Education. 



442 



[May, 1912. 



principal must prepare and place on 

 file at the beginning of the term a daily 

 program, an outline of the term's work', 

 etc. In other words, each teacher must 

 make his own course of study, pre- 

 sumably observing as far as may be the 

 hints in the published course. In general 

 these are so few as to interfere but little 

 with the teacher's individuality if he is 

 fortunate enough to possess such a 

 quality, but on the contrary they are 

 not sufficient to be a guide to the 

 beginner or to the teacher of moderate 

 ability and attainments. An example of 

 this may be found on page 17 uuder the 

 heading 'Proper use of language', for 

 Grade VIII, namely.' Review and commit 

 to memory the fundamental principles 

 and rules of English composition in 

 connection with the daily work ' ! It 

 may be expected that this will be 

 construed in as many different ways as 

 there are teachers, and may require any- 

 where frcm five to five hundred hours of 

 school time in a year. Illustrative work 

 is specified for all the grades, but there 

 is so little of detail for the higher grades 

 that the teacher is left almost wholly to 

 his own resources. 



"Such meagreness, or vagueness, is 

 noticeable throughout the document, 

 but there is a marked exception to it in 

 ' History and Language ' for the higher 

 grades. The requirements in this res- 

 pect for Grade VIII are truly formidable, 

 including American history under the 

 constitution, the French Revolution, the 

 Conquest of India, the Union of the 

 North German States, Government of 

 the World, Hawaiian history, and several 

 other topics. Any one of these might 

 easily occupy months of study and to 

 introduce them all will necessarily mean 

 scrappy and disjointed work; and history 

 of all subjects, should be pursued in an 

 orderly and consecutive manner, and not 

 as a series of disconnected incidents. 



" It is recommended, if a new course is 

 in preparation, (1) that it be made more 

 specific and direct in statement, leaving 

 less to the individual judgment of the 

 teacher, for not all teachers are of equal 

 ability ; (2) that it describe each year's 



work in greater detail, and that in each 

 grade the work prescribed be approxi- 

 mately sufficient to occupy the year ; (3) 

 that in each study the minimum number 

 of hours per week and of weeks per year 

 be specified, the time being so arranged 

 as to leave a reasonable margin to be 

 apportioned according to individual pre- 

 ference or to local conditions." 



(Note). Mr. Boykin's objections are 

 answered in a large measure in the pre- 

 ceding notes and by saying that a de- 

 tailed outline has been prepared for the 

 first four grades and is being prepared 

 for the grammar grades also, which 

 divides the work by terms and months. 

 In respect to the criticism in History in 

 Grade VIII it can easily be seen that the 

 objection is caused by a misconception 

 of the work. The commissioner's under- 

 standing of what is intended is the 

 correct one, that is that the war of the 

 Revolution is the real history work of 

 that year and the incidents and parts 

 of European history referred to are used 

 as collateral work. 



P. P. Claxton, Commissioner of Edu- 

 cation, Washington, D. C. : "I have 

 just looked over the course of study of 

 the schools of the Hawaiian Islands, 

 which you sent to this Bureau some time 

 ago, and also the correspondence in re- 

 gard to it. I have just come into the 

 office and have not had time to study 

 the course of study as fully as I would 

 like to, but I want to say that I am 

 very much pleased with it. It seems 

 to me that you nave done well in trying 

 to adapt it to the needs of the children 

 of the Islands. There are, however, two 

 or three things that I may want to write 

 about more fully when I have a little 

 more time. 



" I am wondering if in all the lower 

 grades you might want to combine 

 nature study and geography. The two 

 are so very much alike that the nature 

 study can probably be done better as a 

 part of the geography work, and the geo- 

 graphy work will be enriched thereby. 



"The number work follows a plan very 

 popular in many parts of the United 

 States, but this plan has long seemed 



