The Organization of Education PREFATORY NOTE. If the author has read aright the signs of the times, as they appear in educational conferences and in popular discussions, there is now a really urgent demand for practical and reasonably. definite suggestions as to the reorganization of our schools. There is especial need for a definite plan that shall show how to retain that which is essential to the general education of every future man and woman, at the same time that a place is found for the various forms of special, technical or other vocational training that may be necessary for the individual boy or girl. A year spent in studying not merely the schools, but the economic, political and social conditions underlying and overlying the school system of Germany has convinced the author that Europe at its best has not found a solution for the most pressing of our educational problems. The first problem for our educators to solve is that suggested at the close of the preceding paragraph; a problem that is all the more serious because the ardent advocates of general culture, on the one hand, and of practical efficiency, on the other, alike refuse to face it, while the practical schoolmen of our own country, following the lead of Europe, seem generally to think that they have disposed of the difficulty when they can say that their schools are prepared to give either general culture or technical training, or in some cases, will give a mixture of both in such proportions as the pupil or his parents may elect,—thus relieving the educator of his special duty to society and to youth, by unloading his most weighty responsibility onto the shoulders of the ignorant boy or girl or of a parent that may be no less ignorant. Deeply impressed by this social problem of the educator, and hardly less so by the psychological problem of how to plan the work of the school to meet and make the most of the several stages of the young being's physical and mental development as he passes from early childhood to late adolescence, the author, on his return from Europe, sought to withdraw wholly from the field of “higher" and "normal" education, and to obtain a position in which he could work directly at the problems of elementary and secondary education. During four years as principal of the high school of Nebraska's capital and educational center he was enabled to put to the test much of that which is suggested in the following pages for the "secondary transition", or intermediate department and for the "adolescent" department, or high school proper. He has not yet been able to make the same rigorous test, under his own direction, of the whole of that which relates to the play school, primary transition department, and the elementary department, or "grammar school", as it is called in many of our cities, although much of this he has observed in successful operation in one school or another in America or Europe. A great part of what is here suggested has been presented to bodies of teachers and school administrators in different parts of the United States, and practically all of it has been presented in the form of lectures to the summer school of the University of Nebraska and to the pedagogical department of Clark University. The reception accorded it in the limited fields indicated and the comments of able, practical educators has encouraged the writer to believe that the time is ripe for the publication of this essay in educational organization. While the purpose of the author's work is primarily practical, yet he is unwilling to put it forth without a brief presentation of the educational philosophy underlying it, and he trusts that the eight postulates preceding the plan of organization will not be thought to detract from the practical nature of the work. While a few ultra-practical school men might be better pleased if this introduction were omitted, the author is reasonably confident that the greater number of school administrators and teachers will feel that the preliminary theses add to the value of the work, and of course they will make it more available as a basis for reading circle work and normal school discussion. Some Educational Postulates and Practical Suggestions as to the SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. III. Three stages of individual development and two transi- side work in cultivation of a special interest throughout the school course. $1. In general. §2. Economy of this Plan Compared with the Plan Usually Followed. §3. Enfranchisement and Stimulation of the Elemen- 84. Benefits to Different Classes of Pupils. 86. Plan to be considered with reference to the con- II. Scope of the Several Departments of the School. §2. The Primary Transition Department. A. General view. B. Curriculum. 1. Reckoning and Mathematics. 2. Language. 3. Economic and cultural development of 4. Geography (connecting 3 and 5). 7. Physical Culture. C. Usual Daily Program-Discussion Table. $4. Secondary Transition Department. A. General View. B. Curriculum. 1. Required Courses. a. Science. b. History (and Government). c. Literature and Aesthetics. d. Physical Culture. e. Art. 2. Elective Courses (either practical or cul tural). 3. Optional Course. C. Daily Program. §5. Secondary Department or Adolescent Department. A. General View. B. First Year's Work. 1 & 2. English and History. 3. Laboratory Course in Science. 4 & 5. Physical Culture and Art. 6. Elective Work (vocational or cultural). C. After the First Year. III. Adaptation of Plan to Several Classes of Young People. Primary Transition Department. "Elementary Department. "Secondary Transition Department. Adolescent Department. §3. The Child of Slow Development. $4. The Precocious Child. 85. The Young Person Who Enters School Very Late. §6. The Adolescent Who is Self-Supporting. CHAPTER I. POSTULATES I. The purpose of education is to assist the individual to make the most of himself, and thus do most for others; to enable him to grow into the largest life possible for one having so rich an endowment as that with which he is provided at birth. Corallaries of this truth are: 1a. The child himself must be studied in order that education |