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CHAPTER XVI

THE LARGER SERVICE OF THE HIGH SCHOOL

HE ascendancy of the American high school has been one of the marvelous expressions of the development of educational organization in recent times. Our faith in the larger service that it will render in the future will be strengthened by a brief review of its development within the past two decades. Within the past twenty years the number of pupils attending secondary schools has grown from 365,000 to 1,130,000 in the United States. This is an increase of 210 per cent, while our population during the same period increased only 47 per cent. Twenty years ago there were only about 2,500 public high schools; now there are approximately 11,500. Not only have these schools been made accessible within the past decade to children living in urban districts, but high schools are being erected with marvelous rapidity in the remote rural sections of our country.

The internal changes in the secondary schools have not been less remarkable than the increase in attendance. High-school buildings and equipment at the present far exceed the buildings and equipment of the better-class colleges of a generation ago. The course of study has been greatly extended and enriched within the last few years. New demands are constantly being made upon the secondary schools, and they have responded to these demands more adequately and effectively than any other type of educational agency. The public high schools within the last few years have attempted to perform services that we could have not conceived of ten years ago.

The high school began its services with the aim of

developing the purely intellectual powers of the pupils intrusted to its care. This function resulted in a standing course of study with fixed limitation of subject matter, requiring limited equipment and teachers with a generalized training. The new demands forced employment of teachers of specialized training and an enormous extension of laboratory and library facilities. We have seen manual training and home economics incorporated in the course of study in the best high schools as the result of ever-changing demands of our social situation. None of us is justified in saying that the high school has reached the limit of its scope of social service. Whatever special task may be assigned in the future, we cannot fail to recognize the enlarging of its scope of service within the last decade. If we can use the history of high-school development in the past to help us prophesy the trend of high school education for the future, it may save us the loss of much social energy and better enable us to adjust our educational machinery to social demands. Mindful of this past history, we wish to suggest three possibilities for the enlargement of service of the public high schools of the future:

1. What are the possibilities that the present high school will ultimately extend the number of years of instruction and the scope of study until it will take the rank of a junior college?

2. What are the possibilities of advancement of homecredit work in connection with high-school instruction? 3. What are the extension-service possibilities of the public high school?

TREND OF HIGH-SCHOOL REORGANIZATION

There seems to be a decided trend toward the establishment of junior colleges. As yet these colleges have

not been the outgrowth of secondary schools. Some of these schools started out as regular four-year colleges, but in the interest of efficiency and thoroughness their courses have largely been reduced to two years of collegegrade work. In a few cases institutions have been established with no other intention than to develop highgrade junior colleges.

There seems to be a decided trend at the present time in the direction of subdividing the secondary schools into two administrative units-at least this is the tendency in a number of our city school systems. We are coming more and more to feel that secondary education should begin with the twelfth year. The open question is as to where it shall end. The advocates of the junior high school would say at the end of the eighteenth year. They would contend that this plan should be developed into (1) a junior high school of three years, which would take the pupil through his fifteenth year; (2) a senior high school, also three years in length, extending from the fifteenth to the pupil's eighteenth year. The present trend of the public high school is toward extending its limits and toward reorganizing on a "six-and-six" plan.'

The tendency to extend the limit upward to include the Freshman and Sophomore years of collegiate instruction has not appeared above the surface, but it seems that we might ask with reasonable seriousness: What is the likelihood that the high school will develop such a tendency and is such a development desirable? Attention is directed to a few factors that have a bearing on the situation: (1) Recent years have witnessed a remarkable increase in the admission requirements in the professional schools and especially schools of medicine and law. Many

1 See Calvin Olin Davis' discussion of this question in High School Education, pp. 75-78, by Charles H. Johnson and others.

of the better medical schools require one or two years of college training as a prerequisite to the first year's work. Some even require graduation from a reputable college for admission to the Freshman year of professional training. This has created a demand for pre-technical or pre-professional courses. It has been assumed that the student would get these courses in standard colleges. But this assumption is open to serious question if this training is to be for only one or two years. The demands of the future will probably require the high school to consider demands resulting from gradually increased entrance requirements. (2) In the second place, entrance requirements of all standard colleges are being steadily raised. The more important universities and colleges are concentrating their efforts upon research and professional training. In practically all the colleges and universities the Freshman and Sophomore classes are increasing numerically with great rapidity. It is exceedingly expensive to provide the laboratory facilities necessary to accommodate adequately large Freshman and Sophomore classes. The most important colleges and universities will gradually increase their entrance requirements as a means of reducing the number of students in the beginning years of college work. This will mean that the responsibility of preparing students for seniorcollege and university work will be shifted to the high schools. The local social pressure will then exert itself as it has done in many similar instances to compel the high school to extend its course of study to meet the new standard requirements of our higher institutions of learning. The colleges have already dropped their preparatory academic departments that were so long associated with them, and the entire trend of collegiate organization is distinctly upward. As the gap widens between the

high school and the college the demand will increase for the high school to fill it with an adequate course of collegiate grade.

It is not contemplated, of course, that every high school will evolve into a junior college any more than that every junior high school will develop into a senior high school, but there is undoubtedly a well-developed sentiment that we should take educational opportunities to the people. A logical means of accomplishing this end will be the development of junior colleges in strategic positions in the city and elsewhere, easily accessible to the students from both the urban and rural senior high schools. There are distinct advantages in this plan. Many people hesitate to send their children several hundred miles away to college at the age of sixteen or seventeen, as their habits of life have not become definitely determined. The expense, including railway fare and board, is an important factor in the problem of attending college away from home, especially for a series of years approximating from four to seven years. It is obvious that all the reasons for the differentiated high school, supplemented with the reasons here suggested, give validity to the junior-college idea.

HOME CREDIT FOR HIGH-SCHOOL WORK

However remote may appear the vertical tendency of the high school, the latitudinal tendency is a social phenomenon recognized by all. Subject after subject has been added to the high-school curriculum. We no longer justify the inclusion of a subject on disciplinary grounds, but we now seek justification on the basis of the subject's content value. The demand of the public has created social pressure to add this subject or that, until not only has the secondary school been compelled

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