48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



will conduct classes in the lower grades. The result has been that 

 pupils from the elementary school will next year go on with the regular 

 work of the second-year high-school classes in modem languages, 

 equally well trained with the pupils who began their language work 

 in the high school, and superior to them in their feeling for the language 

 and in their ability to pronounce it accurately. 



The adjustment in English was comparatively easy. It was found 

 that here there was considerable unnecessary repetition of material. By 

 eliminating this and securing definite progress at each point in the 

 course it was found possible to promote the eighth grade directly into 

 the second-year work in high-school English. The class thus promoted 

 this year is proving one of the best of our divisions in second-year work. 



In mathematics, as I have already indicated, there is likely to be 

 much waste. By eliminating this much may be saved, but the most 

 effective results in mathematics teaching can not be secured without 

 recasting our material for the upper grades of the elementary and the 

 earlier years of the high school. Much material from constructive 

 geometry and the use of the equation in securing the value of the un- 

 known quantity could be introduced into the grades naturally and with 

 advantage to the pupil at the time, which would result in a considerable 

 saving at the point at which formal algebra and geometry are taken up, 

 with tremendous toll of failure, in the high school. In our own high 

 school the material of the first two years has been thoroughly reorgan- 

 ized, interweaving elementary elgebra, plane geometry and some trig- 

 onometry, in a way to secure a more unified and sequential development 

 of mathematical knowledge and power without the waste involved in the 

 usual method of breaking this material up into the usual arbitrary divi- 

 sions. While the introduction into the grades of the geometric and 

 algebraic material referred to above has not been fully secured, we suc- 

 ceeded last year in giving our eighth grade fully one half of the first- 

 year high-school mathematics. This year the eighth grade is taking 

 the entire first-year high- school work in mathematics and in the 

 monthly uniform tests which have been given to all our first-year 

 mathematics classes, have every time stood well above the average of 

 the regular high-school classes. 



The elementary school, as already indicated, gives much attention 

 to elementary science. In the high school a course in general science 

 has been organized which is required of first-year pupils. It was found, 

 on investigation, that this first-year science course was uninteresting 

 and of little value to pupils of our own elementary school by reason of 

 its repetitious nature. These pupils are now allowed to omit this course 

 and take either in their first year or later some of the specialized science 

 courses designed to follow the general introductory course. 



A similar lack of coordination in manual training, in which our own 



