< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

power of classifying high schools and of requiring certain courses of study from them and the fulfilment of certain conditions relative to equipment, selection of teachers and the form and character of buildings. In some instances, specifically in the cases of Minnesota and North Dakota, examinations are presented by the board, and in the last named state the high schools are required to accept them as the basis of promotion. This, however, is not rigorously adhered to and usually applies to schools of the second and third class that have hopes of becoming first-class high schools. In other instances, even where the high school board plan of examinations exists, principals' certificates are accepted in subjects for entrance to college, where the high schools have passed the inspection of the high-school board.

Too strict emphasis upon and adherence to specific courses of study result in lack of adaptation, regarding which much criticism has arisen. Just what credit shall be given for specific courses where the whole purpose of the high school is not taken into consideration is a question which arises again and again. This objection is fully met in the Chicago plan and partly in the average entrance requirements of state universities. The tendency in the latter instance, however, is to multiply the subjects in which credit can be given, in the hope of covering, as it were, the miscellaneous features of the high-school course.

So much emphasis has been put upon the "fitting for life" side of high-school work, that the ability of the ordinary high-school subjects to do this, even where they are called vocational, has not been brought into question. The president of a vocational college in his annual report for 1911 says:

A more difficult aspect of the problem (referring to the question of entrance requirements) is the amount of credit that may be given to the study of vocational subjects in the high school. While the pursuit of vocational subjects in the high school would seem to be a natural preparation for the vocational college, and while some of the technical arts are better acquired in the earlier years, yet because the high-school course is designed to be a finishing course and covers the whole of the subject matter in an elementary and superficial manner, it does not give a preparation upon which the more intensive and mature college course may be built. The ground must be covered again by a more thorough method and the time that has been spent on the subject in the high school is largely wasted, while the general subjects that have been replaced are permanently lost. If the schools would separate the technical arts from the elementary consideration of principles, the former might be accepted by the colleges and the later course built upon them without loss of time and with real advantage.[1]

In the statement which has been quoted above, the president of Simmons College has pointed out one of the difficulties in the teaching of vocational subjects so-called, and in a measure justifies the attitude

  1. ↑ From the annual report of the president of Simmons College, December, 1911.
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