on page 248 of the Second Yearbook, D.S., N.E.A.: "We are sure that public education needs remaking." But she does not state why, and in fact but a paragraph before in the same article she states that the American Association of University Women voted at its convention in Portland in July, 1923, "to devote itself for a period of five or ten years to a study of public elementary education." It would be interesting to know the grounds upon which existing American education is condemned in advance of a study which, it is estimated, will require from five to ten years.

The Third Yearbook of the Department of Superintendence, N.E.A., page 10, sums. up the need for curriculum revision under two heads: "What the Layman Sees," and "What the Educator Sees." Under the first it cites two objections to the existing educational program: first, growing costs, which, however, it immediately justifies on the grounds of growing population and the demands of a growing civilization; second, "lack of thoroughness in essentials," which it immediately refutes with the statement that "the only reliable evidence, however, such as the Springfield tests and the Boston tests of 1845, has demonstrated that most public schools of today are securing better results in the so-called 'fundamentals' with a heterogeneous mass of children than the schools of half a century ago secured with selected groups.”

Under the heading "What the Educator Sees" it first raises what is merely a suspicion that, with the expansion of the field of knowledge, perhaps our curricula do not represent the selections best suited to meet present social demands; and second, it remarks that provision for character building and for the development of individual talents should be made in our schools, without mentioning any evidence that such provisions are not in existence.

Again on page 11: "When the educator fully comprehends that the objectives which the school must serve today are health, training for a vocation, citizenship, worthy home membership, the profitable use of

leisure, and ethical character, he keenly feels the need of a thorough revision of the present public school curriculum." The present writer submits only that the mere "feeling of a need" for revision, may be sufficient justification for a survey, but is disappointing as evidence of the need for revision.

Professor Bobbitt, in his article on "The Trend of the Curriculum," page 249 of the Second Yearbook, D.S., N. E.A., touches a key thought of the current movement when he speaks of the need for "activityanalyses" of human affairs; but he offers nothing specific in support of his contention that "They (activity-analyses) demand a tremendous reconstruction of the curriculum from kindergarten to the end of college.' He continues merely in suggestive vein when he says:

Clearly our schools must rid themselves, and speedily, of any useless academic accumulations. Whatever Latin does not function in the com

munity life must be sloughed off, and only that portion retained which actually does function. Likewise algebra. Likewise geometry, drawing, singing, dramatics, amateur literary composition, French, Spanish, technique of specialized research, speech drill, manual training, technique of literature, journalism, trigonometry, competitive athletics and facts and skills and habits of every kind that do not lead to man's needed vision and judgment and right behavior.

Finally, the following from the same article seems to be a rather harsh indictment of current practice to be made apart from any specific instances of its verity:

It is the belief of the writer, who classifies himself as a constructive worker and not an adverse critic, that there is much, very much, waste in education, due to mistaken objectives, artificial and non-vital procedures, too much carrying of the burden by teachers and not enough by the pupils and parents, waste academic motion because of a lack of vision of the educational goals and a lack of use of common sense in attaining them, a primitive conception of the nature of the genuinely educated man, the method of prematurity, neglect of the principle of timeliness, the emphasis upon memorizing rather than living experience, and the like.

It would appear then that the curriculum "revision" movement is to be at the outset more of a general survey of existing educational practices, with revision to follow as need may become manifest. It seems to the writer, however, that it would be well if this fact were generally made known, for it certainly cannot greatly aid the cause of education to have the impression gain ground that the American educational profession is generally guilty of "waste motion because of a lack of vision of the educational goals, and a lack of use of common sense in attaining them."

Some Developments of the Movement
Thus Far

I Subject Matter Classifications

At the outset there appears to be no suggestion of a change in the existing subject classifications. Subject heads used in curriculum studies in many American cities, as reported in the Second Yearbook, D. S., N.E.A. show both a general uniformity, and indication that cognizance is being taken of all the important fields of knowledge.

A general idea of the range of the knowledge content of today may be had from a tabulation which the writer has prepared (see page 16), using his own classifications, from such references as the list of the departments of knowledge covered in the Webster's New International Unabridged Dictionary, the American Encyclopedia, etc.

A juxtaposition of the main heads of the tabulations on page 16 gives us a very rough picture of the way in which our elementary school curricula are covering the field of knowledge.

Since, then, the existing subject classifications seem to cover satisfactorily the 20th century fields of knowledge, the investigation turns to an intensive study of the teaching content of each of the principal subjects of the curriculum; to various phases of teaching method, and to the mechanical structure of the curriculum.

1Second Yearbook, D. S., N.E.A., pages 42-44; 140-171; 187; 228-242.

II Teaching Content

As previously indicated, the Division of Research, D.S., N.E.A., has given us in Part III of the Third Yearbook, a report from each of its twelve sub-committees, the same being analyses of existing research studies in the several subjects of the elementary school curriculum. These reports are illustrated by digests of as many of the actual research studies as space in the Yearbook would permit. The researches deal mainly with the problems of teaching content; although the almost inseparability of the problems of method and structure cause them to be encountered here and there. Following is a brief review of the sub-committee reports:

Arithmetic. The report begins with statement of a number of the major curriculum problems in arithmetic, such as: What is the relation of arithmetic? to the major aims of education?; What is the proper unit of instruction in arithmetic?; and What is the best plan for eliminating the traditional and useless in arithmetic? The research study illustrations then follow, grouped under the following seven heads:

3. What is the significance, for purposes of spelling, of the words found in investigations?

Study No. 27, under topic 3, is that of Ernest Horn on "The Vocabulary of Children up to and Including First Grade," as reported in the 24th Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Investigations of the spoken vocabularies of 270,000 kindergarten and first grade children reveal 5000 different words. Many of these words reported occurred but once or twice. A limited list was therefore prepared of words having a frequency of 15 or more. This list will prove useful in helping the curriculum maker to determine what words should be included in the primary grades.

Each of the sub-committee reports is handled about as indicated above, the above, the researches being grouped under main topic

young children are surprise and plot. In addition boys are attracted by animalness and girls by childness and familiar experience. Older pupils are intelligently responsive to interesting action, characters, and problems which challenge their thinking. Sex differences appear between the ages of ten and thirteen, boys being most interested in stories of heroism and adventure, and girls in home and school situations, especially those portraying kindness. However, adventure and humor, kindness, faithfulness, and loyalty always make strong appeals to older pupils.

The factors most to be avoided are overmaturity, too great difficulty, and hard symbolism. There is no question but that certain selections have long been imposed on children before they were prepared for them. Many of the difficulties of teachers have arisen because they have been expected to teach materials of too great difficulty to their pupils. Recent investigations point the way to wise elimination of certain selections which have become traditional.

Handwriting. Here the investigations

center about the problem of how fast, and how well as measured by the Ayres Handwriting Quality Scale, pupils should be be trained to write at the various school grades. As a result of quite extensive investigations, Frank N. Freeman proposes the following scale:

Quality Speed

School Grade

II III IV V VI VII VIII 44 47 50 55 59 64 70 36 48 56 65 72 80 90 L. V. Koos has this to say concerning the handwriting quality of teachers (which I insert here merely as an item of interest to the profession): "It is noteworthy that the high school teachers write more poorly than the elementary school teachers and the university teachers worse than any other vocational group which was tested."

Social Studies. The central theme here seems to be the effort to determine through adult-activity analyses what topics ought best to be included in the teaching contents of history, civics and geography. The activity-analyses are made in various ways. For example: a study is made of the frequencies of topics mentioned in the writings of recognized leaders in the several social study fields; a large number of people in the state of Iowa in selected occupational groups were questioned as to what topics they thought should be emphasized in the teaching of citizenship, and the frequencies of their answers tabulated; all of our national political party platforms since 1832 were analyzed for topic frequencies; 21 current magazines were carefully combed; and from a large number of city newspapers was computed the number of linear space. devoted to the various topics of civic in

terest.

Language and Grammar.-Most of the curriculum studies in language and grammar are reported in Part I of the Sixteenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, in a section by W. W. Charters entitled "Minimum Essentials in

From an investigation of vocational handwriting demands which included specimens from 1127 employees in 24 vocational groups, including teachers.

Elementary Language and Grammar." Reference to this Sixteenth Yearbook shows that Professor Charters treats the problem of minimum grammar essentials from the standpoint of the improvement of speech through elimination of errors. The Third Yearbook, D.S., N.E.A., likewise quotes some researches in the determination of pupil errors, and adds some lists of social and general teaching objectives in English as worked out in Nashville and in Los Angeles.

Elementary Science.-The work here has but begun. One research has to do with ascertaining children's interests in nature materials; but the results do not seem especially helpful to the curriculum maker. The list of topics for an elementary science course to cover, as suggested by Messrs. Caldwell & Meier of the Lincoln School, Columbia University, are helpful. We are advised, however, that the coming Fourth Yearbook will have more to say upon this subject.

Health and Physical Education.-The most interesting suggestion here is that of the scale for measuring health, as reported in the 1924 Yearbook of the New York City Association for the Scientific Study of Education. This scale seems to be a sort of self-rating affair which discloses weakness and points of attack to both pupil and teacher, and which helps the hygiene work to carry over into the home.

Home Economics.-The studies in this field thus far indicate the need for more training in child-care (in the home); more attention to the general problem of preparation for home life; and the need for textbooks specially adapted to the elementary field.

Industrial Arts.-Here the tendency is to abandon for the first six grades, separate lines of work under the terms Manual Training, Domestic Science, Domestic Art, etc., and to combine all studies of processes and values of materials under the one term "Industrial Arts." This tendency is shown in Atlanta, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, and other places. A list of texts