TYPICAL SMALL HIGH SCHOOLS

Prevailing Conditions. The reports given in Appendix E indicate what is actually being done in some of the typical small high schools of various states. These schools were recommended by competent state authority as being among the best of their class in the state. It is a significant fact that no one was willing to recommend a one-year school, and few two-year schools were cited. In most cases reference to three-year schools was omitted also. Schools having less than a full four-year course evidently have too little stability to win general confidence. The reasons are evident. Many small four-year schools are subject to similar limitations.

1

The Very Small High School presents a large and difficult problem in secondary education. According to the report of the United States Commissioner of Education for 1904, 36.6 per cent of the high-school pupils enrolled in the country are found in schools having not more than three teachers. As truly here as in any other part of the educational world, the solution is to be found in the employment of really competent teachers. Too often these schools are managed and taught by teachers of inferior ability or training or both, or by young, inexperienced men and women of good training who are simply serving

1 Thorndike, E. L., "A Neglected Aspect of the American High School," Educational Review, March, 1907. Vol. 33, p. 245.

an unwilling apprenticeship for promotion to a larger field. If these small schools had good material equipment, and were managed and taught by teachers as efficient as are found in the good larger schools, the results would be astonishingly satisfactory. The small high school offers exceptional opportunities for excellent educational work. The small number and the usually earnest, ambitious character of pupils and the absence of distracting influences make the possibilities great. But it requires good scholarship, high character, and wise management to develop them; and these cannot be maintained without equal or perhaps greater remuneration than is paid teachers in larger schools. Until the financial problem involved is met, this large and fertile educational field will not be properly tilled. All honor to that relatively small number of able, devoted men and women who are now doing yeoman service in this rich but undeveloped part of the educational heritage!

THE LARGE HIGH SCHOOL

As compared with that of the small high school, the problem of organization and management in the large high school is somewhat more complex, and it requires vastly greater steady strength to maintain it at its best. The same end is to be sought, the same means used, the same exacting care given to every detail, the same judicious

attention given to the welfare of every individual pupil. How to do it most effectively and economically is the question. The particular problem is one of numbers. According to the principles already discussed, the programme of studies must be chosen to meet the needs of the community which the school serves; the daily programme must be so arranged as to enable both teachers and pupils to work with the greatest possible efficiency; the work of the different departments must be wisely divided among the teachers of the particular subjects; the authority of heads of departments, principal and superintendent, must be harmoniously maintained; textbooks must be chosen; the work of every pupil must be carefully and sympathetically supervised, either by the principal or by some teacher to whom the task is specially assigned; the work of every teacher must be carefully supervised by the head of the department and the principal; -all these things must be done without noise or friction, and the esprit de corps of the school must be maintained. For doing this work, larger equipment and more and better teachers, with a greater variety of training and talents, are necessary. The special problem is so to dispose of the available forces that every teacher and every pupil shall be working up to the safe limit of his ability. Classes must be large and competition strong. The pressure must necessarily be high, but it should be steady. In such a school the one all-important factor is the

principal, strong, steady, stern, sympathetic, watchful,

wise, efficient. Concerning him more will be said in another chapter.

STANDARDS OF THE NORTH CENTRAL ASSOCIATION

In connection with the subject of this chapter, the following rules governing the admission of high schools to the accredited list of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools are of particular interest. Since these standards are established by a commission so constituted as to contain an equal number of representatives from the colleges and the secondary schools, they are of special significance as indicating the trend of the most advanced practical thought concerning the essentials for maintaining a good high school.

"1. No school shall be accredited which does not require fifteen units, as defined by the Association, for graduation.

"2. The minimum scholastic attainments of all high-school teachers shall be equivalent to graduation from a college belonging to the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, including special training in the subjects they teach, although such requirements shall not be construed as retroactive.

"3. The number of daily periods of class-room instruction given by any one teacher should not exceed five, each to extend over at least forty minutes in the clear. (While the Association advises five periods, the Board of Inspectors has rejected

absolutely all schools having more than six recitation periods per day per teacher.)

"4. The laboratory and library facilities shall be adequate to the needs of instruction in the subjects taught, as outlined by the Association.

"5. The efficiency of instruction, the acquired habits of thought and study, the general intellectual and moral tone of a school are paramount factors, and therefore only schools which rank well in these particulars, as evidenced by rigid, thoroughgoing, sympathetic inspection, shall be considered eligible for the list.

"6. Wherever there is reasonable doubt concerning the efficiency of a school, the Association will accept that doubt as ground sufficient to justify rejection.

"7. The Association has omitted for the present the consideration of all schools whose teaching force consists of fewer than five1 teachers, exclusive of the superintendent.

"8. No school shall be considered unless the regular annual blank furnished for the purpose shall have been filled out and placed on file with the inspector. All hearsay evidence, no matter from what source, is rejected.

"9. All schools whose records show an abnormal number of pupils per teacher, as based on average number belonging, even though they may technically meet all other requirements, are rejected. The Association recognizes thirty as a maximum.

"10. The time for which schools are accredited shall be limited to one year, dating from the time of the adoption of the list by the Association.

"II. The organ of communication between the accredited schools and the Secretary of the Commission for the purpose

1 Later changed to four.