers are even closer
to the pupil than is the principal. For class advisers, the
principal should pick those teachers who are closest to him,
understand his ideals and policies, and are ardent advocates
of them.
152 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
The principal will find it convenient and effective to assign
to each teacher some collateral duty. It may be as coach
of boys' or girls' athletics, coach of debate, leader of orches-
tras or of bands, cross-country chaperon, auditor of stu-
dent-organization accounts, coach of the school plays, faculty
member of the staff of the school newspaper, etc. Teachers
should be chosen for their fitness for the work; but some-
times teachers should be appointed to certain tasks in order
to develop the teacher. One of the tasks laid upon the prin-
cipal is that he make excellent teachers out of those assigned
to his building. He must bear this in mind.
2. Supervision. In a previous chapter the author
attempted to make clear the undesirability of having heads
of departments in the junior high school, especially as the
ideal school is one requiring not more than twenty-five
teachers. Mention was also made of the danger of having
the senior high school heads supervise and control the work
of the lower high school. It follows that in small communi-
ties having not more than two or three such schools, the
superintendent should supervise directly the departmental
work of the junior high school or delegate part of such
duties to principals. In cities having more than three such
schools, there should be a supervisor of subjects or several
supervisors of subjects. These supervisors are to attend to
the matter to be taught, its kind, quality, and amount; the
providing of the proper supplies, equipment, and acces-
sories ; the best methods of teaching the subjects ; the mak-
ing of the curricula ; the proper articulation with the courses
of the grades below and above the junior high school. The
supervisors are to work in harmony with the principals of
the intermediate schools, are in fact advisory aides to the
principals, and should stand to the principals and teachers
in the same relation as heads of departments. The superin-
ADMINISTRATION 1 53
tendent when acting as supervisor has the same duties, but
he is also the administrator of all the schools and occupies a
dual headship. The supervisor does not take over the whole
authority of the superintendent: he merely acts for the
superintendent in the restricted field described above.
There are other officers in the city who exercise wider
authority than one school, but their functions are also limited
to one or two particular fields each. The director of the
bureau of vocational guidance within a restricted area of
activity is a supervisor. The vocational adviser exacts re-
ports from the teachers, plans vocational stimulation, brings
in outside speakers, arranges trips to industrial institutions,
and himself teaches a class in vocational information and
guidance. He makes himself useful to the principals of the
various secondary institutions by making out the curricula
for the pupils and by interviewing pupils who are desirous
of leaving school, in order to hold them in school for their
own good.
Then there is the bureau of compulsory attendance that
touches the life of each school, the pupils and the teachers.
This, too, occupies a restricted field and performs such work
as is delegated to it by the superintendent. Within this
bureau are the chief of the bureau, examining physicians,
nurses, attendance officers, parental-school teachers, home
teachers, interpreters. In a small city this work may all be
entrusted to one person. In any case it touches the junior
high school frequently, as it is during the age covered by
this school that the compulsory attendance law ceases to
operate. Again, it may be noted that the various activities
of this bureau are an aid to the principal of the junior high
school, and should be so regarded by him. The members of
this bureau should also endeavor to be of the greatest assist-
ance to the principals.
154 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
3. Organization of the schedule. In the making of a
schedule nowadays it must be accepted as a necessity in many
cases that pupils are not only to recite every lesson at school
•but also prepare every lesson at school. This is a feature
of the junior high school and raises innumerable problems.
Of course this does not mean that certain home reading of
good literature and of magazines shall not be required. But
the regular subjects occupy only the school day. This prob-
lem is rendered more difficult as physical education, athletics,
debating society work, chorus rehearsals, etc., are also to be
done at school. The upshot of the whole matter is that the
school day must be greatly lengthened to even longer hours
than existed before the enthusiasm for short and shorter
sessions broke out. Many progressive schools have taken
the lead and are now holding from 8.30 in the morning to 5
o'clock in the afternoon, with one hour for noon. Kconomy
in space and teachers has even made it necessary to have
some classes going on during the noon hour.
Assuming an enrollment of 400 pupils, and classes averag-
ing twenty-five pupils each, and each pupil carrying five
major subjects, we have a school with 80 recitations per day.
Such a school would probably have 16 teachers. One plan
would provide for eight periods of sixty-three minutes each
(the three minutes for passing, leaving sixty minutes in the
clear). The morning session would begin at 8.30, and the
periods end as follows: (i) at 9.33; (2) at 10.36; (3) at
11.39; (4) at 12.42; (5) at 1.45; (6) at 2.48; (7) at 3.51;
(8) at 4.54. Most of the students would eat lunch during
the fourth period; many would try to reserve the seventh
and eighth periods for athletics. A large number would
prefer to have the first period for study only. To the eighty
recitations mentioned above must be added eight study hall
periods, making a total of eighty-eight to be divided among
ADMINISTRATION 155
sixteen teachers, an average of fewer than six recitations
each. Now, if we assume that all sixteen teachers would
teach during the second, third, fifth and sixth periods, we
dispose of four times sixteen, or sixty-four, class recitations,
four of which would be study hall supervision. In this way,
only twenty-four recitations and study hall periods would 'be
left to be disposed of during the first, fourth, seventh, and
eighth periods. It may be readily seen that the schedule
could easily be arranged so as to have the first, fourth, sev-
enth, and eighth periods almost entirely for study, luncheon,
recreation and physical or manual culture, respectively.
Those who took their physical culture earlier in the day
would be assigned regular recitations during the late after-
noon periods.
This program provides for long periods and no recesses
as such. It does, however, assume that three minutes shall
be allowed for going from class to class and that this amount
of time is ample for providing an opportunity to visit the
toilet, get a drink, carry a message, etc. A sixty-minute
period permits of supervised study. Some schools use the
first twenty-five or thirty minutes of the period for recitation
and the remaining time for study under the general direc-
tion of the teacher. If some of the pupils have learned to
study economically and effectively before entering the junior
high school, they may be segregated during the last part of
the period, while the teacher devotes his time to teaching the
others to study.
4. Clerical work. There is an immense amount of
clerical work connected with the administration of a junior
high school. It is best to have a principal's clerk to do it,
but this is not always practicable. Some of it must be done
by the principal himself while much of it can be done by
delegating it to teachers or to pupils. The ringing of bell-
156 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
signals, answering the telephone, running errands can be
done by pupils where there is no other agency. Many
pupils like to do this kind of work and become very efficient.
It is not just to impose upon them; but the good training
gained offsets the loss of time where the latter is small.
In classes teachers must take the roll, and make a report
to the principal at noon, night, after each period, or at the
beginning of each period. The principal will find that his
control of the school is greatly facilitated by following up
the matters of attendance closely. It is well for him to de-
vote the whole first period of the day to getting reports of
absentees and telephoning to the homes where there is doubt
in his mind about the cause of absence. Sometimes it is safe
for the pupil of a class to make the report for the teacher
and hang the slip on a hook outside the class-room door.
The principal sends a pupil around to collect these reports,
assembles them and keeps the school record of attendance.
There is no excuse for careless records: they are the mark
of a poor principal.
Every principal should have a complete system! of files.
The card system is best. The card should show the pupil's
name, age, birthday, nativity, parents' names, address, tele-
phone number, schedule of studies, and remarks. Another
card may show his grades, his characteristics, his vocational
tendencies, and such other information as the principal may
need in promoting the best interests of the pupil and of the
school. Files should be kept under lock and key and in a
fireproof cabinet, for if they are worth keeping at all they
are worth preserving safe from curious outsiders. Here
again the principal is known by his works, the systematiza-
tion of his information, and his estimate of pupils.
If the principal does not have a stenographer, he should
himself learn to use a typewriter. He will do well to keep a
ADMINISTRATION 157
carbon copy of every letter he writes, every order or instruc-
tion he gives, every report he makes, as well as the original
of all communications he receives. These should be filed and
indexed so that he can readily get at what he wants. This
may cost him much work but it will be well worth while as
a labor saving device. Cross files are worth while as are
also indexes of information and data. After a card system
has once been worked out, it does not take long to make the
few entries necessary. A filing system that merely arranges
correspondence alphabetically by the surname of the cor-
respondent is not sufficient : there should be made an index
of the contents of the correspondence.
There are numerous reports constantly being called for
by the superintendent's office or by others. These, with the
regular reports of attendance, promotion cards, grade cards,
financial statements, form a large amount of the clerical
work. There are innumerable checks, room excuses, and
passes to classes to be filled out and filed. Then there is the
vast amount of supplies to be ordered from the central stock-
room, to be apportioned to the teachers and to the janitors.
An old school system will have all the blanks and forms
necessary for this clerical work ; but a new school will have
to attack the problem of making up these forms for its
own use.
In this connection is the principal's relation to the janitor.
If the janitor is chosen for his efficiency and ability, he will
keep the halls, rooms, windows, grounds, lawn, and toilets
in perfect condition without suggestion from the principal.
Otherwise, it becomes the duty of the chief administrative
officer of the school to see that everything is in shipshape.
One method of procedure is for the principal to make a
regular tour of inspection every morning at a certain hour
and to let nothing interfere with that job. He should first
158 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
note on a card the things he wishes to see to, and then
check them off as he completes his inspection. Here are
some of the things : Rubbish on grounds, lawn, shrubbery,
heating of the rooms, blackboard cleanliness, floor sweeping,
desk cleaning and marring, curtains and light, windows and
picture glass clean, toilets clean, marking on the walls, halls
and offices. Furnaces should be inspected once a week, also
fire escapes and fire hose Repairs should be attended to
at once.
5. Student organizations and activities. The principal
of a junior high school will find that student organizations
and activities constitute some of his hardest problems. Skill-
fully managed they can be made to serve the very best pur-
poses of education. They form a natural outlet for the
exuberance and turbulence of the adolescent period. Sup-
pression of these instincts would be fatal if it were even
possible. They must be carefully guided and wisely used.
Where they are quiescent or abortive, they should be stimu-
lated and cultivated into normal existence. We shall attempt
to describe what appears to us to be the best handling of the
problems.
It is well to organize the whole school into an association
of the student body. If dues are exacted they should be so
small as to be within the reach of all — not more than twenty-
five cents per year. Pupils failing to pay during the first
month of school should be given full membership upon
doing some work for the school such as leveling the athletic
grounds, irrigating the field, keeping certain records, or
mending nets or athletic suits. The association should
choose a president and vice-president from among the mem-
bers of the graduating class. All assemblies of the school
need not be considered student body association meetings;
there will be many assemblies that the principal will want
ADMINISTRATION 159
to conduct himself and which would lack in effectiveness if
he had to conform to the formality of an association organ-
ization. The association may well care for such matters as
school receptions and parties, school rallies, school debates,
athletics, the school paper, the cooperative book-store, and
the cafeteria. The association officers should feel it their
privilege to support the principal and faculty in all forward
and uplift movements; and the principal should take them
into his confidence in many matters pertaining to student
affairs. Financial matters should be carefully supervised
and audited by the principal or by some teacher especially
designated by him.
For certain specific activities there may well be other
organizations, although some schools would prefer to regard
them as communities or divisions of the student body asso-
ciation. Such are debating clubs, literary socieites, class
organizations, girls' clubs, boys' clubs, the band, glee clubs,
athletic teams, the staff of the school paper, dramatic club.
Care must be taken to prevent friction between the various
societies. If they are all subordinate to the student body
association, danger lurks in the officers of the larger body's
assuming too much authority. We must not forget that chil-
dren of this age lack adult responsibility and cannot attain
it, no matter how conscientiously they may try. Care must
be exercised to prevent clubs organized for educational pur-
poses from becoming social fraternities of pernicious influ-
ence and snobbish exclusiveness.
Finally, there is the question of student self-government,
so called. In this plan the pupils become responsible for the
discipline in the school building and on the school grounds.
There are pupil policemen, pupil attendance officers, pupil
judges, pupil juries, pupil prosecutors and defenders. The
faculty is usually regarded as the supreme court. The stu-
l6o THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
dent body meeting assembled makes laws and ordinances
governing conduct. It is fine and most excellent training in
citizenship and political science.
As a movement it started with the universities, has been
carried out successfully by many high schools, and is being
tried in several junior high schools. It makes more work
for the faculty and requires infinite skill of the principal. In
his own schools the writer has begun to try out the plan,
entrusting at first only very limited powers to the students.
As they develop the essential qualities, greater and greater
authority will be extended to them. It will be necessary,
however, for tradition to have time to establish good prece-
dents and serviceable customs before the school can succeed
on a large scale.
6. Accessories of teaching. There are certain acces-
sories of teaching that the principal has to attend to in order
to secure smoothness in the working of the school machinery.
One of these is supplies. Most school districts furnish pens,
pencils, ink, paper, blotters, and similar materials ; in somie
states, if not all, the law makes it obligatory upon the school
board to furnish these things. Some rule should be estab-
lished for giving out these supplies as they, of course, should
not be furnished lavishly to the pupils. A reasonable number
of things, say three pencils, one penholder, three writing
tablets, ten blotters, may be furnished each semester. If
the pupil loses or uses up all this material in less than the
five months, he would have to purchase the things he needs.
A co-operative store might be conducted for this purpose.
Some schools furnish free textbooks. They are handled
through the principal's office either directly or by a teacher
designated by the principal. In a large school this work
takes more time than a teacher may be expected to devote to
it after school. If there is not a clerk to do this work, the
ADMINISTRATION l6l
teacher should be given one or two periods of school time
for it. There is more involved in the furnishing of text-
books than the mere money cost ; there is a high moral con-
tent. Boys and girls do not contribute anything that causes
a sacrifice ; they do not o^vn the books ; they are responsible
for public property. Then there are the habits of accounting
for things, taking care of things, and feeling pride in posses-
sion. Altogether, the furnishing of books free is so fraught
with possibilities of good and evil that it is a very important
matter.
Where free textbooks are not provided, it is sometimes
possible for the co-operative book store to rent them to the
pupils at such a rate as to make a profit on the transaction.
If this is done, it devolves upon the principal to keep careful
check of the whole matter. This service will be of great
advantage to pupils, especially where expensive instruments,
such as mechanical drawing sets, are obtainable. As years
go by, the store may accumulate sufficient surplus to enlarge
its operations in many lines.
The management and effective use of a moving picture
plant entails upon the principal many administrative burdens.
Ordinarily it will be necessary for him to operate the
machine, arrange for securing proper educational films, work
out the details of assembling classes, etc. If these matters
are not carefully worked out and followed up by the princi-
pal himself, he will find that the enthusiasm first displayed
upon installing the machine will gradually wane and the
visual methods of instruction will be discontinued altogether.
The same may be said of other valuable aids to teaching.
The tendency of the teacher is to neglect those methods of
teaching that require elaborate preparation and irksome de-
lays. If globes, charts, stereoscopic views, herbaria, in-
l62 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
accessible specimens, etc., are to be used, the principal must
make it his business to help get things ready.
Every junior high school should have a good working
library, well-stored with books, and easily accessible to stu-
dents. Someone must attend to the purchasing of books and
nriagazines, cataloguing them, and issuing them to pupils,
Then someone must advise teachers and children what to
read and where to find it. Frequently debaters need help in
getting material. It is desirable to make up bibliographies
on various subjects to be taught. The principal has to get
someone to do these things or else do them himself. In a
small school the principal would probably find it best to
assign a teacher to this work. In a large school, a librarian
should be employed.
7. School interruptions, exercises, etc. Among the
problems with which the principal has to cope are the in-
terruptions to regular routine work — some pernicious, some
wholesome, some preventible, some unpreventible. Occa-
sionally the good of the school demands that routine work
be interrupted for an hour, a day, or a week and the chil-
dren be given something that educates, elevates or rests
them. Vacations and holidays are usually decided upon by
the board of education or the superintendent. Sometimes
there is a demand for a slightly early afternoon dismissal,
for a short rainy-day session, or for an hour on the lawn.
Such matters are put up to the principal. If too frequent,
they greatly hinder good school work; if very, very infre-
quent, something good may be lost.
After all, it is a matter for the principal to weigh and con-
sider, to experiment with and to record results. How often
shall I have fire-drill? How shall I conduct it? One thing
is essential to make a fire-drill worth anything — everybody
must be required to leave the building, teachers and princi-
ADMINISTRATION 163
pal included. Speed is desirable, lack of conflict should pre-
vail. It is far best that no one except the principal should
know whether it is a fire-drill or a real fire. If a careful
direction is given to the school at the beginning of each
semester, one drill per month should be frequent enough.
Assemblies should be called when the principal has some-
thing important to give. Many principals keep a note of
matters as they come up, and when several have accumu-
lated, they call the students together and announce all the
matters at one time. A principal will invite noted speakers
and others who happen to be in town at the time to come to
the school and deliver a message to the assembled students.
It may be a distinguished singer, artist, actor, author, gov-
ernment official, or other person whom the pupils would
profit by seeing and hearing speak. The principal will have
to be careful to stave off people who wish to make use of the
school for advertising their wares or talents.
Some other problems in this connection are the manage-
ment of telephone calls, the disposal of photographers, and
the meeting with school-book men. Many schools have re-
moved the telephones because of the temptation to parents
to use them on the simplest pretexts. The telephone girl
becomes a slave to parents who want this child to do this or
that before coming home at night. Other schools have a
rule that no pupil or teacher shall be called out of class
except upon extremely serious matters. Pupils are not per-
mitted to use the school telephone except upon school busi-
ness. A charge of five cents for the use of the 'phone would
probably stop its indiscriminate use. In many towns pho-
tographers pester the principal with requests to permit them
to take the pictures of classes, groups of pupils, or interiors
of rooms, offices, and apparatus. The principal will be
expected to guard the interests of the school children and
164 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
not permit interruptions and loss of pupils' time. Represen-
tatives of school-book companies visit the school frequently
and consume much time of principal and teachers. This
time is not wasted; in fact the selection of proper text and
supplementary books is of the very highest value. Such
representatives are usually courteous and considerate. The
principal will arrange for their meeting the teachers without
interfering with the regular work of the school.
8. Moral guidance. In discussing this subject at this
place it must be borne in mind by the reader that we are
treating it purely as a part of the administrative functions of
the principal and teachers. If it were treated in full, it
should properly occupy a chapter of a book of this kind.
We have preferred to discuss moral education in connection
with each subject as it has come up.
Unquestionably, the formation of moral character is of
tremendous importance throughout the school age, and the
period of adolescence is especially fraught with possibilities.
We have spoken of the adolescent age as that of religious
awakening, of conversion, and of emotional religious experi-
ence. It is also a period of the awakening of social con-
sciousness and responsibility. Psychologically, it is a period
of doubt, introspection, brooding, self-examination, self-re-
proach and condemnation, of a feeling of unworthiness. But
it is, likewise, an age of stubbornness, rebellion against
restraint, violent passion, ill temper, greediness, carelessness
in speech, and the awakening of sexual desire. These anti-
moral and anti-social instincts find expression in laziness,
truancy, slovenliness, slang, disrespect, over-dressing, over-
eating, swearing, dancing, smoking, sexual vices, lying, and
thievery. While the sins of adolescent girls are less spec-
tacular and apparent than those of boys, they are neverthe-
less just as real and just as undermining to moral character.
ADMINISTRATION 165
The tendency of parents is to minimize the importance of
adolescent excesses; the tendency of the church is to over-
estimate their importance. The position the school should
take is one of sympathetic treatment of the adolescent victim,
who is not responsible for the temptations.
Something wholesome must needs be substituted for the
bad. Principals and teachers cannot shut their eyes to what
is going on ; they must create a clean atmosphere for the
school. We knew of a small high school where the teachers
all left the building at noon, where the boys and girls danced
during the absence of the teachers, where flirtations had
sapped the vitality of the school, where boys and girls sat
in single seats together during intermission and even during
school hours, where swearing was common on the school
grounds, where cheating in school and in athletics was the
rule, where books of the school and supplies were stolen
daily, where truancy went unpunished and unnoticed, where
disorder was rampant, where the principal was assaulted by
several boys, where obscene literature and pictures circu-
lated among the pupils of both sexes, where the whole week
was a feverish preparation for Friday night's dance. This
was a high school that had no eleventh grade and fewer
than a dozen pupils in the twelfth. It was practically a
junior high school, and the problems existing in it are dupli-
cated in every such school.
The principal that undertakes the moral guidance of such
a school has a tremendous task. His teachers must be care-
fully chosen and carefully assigned to strategic positions
where offenders can be detected and offences prevented. The
junior high school must not be made a reformatory or a peni-
tentiary. If it devotes its main attention to dealing with
offenders one by one, it will soon meet destruction. It must
be organized with the idea of giving adolescents so much of
l66 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
good to do that the bad cannot creep in. Here the school
must rely on physical exercises, clean sports, manual activi-
ties, pure social pleasures, correct diet, clean but absorbingly
interesting books, simple dress (school uniforms if neces-
sary to curb a propensity already existing), politeness and
good manners. The underlying principle is, keep the ado-
lescent so busy doing right things that he will not have time
to do wrong. This may extend to the point of co-operating
with the pupil's home in a 24-hour daily program. Suc-
cessful will be that principal who secures the confidence of
the homes so that he can supervise not only the school hours
of the pupil but the home hours also. If he can go further
and work out with the churches a program for Sundays, his
influence for good will be unbounded.
Suppose, however, that a principal and faculty find a
junior high school in the condition of the high school
described above, what can they do? To expel gross offend-
ers and try to reform petty offenders may become necessary.
But the chief task to be attacked will be the educating of the
school in higher standards of right. This means a well
planned campaign that must involve sympathy, resourceful-
ness, wisdom, tact, understanding of adolescent's mental
activities, force, and even, perphaps, the mailed fist. The
manly, the heroic, the courageous, the chivalric, the war-like,
the religious spirit of boys must be appealed to along the line
pursued by the Boy Scouts organization. The pure, the
chaste, the health-seeking, the out-door, the fun-loving, the
religious spirit of girls must be appealed to along lines
adopted by the Camp Fire clubs. It may be necessary to talk
very clearly to each sex, or even to assign boys and girls to
separate classes or schools. Moral guidance is a paramount
function of the junior high school; it must succeed in this
work no matter how drastic may be the actions necessary.
CHAPTER TEN
RELATION TO THE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL AND
JUNIOR COLLEGE
In this chapter we wish to describe the effect of the junior
high school movement upon the upper secondary school, and
the latter's reflex action upon the former. This is by no
means purely prognostication, for the results described in
this chapter have already been fully realized in communities
where the movement has been long in existence.
1 . The senior high school and the tenth grade. His-
torically it is a fact that a lower institution tends to reach up
and seize upon the matters that have been originated by the
higher. In recent years we have seen this go on with accel-
erated speed. College athletics, nomenclature, mannerisms,
student self-government, methods of teaching, courses of
study have been seized upon by high schools and adopted.
Colleges have copied the universities, have tried, in fact, to
become universities, and in many cases have succeeded. The
universities have striven to become graduate institutions and
have succeeded. The intermediate school movement was
given impetus by the ambition of seventh and eighth grade
teachers to reach up and do high school work. The author
knows of several junior high schools that were originally
organized as seventh and eighth grade schools, or sixth,
seventh and eighth grade institutions. They soon began to
do high school work and in a remarkably short time had
annexed the ninth grade.
With this strong tendency, it is altogether likely that the
junior high school will gradually seize upon the tenth grade.
It has already done so in many communities. This has
happened even where no attempt was made to do four
167
168 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
grades in three years. It has been gradual, almost unno-
ticed. Where four of the sixteen college entrance credits
were required for entrance to the senior high school, there
are many boys and girls who find at the end of the ninth
year that they have actually earned five. Others complete
the year with only three credits or even fewer and find that
they must stay another year. Such pupils — and they are
numerous — enter senior high school practically as eleventh
grade students. For a long timfe the tenth year work is
offered in both the higher and the lower institutions, but this
duplication is uneconomical. The question with the admin-
istration becomes, which school shall do the tenth grade?
The lower salaries, the smaller laboratory equipment re-
quired, the ambition of the lower school, the pre-occupation
of the higher school with a reaching up to do college work
— all combine to give the victory to the junior high school.
2. The upper secondary school's tendency to become
college-like. Paralleling this evolution is the junior college
movement, which in the few years of its existence has made
even more rapid progress than the intermediate school. The
reason for its greater swiftness is undoubtedly due to the
fact that the high school was already a well organized insti-
tution with great power and prestige, whereas the interme-
diate school had to become established before it could begin
to reach upward. High school teachers and administrators
are well organized, well paid, high spirited and aggressive.
It would manifestly be impossible to keep them down, even
were it desirable. Once aroused their ambition to do college
work, they moved forward with characteristic impetuosity
toward an inevitable goal. That goal was the annexation, to
every good-sized high school, of the two first years of col-
lege, commonly called the junior college . This movement is
gaining in force. In California alone there are now more
RELATION TO SENIOR HIGH AND JUNIOR COLLEGE 169
than twenty high schools with full-fledged junior colleges.
A law has just been passed by the California Legislature that
encourages the establishment of a junior college in every
county, and in connection with every city high school.
Whither does this movement tend? If the high school
had continued to be a four-year school, it is likely that the
junior college would have held aloof as a post-graduate but
separate institution. In time such a junior college would,
by the theory described under paragraph i, have reached
up and secured the third and possiby fourth years of college.
This has actually happened in a few cities where junior col-
leges have grown into four-year city colleges or universities.
This result would have been deplorable because it would
have left unsolved the problem of making a distinct separa-
tion of the fields of activity of colleges and universities. We
feel that the present duplication of work in these two insti-
tutions and the consequent rivalry does not result advan-
tageously for the cause of education.
But the high school has not continued to be a four-year
institution. The junior high school movement has taken
from it one year and will in a short time take away a second
year. This will reduce the old high school to a two-year
curriculum — the eleventh and twelfth grades. Thus shorn
of its lower two years, it reaches up and takes over the two
first years of college. It is ridiculous to suppose that such
an anomalous condition will continue to exist. Unquestion-
ably the senior high school and junior college must become
welded into one organic whole, functioning as one insti-
tution.
Assuming this amalgamation as an inevitable certainty,
the inquiry naturally arises as to what will be the nature of
the new institution. Again we are led by an established rule
that an institution takes its flavor from its upper-classmen,
170 THE; JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
this in spite of the fact that its lower classmen excel in
numbers. The fact is so apparent that is not open to debate.
It must follow that the senior high school- junior college is
to become collegiate in its nature rather than like a high
school. It should therefore be given such a name as to
indicate its nature. We presume for convenience to call it
the collegiate school or the people's college. The term
"junior" is relative in significance and to describe a per-
manent institution could not long endure. The junior high
school miust become the high school; the junior college, the
college of the future.
3. Nature of the people's college. It may safely be
assumed that the collegiate school is not to be simply a
college, that is, it will not be just what a conventional col-
lege now is. It will become more and more collegiate, but
the presence of younger students will prevent its becoming
what we now know as a college. Its history and heredity
will prevent that. Born of a college father and a high school
mother, the collegiate school will resemble both its parents
but will not actually be either. It serves a new generation, is
brought up under different conditions and influenced by a
different environment.
Let us examine for a moment its probable characteristics :
It will be democratic in principle and in composition. The
conventional college is aristocratic in principle appealing to
only one class. That class is supposed to contain the best
brains of the state. But the test for admission to this class —
called intellectual — is a superficial examination based upon
proficiency in certain studies themselves superficial. If a
boy can -master algebra and geometry, physics, chemistry,
ancient and modern history, and a foreign language, he is
considered intellectually an aristocrat, and per se is admitted
to the conventional college. One hears nowadays the fre-
RELATION TO SENIOR HIGH AND JUNIOR COLLEGE 171
quent statement that it is best for some boys that they never
go to college, for, forsooth, they are incapable of doing col-
lege work! The colleges turn back many from their doors
and many more they eliminate later by examinations. These
boys, say the wise ones, are incapable of acquiring a college
education, and would be better off doing something for a
living, learning a trade, farming, or laboring by the day!
(It is hard to refrain from questioning such wise ones
whether such a college education — impossible to the masses
— is worth while to anybody.)
The people's college is growing up in opposition to, or in
competition with, the conventional college. It may, there-
fore, be assumed that it will tack off at a different angle. The
foundation of this new institution is the principle of in-
tellectual democracy. It is a college to train the minds,
bodies and souls of all the people. Hence, we shall expect
to find in its student body people representing all varieties
of intellectual characteristics. Such catholicity of purpose,
such broadness of scope must make a strong appeal to the
youth of America. Trained in such an institution the people
of our country will tend to become more and more demo-
cratic.
In the second place, the people's college will be a finish-
ing school more largely than a university preparatory school.
It may be assumed that most students will enter it at fifteen
or sixteen years of age and will finish the regular four-year
course by the age of nineteen or twenty. This is a good
age at which to begin a professional course at university ; but
it is also an age of sufficient maturity to justify beginning a
career. Entering an occupation at the age of twenty, a man
should be self-sustaining from the first and within three or
four years should be capable of supporting a family. A girl
finishing school thus early may enjoy a period of four or
172 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
five years in a self-supporting occupation and still marry
early. On the other hand, completing her school education
at twenty, she finds herself sufficiently mature in purpose to
marry with judgment. It may, therefore, be assumed that the
courses in the people's college will aim to complete the stu-
dent's school education and to prepare him to enter directly
into the adult world.
In the third place, the collegiate school is to be predom-
inantly vocational. The argument that a person should not
enter an occupation at an early age does not have much
weight in this case. In the seven-year or eight-grade second-
ary course it is possible to give him broad culture and social
and civic education as well. But as he advances in this
course the vocational element becomes more and more pre-
dominant until in the last year it practically approximates
the conditions of the adult world where the vocation occupies
three-fourths of the day. An illustration will disclose our
meaning :
nth Year I2th Year I3th Year I4th Year
1. Agriculture Horticulture Agronomy Live Stock
2. Chemistry Farm Mechanics Irrigation Soil Analysis
3. U. S. History Economics Farm Bkpg. Farm
Management
4. English Dramatics Art Farm-Home-
Literature Planning
In this course agriculture is the occupation aimed at. In
the first year of the people's college the student takes one
directly vocational study, one science-vocational study, one
civic study, and one culture study. In the second year two
courses are directly vocational, one couse is civic-vocational,
and one is cultural. In the third year, three courses are
directly vocational, and one course is cultural. Finally, in
the fourth year, all four courses are directly vocational,
although one of the four is cultural-vocational. In such a
RELATION TO SENIOR HIGH AND JUNIOR COLLEGE 173
program we find the occupation booking larger and larger,
the science, civic, and cultural subjects contributing in-
directly, then directly to the main current. This is as it is in
the adult world where the vocation is the central artery of
life with physical pleasures, cultural enjoyment, scientific
method, and civic activities contributing to it and dependent
upon it.
4. Effect of the people's college upon the junior high
school curriculum. Let us first ascertain what proportion
of boys and girls will take in people's college the occupa-
tional courses and what proportion will prepare for uni-
versity or other professional school. Of the boys finishing
high school throughout the country only 47 per cent go to
college or university and fewer than 6 per cent take profes-
sional courses. Of the girls in high school 92 per cent even-
tually marry and enter the vocation of keeping house. About
51 per cent go to university, normal or other professional
institution. But those who graduate from high school form
only one half of those who finish the ninth grade. It may
therefore be assumed that about 24 per cent of boys and 26
per cent of girls entering people's college (tenth grade) will
go to university, college or normal school. The college
preparatory feature of the collegiate school should there-
fore be of far less importance than the occupational features.
This puts it squarely up to the junior high school to give
to 75 per cent of both boys and girls most of the physical,
scientific, civic, and cultural education that they are ever to
get. From the specimen program; given in section 3 — which
is essentially like all others — it is seen that one year each of
chemistry, United States history, literature, art, dramatics
and economics is all of the non-vocational work that may be
gotten in people's college while two other courses are gen-
eral enough to be accepted for entrance to university — that
174 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
is, two years of solid work. In the past educators have
pointed out that four solid years of physical, scientific, civic,
and cultural education are none too many for the good of the
American people. If we agree with those premises, we must
conclude that two years of this kind of education must be
obtained in the intermediate school. This would leave only
three-fifths of a junior high school year as the maximum for
vocational work. If fifteen courses are offered in junior
high school, twelve should be of the type described above,
and three may be vocational.
For the boy whose economic circumstances or whose ad-
vanced age does not force the vocational work upon him in
the junior high school, this heavy diet of non-occupational
courses will be highly suitable. It may be hoped that the
boy will not have to take in junior high school any more
vocational or prevocational work than will be sufficient to
help him and others determine what occupation field he
would do best to enter. He may then have time to develop
those other interests that are so essential to a well-rounded
American. Chief among these is physical development
which includes health, knowledge of nature's laws, manual
dexterity, motor control, and muscularity. These become
the basis sine qua non of all education. Ranking next in
importance is civic or social education which embraces
world history, American history, civic duties and responsi-
bilities, and community well-being. There is, of course, in-
separably connected with social education the necessity for
a good command of the English language which is an essen-
tial of community well-being. The scientific spirit and
method rank high in the aims of junior high school training,
most readily acquired by means of the science?. Finally,
culture or the ability to enjoy the refining things of life,
must occupy much of the time of adolescent education. Here
RELATION TO SENIOR HIGH AND JUNIOR COLLEGE 175
we classify English literature, art, music, and in a measure
history, science, manual training.
There is, however, to be cared for the boy or girl who
intends to enter a profession. This means that he is to take
a university course after he has finished the people's college,
and in the training of these young people we must be guided
by what the universities lay down as the necessary basis for
a professional education. It of course differs for various
professions and for various universities. For the profession
of law, historical, legal, logical, linguistic studies are recom-
mended by the university authorities. The secondary schools
must therefore provide two years of Latin, two of pure
mathematics, one of advanced civics, one of logic, two of
English composition, and varying amounts of political
science, economics, advanced history, foreign languages, de-
bate, public speaking, science — in short, so much that seven
years are not too long for accomplishing it all. The inevit-
able result is that it throws back upon the junior high school
the giving of the Latin, mathematics, sciences, and much
history. If the pupil manages to squeeze in physical educa-
tion, scientific training and a few cultural courses, he will
probably have to work overtime. The same may be said of
requirements for other professional courses.
Thus we find crowded into the three junior high school
years nnuch of what formerly was done in high school; at
least the first two years of high school. This consisted of
physical development, scientific education, civic education,
culture, and university preparatory courses.
5. Effect of people's college upon junior high schools
in cities. Just a word should be said of the relations exist-
ing between collegiate and junior high schools in a city
where there exists one people's college or more than one.
The problems are not essentially different in a city large
I/G THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
enough to have five colleges from those in a city having but
one college The questions arise out of conditions where one
board of education governs both the higher secondary school
and the lower ones. Such a city will have a superintendent
whose sympathies and interests will lead him to promote
harmony between the two grades of schools. He will see to
it that the higher school does not dictate to the lower schools,
and that the lower do not train the children away from the
higher. It will be his desire to secure perfect articulation
between the schools so that pupils are promoted from one to
the other without friction, loss of time or credits, and with
such smoothness that there will be no dropping out of school
at this point.
There will be administratively many problems that will
have to be met as they arise, such as the question of whether
there shall be diplomas issued to those finishing the junior
high school and whether there shall be graduation exercises.
There seems to be a desire on the part of the students to
have graduation exercises at which diplomas shall be issued
to them by high authority. This diploma should state that
it is a certificate of satisfactory completion of a certain
curriculum and of promotion to the collegiate school. There
should be a feeling on the part of the pupil that he must go
on to the higher school. It will be the aim of the superin-
tendent to get loo per cent of the graduates to enter the col-
lege and to do it at once. Graduation exercises will be held
in the middle of the school year when no long vacation may
interfere with the continuity of the work. After the
diplomas have been presented, the dean of the collegiate
school should address the graduates welcoming them into
his institution. He will have an opportunity at this time of
influencing those who are undecided about their future.
Even before finishing the junior high school, the pupils will
RELATION TO SENIOR HIGH AND JUNIOR COLLEGE 1/7
have been under the instruction of the vocational adviser.
He will have made out all the college courses of study of
those who are about to graduate. There will be very little
break between the lower and the higher school.
Promoting by subjects, there are bound to be some cases
of uneven promotion. If eight credits are required for admis-
sion to the people's college, some pupils will graduate from
the lower school with nine or even ten. Shall
these extra credits be recognized in the collegiate school, or
shall they be regarded merely as making the pupil more fit
to do the college work? Shall there be a standard grade of
work in the junior high school in order that the pupil may
be permitted to do college work? What should be that
standard or recommendable grade? Shall the collegiate
school maintain classes in algebra, geometry, etc., for the
benefit of pupils who did not take those branches in the
junior high school and yet who now need them for certain
new purposes unforseen when the pupil was in the junior
high school? If not, what shall be the plan of taking .care
of such cases? Shall there be a standard of excellence in
the use of English required for admission to the collegiate
school? Shall there be a physical standard? These are
questions for each superintendent to answer. They cannot
be answered ipse divit or ex cathedra. The broad principle
must underlie these answers, that the people's college is for
the masses and that it must be within the possibility of any
normal person to enter and do work in it.
6. Relation of people's college to junior high schools
outside cities. The California Legislature has set the mini-
mum limit of taxable property of a district maintaining a
junior college at $3,000,000 assessed valuation. This would
mean a city of not less than 5,000 population. Such a city
would probably have twelve hundred pupils distributed as
THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
follows : Grades- 1 to 6, inclusive, 600 pupils ; grades 7 to 10,
inclusive, 300 pupils ; grades 1 1 to 14, inclusive, 300 pupils.
Such a city would, if compact, maintain one collegiate school
and only one junior high school. The rule seems to be a
reasonable one, for a people's college could scarcely succeed
with fewer than 300 students and 15 teachers.
What shall be done in cities of fewer than 5,000 people?
Let us consider several classes of such communities in an
attempt to work out approximately accurate plans.
(a) Towns of 2,000 to 5,000 surrounded by well settled
rural districts : Such a community should organize a union
collegiate school district for the maintenance of one such
higher secondary school. The town itself would have a
junior high school to which pupils living outside the limits
might come. Or, if there were in the union district one
village of, say 500 people, such village should form the cen-
ter for a union junior high school district. In any case the
people's college would probably be governed by a different
board of education, and there would arise problems of
adjustment distinct from the city's.
(b) Towns of 2,000 to 5,000 not surrounded by well
settled rural districts : Such a town could not profitably
maintain a full people's college, but would best maintain in
one building a junior and senior high school. In such an
institution the problems would not differ materially from the
existing high school problems ; it would simply be a five-
year instead of a four-year secondary school. In certain
lines it might be more vocational than our present-day high
schools. The town should provide for the support of its
graduates through the thirteenth and fourteenth grades of
somje county people's college or at a privately endowed
college.
RELATION TO SENIOR HIGH AND JUNIOR COLLEGE 1/9
(c) In towns of 500 to 2,000 surrounded by a thickly
populated rural district, the same arrangements as those
described in (b) might be secured. If such a town were
within the shadow of a larger town, the smaller -would be
better served to unite in a union college district with the
larger, at the same time maintaining a junior high school
of its own.
(d) Towns of 500 to 2,000, not surrounded by a thickly
populated rural community, would be wisest to maintain a
first-class junior high school, and maintain its graduates at
some county collegiate school where board and room could
be partly worked out by the student on the college farm.
(e) Communities smaller than 500 should attach them-
selves to a near-by larger town in a union college district or
union junior high school district.
(f) A comfmunity smaller than 500 people and standing
alone should maintain a good elementary school, and if
sufficient funds exist the two first years of a junior high
school. Such a community would not have more than 100
pupils, twenty of whom would be in the seventh and eighth
grades. It could then have one teacher's full time for the
junior high school.
In discussing the relation of the people's 'college to the
junior high school, only communities described under (a),
(c), and (e) need be considered; and these all have the
same problem. That problem arises over the fact that the
two schools are under different boards of education. Greater
tact and larger educational perspective must, under such con-
ditions, be required of the dean of the /college and of the
principal of the junior high school. Certain definite rules
would have to be laid down and adhered to in good, faith by
both heads and by both boards. Lacking a district superin-
tendent, the county superintendent should wisely, tactfully,
l8o THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
and with clear educational ideas exercise supervisory and
conciliatory jurisdiction over the relations of the two
schools.
It would be wise and proper for the dean to take tihe
initiative in a case of this kind and work out rules and
regulations with the principals of the lower schools. If he
does not take the initiative the county superintendent or
one of the junior high school principals should take the
initiative. There should be no misunderstanding of the pur-
pose of secondary education, the raison d'etre of a junior
high school and of a people's college. It should be clearly
seen that each school has a definite problem to solve, and
the other school should co-operate to assist in making the
solution easy and successful.
CHAPTER
AN IDEAL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
We propose in this chapter to outline the conditions neces-
sary to the institution and conduct of an ideal junior high
school.
1 . The city. We have shown in a previous chapter that
a district must contain a certain number of inhabitants, chil-
dren, and wealth, or be surrounded by rural communities
that make up the deficit. It is best that the city be compact
so that no pupil will have more tfhan a mile to walk to
school. The ideal would be a population of at least 5,000, or
in a larger city a population of at least 5,000 to 8,000 to each
144 blocks. A square twelve blocks by twelve blocks with
the school building at its centre would be the proper condi-
tion as to size and population. Cities with a scattered popu-
lation would have to provide transportation for their pupils.
The school population of such a square should be from 1,200
to i, 800, and the number of children from 12 to 15 years of
age would be from 300 to 400.
The city should have an assessed valuation of at least
$5,000,000 to each junior high school maintained. If taxed
to support such a school, a twenty-cent rate would produce
a sufficient revenue. If the $5,000,000 valuation is spread
evenly over the entire square, each block will be valued at
$35,000 — houses and lots. This will mean a good class of
houses with excellent improvements. In a large city many
squares would not have such a large valuation; but the
extremely high value of business and industrial property
would bring up the average for the entire city.
T!he people of the city must not only be prosperous with
reasonably large families, but they must be public spirited
181
l82 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
and progressive. They must take an interest in the public
weal, especially in the education of their children and the
children of the whole community, yes, and in the children
of the future generation as well. They must put the educa-
tion of their children above their own selfish comforts. They
must try to understand what the schools are doing, and then
fall in line and boost. They must believe that society is
evolutionary, and that it is their duty to assist in progressive
movements. Finally, they must be willing not only to talk
and vote for progressive movements in education, but also
to pay taxes — and to contribute in reasonable amounts for
their children's good.
2. The board of education. With such people, it may
be assumed that the city will elect to the board of education
men and worrten of high purpose and good judgment. The
members should themselves be public-spirited and willing
to devote a reasonable amount of time and much deep
thought to school problems. Each member should feel his
responsibility to the whole city, but especially to the welfare
of all the children and to the future of society, for within
their keeping is the strongest social force in America. The
board is a legislative, not an administrative body; conse-
quently, a board of fifteen members meeting two to four
times each year is better than a three-member board meeting
every week. The people do not expect an unpaid board
member to devote any considerable part of his time to
school affairs. A large board will furnish a wider opinion
and more diversified views than a small one.
The board's organization should be simple so that busi-
ness may be done by the board en bane rather than by com-
mittees. It should employ experts and administrators to fur-
nish data to guide it in its deliberations and to carry out its
decrees. A president and a secretary will be necessary, but
AN IDEAL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 183
further organization will complicate rather than simplify the
transaction of business. A board has authority only en bane.
An individual member or a committee has no legal authority,
and cannot of course transact business for the district.
The board should be composite, some members conserva-
tive, others liberal, some judiciously careful, others con-
structively original, but all fair-minded and progressive. The
board should not fear an idea or plan because it is new or
unique. By their attitude toward all questions, they should
inspire the superintendent to original thinking and wide in-
vestigation. They should expect, yes require, him to keep
informed on educational movements everywhere; and not
come before them with a suggestion until he can give the
board considerable, if not complete, data upon which to base
a judgment and to determine action. With this correct and
sympathetic attitude toward their chief employee, they can
reasonably expect that he will be frank with them and will
respect their judgment and abide by their decisions.
3. The superintendent. As the chief administrative
officer of the board, the superintendent should keep within
his sphere of activity. He has no legislative functions,
except as they are within the limits delegated to him by the
board of education. He should always bear in mind that he
is directly responsible to the board, and that he cannot rise
above the source of his authority. Nevertheless, he has
large discretionary powers and within certain limits is
supreme. He should have a discriminating judgment keen
enough to determine what are policies and what are discre-
tionary powers. He is the chief adviser to the board. This
should sober him and make him open and full in advising it
on all matters. He should from the beginning of his employ-
ment map out a plan of relationship between himself and the
board and should ask that the board definitely adopt the plan.
I&4 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Thereafter he should be careful to live up to the full letter
and spirit of the plan. That plan should provide that he be
the ultimate authority in matters pertaining to supervision of
teaching, nomination of teachers, and making of the
curricula.
The superintendent should have a profound interest in the
education of adolescents; he should feel, if the individuals
composing society are to be advanced in civilization and in
physical and mental perfection, that advance must be secured
by properly educating adolescents. He must have a deep
understanding of the physiology and psychology of adoles-
cence, and be acquainted with the wisest plans and methods
of educating girls and boys in this all-important period of
their lives. To make the junior high school function as it
should, the superintendent must appreciate deeply its signifi-
cance, do all in his power to make the conditions for its
best work possible, and take an active, personal interest in its
proper functioning.
In building the curricula for the entire school system, he
should see every part in its relation to all others, and should
put proper relative values on the various parts. The curri-
culum should be fitted to the needs and to the natures of the
children — not upon the needs or nature, but upon both. In
it the period of adolescence should have special attention,
for here more than anywhere else the course-makers can
most easily go astray or utterly fail to make education fit
the conditions. Unfortunately there are as yet few books
on the subject of adolescence that deal with it in a scientific,
empirical way. We need far more measurements, surveys,
statistical information, and unbiased digests of these data.
No superintendent has a right, however, to fail to familiar-
ize himself with all that has already been written. The curri-
AN IDEAL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 185
culum must embody all the latest and best information
obtainable.
4. The grounds. The site for the junior high school
should be in the centre of the square from which the school
draws its pupils. Five acres is the minimum amount of
ground, the buildings themselves occupying two acres, the
athletic fields two more acres, while one acre should be used
for gardens and agricultural experimentation.
The kind and placement of buildings are matters that will
vary according to the conditions of the community and the
ideals of those in authority. One plan is to have one large
central building containing twenty or more rooms, the prin-
cipal's offices, and other necessary rooms. Smaller, but
suitable buildings will occupy flanking positions, designed
to add to the beauty of the whole scheme. One such build-
ing would be devoted entirely to an assembly hall ; another
would house the manual training shops, and cooking and
sewing rooms ; a third would contain the science laboratories,
propagating rooms, museums, junior chambers of com-
merce ; while a fourth might house the library, reading room,
art gallery and workshop, and the music conservatory. The
arrangement and connecting of these buildings will be a
matter of taste. A beautiful effect is secured by connecting
them by artistic arcades. Plenty of lawn, some shrubbery,
and clusters of trees here and there, add greatly to the
beauty of the plan.
Athletic fields should be provided for football, baseball,
track, tennis, basketball, handball courts, and other games.
Two acres will not give more than enough room for these
activities, and in all probability some of these sports will
have to alternate in the use of the grounds. This is possible
with football, track and baseball. The acre-farm should be
so located as to display to the public the work being done,
l86 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
and to get best results. It should be in the open sun and
some distance from the groups of trees. Gardens and
athletic courts should be protected by mesh-wire fences from
careless marauders.
5. The pupils. A junior high school cannot do its best
work with fewer than three hundred pupils or more than
eight hundred pupils. The ideal is four hundred. This per-
mits individuality, acquaintanceship with each other, close
kinship of interests; it is also numerous enough to allow
diversified courses, election of studies, a feeling of the big-
ness and importance of the school. Such a school could find
in its number good material in sufficient numbers to carry on
all school "activities."
Drawn from the same neighborhood, such a group would
and should be homogeneous in character and in age. Wide
variation in age does not make for the welfare of the school
or permit the highest self-expression of the student body.
The social standing and financial means of such a group
would be fairly uniform. The physical development of the
members of each class should also be fairly uniform, and the
wise principal will so assign classes as to group in each class
pupils of the same stage of adolescence. The mental develop-
ment and the educational background of the pupils should be
as far as possible homogeneous.
The spirit of the pupils should be ambitious, loyal, altru-
istic, tractable. Ambition for themselves individually, ex-
pressed in terms of liking school, determination to secure am
education, and willingness to endure petty discomforts —
this and ambition for the school are indispensable to a suc-
cessful junior high school. The pupils must be loyal to the
school, and willing to work hard and restrain their bad ten-
dencies in order to build up the reputation of the school.
Each pupil must have considerable altruism, and be willing
AN IDEAI, JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL l8/
to help his feljow-students in all right lines. Pupils must
be tractable — willing to listen to reason and to follow the
best judgment of principal and teachers. This does not
mean a lowly spirit, or blind obedience. That would not be
desirable even if it could be secured in a group of early ado-
lescent boys and girls.
6. The buildings. We have spoken of the number and
arrangement of the buildings. They should be of modern
construction, fire-proof throughout, not over two stories in
height. A basement for furnace rooms, store-rooms, toilets,
etc., may be constructed, but it is far better to have these
on the same floor with the school rooms. Space may be
saved and convenience obtained by building the stairways
on the outside of the building instead of fire-escapes, and
covered artistically by porch roofs, A play-room or gym-
nasium may occupy a separate building, or in case of lack
of space may be on the roof of the main building. In the
latter case the roof should be constructed of material that
will deaden the sound.
The school rooms will be of sufficient size, well ventilated
and lighted, and sufficient in number. The principal's offices
should be commodious enough for the work to be done,
there being a private office with an exit directly into the
hall. It ought not to be necessary for the principal to send
a reprimanded pupil back through a waiting room where
other pupils may be gathered. Eiach teacher should have
access to a consultation room near to his regular recitation
room. Study-halls, libraries, laboratories, gymnasiums,
swimming pools, teachers' rest rooms, model housekeeping
rooms, hospital wards, dressing rooms, music rooms, mfu-
seums and art galleries should be provided of suitable size
and convenience. Classes should be so arranged as to re-
duce to a minimum the climbing of stairs by girls, especially
l88 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
the older girls. The rooms should be provided with all
accessories of teaching.
7. Accessories of teaching. The accessories of teach-
ing should be provided liberally, but not lavishly. Each
room should be provided with a good teacher's desk with
several drawers, an office chair for the teacher and at least
three chairs for visitors, a good blackboard of at least eighty
linear feet of slate or hyloplate, black, green, or brown. The
lighting should be arranged scientifically. Movable desks
should be provided in sufficient number for the largest class,
each desk equipped with a drawer for books, either adjust-
able to size of pupil or several sizes provided for each room.
Books, paper, pencils, pens, and ink in sufficient quantities
and of satisfactory quality should be supplied.
There should be special rooms adapted to the particular
subject taught. The English room should be equipped with
shelves and cases for books and with racks for the filing of
student's compositions. The commercial roomi should be
provided with counters, banking cribs, typewriters, book-
keeping desks and adding machines. The geography and
history room must have maps, globes, charts, and cases for
geological specimens, papers, ethnologic material, and histor-
ical relics. The gymnasium will be well supplied with dumb-
bells, Indian clubs, trapezes, exercisers, wrestling mats, box-
ing gloves, and other necessary apparatus.
The library should be well supplied with carefully selected
books, magazines, pamphlets and newspapers. Either each
junior high school should have a librarian or there should be
a school librarian whose sole business it is to buy books for
the several junior high schools. It is better to provide a
number of copies of one excellent reference book than a
variety of indifferently good books. Before purchasing a
book the librarian should be sure that the teacher and pupils
AN IDEAL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 189
will use it. Teachers are only too prone to request books
that they know little about and that they will not find avail-
able for their use after purchased. It might be desirable to
insist upon each teacher's showing how he is going to use a
book requested before buying it. The library should be
accessible to all pupils of the school as soon as they learn
how to use library books. The budget should provide at
least $500 per year for each junior high school library.
The laboratories should be furnished and equipped with
great care. There should be tables for the pupil's use, pro-
vided with drawers, a proper composition top, and individual
laboratory instruments. Of course gas must be piped to the
tables, and bunsen burners provided. Science supplies in
reasonable quantities may be doled out from a central store-
room, or kept on hand in the locked cases of the teacher. A
lath-house for the propagation of plants is an indispensable
accessory to the teaching of elementary agriculture. The
acre-farm is, however, the best laboratory for the teaching of
the elements of farming. For it water for irrigating must be
piped to the land, fertilizer must be purchased in sufficient
amounts, and farm implements of various kinds for actual
use and for demonstration need to be bought or rented.
8. The faculty. The principal should be a man of con-
siderable experience, a lover of youth in all its manifesta-
tions, and an educator of large vision and executive ability.
He must be able to grasp large principles and translate them
into the details of everyday school life. He must see whither
the plan leads and the way whereby the end is to be reached.
He must not have his eyes so riveted on the goal that he
does not see the crooks and turns of the road ; nor must he
fix his gaze so intently upon the road that he forgets the
glorious result to be accomplished. But he must see all, feel
all, know all.
IQO THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL,
The teachers are of varied personality, but all must love
and appreciate children. They should not be so far from
adolescence that they have forgotten their own personal ex-
periences, nor be so close to it that they have no perspective
and cannot see that adulthood will inevitably follow normal
development. They must be teachers of children ; and, not
neglecting the subject-matter and the problems, they will
yet devote every effort to educating the pupils. Physical,
mental and moral strength is the thing to be aimed at; the
means are study, work, habits, knowledge, exercise, play,
good will, interest, attention, concentration, English, history
and the whole category of subjects. The teachers must
know themselves how to work and be able to teach their
pupils how to work. They must 'be physical, miental and
moral examplars, and full of the milk of human kindness.
The principal and teachers compose the faculty of the
school. As they work hand-in-glove with perfect correlation
toward the big goal of education, so will the school succeed.
The faculty is unquestionably the most important of all the
conditions of an ideal junior high school. Lacking an ideal
faculty, the school falls short, the result is mediocre, the
boys and girls fail of high attainment, society is not ad-
vanced. Lacking ideal conditions in all the other points we
have considered, but having an ideal faculty, there is jrtill
much hope. An heroic group of teachers captained by a
capable principal may win the battle with all other conditions
falling far short of the ideal.
There must be a sufficient number of teachers to carry
on a program such as we have described in Chapter Nine. A
teacher should not be expected to teach more than six
periods, or make more than three preparations per day. The
principal should not be expected to teach at all, but he may
elect to teach not more than two periods per day. Clerical
AN IDEAL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IQI
assistance must be furnished; a good janitor provided — one
who understands his plant, its perfect operation ; a libra-
rian or the equivalent employed; and proper supervisors
assigned, who will actually assist, not hinder, the teachers in
getting the best results.
9. Conclusion: results. With ideal but perfectly
realizable conditions, the junior high school — which will
probably be the high school of the future — should accom-
plish very definite results, results that are the aim and pur-
pose of the institution. Let us summarize these results in
concluding this discussion of early adolescent education.
(a) The junior high school operates to prevent boys and
girls from dropping out of school. This is a result of great
value to the individual that is held in school, but is also
of great economic, civic, cultural, and social value to the
community.
(b) By means of the junior high school pupils' aptitudes
and talents will be discovered and the pupils will be guided
to take proper courses in school that will prepare them for
the vocation for which they are best fitted. This should
make it possible for a young man to enter his life career at
once upon graduating from school. He will be spared the
waste of time and the bitter experience now required in look-
ing for a position. The employers, too, will be benefited in
that they will be able to secure the very best boys for their
employment without the waste of trying out and dismissing
several persons before the right one is secured. The world
will be happier and more efficient because everyone will be
working at the job he likes best and can do best.
(c) Pupils will be saved at least one year of time in
securing their education. This will not only be an economic
gain to the individual, but will be a social gain in that men
will have at least one year longer in which they will be com-
192 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
munity supporting. Take a community that is being sup-
ported by 1,000 men workers, whose average length of time
in which they contribute to the support of others — family,
relatives, the poor, churches, other social agencies — is
twenty years. Those 1,000 men will hereafter have twenty-
one years in which to earn what they now have to earn in
twenty years. If applied in days' work per year, it would
result as follows : Supposing that the average man works
300 days per year at present, hereafter he would have to
work only 285. Counting out the 52 Sundays, it would give
each man a twenty-eight-day vacation instead of a thirteen-
day vacation. Or, if the men continued to work the same
number of days as before, the community could be sup-
ported on a higher plane than at present.
(d) Pupils are given the right kind of education — train-
ing that is adapted to the period of adolescence. We may
look for the results of this right kind of education in im-
proved health, physique, mentality and morality. While this
effect will be immediate and easily perceptible, the effect
will be cumulative and eternal. The future generations born
of physically and mentally fit parents will rise quite per-
ceptibly above our own generation. We may look for heredi-
tary as well as immediate benefits.
Civic, altruistic, vocational, religious, cultural, scientific,
sense education at this plastic and evolutionary period can
but result in better government, in social improvement, in
economic efficiency, in deeper religion, in greater happiness,
in further advancement in inventions, comforts, disease-pre-
vention, and in bodily development.
All of these results are to be brought about not by the
junior high school single-handed. There is at present a
general progressive movement in education of which early
adolescent training forms a vital and central part. Occupa-
AN IDEAL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IQ3
tional training, vocational guidance, the junior college,
teaching how to study and work, elimination of non-essen-
tials, extension of kindergarten methods into the grades,
sense education, new ideas of buildings, better administra-
tive management of schools — all these are playing their
parts along with the junior high school.
In treating the theme of this book, we have tried to give
due credit to those other movements and show how they are
related to early adolescent education. Educators are pretty
well agreed, however, that the success of the whole scheme
cannot be fully realized without careful attention to the
period of adolescence, the best device being an institution
organized on the plan described in the foregoing pages under
the name of the junior high school.
APPENDIX
JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL COURSES OF STUDY
LOS ANGEXES
A. General Course.
First Year of Course.
Required Subjects.
English 5
Arithmetic 5
History (i/2 yr.) 2%
Geography (% yr.) 2%
Physical Training I
Music 2
Drawing 2
Penmanship 2
Man. Tr. or Dom. Science 4
One elective 5
French 5
German 5
Spanish 5
Latin 5
Bookkeeping 5
Stenography 5
Total 31
Second Year of Course.
Required Subjects.
English 5
History-Civics 5
Physical Training 2
Oral English (% yr.) I
Music (% yr.) I
195
196 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Phys. and Hygiene 2
Man. Tr. or Dom. Science 4
Two electives 10
Same as ist yr 5
Algebra 5
Drawing 5
Total 30
Third Year of Course.
Required Subjects.
English 5
Physical Training 2
Music or Oral English 2
Three electives 15
Same as 2d yr 5
Com'l Arithmetic 5
Ancient History 5
General Science 5
One other elective 5
Cooking 5
Sewing > 5
Woodwork 5
Drawing 5
Total 29
B. Commercial Course.
First Year of Course.
Differs from General Course in that Book-
keeping— 5, and Stenography — 5, are required
and take the place of Music — 2, Drawing — 2,
and Manual Training — 4.
APPENDIX 197
Second Year of Course.
Differs from General Course in that Book-
keeping— 5, Stenography — 5, and Penmanship
— 2, are required and take place of Manual
Training — 4, Music — I, Oral English — I, and
one elective — 5.
Third Year of Course.
Required Subjects.
English 5
Commercial Arithmetic 5
Bookkeeping 5
Stenography 5
'Physical Training 2
Two electives 10
Same list as General
Total 32
C. Vocational Course.
Very similar to General Course, except that in
the second and third years ten hours of woodwork
or cooking-sewing are required.
CINCINNATI
A. Industrial Arts Course.
Seventh Year Hours
Physical Training and Hygiene 5
English 3
History and Civics 3
Music I
Shopwork and Mech. Drawing 10
General Science 3
198 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Mathematics 4
Freehand Drawing I
Total 30
Eighth Year.
Physical Training and Hygiene 5
English 3
History and Civics 3
Music i
Shopwork and Mech. Dr 10
General Science 3
Mathematics 4
Freehand Drawing I
Total 30
Ninth Year.
Physical Training and Hygiene 5
English 3
History and Civics 2
Music I
Physics 3
Algebra 3
Economics and Ind. Relations 2
Freehand Drawing I
Shopwork and Draughting 10
Total 30
B. Commercial Course.
Seventh Year.
Physical Training and Hygiene 5
English 3
Civics . . I
APPENDIX 199
Music I
History of Commerce and Industry. . 4
Geography 3
Mathematics 5
Printing- and Bookbinding 2
Drawing 2
Penmanship, Corresp. Prac 2
Salesmanship 2
Total 30
Eighth Year.
Physical Training and Hygiene 5
English 3
Civics I
Music i
United States History 2
Biography of Great Americans I
Lib. Read, in Mod. Commerce I
U. S. Geography 3
Mathematics 5
Engraving and Allied Arts 2
Artistic Lettering 2
Advertising 2
Pen. Corres. Practice 2
Total 30
Ninth Year.
Physical Training and Hygiene 5
English 3
Music I
Art Appreciation I
200 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Economic Geography of U. S 3
Commercial Vocations 3
Office Methods I
Bookkeeping and Penmanship 10
Business Forms I
Elementary Economics 2
Total 30
HOUSTON
A. General Course.
First Year.
Required: Regular seventh grade subjects.
Elective : Latin, German, Spanish or Algebra.
Second Year.
Required : English.
Elective: Three of the following, depending
upon college requirements, etc. : Ancient
History, Algebra, Latin, Spanish, German,
Physiography, Physiology and Hygienics,
Manual Training, Domestic Science, Com.
English.
Third Year.
Required : English.
Elective: Three of the following, depending
upon college entrance requirements, voca-
tional needs, etc.: Med. and Modern His-
tory, Algebra, Latin, Spanish, German,
Biology, Typewriting and Shorthand, Man-
ual Training, Domestic Science.
APPENDIX 201
B. Commercial Course.
First Year.
Same as in General Course.
Second Year.
Required: English, Com. Eng., a Language.
Two electives: Algebra, Science, History,
Man. Training, Domestic Science.
Third Year.
Required : English, a foreign language, Sten-
ography and Typewriting.
One elective : Algebra, Science, History, Man-
ual Training, Domestic Science.
DETROIT
A. English Course.
First Year.
English 5
Literature 5
Mathematics 5
History 5
Physical Education 2
Music 2
Drawing 2
Man. Tr. or Dom. Sci. and Dom. Art 4
Second Year.
English 5
Literature 5
Mathematics 5
History 8-B and Gen. Geog. 8-A 5
Physical Education 2
Music 2
Drawing 2
Man. Tr. or Dom. Sci. and Dom. Art 4
2O2 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Third Year.
English 5
Literature 5
Mathematics 5
Man. Tr. or Dom. Sci. and Dom. Art 4
Physical Education 2
Elect One:
Ancient History 5
Physiography 5
Drawing 5
Music 2 — 7
B. Commercial Course.
First Year.
English 5
Literature 5
History §
Mathematics 5
Physical Education 2
Music 2
Drawing 2
Man. Tr. or Dom. Sci. and Art 4
Second Year.
English 5
History 8-B and Gen. Geog. 8-A 5
Bookkeeping 5
Physical Education 2
Music 2
Typewriting 5
Com'l Arithmetic 3
Pen. and Spelling 2 — §
Elect One:
Literature 5
Man. Tr. or Dom. Sci. and Dom. Art 4
APPENDIX 2O3
Third Year.
English 5
Bookkeeping 10
Typewriting 5
Physical Education 2
Elect Two:
Literature 5
Shorthand 5
Algebra 5
Man. Tr. or Dom. Sci. and Art... 4
C. Industrial Course.
First Year.
English 5
Mathematics 5
History 5
Man. Tr. or Household Arts 10
Drawing 5
Physical Education 2
Music 5
Second Year.
English 5
Mathematics 5
History 8-B and Gen. Geog. 8-A 5
Man. Tr. or Household Arts 10
Drawing 5
Music 2
Physical Education 2
Third Year.
English 5
Mathematics 5
Man. Tr. or Household Arts 10
Drawing 5
Physical Education 2
204 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOI,
Elect One :
Literature 5
Physiography 5
POMONA
Intermediate School Course.
Opportunity Semester (for those whose grades in the
sixth grade have been mediocre).
Five of the following, as needed:
Arithmetic
Art
English
Drawing
History and Geography
Home Credit Work
Manual Training
Orchestral Music
Sewing
Typing
Vocal Music
First Year— SB.
1. English
2. Latin Beginnings or Spanish Beginnings
3. U. S. History and Civics
4. 5. Two electives from
Algebra I (i)
Elem. Bookkeeping I (i)
General Science I ( i )
(Includes Dom. Science I)
First Year— 8A.
1. English
2. Latin I (i) or Spanish I (i) or Draw-
ing I (i)
APPENDIX 2O5
3, 4, 5. Three electives from
Algebra II (i)
Bookkeeping II (i)
General Science II (i)
(Includes Dom. Science II)
Ancient History I (i)
Second Year — 96.
1. English I (i)
2. Latin II (i)
Drawing II (i), or Spanish II (i)
3. 4, 5. Three electives from
Algebra I II (i)
Bookkeeping III (i)
General Science III (i)
Domestic Science III (i)
Ancient History II (i)
Second Year — o,A.
1. English II (i)
2. Latin III (i)
Drawing III (i)
Spanish III (i)
3. 4, 5. Three electives from
Geometry I (i)
Bookkeeping IV (i)
Dom. Science IV (i)
Agriculture I ( i )
Manual Training I (i)
Music I (i)
Algebra I (i)
Ancient History III (i)
General Science I (i)
2O6 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Third Year— loB.
1. English III (i)
2. Latin IV (i%)
Spanish IV (i%)
Mechanical Drawing I
Art I(i%)
3. 4, 5. Three electives from
Geometry II (i)
Bookkeeping V (i)
Domestic Art V (i)
Agriculture II (i)
Manual Training II ( I )
Music II (i)
Algebra II (i)
Modern History IV (i%
General Science II (i)
Third Year— loA.
1. Vocational Guidance
2. Latin V(iy2)
Spanish V (iy2)
Mechanical Dr. II (i^^
Art I (i%)
3, 4, 5. Three electives from
Geometry III (i)
Bookkeeping VI (i)
Domestic Art VI (i)
Agriculture III (i)
Manual Training III (i)
Music III (i)
Algebra III (i)
Modern History V
General Science III (i)
APPENDIX 2O7
Explanation — Numerals in parenthesis refer to the num-
ber of high school credits at which each semester's work is
valued. Forty-five credits are required for entrance to our
junior college or to the University of California and simi-
lar institutions. Twenty-four credits may be earned in the
California intermediate school courses of our junior high
schools.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bibliographies :
ABELSON, J. Bibliography of the junior high school.
EDUCATION, vol. 37, pp. 122-129, October, 1916.
JUDD, C. H. Recent articles and books on the junior high
school. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL, vol. 17, pp.
674-684, May, 1917.
References in Books:
AYERS, L. P. Laggards in our schools. Charities Pub-
lishing Co., New York, 1909.
CUBBERLEY, E. P. School organisation and administra-
tion. World Book Co., Yonkers, 1917.
CYCLOPEDIA OP EDUCATION, P. Monroe, editor. The Mac-
millan Co., New; York. Vol. 3, pp. 68-93. Educa-
tion in Germany, Ziertmann. Vol. 2, pp. 656-675.
Education in France, Compayre.
HALL, G. STANLEY. Adolescence. 2 vols. D. Appleton
& Co., New York.
HALL-QUEST, ALFRED L. Supervised study. The Mac-
niillan Co., New York, 1916. Especially the Appendix.
INGLIS, ALEXANDER. Principles of secondary education.
Houghton-Mifflin Co., Boston, 1918.
JUDD, CHAS. H. The psychology of high school subjects.
Ginn & Co., Boston, 1905.
PARKER, S. C. Teaching high school subjects. Ginn &
Co., Boston, 1915.
SNEDDEN, DAVID. Problems of secondary education.
Houghton-Mifflin Co., Boston, 1917.
STRAYER, GEO. D. Some problems in city school admin-
istration. World Book Co., Yonkers, 1918.
TAYLOR, JOSEPH S. A handbook of vocational education.
The Macmillan Co., New York, 1914.
208
BIBLIOGRAPHY 2OQ
U. S. Bureau of Education.
Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1912. Vol i,
p. 152-6. Good list of junior high schools in 1912.
Report of the Commissioner, 1914. Vol. i. BRIGGS, T.
H. Secondary education. P. 127-157.
Report of the Commissioner, 1915. Vol i. DAFFEN-
BAUGH, W. S. Reorganization. P. 60-64.
Same. VAN SICKLE, JAS. H. Readjustments in grades
above the sixth. P. 30-3.
Report of the Commissioner, 1916. Vol. i. BRIGGS, T.
H. Reorganisation of secondary education, etc. P.
114-118.
Bulletin No. 4, 1907. THORNDIKE, E. L. Elimination of
pupils from the schools.
Bulletin No. 5, 1911. Age and grade census of schools and
colleges in U. S.
Bulletin No. 38, 1913. BAKER, JAS. H. Report of Com-
mittee of Council of Education, N. E. A., on Econ-
omy of time in education.
Bulletin No. 41, 1913. Report of the Commission of the
N. E. A. on the reorganisation of secondary educa-
tion.
Bulletin No. 10, 1914. Physical growth and school
progress.
Bulletin No. 8, 1916. BUNKER, FRANK F. Reorganisa-
tion of the public school system.
Bulletin No. 28, 1916. Report of a committee of the N.
E. A. on the social studies in secondary education.
Bulletin No. 2, 1917. Report on reorganisation of English.
Bulletin No. 49, 1917. Report of a committee of the N.
E. A. on music in secondary schools.
2IO THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
National Education Association Proceedings.
Los Angeles, Calif., meeting, 1907.
MORRISON, G. B., et al. Report of committee on an equal
division of the twelve years. P. 705-10.
Cleveland, Ohio, meeting, 1908.
LYTTLE, E. W., et al. Report of the committee on six-
year course of study. P. 625-628.
Denver, Colo., meeting, 1909.
MORRISON, G. B., et al. Third report of committee on six-
year course of study. 'P. 498-503.
Salt Lake City, Utah, meeting, 1913.
JUDD, C. H. A seven-year elementary school. P. 225-34.
WILSON, H. B., et al. Report of the committee on econ-
omy of time in elementary and secondary education.
P. 217-225.
Oakland, Calif., meeting, 1915.
CLAXTON, P. P. Organisation of high schools into junior
and senior sections. P. 747-'8.
WILSON, H. B., et al. Report of the committee on econ-
omy of time. P. 402-410.
New York City, meeting (also Detroit), 1916.
BRADFORD, MARY. Changes in the curriculum upper
grades. P. 407-'! i.
JOHNSTON, C. H. The junior high school. P. 145-152.
JUDD-PEARSE debate: The best organization for Ameri-
can schools is the 6-6 plan. P. QI?-'^.
JUDD, C. H. Affirmative of the 6-6 question. P. 9i7-525.
PEARSE, CARROLL G. Negative of the 6-6 question. P.
SNEDDEN, DAVID. Minimum essentials vs. differentiated
course of study in seventh and eighth grades.. P.
965-'76.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 211
Same. Peculiar psychological conditions and social needs
of the seventh and eighth grades. P. 398-403.
WEET, H. S. First step in establishing the 6-3-3 organ-
isation. P. iO36-'42.
Portland, Oregon, meeting, 1917.
BARKER, A. C. The intermediate school or junior high
school. P. 266-'7i.
BAILEY, LAURA C. Library opportunities in the junior
high school. P. 576-'8i.
DEAMER, ARTHUR. General or elementary science in the
junior high schools. P. 542-'5.
KIRKPATRICK, CHAS. Vocational content of the interme-
diate high school course. 'P. 535-'8.
PEIRSON, MABEL B. Biology in the intermediate school.
P. 538-4L
Periodicals:
AMERICAN EDUCATION.
Cox, PHILIP W. L. Junior high school; its purposes and
ho^v they may be realized. Vol. 19 : 337-43. Febru-
ary, 1916. Solvay junior high school. Vol. 20: 80-86.
October, 1916.
AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL.
REINOEHL, F. W. Some fundamentals of the junior high
school problem. Vol. 53: 19-20. September, 1916.
SCOFIELD, F. A. Junior high school at McMinnville,
Oregon. Vol. 50: 11-13, 65. March, 1915.
STACY, C. R. Tentative standards for junior high school
administration. Vol. 55: 19-20. August, 1917.
WHITNEY, F. L. Junior high school idea in the small
town. Vol. 48: H-I2. March, 1914.
AMERICAN TEACHER.
HART WELL, CHAS. S. Junior high school for increased
economy and efficiency. Vol. 5 : 37-39. March, 1916
212 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
ANNALS OP AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICS AND POLITICAL
SCIENCE.
BONSER, FRED G. Junior high school and vocational edu-
cation. ¥01.67:171-72. September, 1916.
EDUCATION.
ABELSON, JOSEPH. Bibliography of the junior high school.
Vol. 37: 122-9. 1916.
Study of the junior high school project. Vol. 37:
1-19. October, 1916.
PETERS, CHAS. C. What the grammar school has a right
to expect of the higher schools. Vol. 36: 415-24.
March, 1916.
BRIGGS, T. H. Possibilities of the junior high school.
Vol. 37: 279-89. January, 1917.
FOSTER, J. M. Junior high school in villages. Vol. 37:
495-503- April, 1917.
LULL, H. The six-year high school. Vol. 30, p. 75-24.
September, 1909.
EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION.
BONSER, F. G. Democratizing secondary education by
the 6-3-3 plan. Vol. i : 567-76. November, 1915.
JOHNSTON, CHAS. HUGHES. Junior high school adminis-
tration. Vol. 2: 71-86. February, 1916.
Movement toward the reorganization of secondary
education. Vol. 1 : 165-72. March, 1915.
Cox, P. W. L. Discussion of Mr. Cheesman A. Herrick's
criticism of the junior high school. Vol. 3 : 23-29.
January, 1917.
GILES, J. T. Effect on first six grades of junior-senior
high school organisation. Vol. 3: 269-74. May, 1917.
NEWLON, J. H. Need of a scientific curriculum policy for
junior and senior high schools. Vo. 3 : 253-68. May,
1917.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 213
STACY, C. R. Junior high school movement in Massachu-
setts. ¥01.3:343-50- July, 1917.
STUDY, H. P. Preliminary steps in organizing a junior
high school. Vol. 3 : 339-42. July, 1917.
EDUCATIONAL BI-MONTHLY.
Hosic, JAMES FLEMING. Junior high school. Vol. 10:
175-81. December, 1915.
EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE.
STACY, C. R. Bridgewater normal school and the inter-
mediate school movement. Vol. i : 1-5. March, 1916.
EDUCATIONAL REVIEW.
DAVIS, C. O. Reorganization of Sec. Ed. Vol. 42 1270- 301.
SNAVELY, GUY E. Junior high school and college. Vol.
51 :4O-9- June, 1916.
FLEAGLE, F. R. Trade instruction. Vol. 52 : 456-63. De-
cember, 1916.
SMITH, C. E. Mathematics in the junior high school.
Vol. 53 : 391-96. April, 1917.
EDUCATIONAL-JOURNAL.
INGLIS, A. J. Junior high school. 3 : 55-58. April, 1917.
Junior high school. 17:292-4. January, 1917.
Junior high school at Hudson, Ohio. 17: 466-7.
March, 1917.
Junior high school in the Hast. 18 : 2-3. September,
1917.
Junior high school in the West. 18: 3-6. September,
1917.
MANGUN, V. L. 6-6 plan at Macomb, Illinois. Vol. 18,
pp. 598-617. April, 1818.
One motive f.or organising the junior high school.
17: 379-80. February, 1917.
214 TIIE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL.
Junior high school movement. Vol. 15 : 114-18. Novem-
ber, 1914.
HORN, P. W. Junior high school in Houston, Texas.
Vol. 16: 91-5. October, 1915.
LLEWELLYN, E. J. 6-3-3 P^an at Mount Vernon, Ind. Vol.
16: 508-10. May, 1916.
Junior high school in Lewiston, Idaho. Vol. 16 : 454-
6. May, 1916.
TRYON, R. M. History in the junior high school. Vol.
16:491-507. May, 1916.
EDUCATOR JOURNAL.
HELM, M. P. Junior high school. Vol. 17: 353-57.
March, 1917.
HINES, H. C. Present status of the junior high school.
Vol. 17: 462-65. May, 1917.
GENERAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY.
•CARPENTER, H. A. General science in the junior high
school at Rochester, i : 46-53. November, 1916.
IHARVARD TEACHERS' ASS'N. LEAFLET.
INGLIS, A. J. Junior high school. L. 2: 1-9. October,
1916.
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.
CHAPMAN, I. T. Obstacles to be encountered in estab-
lishment of junior high school. Vol. 83: 537-41. May,
18, 1916.
GRIFFIN, O. B. Junior high school. 84: 399-402. Oc-
tober, 1916.
HARRIS, JAMES H. Six-and-six plan. Vol. 81 : 89-91,
102-103. January 28, 1915.
Junior high school. Vol. 82: 342-47, 352-53. Oc-
tober 14, 1915.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
IXGLIS, A. J. Junior high school. 84: 595-7. December
14, 1916.
JOHNSTON, C. H. Junior high school. Vol. 84:91. July,
27, 1916.
Rochester and junior high schools. Vol. 83 : 377.
April, 6, 1916.
SCOFIELD, F. A. Functions of the intermediate school.
Vol. 79: 429-3 1.
WESTCOTT, R. W. Outside activities of junior high
school pupils. 85: 91-93, 104. January 25, 1917.
WINSHIP, A. E. Junior high school. Vol. 83 : 91-2. Jan-
uary 25, 1916.
JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY.
KIRCHWEY, C. B. Geography in the junior high school.
Vol. 14: 291-4. April 16, 1916.
KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOL QUARTERLY.
BAKER, GEORGE MARSHALL. "Six-six." Vol. i : 5-32.
July, 1915-
JONES, O. J. Junior high school. 3 : 23-55. July/ I9I7-
LYON, M. E. Junior high school movement. 3 : 24-27.
January, 1917.
MANUAL TRAINING.
Advantages of the junior high school. Vol. 17: 640-1.
April, 1916.
-MATHEMATICS TEACHER.
GENTLEMAN, F. W. Content of a mathematical course
for the junior high school. 9: 209-18. June, 1917.
MIDLAND SCHOOLS.
BINGAMAN, C. C. Junior-senior high school in practice.
Vol. 30: 178-80. February, 1916.
LEWIS, E. E. Debate on the six-six plan. Vol. 30: 139-
40. January, 1916.
2l6 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
OHIO EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY.
Junior' H. S. Vol. 65 : 390-97. August, 1916.
GRADY, G. O. Junior high school. 66: 393-397. Sep-
tember, 1917.
OHIO TEACHER.
KINKEAD, R. G. Columbus idea of the six and six plan.
Vol. 35 : 248-9.
OREGON TEACHERS' MONTHLY.
RUTHERFORD, W. R. Junior high school. 21 : 149-151.
November, 1916.
PEDAGOGICAL SEMINARY.
DOUGLASS, AUBREY AUGUSTUS. Present status of the
junior high school. Vol. 22: 252-74. June, 1915.
LAWSON, MARY F. Socialisation of language study in
the junior high school. Vol. 23 : 76-85. March, 1916.
SCHOOL AND HOME EDUCATION.
BAGLEY, W. C. Six-six plan. Vol. 34: 3-5. Septem-
ber, 1914.
Prof. Judd's criticism of the eight year elementary
curriculum. Vol. 34: 212-16. February, 1915.
Six-six plan and early differentiation. Vol. 34:239-
41. March, 1915.
BROWN, G. A. Junior high school. Vol. 36: 6-8. Sep-
tember, 1916.
HOLLISTER, H. A. Junior high school. Vol. 35: 117-20.
December, 1915.
SCHOOL REVIEW.
INGLIS, ALEXANDER. A fundamental problem in the re-
organization of the high school. Vol. 23: 308-18.
May, 1915.
JUDD, CHARLES H. Junior high school. Vol. 23 : 25-33.
January, 1915.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 2I/
Junior high school. Vol. 23: 492-4. September, 1915.
Junior high school. Vol. 24: 249-60. April, 1916.
DAVIS, C. O. Junior high schools in North Central Asso-
ciation territory, 1917-18. Vol. 26: 324-336. May,
1918.
MCCARTNEY, L. Junior high school. Vol. 25 1652-8. No-
vember, 1917.
ROBINSON, F. V. Reorganisation of the grades and high
school. Vol. 20: 665-88. December, 1912.
STETSON, PAUL C. Statistical study of scholastic records
of junior high school students. Vol. 25 1617-36.
November, 1917.
STETSON, PAUL C. Statistical study of enrollment in
Junior high school. 26: 233-45.
BAGLEY and JUDD. Enlarging the American elementary
school. Vol. 26: 313-323. May, 1918.
WEET, H. S. Junior high school (Rochester, N. Y.).
Vol. 24:142-51. February, 1916.
SCHOOL AND SOCIETY.
Junior high school in New York. Vol. 5 : 344. March
24, 1917. Same, 5: 591. May 19, 1917.
HAMILTON, W. I. Attempt to define junior high school.
5: 589. May 19, 1917.
LODGE, G. Latin in the junior high school. , Vol. r: 300-
4. February 27, 1915.
SIERRA EDUCATION NEWS.
BENNETT, G. V. Intermediate school. Vol. 12: 592-594.
November, 1916.
TEACHERS' JOURNAL.
NUTT, HUBERT W. Reorganisation of the period of ele-
mentary and secondary education. Vol. 15: 113-118;
152-57. September-October, 1915.
THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
CRAIG, R. C. Woodwork for the junior high school. Vol.
16: 632-5. June, 1915.
Jr. H. S. at Trenton, N. J. 18: 304. March, 1917.
LEAVITT, F. M. Six-three-three plan. Vol. 16, p. 240-242.
Miscellaneous Reports.
California State Commissioner of Secondary Education.
Reports 1914, 1915, 1916.
Detroit, Michigan. Handbook of the Detroit junior high
schools. Board of Education, 1916-7.
Goldfield, Iowa. BINGAMAN, C. C. Report of superin-
tendent on junior high schools in U. S.
Houston, Texas. Annual report of the public schools.
Board of Education, 1916-17.
Illinois State Teachers' Association, 1915.
JOHNSTON, C. H. Junior high school administration. P.
116-23.
Illinois University, High School Conference, 1916, bul-
letin 21, Vol. 13.
BARTON, H. J. Latin in the junior high school. P. 53.
HOLUSTER, H. A. Junior high school administration. P.
32-42.
Iowa, University of, Extension division bulletin No. 25
(first series, No. 6), 1916. LEWIS, E. E. Standards
of measuring junior high schools.
Kentucky Educational Association (Louisville), 1915.
GATTON, HARPER. Six-six plan. P. 196-99.
HOUSTON, T. A. Six-six plan. P. 102-6.
Los Angeles (Calif.). Annual report superintendent of
schools, 1914.
Report of the advisory committee to Board of Education,
1916. P. 88-103.
Michigan, University of. Bulletin N. S. Vol 17. No.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 219
DAVIS, CALVIN O. Subject matter and administration of
the 6-3-3 plan of secondary schools.
Middlebury (Vermont) College Bulletin. Vol. n, Xo. i,
1916.
HOWARD, E. E. Junior high school.
Minnesota, Department of Education. Bulletin 59, 1916.
PHILLIPS and BARNES. Junior high school problem.
Mississippi Teachers' Association. Laurel, Miss., 1915.
CLAXTON, P. P. (Report of Dr. Claxton's address on
the 6-6 plan). P. 37-39.
Missouri, state superintendent, public schools. Sixty-
sixth report of public schools of Missouri for year
1915-16.
Missouri State Normal School (Springfield) Bulletin.
Vol. 10, p. 21-48. October, 1915.
HILL, CLYDE M. Junior high school movement.
New Hampshire, department of public instruction, division
of secondary schools, 1916. Junior high school
organization.
New York City, High School Teachers' Association of,
bulletin 59. January, 1916.
ABELSON, JOSEPH. Bibliography of the junior high school.
P. 16-28.
HARTWELL, C. S. Junior high school in New York City.
P. 14-16.
New York State University Convocation. Proceedings of
the convocation, October 19-20, 1916.
BRIGGS, T. H. Possibilities of the junior high school.
P. 92-103.
North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary
Schools (Chicago), 1914.
BROWN, H. E. Suggested plan for the re-organisation
of the American high school. P. 17-30.
22O THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Proceedings of 1916. The junior high school, the senior
high school, and the junior college. P. 40-50; 174-92.
Ohio State Teachers' Association. Proceedings, August,
1916.
HAWKINS, WILSON. The six-six plan. P. 355-75.
Pomona (California) Schools Bulletin, No. 8, Junior
high school — 1917.
Society for the Study of Education, National, fifteenth
yearbook, 1916, part III. Public School Pub. Co.,
Bloomington, 111.
DOUGLASS, A. A. The junior high school.
Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, Nation-
al, tenth annual meeting, bulletin 24.
BROGAN, W. S. Prevocational schools vs. continuation
schools and the junior high school. P. 174.
WETZEL, W. A. Junior high school and prevocational
education. P. 188-191.
Southern Education Association (Nashville, Tenn.), 1913.
FERTIG, J. W. Is not a six-year elementary course pref-
erable? 'P. 52-64. Discussion p. 65-73.
Vocational Education Association of Middle West, second
annual convention.
WILES, E. P. Junior high school. Voc. Ed. Assn. of
Middle West. Second Ann. Conv. P. 126-129.
STETSON, P. C. Curriculum of junior high school. P.
I30-I35-
GLASS, J. M. Results of first year's work at Washington
junior high school. Rochester, N. Y. P. 105-124.
HILL, C. M. Junior high school in Vermont. P. 124-135.
Washington Education Association (Tacoma, Wash.),
1914.
KERN, W. M. Junior-senior high school. P. 110-112.
S. E. Six-six plan of grading. P. 102-9.
INDEX
INDEX
Accessories of teaching 188
Adolescence,
education, boy 20-23
education, girl 23-25
evils 6-7
problems 192
Agriculture 106
Alameda, California 33
6-2-4 plan 33
Art Courses 103
Attendance,
compulsory 153
enforced 62-64
work 156
Aurora, 111., 8-5 plan 32
Ay res' statistics 4
Bagley, W. C 38
Baltimore 6-3-2 plan 31
Berkeley, Cal.,
history courses 97
loss of pupils 3
plan 33-35 40
problems in establishing Junior
High School 45, 46
Biology 101
Board of Education 182
Boston Latin School 31
Buildings and grounds. .. .185, 187
Bunker, Frank F 30-31
Berkeley plan 33-35
Difficulties 46
Character development 106
Chicago 6-yr. H. S 31
Cincinnati,
curricula 197-200
leakage 4
Class advi&ers 151-2
Class-rooms,
accoustics 137
conveniences 138
heating 136
lighting 136
seating 136
size 135
ventilation . ..135
Pajre
Coffman, L. D 38
Colorado Teachers' College. .. .120
Concord, N. H., plan 32
Cost, additional 54-56
Courses,
culture 101-108
defined 77
differentiation 1, 38
election 79-80
enriched 1
Culture pleasures 145
Curriculum,
Cincinnati 197-200
defined 77
Detroit 201-204
Houston 200-201
Los Angeles 195-197
Pomona 204
preliminary considerations 78-79
Definition Jr. H. S 1
Demands on public schools. ... 2
Denver survey 55
Departmentalization 12
Department of Superintendence 37-8
Detroit 39
curricula 201-204
Differentiations of courses....!, 38
Dramatics 106
Dropping out of school 191
Economy of time 17-19, 191
Elementary grades,
changes in subject matter. .70-73
effect of Jr. H. S. upon. . . .58-74
non-essentials eliminated. . .73-74
Elementary school teachers,
attitude toward Jr. H. S. ..48-50
excellent necessary 66-68
English courses 86-89
old English 92
Enriched courses of study 1
Evansville, leakage 3
Expense, additional 54-56
Expression 145
Faculties, mental 144
222
INDEX
223
Page
Faculty, teaching 189-190
duties of 150-152
experienced elem. teachers 114-118
men and women 117-118
principal 115-116
Fitchburg, Mass 41
Foreign languages 90-92
Foundational subjects 58
Correct grades I- VI 58-60
France, adolescent in 28-29
French 90-91
Francis, J. H 35-36
Geography 107
German 90-91
Germany, adolescent, ed 26-28
Grades,
included in Jr. H. S 1
methods of grouping 29-33
Grand Rapids,
leakage from school.... 3, 9, 12
vocational guidance 16
Habits of industry 141-142
Hall, Dr. G. Stanley 105
Health and development 143
History 96-98, 107
Horn, P. W 14
Houston Jr. H. S. ,
buildings 38
curricula 200-201
effect on enrollment 14
vocational guidance 16
Johnston 38
Judd, C. H 38
Junior College,
and Sr. H. S 168
courses 170, 172
Intermediate school 1
Issaquah, Wash., 6-5 plan.... 32
Ithaca, N. Y., 6-2-4 plan 32
Junior High School denned, .... 1
Kalamazoo 7-3-2 plan 32
Kindergarten 60-62
Latin 90, 92
Leakage from school 3, 4
prevented 7-14
Lecture method.. ..148-149
Page
Lewiston, Idaho, Jr. H. S 39
Literature 104
Location of Jr. H. S 47, 48
Long Beach buildings 55-56
Los Angeles,
establishment Jr. H. S 45
leakaf'C from school 3, 4
original plan 2?,
present plan 35, 36, 40
vocational guidance 16
Macomb, 111 10
Mangun, V. L 10
Manual training 84-86, 108
Mathematics 93-95
Mexican children 3
Moore, Dr. E. C 33-35
Moral problems 7
Moral training 164-166
Motor skill 142
Music 102
National Ed. Asn 33-38
debate 6-6 plan 38
economy of time 37
reorganization sec. ed 36-37
New York City 40
Ninth grade pupils,
attitude to Jr. H. S 53, 54
Number of Jr. H. S. in U. S. . .39, 40
Pearse, Carroll G 38
People's College and Junior
High School 173-177
characteristics 170
courses 170, 172
Philadelphia 39
Philippine Islands, plan 32
Physical education 80-84
Pomona,
effect Jr. H. S. on enrollment. 13
elections in grades 45
history courses 97
Jr. H. S. plan 42
vocational guidance 16
Population sufficient to maintain
Jr. H. S 181
Practical information 143
Program denned 77
Promotion by subject 1
224
THE; JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Page
Principal of Jr. H. S 189
clerical work 165
duties 157
helping teachers 161
school interruptions v . 162
supplies 160
Public conservatism 56
Purposefulness 145
Rahway, N. Y., 5-3-3 plan .... 32
Recitation 146-149
Richmond, Va., plan 41
Rochester 41
Saginaw, Mich., 6-6 plan 31
Salt Lake City 39
Saving time 17, 19, 191
Schedule 154
Science 98-101, 107
Selma, Ala., 7-5 plan 32
Senior High School, 167 et. seq.,
and tenth grade 167
and Junior college 168
Sense training 142
Session, all-year 64-66
Shields, Albert 36
Snedden, David 38
Spanish 90, 91
St. Paul 39
Start in life 5, 6, 17-19
Stetson, Paul C 9
Student organizations .... 158-160
Superintendent 152, 183
Page
Supervised study 68, 146, 155
Supervision by
superintendent 152
supervisors 152
vocational adviser 153
Teachers for Jr. H. S.,
college trained 50
college vs. normal 118
duty to publish 125
heads of depts 128
lesson-plans 134
men vs. women 117
organizations 123
self-examination 132
study pupils 133
teachers' college 120
Text-books,
adaptation 140
English 139
high school not suitable 138
Thorndike's statistics 3, 4
University and secondary ed. . . 175
Vermont 40
Vocational courses 108-113
Vocational education 35, 172
Vocational guidance, 4, 5, 14, 16, 45,
153, 191.
Vocational tendencies 158
Wealth of community support-
ing Jr. H. S 181
Wilson, H. B 87
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