July 12, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



55 



The discussion of the educational signifi- 

 cance of the various subjects in the curriculum 

 of a secondary school, and of the methods that 

 will make their teaching most effective, is 

 preceded by five chapters in which a basis for 

 the whole question of secondary education is 

 offered. Of these chapters easily the most 

 notable is Professor Davis's on Principles and 

 Plans for Eeorganizing Secondary Education; 

 in its outspoken criticism of our educational 

 shortcomings and its helpful constructiveness, 

 the utterances of this chapter should sink deep 

 into the minds of teachers. With a wide per- 

 spective of the whole field, here and abroad, it 

 abounds in proposals of betterment that are 

 capable of realization, if our communities 

 realize the value of broadly trained teachers. 

 We should exceed the limits of this review if 

 we were to quote from the wealth of sound 

 doctrine, incorporated in this one striking 

 chapter. Next to it in importance among the 

 initial five chapters is that of Professor Elliott 

 on the Organization and Control of Instruc- 

 tion; exception, however, must be taken to 

 what seems an unfortunate separation of su- 

 pervisory from inspectorial control. The two 

 are inseparable; inspection should be a con- 

 stant accompaniment of supervision, a meas- 

 urement of the results growing out of expert 

 direction. To assign these two functions to 

 two sets of officers is to deprive supervision of 

 its ultimate test of efficiency ; it introduces the 

 danger of mechanical measurement of results, 

 of which the teachers in our large high-school 

 systems could reveal many a distressing tale. 

 Barring this one defect, the chapter is ad- 

 mirable; it protests against the peril of transi- 

 tory enthusiasms, against encroachment of 

 non-technical administrative boards on the 

 free exercise of expert insight; it advocates a 

 training of the teacher not according to aca- 

 demic standards, but according to standards 

 erected for secondary education, and puts the 

 responsibility for this mistake upon the col- 

 leges, where it properly belongs; it demands 

 that the selection of teachers inhere as a pre- 

 rogative in the supervising officer. It is sig- 

 nificant t«o that, distinguishing identity from 

 equality of instruction, Elliott urges as of 



special importance the differentiation of the 

 content and method of instruction of boys 

 from those of girls. Turning now to the 

 twenty chapters that bear upon individual sub- 

 jects of the curriculum, it is in no invidious 

 spirit that single ones are selected for special 

 commendation; those that contain besides fer- 

 tile discussions of method in their own par- 

 ticular field, suggestions of procedure from 

 which teachers of other subjects may readily 

 profit. No teacher of true professional spirit 

 but wiU appreciate Karpinski's article on 

 Mathematics, Chase's on History, Kester's on 

 Physics, and, above all, Denney's on English. 

 In the latter chapter in particular there are 

 massed so many practical devices to render the 

 teaching of English more effective (pp. 234^ 

 38) that one regrets the absence of similarly 

 helpful suggestions in some of the other chap- 

 ters ; culled from a varied and rich experience, 

 from a study of every promising method that 

 has borne fruit, these comments of a success- 

 ful teacher surpass in value all generalizations 

 of theory. Not merely what to undertake, but 

 how to do it, is what our inadequately trained 

 teachers (and they are, alas! in the majority) 

 need to know. 



In the article on physics the question of the 

 value and relation of laboratory work as an 

 element, but not the sole element, in the sec- 

 ondary teaching of the subject is discussed 

 with much sanity, and there is emphasized an 

 urgent plea for the consideration of the his- 

 torical evolution of physical science, a phase 

 of the work to which the French attach much 

 significance, but which we have been apt to 

 slight. It was well worth while to include in 

 the series of chapters discussions of sex peda- 

 gogy in the high school and of psychology in 

 the high-school curriculum, though in the 

 former case the difficulty of rational handling 

 of the subject is made prominent, and in the 

 latter, doubt as to the advisability of its intro- 

 duction is obviously felt by the writer. As to 

 psychology, your reviewer has no hesitation in 

 advocating its exclusion from the high-school 

 curriculum; the immaturity of high-school 

 pupils calls for an emasculation of the subject 

 that renders it valueless. 



