EDUCATION 



1942 



EDUCATION 



present time a marked tendency to reduce the 

 elementary school to a six-year basis, and to re- 

 organize the seventh and eighth grades with 

 the first year of the high school (the ninth 

 grade) into what is called an "intermediate 

 school," or a "junior high school." The chief 

 advantage of this new organization is that it 

 will permit a differentiation of school work at 

 the beginning of the seventh year instead of 

 at the beginning of the ninth year; the disad- 

 vantage lies in the fact that the earlier the 

 school work is differentiated into distinct 

 "curriculums" the less will be the total amount 

 of work that all will have in common, and 

 the more difficult will be the problem of mak- 

 ing wise choices. 



"Secondary education" is represented typi- 

 cally by the four high-school years. If the 

 present plans for reorganization are generally 

 accepted, however, secondary education will 

 begin with the seventh grade. This type of 

 education aims to meet somewhat specialized 

 needs, and consequently attempts to provide 

 more than one curriculum, or group, of s|udies. 

 Thus in the larger high schools to-day one may 

 find a rich variety of "curriculums." One cur- 

 riculum may be made up largely of Latin, 

 Greek, algebra, geometry, physics and other 

 studies that have in the past been recognized as 

 "preparing for college." Another curriculum 

 may omit the classical languages, and provide 

 instead a more extended training in English 

 and in the modern foreign languages (especially 

 German, French and Spanish). 



Still another curriculum may aim to prepare 

 boys and girls for business life, and will con- 

 sequently emphasize such subjects as book- 

 keeping, stenography, typewriting, commercial 

 law, commercial arithmetic and commercial 

 geography. Another may be strongly "techni- 

 cal" in its purpose, and include not only 

 "manual training" of the older type, but also 

 thoroughgoing courses in draughting, machine- 

 shop practice, foundry work and the like. Still 

 another will have as its core the subjects that 

 are related to the household arts such- sub- 

 jects, for example, as chemistry, sanitation, 

 textiles, home decoration, cooking and sewing. 

 The essence of secondary education as it has 

 developed in this country, then, is this provi- 

 sion of "differentiated curriculums" to meet 

 different needs, tastes and occupational inter- 

 ests. The high school is no longer thought of 

 as merely a school preparatory to college a 

 "fitting" school but rather as a school prepar- 

 ing for a variety of life activities a "finishing" 



school; but it should be added that preparing 

 boys and girls for college is still an important 

 task of the high school. 



Higher Education. "Higher education" in- 

 cludes the work represented by the colleges and 

 universities, or the years of school life from 

 the eighteenth on. Like secondary education, 

 it, too, is "differentiated" into sepanitc cur- 

 riculums, among which the old-time college 

 course, with its rigid requirements of Latin, 

 Greek and mathematics, is now scarcely recog- 

 nizable. 



Education of All the Children of All the 

 People. But when we speak of "elementary," 

 "secondary," and "higher" education as refer- 

 ring to conditions in the United States and 

 Canada, we must remember that our educa- 

 tional situation is in many ways quite differ- 

 ent from that which prevails in almost every 

 other part of the civilized world. For example, 

 in Germany, as in most of the European coun- 

 tries, there are different schools for different 

 social classes, and the children of the "upper" 

 and "middle" classes do not generally attend 

 the same schools as do the children of the 

 "masses." What in Germany corresponds to 

 our elementary school (or the first eight 

 grades) is called the "people's school," and is 

 really a school for the masses. A boy or girl 

 who passes through these eight years of school- 

 ing in Germany is not in a position to go on to 

 anything corresponding to our high school and 

 college. Indeed, boys and girls who are to go 

 to college must be placed in a "secondary" 

 school at about the age of nine (that is, at' 

 a point corresponding to our fourth grade). 

 The result of this policy of separate schools 

 iv that secondary education and higher educa- 

 tion are class privileges, practically limited to 

 the children of wealthier parents who can afford 

 to pay the tuition fees of the secondary school, 

 and who can look forward to a higher educa- 

 tion for their children. 



What the United States and Canada have 

 done in the organization of their schools, then, 

 has been essentially to preserve the "open 

 door" of opportunity for all. These schools are 

 organized on a "unit" basis; someone indeed 

 has characterized such a school system as an 

 "educational ladder" with its "base in the gut- 

 ter and its tip in the university." If at any 

 point on this "ladder" the boy or the girl de- 

 cides that he or she will have a higher education, 

 the way is open; the steps will not have to be 

 retraced as they must be in almost every other 

 country if such a decision is reached after the 



