Sample exercise:

study

The Comparative Study of an Occupation.

1. In what foreign countries can this occupation be found?

2. How does the occupation in these other countries differ from it as I know it?

3. Where should I especially like to live to follow it? Why?

(a) Is the country healthier?

(b) Does the country give me more opportunity to expand my occupation?

A few subjects under the study of biography are these: (1) The life of a successful celebrated person (this should be read to the class by the teacher). (2) The life of a successful person whom the pupil knows. (3) The life of the pupil himself.

Sample exercise:

3. What was the most important point in his life?

4. What pleasures did he have?

5. What made his work successful?

6. Did he render service to his fellow men?

7. Did he live by any law or motto or aim of his own?

What was his guide (law, motto, aim), and was it a good one or not? Why?

Sample subjects that may follow the pupil's life are as follows: (1) How I earned my first money. (2) How I spend my Saturdays. (3) My first real work.

To show the value of an education, the following subjects are good: (1) A talk by some young person who has returned to school after being out for a period, on "Why I left school" or "Why I came back to school." (2) What people I know say about the value of an education. (3) What I could do if I left school now. (4) What other young people have done who have left school at the end of the eighth grade. (5) Wages of eighth-grade graduates compared with the wages of high-school graduates. (6) What a family has done (this is taken from an article in the Outlook of August 26, 1911).

NINTH GRADE.

In the ninth grade the study becomes personal, and enters into more elaborate biography. Perhaps the first exercises will be as follows:

My ancestors: Where they came from, why they came to this country, whether or not they had to contend with hardships, what they have done here. My parents: Early life; hardships; occupation, its difficulties and advantages. What have they done for their children?

ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEMS.

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Myself: My childhood; my school life; any uncommonly good fortune, or bad, that has befallen me; my pleasures; my favorite studies; my ambitions; my health; etc.

These essays will serve not only to draw the pupil out and secure natural expression, but also to establish a personal and intimate relation between pupil and teacher. The teacher should hold the information gained in this way as a privileged communication. The school spirit of the pupil may be transformed by it.

"Morals and manners" can well be added to this in a series of essays, in which, with the true spirit of comedy, the undesirable is shown its own image in the glass of nature. Monologues and dialogues give a fit form. The subjects presenting the person with bad manners are inexhaustible: (1) In the street car. (2) At the theater. (3) On the playground. (4.) Buying a hat. (5) Telling a fish story. (6) Gossiping with a neighbor. The healthy humor of the mimicry does much to make the class one.

"Health and hygiene" also adds a stimulating subject for composition, as well as for better living among the children. Some of the subjects given are: The value of open-air life; exercise; proper amount of sleep; food values; bathing; neatness of person.

Among the biographies most useful in this grade are those of Helen Keller, Jacob Riis, Booker T. Washington, Phillips Brooks, Jane Addams, Alice Freeman Palmer, Mary Lyon, and Thomas Edison, an essential element in whose success is that it was often attained without advantage at the start of life. Most of this work is oral.

TENTH GRADE.

In the tenth grade a great number of occupations are listed at the suggestion of the class, perhaps because the members have some special opportunity for knowing them; then each pupil presents one orally, or in written composition, helped in his preparation by means of an outline. Sometimes this offers opportunity to do research work. One girl listed 350 occupations for women, and the salaries paid each. Her method was to take the lists of the telephone directory and call up the people whose names she found, and then to ask what she wanted to know. Ingenuity will invent other methods. Others obtained their facts from relatives or friends who knew the occupation.

Suggested outline: The vocation-(1) Its character, its present status, its future, its healthfulness, the kind of life it compels as to hours and other conditions, its effect upon one's personal development, its opportunity for service to the community. (2) The preparation necessary for entering the vocation (general requirements, natural ability or skill, education, special training), the means of entering it (apprenticeship, working up, schooling, local chances of an opening). (3) Sidelights on the vocation (opinions of those in it at present, 75080°-17-10

statistical reports, laws affecting the vocation, periodicals and books discussing it, personal observation).

In the second half of this year some of the pupils will be ready to study some occupation that they expect to enter. Those who have no definite occupation in mind will choose one under the guidance of the teacher that has some special interest to him. An outline can be given by the teacher to aid the pupil in his investigations.

My own vocation: (1) Origin or history. (2) Modern conditions (as in preceding outline). (3) Good points and bad points (degree of independence, permanence, importance, remuneration-money or pleasure in the work itself, or in social returns). (4) How to enter it (preparation, cost, length of time for study). (5) Characteristics necessary to success.

This last will require self-analysis of a limited kind, as well as analysis of men who have succeeded in the occupation. The selfanalysis should be strictly confidential. Here it may be possible to save some one who habitually fails in mathematics from entering engineering because a hero or relative has succeeded in it, or because father or mother are ambitious that he shall succeed in it.

ELEVENTH GRADE.

Now that the vocations have been considered, the preparation becomes important, and schools and colleges may be studied. There are various kinds to consider, among which are the industrial, professional, and purely literary; art schools, manual-training schools, schools for physical training, etc. Each pupil should take a special interest in some school and look it up through its catalogues and by interviews with graduates, and compare it with other schools of the same kind. The small college versus the large, coeducation versus separate schools for men and women, eastern colleges versus western, native versus foreign-all of these are good subjects for discussion and debate. This information as to the ideals of the colleges and the conditions of student life is soon to be of great value to the students in deciding on their college course. The subjects required for college entrance and other conditions must be ascertained and pupils' own programs inspected to see whether their own work is properly mapped out to satisfy the colleges.

In the second half of the year the ethics of the vocations are considered. Girls who are not going to college and have no special choice. study problems of domestic life-the relation of mistress and servant, expenditure, gossip, treatment of clerks in the stores, proper dress, and buying good articles in providing household supplies. Those who have definite plans consider the moral codes of the professions and business life. The subject is inexhaustible. Here are debated the ethics that inspired the founders of the Consumers' League,

Anti-Saloon League, and other leagues for the betterment of social conditions.

TWELFTH GRADE.

When the occupations of the business and professional, world have been studied, to which most men devote their lives and by which they earn their living, it is well to single out for special study those which are distinguished as supported by and for the people because they are necessary for the public well-being and the betterment of society. Soon most of the pupils in this grade will be earning their own living, and paying either by taxes or by gift for the maintenance of public institutions.

Public institutions maintained by taxes will supply subjects for the first half year, and those maintained by subscription for the second. The result of the year's study must be a growth in public spirit, a willingness to give support by seeking occupation in one of the institutions, by contributing in money and mind, by the aid of a vote or sympathy. "Each for all" is the unconscious teaching and a return to the State and society for benefits received. When they are asked, "What institutions does the State maintain for its people, opening occupations to some of its citizens?" the class will readily suggest a long list, beginning with the police department and ending with the Army and Navy. In ten minutes the list will contain more institutions than are sufficient to supply subjects for the individuals of the class. It will include the board of health, city hospitals, fire commission, water supply, weather bureau-an indefinite list. This is swelled by the institutions which the State charters and in a fashion directs, such as insurance companies, railroads, trusts, etc. These subjects are excellent for exercising the pupil in research work. He has now reached a stage where it is well for him to collect and organize a large body of facts independently. His material will be obtained from the reference library, by personal visits for inspection of the institutions studied and interviews with the officials, or by any other means that ingenuity can devise. The organization of this body of material and the writing of a manuscript in the best possible form, with footnotes, a bibliography, and an outline this is a labor to stimulate the pupil to his highest efforts.

7. PREPARATION OF TEACHERS.

The most difficult administrative problem, in the presence of which all others seem insignificant, is, of course, that of securing properly trained teachers. The number of school authorities who still believe that anybody can teach English is fortunately growing small. It is now generally recognized that the giving of instruction in the

vernacular is not only the most important but probably also the most difficult task in the high school. To take in hand young people from homes of culture, of little culture, and of almost no culture at all and undertake to present them at the end of the high-school course capable of speaking and writing with clearness and correctness and of reading with intelligence and appreciation is a daring feat at best, The experienced know that only an approximation to success is possible.

The difficulty is that mastery of English does not consist in the learning of facts and rules nor in mere mechanical skill. Communication is an art, and whether it be approached constructively or interpretatively it must be treated from the standpoint of art. This precludes the leaning heavily upon the textbook, which, at the best, can be only a laboratory guide or a book of reference. The constructive activity of the pupil in reorganizing his own experience in order to appeal to an audience or to realize the meaning of what another has written this, and this alone, is what really counts. Now, the inducing and guiding of genuine constructive activity is not a task for greenhorns. It is, indeed, not a task for the mere scholar accustomed to having bodies of facts presented in lecture form from the teacher's desk. It requires knowledge, but also skill-skill in using that knowledge in the guidance of others.

The main facts with regard to the preparation of the teachers of English who are now in service may readily be gathered from the report of a committee of the National Council of Teachers of English which appeared in the English Journal for May, 1915. This committee, under the direction of Prof. Franklin T. Baker, of Teachers College, Columbia University, assisted by a committee of the Illinois Association of Teachers of English, under the chairmanship of Prof. Harry G. Paul, sent out some 1,500 copies of a questionnaire, to which 450 answers were received. From these it appears that about 90 per cent of high-school teachers of English have a college degree. Twenty-five per cent have the master's degree. About half of those replying have specialized in English to the extent of taking five or more English courses in college. There is, however, no clear consensus as to the relative value of the courses taken. About 50 per cent have had some special training in the teaching of English. This is generally regarded as helpful. The same could not be said, however, for the courses in education in general, which were declared to be frequently too theoretical. Among other subjects, the languages were regarded as most valuable, with history as a close second. The report as a whole indicates that as yet the question as to what constitutes the best preparation for the English teacher has not been widely or thoroughly considered.