In fine arts there appears a gradual improvement of work in proportion to the increase in the number of teachers who are skillful both to execute and to instruct. The extension of the work in secondary schools to include other than the usual media, to the making of jewelry, etc., and to all forms of applied design, is significant. Colorado Springs, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis represent cities doing unusual work of the former kind. The Washington Irving High School, of New York City, well represents the schools teaching applied art. At the Ethical Culture School, of New York City, there is developing a fine arts high school in which the entire course of the last two years, including literature, science, history, etc., is centered about art. In mathematics there is much advocacy of the European plan of introducing earlier algebra and geometry and of teaching them either together or on different days of the week. Pioneer work to this end has been done at the University of Chicago High School, at the Horace Mann Schools and Stuyvesant High School, New York City, at the William Penn High School for Girls, Philadelphia, and at Lincoln, Nebr. At Indianapolis and Bloomington, Ind., Altoona, and South Pueblo, among other places, systematic effort has been made to teach pupils how to study mathematics, and at the last two places all the preparation for the first-year algebra recitations is said to be done in class. The tendency toward making mathematical problems practical is marked, and in many places there are offered courses in household arithmetic, commercial arithmetic, or shop mathematics. Such courses seem to satisfy the shop or laboratory better than the mathematicians, who assert that the work is not sufficiently extensive or logically organized. The Tuskeegee plan of offering systematic courses in mathematics, but turning aside whenever it is possible to solve in class problems that arise in the shop or field work of the students, is an interesting compromise. It is in science that efforts at reorganization are most conspicuous. Beset by demands from the colleges that science be "logically organized," by demands from the newer subjects in the curriculum that it be adapted to their needs, and by the public that it be made more practical, high schools are offering new courses and are making prominent the practical type of problem even in those courses that retain their former organization. The new textbooks and the revisions of those already in use are indicative of the tendency. Some new courses offered are those in the chemistry of the household, of cooking, of industry, and of agriculture; those in the physics of farm life and of gas engines; and those in sanitation and health. There seems to be a minimum of opposition to the introduction of such courses; there is, however, a decided difference of opinion as to what preliminary courses there must be in pure science. The rapid progress of "general science" for the first year of the four-year highschool course is marked, especially in the Middle West. The pioneer work in Chicago, New York, Oak Park, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles is finding definite form in a number of textbooks which have recently appeared or are preparing. When closely examined, pioneer courses not infrequently are crude, time-consuming, and unsatisfactory. For example, household mathematics for certain girls meets with pretty general approval, but when such a course consumes a whole year of secondary education and does nothing more than apply the simpler principles of arithmetic to the business of housekeeping, it is not likely to be considered an equivalent for most of the courses already of established standing. The weakness of most of the pioneer courses is that they are compromises; in attempting to rest on the newer philosophy of education. and at the same time to meet traditional claims, they are unsatisfactory to both. Much of the protest of the high schools against the "dominance of the colleges" has been due to the fact that the latter have not, as a rule, been kindly disposed toward innovations. Their position when opposing changes by competent teachers has been harmful to themselves as well as to the high schools; when opposing explorations from unstable bases toward uncertain ends, it is impregnable. If the underlying philosophy is sound and the effort fearlessly made toward worthy ends, the results must be ultimately approved. The introduction of novel courses and the reorganization of old ones emphasizes again the necessity of a consideration of educational values. Statistical studies showing that in certain secondary schools 20 hours are given to subject A and only 4 to subject B, and that 1 pupil-hour of subject A costs five times as much as 1 pupil-hour of subject B, are interesting, but no satisfying conclusions can be drawn from them until there is more knowledge concerning the value of each element involved. All over the country there seems to be a growing demand for the scientific measurement of educational results, culminating in the bureaus of educational research established in a number of cities. One well-known private secondary school had on its staff last year a consulting psychologist and statistician. The recent establishment of the Journal of Educational Administration and Supervision will provide another means of disseminating the results of experimental and statistical studies. 1 See p. 39. THE HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SURVEYS. The school surveys published during the year give a varying amount of attention to the high school. The Butte (Mont.) commission (George Drayton Strayer, director) presents a table showing the sizes of all high-school classes, which are relatively small, and suggests that for the sake of economy special attention should be given to the technic of program making. It is noteworthy that the average size of the English sections, which for composition work all agree should be relatively small, is exceeded by the average size of sections in only geology and the commercial branches. The commission also presents a table showing the number and per cent of failures in each subject. This table manifests the usual wide range: In eight subjects there were no failures; in French and physics there was the maximum percentage (32+), while the average in all classes was 10.77. The criticism of the high school, although limited in extent, is on the whole favorable. The commission mildly protests that the work is traditional and too limited in scope. It recommends an adequate new building, and after giving clearly its reasons, urges the establishment in the present high-school building of a junior high school. The report of the survey at Springfield, Ill., conducted by the Russell Sage Foundation (Leonard P. Ayres, director), contains a short chapter on the high school. The criticism is directed. against the organization, the building, the teaching, the course of study, and the failure to provide systematically for the advice of students in regard to their election of courses. Two sentences will illustrate one point of view of the surveyors: "Despite the fact that most of the children stay only one or two years and that this condition has maintained ever since the high school has been in existence, the entire work of the school is planned as though all of the children who entered remained for the entire four-year course." "The character of the work in the high school and the emphasis placed on the different subjects has been largely dictated by the demands of college entrance examinations. The fact is, however, that the Springfield high school is in only slight degree a college preparatory school." It is declared that only 1 pupil in 16 who enter the school goes to college. To relieve the overcrowded high-school building, to provide an easier transition to the high school, to hold pupils better, and to make less difficult the problems of vocational education, the commission recommends the establishment of four junior high schools. In the chapter on "The High-School Situation" of the report of the survey at South Bend, Ind. (J. F. Bobbitt, director), there are four tables concerning the organization and cost of instruction. Clearness has been sacrificed for economy in the following rearrangement of the principal data: The report criticizes severely the proportionate expenditure of time and money thus revealed. There is also presented another table in which the median salary of high-school teachers of South Bend is compared with the median in other cities of a similar size. The school survey of Portland, Oreg., under the direction of Ellwood P. Cubberley, contains criticisms and recommendations concerning secondary schools by John H. Francis and Frank E. Spaulding. The chief criticisms are that the high-school principals and teachers are engaged in teaching subjects rather than in educating the youth of the city; that the uniformity of curriculum for all high schools is a distinct barrier to progress; that subjects in the curriculum are uniform and isolated; that pupils' courses lack unity and definiteness of purpose; and that the examination system costs 20 per cent of the school year without returning results of significant value. Among the recommendations are that the city establish at convenient locations seven or eight junior high schools consisting of grades 7 to 9; that it extend the work upward two years both for those who will ultimately go to college and for those who will not; that it enlarge and modify the courses in the night high schools so as to supplement with theory the practical work done in trades during the day; that it provide in all the high schools more vocational and technical work; that it establish an art center in which high school pupils with especial aptitudes may devote each week one or two half days for which they will receive credit toward graduation; that it constantly modify the course of study to meet the ever-changing needs of pupils and to fit for the ever-varying service that society demands; that it keep the schools open from 8 o'clock to 5 six days in the week; and that it base promotions not on what a pupil has learned, but on what he needs to know. The report of the survey of education in Vermont, prepared by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, contains an extensive monograph on the secondary schools. William S. Learned, who prepared this section of the report, considers the high schools primarily in their relation to the State as a whole; everywhere he lays insistence on the importance of considering all the children of secondary school age. From among the 11 recommendations with which he concludes his study the following quotations will be of especial interest: * * 6. A higher standard of qualification of teachers. No certificate should be granted merely for a college diploma; to be of value to the schools, college work must have been properly focused *. To this must be added in practice the stipulation that teachers be employed in those subjects in which they are prepared. [Experience in teaching under supervision should also be required.] 7. Improved conditions of service for teachers, e. g., reduction in the number of classes and subjects to be taught, increase of capable supervision, and gradual increase in salaries. 8. An avowed shift of emphasis in education from the curriculum to the child, involving the intimate and continuous study of each individual child to determine what his characteristics and needs are his natural latent assets--and the adaptation of curriculum, organization, and methods of the school to the development of those assets, to the end that the value-personal, social, and economic-of each individual may be increased to the largest possible extent. 9. A persistent and careful scrutiny of the cost of the curriculum as applied to each school, with a view to securing the largest actual returns for the money involved * *. It should lead to the abandonment of expensive courses for a few specialized students unless, as is often possible with pupils having initiative, these can be directed informally. 10. A general reorganization of the secondary schools on the principle of centralization. [Fifteen to eighteen central high schools are proposed, with which numerous junior high schools presenting the work of Grades VII-X will articulate.] 11. Provision for the collection and interpretation of the most important secondary school statistics. * THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. Although among the variations in the organization of American schools there have doubtless many times been approximations to the junior high school, or intermediate school, the present movement toward an equal division of the 12 years of general education between the elementary and the secondary schools seems to have been initiated by E. W. Lyttle, who at the National Education Association in 1905 argued that "secondary education should begin as soon as the elementary pupil has acquired the tools with which he may gain a higher education." Subsequent to this address the Department of Secondary Education appointed on the subject a standing committee of five, which, under Mr. Lyttle and G. P. Morrison as chairmen, reported to the association in 1907, 1908, and 1909. The first two reports presented arguments, both educational and economic, for |