so 



would expect to find it occupying a commanding position in 

 the curriculum of every secondary school. But educators are 

 conservative. Tradition and custom are binding forces that 

 tend to hinder rational response to changed conditions. A glance 

 at the history of educational methods shows this tendency to- 

 ward conservatism to be very strong. 



In mediaeval times education was solely for those who did 

 not work with their hands. The classics furnished the basis 

 for educational training, for indeed there was little else, and 

 it answered the purpose. In time, hunian freedom gradually 

 broadened and with it education reached down from the idler 

 and scholar to the workers. As education became more wide- 

 spread and free schools established, the number fitting for col- 

 lege greatly increased. Finally, little more than a half cen- 

 tury ago the first public high schools were established. But 

 instead of these schools growing up out of the elementary 

 schools, they were patterned after the colleges. 



The colleges had been the bulwark of conservatism, and till 

 a few years ago, comparatively, the classics still held their place 

 in the front rank of what was deemed best for educational 

 training, almost a fetich to the educators of the colleges. The 

 men who were called to make the curricula of the high schools 

 came from the colleges, and we need not be surprised when we 

 find the languages still occupying the front rank in the high 

 schools, even more than in the colleges themselves. 



Let us now inquire into the actual conditions we may find 

 in the curricula of the high schools. I will first analyze the 

 course of study of the Chicago high schools, since I am more 

 familiar with these schools. Some explanation of terms is ne- 

 cessary for a clear understanding of the figures. High schools 

 usually give one credit toward graduation for five recitations 

 per week in one subject for a year, two laboratory periods count- 

 ing as one recitation period. Manual training, music, draw- 

 ing, and domestic science usually required two periods of work 

 as an equivalent to a recitation period. The unit course then 

 is five recitations per week in one subject for one year. But 

 as a few schools, including those of Chicago, have many courses 



