to effect would be through a department, and I shall confine my remarks to the description of certain lines of inquiry that could be carried on either through a department or by any other agency properly equipped and of national scope. I should like, therefore, to have you accept, if you will, my statement as favorable to the national investigation of certain educational problems as my personal view that the best agency for the execution of such investigations would be such a department.

Many of the inquiries that have been made up to this time have been conducted through the support of certain private foundations. I have brought for the members of the committee, if you gentlemen are interested to look at them, copies of one report that I can describe concretely. As you will see by the title, it is the "Report of the commission on length of elementary education." The gentlemen whose names are mentioned on the cover of this report may be of interest to you. Mr. Eugene C. Brooks is the president of the State School of Mechanical Arts of North Carolina, and was formerly State superintendent. Dr. Samuel P. Capen is chancellor of the University of Buffalo, and is here this morning to participate in the hearings. Dr. Edward S. Evenden is professor of education in the teachers college of Columbia University. Mr. Thomas H. Harris is superintendent of schools of Louisiana. Mr. George Melcher is assistant superintendent of schools in Kansas City, Mo. Mr. Clarence L. Phelps is the head of the normal school at Santa Barbara, Calif. Mr. Peter Sandiford is professor of education in the University of Toronto in Canada. Dr. Payson Smith is commissioner of education of the State of Massachusetts, and Dr. Henry Suzzallo was for a time president of a university and is now in Europe carrying on certain activities for the Peace Commission, and is one of the leading educators of the country.

That commission was organized by the Commonwealth foundation, a private foundation for the purpose of making comparisons as far as possible between the seven-year elementary schools in many of the Southern States with the eight-year schools of the Northern States, and for the purpose of throwing light also on the new organization which has appeared in the American school system, the socalled junior high school, and, briefly, the outcome of this investigation is to call attention to the fact that there has been going on, without any adequate guidance but by using natural forces operating in our American educational system, a movement to build up another character of elementary education. Elementary education is being reduced to a six-year program instead of the eight years that used to be conventional. That has wrought a complete change also in the high school. The consequences of those changes appear in the fact that we now have a junior college that is in many instances being affiliated with the public high schools. We have the junior high school which is dividing the old conventional high school, and I think it is fair to report to you gentlemen that the high school is in flux. It is undergoing a very radical change, and it is the feeling of all of us who are associated with the work of the high school that there ought to be a careful, systematic, national inquiry that will bring to the surface the particular experience of the high schools throughout the country. In further support of the contention that there should be such an investigation, I beg to quote a paragraph

that came to my hand the other day from an article that is published in a periodical which is sent out by the Bureau of Education, called "School Life." This article is prepared by Mr. E. D. Grizzell, chairman of the commission on secondary schools of the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Middle States and Maryland. Mr. Grizzell has made a table in the article, showing the practices of these different regional associations to which I referred, and concludes his paper with this statement:

There is great need for research to determine the validity of certain existing standards. For example, the standards for teaching load are being questioned in some quarters. A matter of such importance should not be dismissed with a mere gesture. Standards for laboratory and library should be defined more clearly. There should be adequate standards for school records, pupil load, salaries, expenditures for secondary education, student activities, and a score of other significant features and relationships. The necessity for careful research is apparent if standardization in secondary education is to serve as a means of promoting sound progress.

That quotation is intended to reinforce what I have said. The secondary school is in process of such rapid change that the experience of different parts of the country ought to be collected for purposes of systemization of activities in college institutions and for the purposes of the voluntary associations. These voluntary associations aim to set standards, and I think it is a fair opportunity to make comment that we are not here as a committee of the North Central Association asking the Federal Government to take over standardization at all, but we are asking some assistance in carrying on those scientific investigations which will control and direct the process of standardization. Those have been carried on by these voluntary regional associations, but we are unable to carry on the process in the regional associations because we do not have the facilities and from the nature of the case can not have the facilities for the general investigation of all of the high-school conditions throughout the United States. Our activities must of necessity be somewhat limited, and you can see it would obviously be extremely wasteful as a public undertaking for each one of the regional associations to carry on this investigation needed for all of them, and that is very necessary if we are going to have a genuine, scientific basis for the operations of the regional institutions themselves.

There are various indications of this need that touch the activities of a Federal department. I have in my hand a mimeographed statement which was very recently issued under date of April 13, 1928, from the Department of the Interior. This gives an account of certain studies which have been made by the national committee on research in secondary education, organized by the Commissioner of Education of the United States, but not operated by the bureau for the simple reason that the bureau has not the resources necessary to carry on the investigations. This committee being organized by the bureau has solicited and secured the cooperation of a number of individuals and organizations throughout the country, and this mimeographed statement includes a list of such investigations as have already been carried on by this committee, and they have been very useful and helpful to the colleges and schools of the country.

STUDY OF HIGH SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES

The national committee on research in secondary education, at its annual meeting in Boston, in March, 1928, decided to make a cooperative study of member schools to be carried out in 1930 by the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Middle States and Maryland, the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States, the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, and the Northwest Association of Secondary and Higher Schools.

All of these organizations initiate individual studies of their own schools from time to time. The North Central Association carried out elaborate studies of its secondary member schools in 1915, 1920, and 1925. The Northwest Association is committed to the policy of carrying on such a study in 1930 and in every succeeding year divisible by five. The Southern Association has recently brought to a close a study of secondary schools within its territory.

The national committee is attempting to bring greater coordination into these studies by having them all made in the same year, by having them made on a comparable basis, and by having the reports of these studies prepared by a central committee and published in a single bulletin. Since the five associations named above operate in 46 of the 48 States, it is felt that the study under consideration will more closely approximate being national in scope than any heretofore attempted.

The national committee during the past 12 months made a number of valuable studies which were published by the Bureau of Education of the United States Department of the Interior, either as bulletins or as contributions to its periodical, School Life, which has been designated as the official organ of the committee. Eight major investigations are in progress. The following is a list of the studies completed and in progress, issued under the auspices of the Federal Bureau of Education:

1. Completed studies and publications.-An outline of research, with suggestions for high-school principals and teachers, by Arthur J. Jones (bulletin, 1926, No. 24); Bibliography of studies in secondary education, by E. E. Windes (bulletin, 1927, No. 27); Bibliography of current research undertakings in secondary education, by J. K. Norton (mimeographed circular, March, 1927); Study of Southern Association high school, by Joseph Roemer (bulletin); Senior highschool promotion plans, by J. F. Montague (bulletin).

College entrance requirements in relation to curriculum revision in secondary schools, by William A. Proctor, was reported in chapter 7 of the 1928 Yearbook of the Department of Superintendence of the National Education Association. 2. Studies in progress.—Small high school, by Emery N. Ferriss; Large high schools, by Wm. A. Wetzel; and Junior high-school conference, by James M. Glass.

The following articles, sponsored by the national committee, appeared in School Life: (1) Good citizenship built upon civic integrity in high school, by Walton B. Bliss, March, 1927; (2) need of uniformity in certification of highschool teachers, by E. J. Ashbaugh, April, 1927; (3) the national committee on research in secondary education, by E. E. Windes, April, 1927; (4) conditions favor integration of junior colleges with high schools, by Leonard V. Koos, May, 1927; (5) wide variations of practice in small junior high schools, by Emery N. Ferriss, June, 1927; (6) general guidance responsibilities of the secondary school, by William C. Reavis, September, 1927; (7) plan of rating teachers based upon pupil accomplishment, by Wm. A. Wetzel, October, 1927; (8) accredited secondary schools of the Southern Association, by Joseph Roemer, November, 1927; (9) secondary schools of Southern and North Central Associations, by Joseph Roemer, December, 1927; (10) must consider pupils' academic ability and requirements of curricula, by Wm. A. Wetzel, January, 1928.

The following officers were elected at the annual meeting of the National Committee on Research in Secondary Education: Chairman, J. B. Edmonson, University of Michigan; vice chairman, W. R. Smithey, University of Virginia; secretary, Carl A. Jessen, United States Bureau of Education.

I submit also another document, a foreign document. The volume that I am referring to is the report prepared by an English commission. All of the countries of Europe as well as our own country find this change going on in secondary education, and the reconstruction of secondary education in England is a very live issue.

The Government appointed a commission, not a governmental commission in the sense of a commission with any authority, but an inquiry commission to investigate, an investigating commission. This commission sat during a period of about two and a half years, and during that time held public hearings and made inquiries, during which the commission was in session over some 48 days. The preparation of the report was based on the results of those hearings. The title of this report is "The education of adolescents," and the reconstruction of secondary education in England will be very greatly influenced by the findings of this commission. They are elaborate and I shall not attempt to go into them in detail, but here again is a document which shows a source of inquiries that will be helpful in guiding the reconstruction. It has no authority in law, and it is not intended to prescribe what shall be done. It is an informing document that will be utilized in England for purposes similar to those I have been discussing. If the members of the committee are interested in looking at the details of that, they may find that report of some interest. There are, of course, various ways in which these investigations can be carried on. The regional association, to which I have referred, might finance some of these inquiries. I have already indicated that method of doing it, by isolated associations and institutions, will be wasteful and will always be limited. The North Central Association has been in operation 30 years and finds that a great many of the inquiries have not been possible through its limited organization, and the other portion of the investigations to which I have been referring, have some of them been carried on by private foundations, and that has been one of the fertile sources of such investigations. Here are two of the recent investigations by private resources. I have in my hand a report prepared by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, entitled "College Educational Methods of the United States and Europe." This document is drastically critical of the American high school, so critical of the high schools of the United States that many of us are quite unable to accept either its statements or its conclusions. It represents, however, an attitude that is not uncommon in the United States in the criticism of these institutions. Our contention is that if these criticisms are valid we ought to have some support in the distribution of criticism on which reforms should be based.

Mr. DOUGLASS. Who are the writers who make up that report? Doctor JUDD. The writer of this particular report was Mr. William S. Learned, member of the staff of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Learning.

Mr. DOUGLASS. Is he an American educator?

Doctor JUDD. He is a graduate of Harvard who has been for a period of years associated with the organization to which I have referred. He has also conducted an earlier inquiry into the normal schools in Missouri, which is one of his most elaborate documents, and this document is the product of five or six years work in that Foundation by an American born, a native of America, educated in our own institutions. I might read, if I may, one brief statement from it. He says, "The curriculum"-referring to the curriculum of the American high school-"is a rope of sand without organization." Then he writes a paragraph on that. I could give you other examples of criticism. The State of Pennsylvania became so much impressed with this type of criticism of the secondary schools and so

much concerned over the matter of its own secondary education, that it has launched a program of cooperation with the Carnegie Foundation, which is outlined in this second document that I hold in my hand. The program for that research is here and has been entered upon by the State of Pennsylvania with the cooperation of the Carnegie Foundation.

A little time ago I called your attention to the fact that the State of California is not a member of any one of the regional associations, but in the solution of its own problem of secondary education the State of California has found it necessary to make a somewhat comprehensive study and it has organized a preliminary survey. That survey is supported by a legislative appropriation and is now in progress. The effort will be made to secure at the next meeting of the legislature a substantial sum to carry on that inquiry and extend the scope. I do not know exactly what will be asked for at the next legislature, but the sum that has been mentioned as appropriate for investigation in the State of California on the junior college problem is $75,000. That gives an idea of the scope of the inquiries.

Finally, I should like to submit an outline of various problems that we feel are very urgent problems and need the help of the Federal Government by way of scientific inquiries into the conditions so that the regional associations may carry on their operations, and I submit for your consideration as a possible part of the record the statements secured from the other regional associations. As I said there are four other regional associations, and our committee, acting under authorization of the North Central Association, wrote to the officers of those associations, and I will read statements from these officers. The first is from Superintendent George W. Hug, who is secretary of the Northwestern Association. That is the one that includes Washington, Oregon, etc.

(The letter referred to is as follows):

Dr. CHAS. H. JUDD,

School of Education, University of Chicago,

SALEM PUBLIC SCHOOLS,
Salem, Oreg., April 14, 1928.

Chicago, Ill.

DEAR DOCTOR JUDD: Your letter received in regard to securing the support of the Northwest Association of Secondary and Higher School of a plan for national support of a study of secondary schools and institutions of higher learning and their interrelations.

This matter was presented at our meeting in Spokane last week by a representative of the North Central Association, Doctor Maxwell, dean of the School of Education, University of Wyoming, and our association went on record as sup porting the movement. We shall be glad in any way to cooperate with you, and you can count on our active support. Dean Bolton, of the University of Washington, is chairman of the standardization of the higher institutions. You might possibly want to take up this matter with him.

Sincerely yours,

GEO. W. HUG, Superintendent.

Doctor JUDD. The second letter is from Walter Ballou Jacobs, secretary of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, dated April 9, 1928.