CONTENTS. Reasoning from a theoretical standpoint.. Grades and cycles of advancement noted in replies to questionnaire. Page. 3 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, September 11, 1915. SIR: Shall teachers in city graded schools be advanced from grade to grade with their pupils through a series of two, three, four, or more years, so that they may come to know the children they teach and be able to build the work of the latter years on that of the earlier years, or shall teachers be required to remain year after year in the same grade while the children, promoted from grade to grade, are taught by a different teacher each year? This I believe to be one of the most important questions of city school administration. In a large majority of the cities of this country the practice indicated in the second part of the question obtains, but it is not now, I believe, so nearly universal as it once was. I have summed up briefly what I believe to be some of the valid objections to this plan in my introduction to the Report of the Commissioner of Education for the year ending June 30, 1913, which I beg leave to quote here: Teachers and pupils should remain together longer, especially in the first years of school life. In most city schools a teacher in any of the first six or eight grades remains in the same grade from year to year while the stream of children flows by her. Under these conditions the teacher may become painfully familiar with the minute details of the course of study as made out for the particular grade, but she never becomes acquainted with the individual children of any group she teaches. At the beginning of the school year in the fall, or at the beginning of the second half year in midwinter, from 40 to 50 children promoted from the next lower grade come into the teacher's room to take the place of a like number who have been sent on to another teacher in next higher grade. The teacher knows nothing of the children, not even their names. Probably she has never seen any of them before. She knows nothing of their character, nor of their varying abilities in the different subjects of the course, and has only vague ideas of what they have been taught in the grades below and of what they are expected to learn in the grades above, for which her work is supposed to prepare them. Knowing nothing of the parentage of the children, she can not know what powers, capacities, tendencies, heredities, are to be expected and to be developed or restrained in any individual child. Knowing nothing of their past experiences in the home, in the field, in the shop, on the playground, and in association with kindred and friends, she does not know how to use the results of these vital experiences as the raw material of the lessons to be learned in school. Knowing nothing of their present home life, their occupations and interests, and their relations to their parents, she is unable to bring about that close cooperation between school and home and the unity of school and home interests without which the work of the school can not be made to take hold as it should on the lives of the children. Having very little definite knowledge of the details of the work which the children have done in the lower grades, she is unable to use the knowledge gained in these grades as the basis of the new lessons, to interpret the new in terms of the old, and to dovetail the one into the other in such a way as to make the work of the year an intelligent development and continuation of that of previous years. Having never conducted a class through any of the grades higher than the one in which she teaches, she has little conception of the relation of the work of this grade to the higher grades, and is therefore unable to select out of the mass of facts and principles with which she deals those on which emphasis should be placed as a preparation for future work. With no knowledge of the inner life of the children, of their ideals, hopes, purposes, and dreams of the future, she is unable to make the lessons of the school take hold on these, modifying them and being enriched by them, as must be the case before the school, its lessons, and its discipline can be made to project themselves into the future and take hold on life as they should, and as they must, before they can become fruitful in life and character and deeds. In all city schools, teachers of the first four or five grades should be promoted from year to year with their classes. To this plan two objections are frequently raised: (1) That the teacher may be inefficient, and that no group of children should be condemned to the care and instruction of an inefficient teacher through a series of years; (2) that the full influence of the personality of any one teacher has been exhausted by the end of a year, and children should therefore come in contact with a new personality each year. The answer to both objections is easy and evident. The inefficient teacher should be eliminated. The man or woman who is unable to teach a group of children through more than one year should not be permitted to waste their money, time, and opportunity through a single year. A personality which a child between the ages of 6 and 12 may exhaust in a year must be very shallow. What the child of this age needs is not an everchanging personality, but a guide along the pathway of knowledge to the high road of life. For the purpose of calling the attention of teachers and school officers to the subject, and that they may have in brief compass at least a partial summary of the practice of the schools of this and other countries, and of the opinions of some of those who have tried the two plans, Mr. James Mahoney, head of the English department in the South Boston High School, Boston, Mass., and a special collaborator in this bureau, has, at my request, prepared the manuscript transmitted herewith for publication as a bulletin of the Bureau of Education. It is my purpose to have other studies of this subject made and to do whatever I can to have that which I consider the better plan given sufficient trial to prove its merits. Respectfully submitted. The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. P. P. CLAXTON, Commissioner. ADVANCEMENT OF THE TEACHER WITH THE CLASS: POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS OF THE PLAN. THE QUESTIONS INVOLVED. Who has ever known a child, either bright or backward, to be indifferent to the question: Who is to be the teacher next term? Who has ever known a parent, however careless, to be quite unconcerned about the same question? Why, then, are not school administrators interested in that question? Why do they not give practical attention to it (a) by systematic study of the proper assignment of teachers, or (b) by thoroughgoing consideration of the problem of continuance of teachers with given sets of pupils ? The answer must be that they are, in general, interested; but that conditions, especially in the larger cities, make proper adjustment of teachers and classes extremely difficult. Furthermore, the scientific study of school problems of any sort is but in its infancy. It would seem, too, on the face of it, as if not alone the rapid growth of American cities, but also, perhaps, an unfortunate application of the doctrine of efficiency, has led to mechanical, unprogressive, assignment of teachers. The result is that a teacher, once assigned to a grade (or, as often happens, to a half grade), whether originally from the standpoint of efficiency or not, remains commonly fixed in that grade, on the ground that she knows the work better than any other work, and can therefore do it better. In other words, it would appear that the doctrine of efficiency through specialization is counted on to produce best results. One may indeed admit that this is a sound proposition in the abstract, but the question is practical, and one needs to know within what limits the doctrine is applicable; and what, if any, are the correlative principles which should receive conjoint application. It is certainly an open question whether the doctrine of efficiency through specialization has not received too narrow an interpretation, on the false assumption of analogy between retention of teachers in grade in the public schools and the subdivision of labor in factories, with its restriction of process and uniform repetition of limited movement. But whether the analogy between school and factory be close or remote, it is |