for one hour a week in the fourth year, and history of literature was to be taught incidentally. Here we have for the first time the English course presented as an organic whole.

The Committee of Ten thought of high school English as a unit. This is implied in the following recommendation:

"The Conference therefore recommends the assignment of three hours a week for four years (or 480 hours in the total) to the study of literature, and the assignment of two hours a week for the first two years, and one hour in the last two years (or 240 hours in the total) to training in composition. By the study of literature, the Conference means the study of the works of good authors, not the study of a manual of literary history.

"Rhetoric, during the earlier part of the high school course connects itself, on the one hand, with the study of literature, furnishing the student with apparatus for analysis and criticism; and, on the other hand, with practice in composition, acquainting the student with principles and maxims relating to effective discourse....if the teacher has borne in mind the practical uses of rhetoric in the first two years, he will have conveyed the essentials of the art (with or without references to a textbook) before the systematic view begins, so that this view will be a kind of codification of principles already applied in practice."

This inductive development method here recommended, extending through the entire course, though tried by many teachers, has doubtless been succesfully conducted by few. In general, composition and literature have been studied side by side, attempts being made incidentally to relate the two. The scant consideration accorded rhetoric in the report has resulted in an almost complete sublimation of rhetoric into composition. History of literature has persisted as a high school subject more or less distinct from the study of the classics.

The Committee on College Entrance Requirements reported to the National Education Association in 1889 a plan for

the parallel treatment of literature and composition. The outline of the course of study submitted by the Committee, however, shows only a formal correlation of the two. A teacher attempting to follow the outline was likely to see nothing in it except a logical parallel in name only.

The reports of these two national committees in the main failed to accomplish the unification of the high school English course. The list of selections from literature provided by the latter committee proved unsuitable as material for "analysis and criticism" and for "practice in composition." Teachers soon began to complain that composition based upon the literature could not be motivated, and that the results were bookish and formal.

The situation has been further complicated within recent years because of the confusion of aims and purposes. The disciplinary end before the opening of the present century held almost undisputed sway in the secondary field. The national committees whose reports we have reviewed asserted that in discipline of the mind the English course was quite as efficient as any other school subject. If there was any other purpose which actuated these committees in the formulation of their recommendations it was that of general culture. Discipline and general culture are closely enough allied to be harmonized in the mapping out of a program. But discord arises when we attempt to meet the demands not only of discipline and general culture, but of social efficiency or citizenship, vocational interests, or practical purposes. The adaptation of the course of study to the maturity of the pupils, to their varying interests, and to the needs of the community in which they live, still further complicates the problem.

It is no wonder that English teachers found the programs outlined by the national committees inadequate to meet the new demands that were coming to be laid upon the schools. Their complaints were both loud and deep: Practical aspects of composition were being neglected for the sake of reading, and of composition based upon the reading; the classics re

commended were found to be wanting in appeal to the pupils; more stress should be laid upon debating and other forms of oral expression; more use should be made of current books and periodicals. Such was the tenor of the complaints.

Teachers of English came together in various organizations to voice their protests. A decade of agitation brought about the appointment of another national committee to consider the matter. The report of this committee was rendered in 1917, and is known to us as the Report of the Committee on Reorganization of English in Secondary Schools.

This committee discarded the disciplinary ideals of former committees. It considered the subject chiefly from the point of view of the pupil who would not go to college. The claims of practical life it clearly and distinctly asserted. It drew a sharp line between the study of composition and the study of literature.

Stating its position upon the organization of the English course the Committee declared itself as follows:*

"The activities broadly named English and formally classified as composition, grammar, literature, oral expression, etc., are really only twofold, namely, receiving impressions and giving them. In both, mind and body are positive, creative, and not passive, spongelike.

"Both giving and receiving have reference, moreover, to only two types of situation, work and leisure, production and play."

"In these principles may be found the basis of an organization of the course at once vital and economical. While both should be full of zest and interest, the activities mainly characterized by the spirit of work should be clearly distinguished from those characterized by the spirit of play, the game for the sake of the game. The study of expression for practical purposes should go hand in hand with the study of books of a practical character; in the same way the study of literary See Report of Committee, page 33.

composition in the narrow sense of that term should accompany the study of novels, dramas essays, and poems."

The Committee gave a further exposition of this principle of organization in another part of its report in the following words:*

"English as a training for efficiency should be distinguished from English as a training for the wholesale enjoyment of leisure. Much ill placing of emphasis and confusion of values have resulted from the failure on the part of course makers and teachers to realize this distinction. The careful and methodical arrangement of words and sentences with the aim of entire clearness and accuracy, as in a guide book, is an undertaking decidedly different from the writing of a travel sketch by a man of genius. The two are unlike in purpose and unlike in method. The former almost any one can learn to accomplish. The latter is possible only to the few, though the attempt to accomplish it has a certain value in developing appreciation on the part of all. The English course should be

so arranged as to couple speaking and writing for practical purposes with the reading of the same character, and speaking and writing for pleasure and inspiration with the study of the novelists, the play-wrights, and the poets."

It seems to be the intention of the Comittee to draw a vertical line across the horizontal parallels, composition and literature. They mean to distinguish between composition of the practical type and composition of the literary type; between the literature of information and the literature of the emotions. The result is to be an English course of four divisions. Further, it does not seem to be the purpose of the Committee to accord equal emphasis to each of these four divisions. They assert that the needs of the community and of the pupil as well demand that letter writing, the making of reports, etc., should be stressed almost to the exclusion of literary composition, and that the subjects of themes should be drawn *Report of Committee, pages 27-28.

from the actual experiences of the pupils with things, rather than with books. And when it comes to literature, the appeal to the pupil's interests, that is, emotions, is to be the criterion of choice; the literature of leisure is to receive the emphasis of the Committee.

The two earlier committees seemed to feel that the English course should be an organic whole. The Committee on Reorganization does not seem to have concerned itself at all with the idea of unity.

As I said at the outset my conscience for orderliness has been disturbed by the lack of unity in the English course. This lack of unity was in evidence long before the Committee on Reorganization made its report and has persisted in spite of the recommendations of the two earlier committees. The historical survey which I have just completed seems to show that the present course has been built up like a crazy-quilt; scraps of English literature have been tacked on to a centerpiece of Latinized grammar and rhetoric. There is now a novel mingling of ancient methods and modern materials, and a strange allegiance to twentieth-century ideals and hereditary practices.

Many are dissatisfied with the present situation. From outside the profession we hear complaints that the children are not learning to write letters, not learning to like good literature, not learning to do anything that we have pretended to teach them. From inside the profession we hear: "Let us have more grammar!"; "Let us have less grammar!"; "Let us teach business English!"; "Let us read the best sellers and the current periodicals!"; "Give us more of the classics!", and so on. All this indicates that the teachers are anxious to secure results, but that they have by no means agreed upon. the method to be employed in attaining them.

Much has been said within recent years to the disparagement of the logical presentation of subject matter, and in favor of the psychological presentation It is well, however, to remember that there may be system in even a psychologi