THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
Carteton E. Preston, Managing Editor
Editorial Board: Edgar W. Knight, A. M. Jordan, H. F. Munch, Preston C. Farrar,
K. King, J. Minor Gwynn, Hugo Giduz, Oliver K. Cornwell,
G. B. Phillips, Roben J. Maaske.
Published Eight Times a Year, October to May, by the University of North Carolina
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review should be sent to C. E. Preston, Managing Editor.
Vol. XX DECEMBER, 1937 No. 8
FRESHMAN ENGLISH PLACEMENT AT
CAROLINA IN 1937
A. P. Hupson
Professor of English and Chairman of Freshman Composition
During the period September 13-28, 1937, the Freshman English
staff at the University of North Carolina tested, organized, and began
teaching 871 students, including 760 beginning freshmen and 111
upperclassmen who from one cause or another lacked one quarter of
the required work in Freshman English. This is probably the largest
number in Freshman English ever handled at the beginning of a
quarter at the University. It is also probable that during this period
the staff attempted to do more with the new students and to learn
more about them than had ever been attempted before in the same
period of time at the University.
The following is a brief account of the procedures followed and
the results obtained.
The period covered four days of Freshman Week—placement
tests on Monday, scoring of tests on Monday and Tuesday, registra-
tion on Wednesday, an introductory program in Memorial Hall on
Thursday—and four class meetings for each student between Friday,
September 17, and Tuesday, September 28. The following table will
indicate what and how much was done during the fifteen days, only
new students being taken into account:
Vumber Average Total
Exercise Taking No. Pages No. Pages
Barrett-Ryan Test 3040
Placement Themes 1520
Vocabulary Test 2888
Reading Test
Spelling Test
1 Prepared Theme
. 2 Class Themes
SID uk wry
| Se me eee BY
8 Exercises
=
290 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
The Barrett-Ryan is a standard test that has been in use for eight
or ten years by several hundred college and universities, with thous-
ands of freshmen. It is of the true-or-false variety, with 150 judg-
ments, including practical decisions concerning punctuation, capitali-
zation, sentence structure and diction, sentence unity, verb usage, and
grammatical correctness and reasoning. The placement theme con-
sisted of a 300-word original composition on the student’s choice of
seven optional topics involving everyday interests and information.
The Inglis Test in English Vocabulary required the student to judge
which of five words after an italicized word in a complete sentence is
the synonym of that word, or is most nearly synonymous with it. The
Reading Comprehension Test, designed by the Bureau of Tests and
Measurements of the University, consisted of a press dispatch from
the New York Times of 112 words about an emergency order of the
Interstate Commerce Commission during the rail and coal strike in
1922, on which the student was asked twenty-five questions. The
spelling test was made up by taking every tenth word from a list of
five hundred most commonly mispelled words included in the /nstrite-
tions to Students in Freshman English, as follows: activities, always,
appearance, athlete, barring, Britain, casualty, climbed, comparison,
conscientious, course, deficient, despicable, disastrous, drunkenness,
emphasize, exaggerate, experiment, forcibly, friend, grammar, hero-
ine, imitation, ingenious, interpreted, laid, lose, militarism, mysteri-
ous, noticeable, opportunity, particularly, persistent, pleasant, prec-
edence, privilege, psychology, receipt, repetition, scarcely, severely,
soliloquy, statute, superintendent, temperament, through, ultimatum,
various, weighing, zoology. The prepared theme and the two class
themes were written on logically current topics, or topics evolved
out of class reading and discussion.
The first two items (Barrett-Ryan Test and Placement Theme)
were given during Freshman Week and were used to determine ten-
tative placement. Students were registered accordingly in three
groups, as follows:
Vo. No. Ave. No.
Class Students Sections to Sect.
C (poor—lowest quartile) ........ ... 184 7 26.3
B (average preparation) ....... seane Se 18 27.4
A (superior—cream of crop) ........ 83 3 28.
Until September 28, students were met and taught under this
scheme of organization.
In the meantime, while they were being introduced to the work
of the course on the respective levels, the accuracy of their placement
was being tested, and instructors were endeavoring to get acquainted
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 291
with the individual capacities of their students. To this end, three
additional tests, indicated above—the Inglis Vocabulary, the Read-
ing, and the Spelling—were given, and every student was required
to write at least three themes. Results from all these tests and the
themes were used in checking the tentative placements.
A conspectus of objective test data and results is given in the fol-
lowing table:
Highest Lowest
Kind of Test Group Score Score Median
1. Barrett-Ryan
(150 points max.)
and Theme (100): C 169 (combin. ) 34 (combin. )
B 212 ‘3 170
\ 233 213
2. Vocabulary
(150 points) : C 120-124 20-24 o4
B 135-139 30-34 90.5
A 140-144 75-79 116.4
\11 140-144 20-24 88.5
3. Reading
(25 points) : ( 23 0) 15.1
Bp ££ 8 17.9
A 25 14 21.6
All 25 0 17.5
4. Spelling
(50 points) : C 48 7 27.4
B 50) 15 37
A 50 31 46
All 50 7 35.4
\ glance at this table will show how closely the results of the
confirmation tests (Nos. 2, 3, and 4) correlate with the tentative
placement test (Barrett-Ryan plus theme) and with one another, so
far as the three groups or levels (A, B, and C) are concerned. Our
problem was to correct any errors of individual placement. Using
all these available data, a committee of four instructors passed upon
every doubtful case, and wherever the committee could not agree the
Chairman of the course was asked to help decide it. But so accurate
were the results of the Barrett-Ryan Test and the theme for place-
ment purposes that only the following changes seemed justifiable
and were made:
Reductions from A to B sections............... 12
Promotions from B to A sections..............- 2
Reductions from B to C sections.......... ia
Promotions from C to B sections.......... Se
(Be ae 27
Thus, for placement purposes the Freshman Week test was 96 per
cent accurate. Notwithstanding this fact, the additional confirma-
tion tests were worth the time and the trouble they required, not only
for the correction of errors in individual placement, but also for the
292 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
additional diagnostic information they yielded about the preparation
of the class as a whole and about the weaknesses of individual stu-
dents.
In the A sections were a number of students who, for various
reasons, claimed exemption from the requirement of Freshman Eng-
lish. After a two-weeks’ trial, during which they took the additional
tests along with the other students, those whose complete record
seemed to offer some confirmation of their claim were asked to sub-
mit a short library-sources paper and to take one more rather exact-
ing test on sentence effectiveness, sentence revision for conciseness,
sentence errors, and diction. On the basis of all tests and exercises,
five of these students were notified that if their class work for the
remainder of the Fall Quarter is satisfactory they will be exempted
trom English 2 and 3 and permitted to register English 21 in the
Winter Quarter.
The following table comparing test scores of our students with
scores of other students both within North Carolina and outside will
give some indication of the quality of English training offered by the
new freshman class:
Class or Barrett-Ryan Vocabulary Reading
Group Median Median Vedian
L. N. C. Class of 1941 (this year’s) 114.4 88.5 17.5
L. N. C. Class of 1940 (last year’s) 98.6 Hews
Freshmen in U. S. at large (1934) 101.2 105.0
H. S. Seniors in U. S. at large (1934) 102.2 87.0 Gees
N. C. H. S. Seniors (Feb. 1930) area cca 12.9
A few detailed comparisons based on the Inglis Vocabulary Test
alone may be interesting and revealing, for, next to the Barrett-Ryan
Test, the Inglis Test is probably most definitely indicative of ability
and training.
(1) Our median (88.5) is 16.5 points below the U. S. freshman
median (105).
(2) Only 25.6% (180) of our freshmen are above the U. S.
freshman median.
(There should be over 350. )
(3) Just 36% (263) of our freshmen fall below the U. S. med-
ian for eleventh-grade high school pupils.
(4) And 13.8% (107) are below the U. S. median for tenth-
grade pupils.
And, worst of all, 4.5% (32) are below the U. S. median
for the ninth grade.
(6) Finally, the median score (64) of our C students (166 in
number) is just about that (63) of U. S. tenth-grade high
school pupils.
uu
The only comparisons from which we can take comfort are those
based on the Barrett-Ryan Test and the Reading Comprehension
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 293
Test. On the Barrett-Ryan our median (114.4) is well above the
national median for freshmen. This indicated superiority, however,
may be discounted by the fact that more time was allowed to our
students taking this test than was stipulated by the directions for
giving the test. This same discount would also have to be made in
comparing this year’s median (114.4) with last year’s (98.6). On
the Reading Comprehension Test the median of 17.5 for our fresh-
men is distinctly above the North Carolina high school median of
12.9 in 1930.
When we compare the preparation of freshmen trained in North
Carolina high schools with the preparation of freshmen trained out-
side the state, we get no comfort at all. Normally a Carolina fresh-
man class is composed of two-thirds North Carolina high school
graduates and one-third out-of-state graduates. In 1934 I prepared
and sent to every North Carolina high school a study of the compara-
tive preparation and college-English records of these two groups for
a period of four years. This is no place to review that document,
which is still available for principals who may want it; but a few
conclusions are relevant. First, judged by placement tests and actual
college work for one quarter, the out-of-state schools, in proportion
to their number of representatives, sent us 114% more qualified stu-
dents and 3% fewer failures in English 1, and contributed 8%
fewer students to our C sections. Second, the North Carolina stu-
dents showed a much wider dispersal of abilities; the best were as
good as the best in the out-of-state group, but the worst were a great
deal worse, and there was a much higher percentage of them. A
similar comparative study of this year’s freshman class would prob-
ably yield substantially the same conclusions.
On the whole, the 1937 testing program indicates that the pre-
paration of our freshman class in English is considerably below that
of freshmen in the United States at large. Apparently we shall have
to teach a large number of students who are no better trained than
tenth- and eleventh-grade pupils in good high schools. And a dis-
proportionately high percentage of the mnth- and tenth-graders are
the products of North Carolina high schools.
For such deficient students our English C sections have been pro-
vided, with a year’s study program devoted almost exclusively to
fundamentals (grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, spelling,
mechanics, reading, and simple expository writing). In the Fall
Quarter students in these sections are required to attend an extra
two-hour laboratory period of two hours each week. But even with
this simplification of aims and program and with this special provi-
294 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
sion for extra instruction, a high percentage of failures in the course
may be expected. A student deficient to the extent of two or three
years’ fundamental high school training will experience the utmost
difficulty in overcoming his handicap, no matter how hard he tries
and no matter how faithfully and intelligently his instructor strug-
gles with him. Yet, it has been our experience and it is still our belief
that with even such a remote chance of obtaining college credit for
his extra time and extra work the student will try harder and learn
more than he would in a no-credit course. If he fails English 1 (the
Fall Quarter), he is in no worse plight than if he takes and passes a
non-credit course. We frankly admit that the Fall Quarter program
is little above the level of high school work and that only in the
Winter and Spring Quarters does it approach respectable college
standards. But we are not worried about standards. We can fail,
and we do fail, those who have not come up to them by the end of the
vear. We believe that a freshman of average intelligence can, by
earnest effort and with careful and sympathetic instruction, overcome
a great handicap of poor preparation and pull himself up to a level
of written expression adequate for college work and the practical
business of everyday life.
But extra instructional provisions for these deficient students
are expensive to the University, to the State, and to parents. First,
there is the extra expense incidental to the special laboratory work.
Instructors who conduct laboratory sections must be paid for their
additional time and labor. Second, the percentage of failures is
much higher in the C group than in normally prepared groups For
instance, in the session of 1935-36 only 44% of the number of stu-
dents registered in C sections of English 1 (Fall Quarter) passed
English 1, 2, and 3 consecutively. Many of the remaining 56%
dropped out of college; but 30° of the original number who had
registered in the Fall Quarter failed one course or more and re-
peated; several took English 1 three times before they managed to
pass it. Later, when the successful survivors of English 1, 2, and
3 got into Sophomore English, 38% failed the first course, 19.3%
failed the second, and 20% repeated one or more courses. Besides,
a considerable number of those who passed Sophomore English re-
ceived “Composition Condition” grades. These grades held up credit
for the coutse until students receiving them reviewed composition
fundamentals and passed a composition examination. Administra-
tion of these “CC” students, supervision of their review, and exami-
nation of them again cost the University, the State, and parents
money. In short, a deficiently prepared student who takes required
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 295
English courses until he passes them off costs the University, the
State, and parents 25 to 30 per cent more for his instruction than
does a well-prepared student. We have shown that we can pull such
students through fundamental English courses, and we believe that
we are doing something constructively valuable for them; but when
we think about the cost of everybody concerned, we have serious
misgivings.
From consideration of these facts about the English training of
this year’s class entering the University, particularly the fact that so
large a number are below tenth- and eleventh-grade high school
standards of achievement, two questions emerge :
(1) Should not the high schools and the University effect a closer
rapprochement on (a) aims and desiderata of high school training in
English (shall we say in other fundamental subjects as well?), and
(b) mechanical arrangements and standards for measuring achieve-
ment? I believe that | am speaking for my colleagues as well as for
myself when I predict that if these problems are ever thrashed out
there will be found no conflict of interests between us and our high
school colleagues, no fundamental differences of opinion. We believe
that what is good English training’ for vocations and for citizenship
in the modern world is also good training for college English courses,
(2) In the interest of the students themselves and of the State
and the parents that foot their bills, should not admission from
high school to college be a safer guarantee of preparation for college
than it now is? This question gives rise to two very practical alter-
native questions: (a) Should the high schools themselves discourage,
even prevent, ignorant and untrained students from going to college?
Or, (b) Should the higher institutions of North Carolina revert to
sounder procedures than automatic admission on high school certifi-
cates—that is, to some modification of admission by examination
that would exclude the unprepared before they reach the campus and
clutter up the works?
I close with a practical suggestion. Maybe it will point the way
to a satisfactory answer to most of these questions. I propose an ex-
periment.
Let representatives of the State-supported colleges (chairmen of
Freshman English, say) meet with representatives of the high
schools (for example, the State High School Supervisor, the Chair-
man of the English Council, and others whom these two might se-
lect). Let this group talk over the problem of practical articulation
and admission. lf they can agree on aims and standards of high
school training, perhaps they could select a standard placement test
or entrance examination, or work up one of their own, which the
high school teachers would regard as fair to them and their pupils
and the college teachers would regard as adequate for admission and
296 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
placement. If so, let copies of this examination be sent, some time in
March or April, to every North Carolina high school with prospec-
tive candidates for admission to North Carolina state-supported col-
leges. Let the high schools administer this examination and send
the papers to the proper colleges for scoring. Let the colleges, after
scoring the examination, advise the principal about the admissibility
of each student taking it. In the conduct of this experiment, it
would be understood: (1) that the arrangement is unofficial and ex-
perimental ; (2) that high schools would still have the right to certify
for admission any students they chose to certify; and (3) that the
college would be free to accept or reject the results of the examina-
tion for placement purposes. (Perhaps it would not be too imperti-
nent to suggest a similar experiment to high school and college
teachers of mathematics, foreign languages, and other fundamental
subjects, if they are not entirely satisfied with articulation and ad-
mission in those subjects. )
WHAT IS A FUNCTIONAL PROGRAM OF
BUSINESS EDUCATION FOR THE SECOND-
ARY SCHOOLS OF NORTH CAROLINA?*
Pau S. Lomax, Pu.D.
Chairman, Department of Business Education
New York University, New York, N.Y.
In my address this morning before the Department of Superin-
tendence I dealt with the philosophy and some of the trends of busi-
ness education.'. This afternoon I shall endeavor to present a dis-
cussion of the practical functioning of the philosophy and trends in
the secondary schools.
There are two principal phases of business education: that of
vocational business education and that of general business education.
Both phases should be developed against a social-economic back-
ground study of business, namely, to gain an insight into the nature
and functions of business. It seems highly important that we should
constantly remind ourselves and our students that business as a form
of economic organization is charged with the social responsibility of
providing the people with most of the goods and services which are
wanted by the people to gratify their wants. C. A. Heiss, Comptrol-
ler of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, in writing
about the responsibilities of business management, stated: “With the
1 Published in The High School Journal, November 1937 issue
* An address delivered before the Secondary School Principals’ Section of the North
Carolina Education Association, April, 1937.
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 297
progressive separation between the functions of management and
of ownership which necessarily accompanies large corporate organi-
zation, business management must assume a threefold responsibility
and must recognize that in fact, if not in law, it is a professional
trustee acting in the joint interests of owners, workers, and custom-
err, \ business institution can no longer live unto itself alone.
. .. Management must be equipped to consider social terms the
ultimate objectives of economic life and to make its policies consist-
ent with a sound philosophy. It must look beyond the horizon of a
single organization or a single industry and weigh the social implica-
tions of its practices. The business statesman will discard opportu-
nistic policy in favor of reasoned long term programs which are con-
sistent with the best interests of our social and economic order. ... .
This statesmanship is not entirely lacking in present-day business,
for the present generation of business men includes not a few who
have signally exhibited these qualities. But coming generations of
business men will need to be more consciously trained if the supply
of business statesmen is to be commensurate with the need for
them.”
Basic Functions of Business Activity
So much for the social nature and responsibility of business in-
stitutions. What are the principal functions of business activity,
which may constitute the basic elements of the business curriculum?
Professor L. C. Marshall believes that these basic elements, as
viewed from the standpoint of management, are: (1) problems of
adjustment of business activity to physical environment, (2) prob-
lems of technology, (3) problems of finance, (4) problems of mar-
keting or distribution, (5) problems of risk and risk-bearing, (6)
problems of personnel, and (7) problems of adjustment of business
activity to social environment, as in the relations of business manage-
ment to government in the proper discharge of business’s social ob-
ligation to the people or ultimate consumers in the gratification of
their human wants.
This very comprehensiveness of business activity suggests that a
proper study of business should not be localized in the commercial
department but that the study of business should be encompassed by
the entire secondary school curriculum. Certain phases of all the
arts and sciences, as well as special business techniques, tend to find
their significant applications in business. Consequently, teachers of
mathematics, of the physical sciences, of the social studies, of Eng-
lish usage, of foreign languages in relation to world commerce, of
fine arts and of other parts of the secondary school program of
298 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
studies frequently can draw from business experience some of the
most apt illustrations of the significance of these arts and sciences to
the advancement and welfare of the people. This comprehensive
view of business activity from the standpoint of the whole high
school curriculum is fundamental to any genuinely functional pro-
gram of business education. This consideration cannot be empha-
sized too strongly.
Functioning of the Business Curriculum
In a consideration of the functioning of the business curriculum,
it should be first stressed that this curriculum is much more than
just a business curriculum. It represents, in fact, a well-rounded
high school education in conformance with the main objectives of
secondary education. It is business in its vocational objective or
specialized emphasis. This is an important point of view to get
across to the business and general public. Often the layman, who is
usually quite ignorant of the educational program of the high school,
assumes that the business curriculum is made up mostly, if not en-
tirely, of business subjects.
In the second place, it is my belief that the business curriculum,
as such, should be organized and administered to serve primarily the
vocational function. The general educational phases of business edu-
cation, as that which contributes to consumer education, should be
incorporated as electives or required subjects in the various curri-
cula of the secondary school—particularly the general curriculum,
which has been growing very rapidly in favor among the high schools
of this nation. Such a general curriculum tends to draw off from
the other more specialized high school curricula, including the com-
mercial, those students who have not decided upon a rather definite
objective, which ordinarily takes the form of a vocational purpose.
We oftentimes overlook the fact that those students who elect the
so-called academic or college-preparatory curriculum do so, in a big
majority of cases, with a more or less definite vocational or pro-
fessional objective in view. If this is not strikingly the case in the
minds of these high school children, it is certainly the case in the
minds of the parents of these children, and should be so in the minds
of the school authorities and teachers. It would seem that the matter
of having our American youths qualified for and able to obtain em-
ployment, both at the high school and college levels, should be a burn-
ing issue with federal, state, and local school authorities, govern-
ment officials, and society in general. In the challenging article by
Harl R. Douglass in the current issue of “The Journal of the Na-
tional Education Association,” he states the disquieting fact that
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 299
among the 20,000,000 young men and women between 16 and 24
years of age, about 2,500,000 are on relief, and more than 250,000
“are bumming up and down the motor and rail highways.” While
this whole problem is exceedingly complex and involves much more
than merely the vocational phase of a total well-balanced education,
and merely the school authorities as responsible solvers of the prob-
lem, yet it must be recognized that the vocational success or lack of
success of high school and college trainees is a decidedly vital issue
and should deeply concern practically-minded school authorities. It
is exceedingly timely that one of the many “Issues in Secondary
Education” proposed by the Orientation Committee of the N.E.A.
Department of Secondary School Principals is: “That a dynamic
program of vocational education be developed for secondary schools.”
There seems to be a growing impression that the time to deal
with “a dynamic program of vocational education” is beyond the
secondary school, not in the secondary school period. The con-
siderable number of school officials and teachers who have that false
impression seem to be blind to the fact that only a very small per-
cent of our young men and women actually are vocationally pre-
pared at the collegiate level of education. An announcement of the
U. S. Office of Education, released to the press last March, con-
tained the following school data for 1933-1934: “6,096,488 in high
schools, and 1,055,360 in higher education, not including private
commercial and nurse-training schools.” Furthermore, in this same
announcement it was pointed out that “the average American has
completed only an elementary school course of study.” Of all per-
sons twenty-one years of age and over in these United States it
is estimated that 7.01 percent have had some college work or are
college graduates, 25.84 percent have had some high-school work or
are high-school graduates only, 62.26 percent have had some ele-
mentary-school work or are elementary-school graduates only, and
that 4.89 percent are illiterates.
It is because of these facts, and others which I have not time
to recite to you but about which you are presumably already well-
informed, that I believe that the distinctive and primary function of
the business curriculum, as such, should be the vocational one, along
with, of course, a well-balanced emphasis upon the other big inter-
ests of a competent individual and a competent democratic society.
Your excellent state “Course of Study in Business Education of
the High Schools,” outlines three specialized curricula, which are
presumably intended to serve primarily, although not exclusively, the
vocational objective. These curricula are the bookkeeping, the
300 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
merchandising, and the stenographic. To these some state and local
school systems would add the clerical practice or general clerical
curriculum in view of the fact that “approximately one-half of
persons employed in offices” tend to be engaged in general clerical
work.
In your state course of study there is also outlined what is called
“The General Business Curriculum—aA Social-Business Curriculum.”
In general, | may say that I do not favor a separate social-business
curriculum. Instead, I favor the so-called social-business subjects
(through which we seek to understand the social-economic nature
and functions of business enterprise) as prescribed subjects in the
vocational business curricula and in the general curriculum, and as
at least elective subjects in the other high school curricula.
The Vocational Business Curricula
To make the bookkeeping, stenographic, general clerical, and mer-
chandising curricula function properly in a vocational sense, cer-
tain essential conditions must be met:
1. The secondary school should have an advisory committee of
business men and women actively associated with it in counseling
as to (a) what students should be encouraged to continue in the
vocational business curricula; (b) what general education of aca-
demic courses, social-business courses, and technical business courses,
including their appropriate teaching materials, should be stressed ;
(c) what are the initial and subsequent business employment oppor-
tunities, requirements, and standards of proficiency; and (d) what
are the “job-adjustments” which the school graduates and drop-outs
have experienced in their employment. On such an advisory com-
mittee I should want representatives of owners, of managers, and
of employees, and I should want the social significance and respon-
sibility of business to be the predominant point of reference in the
discussion of business educational problems.
2. The teachers of the business subjects, especially the technical
subjects, should have practical business experience to the extent of
being able to do acceptable and efficient work in business employ-
ment. A high school subject can be really vocationally taught in terms
of “business job performance” only by a business teacher who has
been through at least an apprenticeship experience in business.
3. A systematic, periodical survey of business employments
should be made by the local school system or secondary school in
order to keep the business curricula and the school guidance program
in proper adjustment with changing business conditions. The re-
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 301
sults of such a survey should be carefully evaluated by the school
authorities, the business teachers, and the school’s advisory com-
mittee of business men and women. In such a survey it is impor-
tant to keep in mind that the business employment community for
the business trainees of the school may not at all coincide with the
geographical boundaries of the school district. In these days there
is a great mobility of employment.
4. In connection with the guidance program of the school, there
should be an efficient placement and follow-up service both for those
who enter employment direct from the secondary school and for
those who go on to higher institutions of learning and later enter
employment. The usual indifference of the administrators of both
secondary schools and colleges as to what happens to their gradu-
ates and drop-outs is a downright disgrace. Such indifference is
almost, if not entirely, as inexcusable as the failure of parents to be
vitally concerned with a follow-up of their children when they leave
home to go to college or to be employed at a distance from home.
It is often said that the college “prep” record of graduates is an
especially great concern of high school principals. Well, if this is a
fact, it is hard to explain why only twenty-six percent of 2,196
high schools carefully selected in various parts of the nation in con-
nection with the 1932 national study of secondary education actually
kept records of the success in college of their graduates. If the
proportion was only twenty-six percent in the case of graduates
entering college, what proportion of these schools do you imagine
kept records of the success of their graduates who directly entered
employment? If we school men and women mean to make our
boys and girls, our young men and women, the focal center of our
educational program, they must be realistically our concern both in
what happens to them out of school as well as within the school,
and that means both concurrent with their school attendance and sub-
sequent to that attendance. To say that we do not have the time
and resources to deal with the problem fully is to beg the issue. We
can at least do increasingly more about the problem! If a secondary
school cannot begin to have an active placement and follow-up serv-
ice for its graduates and drop-outs, I sometimes wonder if such a
school should ever pretend to be giving some of its boys and girls a
functional preparatory training for certain business employments.
5. To as great an extent as possible, some practical business ex-
perience should be provided as a finishing training. Often this kind
of business experience is made available within school offices. Less
frequently, but even more preferably, such experience may well be
302 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
arranged in business concerns on a part-time or cooperative basis.
This arrangement is thought to be absolutely essential for any real
vocational program of business education for distributive or mer-
chandising occupations. Such a plan will be required in connection
with the George-Deen federal legislation for such education if and
when federal allotments of money are made available for matching
with state appropriations.
6. In connection with your state merchandising curriculum, |
should not advise any high school principal to inaugurate this cur-
riculum in his school unless the merchants and others engaged in
distributive occupations are prepared wholeheartedly to cooperate in
planning the training program, making it function successfully on a
cooperative basis, and employing the graduates on a wage scale com-
parable to wages paid office workers. Dr. Ira W. Kibby, Chief of
Commercial Education Service in the California State Department
of Education, asks, “Why have the secondary schools failed in pre-
paring students to enter the merchandising occupations? I am of
the opinion that we need an answer to this question in order to
properly organize a type of content that will train for the large num-
ber of positions constantly opening in, this field of service. It may
be that we will find that business is not anxious to have trained per-
sonnel in this field. I believe that this is one of our major difficul-
ties. Employers in the merchandising field do not recognize the need
for trained personnel. An office manager would not think of em-
ploying an individual for a stenographic job unless the individual
was adequately trained. Why does this not apply to the merchandis-
ing field as well?’ While it is undoubtedly desirable and socially de-
fensible to have business education for distributive occupations in
the public secondary school program, it is also true that such a pro-
gram will certainly fail of success unless you have in your business
community merchandising owners and managers who honestly be-
lieve that such school training is a necessary prerequisite.
7. For the general clerical curriculum it is highly essential that a
finishing clerical practice course be provided. You are well ac-
quainted with the numerous machines and appliances which are
found in a well-equipped modern business office, such as filing, dupli-
cating machines, calculating machines, bookkeeping machines, dictat-
ing machines. A representative list of such equipment should be pro-
vided the secondary school if a worthwhile clerical practice course is
to be provided in helping the students to be able to render efficient
service in their initial job tasks. The same statement applies to a fin-
ishing secretarial course in the stenographic curriculum, and to a fin-
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 303
ishing office practice course in the bookkeeping curriculum. In
smaller high schools a single office practice course can be organized
and administered in a way to serve the most immediate office-per-
formance needs of all three groups of students.
Some important considerations in the purchase of such equipment
are: (a) to study the local survey results and to consult the office
supervisors themselves in the selection of most appropriate machines
and appliances ; (b) to select the makes of equipment which are most
widely used in the better business offices ; and (c) to select the equip-
ment for which training cannot well be provided in the business
office and in connection with which important educational materials
may be functionally applied, as arithmetical knowledge to calculating
machines, bookkeeping knowledge to bookkeeping machines ; English
correspondence knowledge to dictating machines. The machines
themselves represent merely the means of expressing expeditious
and practical functioning of general and business education, as the
typewriter in the written expression of thought, and the radio in the
dissemination of ideas and ideals.
General Business Education for Everybody
There are at least two kinds of business education suitable for all
students, and in which many high school principals and school super-
intendents have expressed great interest. The first is social-busi-
ness education by means of which both those who enter business em-
ployment and those who engage in other pursuits of life acquire a
practical understanding of the social significance of business institu-
tions and of their various essential functions in contributing to the
want-gratification of the rank and file of the people. The second type
of business education for everybody has to do with a study of those
specific business procedures, practices, and forms by which individ-
uals are enabled wisely to take care of personal and family business
affairs. This type represents an important phase of so-called con-
sumer education. As you well know, a number of excellent business
textbooks for secondary schools are now available in providing teach-
ing materials to serve both of these two types of business education
for everybody. Both types are really forms of general education,
and consequently I do not deem it wise to constitute them a special
business curriculum, as such; but rather I prefer to include them as
prescriptions or electives in the vocational business curricula and the
other curricula of the high school.
In the functioning of these two types of business education for
everybody as a part of the total high school program of studies, |
suggest to high school principals and department chairmen the fea-
304 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
sibility of a standing high school committee on which the ablest rep-
resentatives of the social studies, homemaking, commercial, and other
interested departments may work together to evolve an integrated
subject matter dealing with the social-economic study of business and
with personal consumer education, including business procedures,
forms, and practices. This is an ideal arrangement toward which
to work. Until such arrangement can be made practicable in many
high schools, it seems right that the commercial department should
proceed on its own responsibility to make a helpful contribution in
these directions to the general education of the students.
Problem of Guidance in Business Education
This dual nature of business education in secondary schools,
namely, the vocational and general educational, makes it possible for
the more general business education courses to be scheduled in the
lower grades and the more specific vocational courses to be placed
in the upper grades. Under this arrangement the commercial depart-
ment is in a better position to take care of the planning of courses
for the miscellaneous group of pupils who want or are directed,
wisely or unwisely, to the business courses.
For the definitely vocational business courses in the upper grades,
in which the students are or should be expected to become exceed-
ingly skilful to meet successfully the exacting requirements of ini-
tial business employments, it is absolutely essential that a careful
selection of employable candidates should be made. Many high
school principals are exercising able leadership in providing for bet-
ter vocational guidance for the commercial departments, but most
high school principals have not yet shown the wisdom and the cour-
age to begin doing something about this difficult problem.
It is this student guidance problem which is probably the crux of
the situation in business education in common with all education.
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 305
THE 1937 PLACEMENT TESTS IN FRENCH
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH
CAROLINA
Hvuco Gipuz
University of North Carolina
r NHIS IS the seventh annual study of the placement tests given
by the French department of the University of North Carolina
to entering freshmen.
From the first time since 1930, the year that the tests were intro-
duced here and I made the first study of them, there seems to be a
noticeable improvement. It is possible that this improvement is only
apparent ; or it may be real. I shall discuss this later, after I have
given the tables showing the results of the tests.
In accordance with the usual custom, the French department set
its own standards for determining the placement of the students. The
American Council Beta French Test, Form B, was used this year.
This test consists of Part I, 100 words to test vocabulary; Part II,
60 items to test comprehension; Part III, 60 items to test knowledge
of grammar ; a total of 220 as a perfect score.
In order to speed up the checking of the more than 320 papers
which had to be checked in an afternoon, the French department
asked students to take only 70 of Part I, 45 of Part II, and all of
Part III, making a possible 175 as a perfect score. Since the na-
tional norms were not going to be used, this arrangement is just as
satisfactory for the purpose at hand as asking the students to take all
of the items. The figures in the next paragraph will show that there
would have been no material difference had they taken all of them.
The scores ranged from as low as 33 for a boy with 2 years of
French, and 14 for one who had had only one year, to 171 for a boy
with three years, and 169 for three boys with two years of French.
The lowest score for Part I, on vocabulary, was 19 out of 70; for
Part Il, on comprehension, 8 out of 45; and four failed to get a sin-
gle item of the 60 on grammar correct. (The score of the boy with
one year of French was not considered in the last classification. )
Several made perfect scores on either Part I or Part II, and only
one made as high as 59 out of 60 on Part III. (This score was made
by a boy with three years of French.) Several boys with only two
years of French made 53 out of 60 on this last part.
How is one to explain the zero scores—or even those up to
ahout ten—made by students who have had two years of French?
306 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
Not only have these students been in high school classes for two
years, but they have received at least a passing grade for their work.
The student alone is not to be blamed in these cases. The teachers
who gave them credit for their work are even more culpable.
In placing students, the French department, as usual, did not
make a hard and fixed score the determining factor. Experience
has shown that in order to be of most value to both the students and
the department, there must be opportunity for the exercise of judg-
ment. In general, however, the following were the determining
scores. About 155 or better for the total score, with a minimum of
about 45 in the grammar test, placed the student in French 21, a
sophomore course. Students thus placed were relieved of their
freshman French and started at once their study of literature. There
were three North Carolina students thus placed. Of these, two had
had the regular two years of French, and the third had had two and
one-half years. The rest of the students placed in French 21 were out-
of-state students, all of whom, with five exceptions, had had three
years or more of French. One of the five had had only one year.
Students making a minimum of about 120, total score, with a
minimum of about 20 on the grammar, were placed in French 11.
This course is the regular, three times a week course which all stu-
dents with two years of high school French should normally enter.
It corresponds to third year high school French.
Those students whose total score was between about 120 and 80,
with a score on grammar of from 20 to 10, were placed in French
11X. This is a six hour a week course, designed for those who show
that they have some knowledge of their high school French, and who
with twice as many recitations as French 11 may be able to make the
same progress during the quarter.
Those students who made lower scores than would warrant their
being placed in 11X were put into French 1, a six hour course, to
begin all over their study of French.
Students in 11X who show that they are capable of superior work
at the end of the fall quarter may go into French 12, a three hour
course, in the winter quarter. If a student fails 11X in the fall he
is placed in French 2 in the winter quarter, If his work is only
mediocre he will continue in 12X. The diagram below may explain
somewhat more clearly how students are placed after they have had
one quarter in the University. The French department is doing this
in an attempt to place students where they can work most effectively.
French 1 French 2 French 3 6 hours
11™% French 12X 13X 6 hours
ll French 12 13 3 hours
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 307
A similar procedure will be followed after the winter quarter
for students in 12X and 12.
It is believed that this will give the slower students an oppor-
tunity to master the material effectively by putting more time on it.
On the other hand, the better students are rewarded for their ability
by having only three hours a week for the same amount of material.
The fact that by proving himself worthy the student may advance
from the 11X and 12X classes with six hours a week to the three
hour 12 and 13 classes is a real incentive. On the other hand the
converse, that the student knows that if he does not pass the work
in the three hour classes he will be dropped to a six hour class, is an
incentive to work hard enough to stay in the higher group.
The following tables will show how the students were placed as
a result of the tests:
French 1 French 11X French 11 French 21
\ll Students 67. .20.80% 94. .29.19% 135. .41.92% 26.. 8.07%
N. C. Students 54. .27.55% 72. .36.78% 67. .34.18% 3... LSSR
O. S. Students 13..10.31% 22. .17.46% 68. .53.97% 23. .18.25%
Comparing these figures with last year’s results (see High School
Journal, Vol. XIX, No. 7, November 1936) there is an apparent
improvement of more than 50% in French 1 placements—20.80%
against 47.14% ; in French 11X there were 29.19% this year against
17.41% last year; and in French 11, 41.92% this year as compared
with 35.43% last year.
Tabulating the results separately for the North Carolina and
out-of-state students, showing the percentages for each group, in-
stead of the percentage of the total number of students taking the
tests, we get the following tables:
N. C. Students O. S. Students
French 1 54. .27.55% French 1 13..10.31%
French 11X 72. .36.73% French 11X 22. .17.46%
French 11 67. .34.18% French 11 68. .53.97%
French 21 3.. 1.53% French 21 __ 23. .18.25%
Total 196 Total 126
An even greater improvement seems to have taken place in com-
paring the N. C. students’ records for placement into French 1—
64.55% last year against 27.55% this year. In French 11X there
were placed 14.28% last year, and this year 36.78%. The French
11 figures are more nearly constant—31.16% in 1936, and 34.18%
in 1937. To this last, since it is an advance, may be added the 1.53%
placed in French 21, making 35.71% who were advanced beyond the
high school French.
This year the figures for the out-of-state students show a
marked drop from last year in French 1 and French 11X—from
308 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
24.30% to 10.31% and from 21.53% to 17.46% respectively. In
‘French 11 there is a slight decrease this year; from 54.16% to
53.97% However, we must add to these the 23 students (18.25% )
who this year were placed in French 21. This would make a total
of 72.22% of the out-of-state students who were placed in courses
above the two years of high schoo! French.
The picture is not, however, as bad as it seems at first glance—
one can prove almost anything by statistics! A fairer comparison is
to find how many of the students who had only two years of French
were advanced into French 11 and French 21,
Of the N. C. students with only two years of French, 35.35%
were advanced, against 23.50%. of the out-of-state students with the
same amount. In other words, a larger percentage of our students
with only two years of high school French—1185‘ more—than
out-of-state students were advanced. On the other hand 27.55%
of the N. C. students were put back into French 1 to begin all over,
whereas only 10.31% of the out-of-state students were thus set back.
In French 11X we find 36.73% of the N. C. students, and of the
out-of-state students with two years or more, 15.87%.
Thus we see that though a greater percentage, 11.85. greater, of
the N. C. students were advanced, 17.24% more of our students were
put into French 1 to repeat their high school French.
As I have stated before in various places, if the teachers of this
state would not have their students set back to French 1, to repeat
the work done in high school, they must give them a better ground-
work in the fundamentals. It is not sufficient that we have been able
to improve in the placing of the better students ; there must be amel-
ioration on the lower levels. Next year I hope that I shall receive
figures that will show that this change for the better has been accom-
plished.
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 309
THE SEWANEE FRENCH SCHOOL
D. E. Frierson
Dean of the Sewanee French School
ORD comes from the University of the South, at Sewanee,
Tenn. that its newly created French School, announced in
these columns last spring, carried to a successful close its first sum-
mer session, running from June 17, to July 28, 1937.
There were thirty-nine regular boarding students registered in the
school, representing fourteen Southern and Eastern states, including
Texas, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, They were all
graduate students, with the exception of two undergraduates from
Dartmouth. The faculty and a number of day-students from Sewanee
brought the number of the little French-speaking colony up to nearly
fifty.
The faculty was composed of René Hardre, of the Woman’s Col-
lege of the University of North Carolina, Director; D. E. Frierson,
of the University of the South, Dean; Hugo Giduz, of the Univer-
sity of North Carolina; Mlle. Lucienne Petit, of Adelphi College ;
Jacques Hardré, of Guilford College, and Mme. Berthe Hardré,
Hostess of the French House.
The sixteen graduate and undergraduate courses offered were so
planned as to form a well rounded program of studies in French
language, literature, civilization, and teaching methods. It is inter-
esting to note that in this first summer session, the students, for the
most part teachers in high schools and small colleges, gravitated to-
ward the courses in language, and to a lesser extent, pedagogy.
Those students who have registered for a master’s degree in French
and who will return for several successive summers, will, of course,
take progressively more literature and less language.
Before their arrival in Sewanee, the students were pledged to
speak only French on the campus, in the buildings, and among them-
selves for the period of six weeks. In spite of the strain of this rig-
orous discipline, no serious infractions of the “no English” rule oc-
curred. As previously announced, all the activities of the school cen-
tered in one building, Quintard Hall, which contains sleeping quar-
ters for faculty and students, dining-room, class rooms, and recrea-
tion hall. One hour each evening, except Saturday and Sunday, was
devoted to an entertaining program of French songs, games, plays, or
a lecture by a member of the faculty.
The Sewanee French School received some encouraging support
(Continued on Page 324)
310 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
,
7
‘aie
The Science Column
| Conducted by CARLETON E. PRESTON
;
SCIENCE AND CURRICULUM CHANGES
ONSTANT readers of this column have long since probably
-herveritae that it seldom contains any record of original re-
search. The purpose in the mind of its editor has been, rather, to
pass on to busy teachers in service certain helps of as practical a na-
ture as may be and to summarize educational trends in ways that
may suggest improvements in teaching practices. His personal jus-
tification for attempting such a function lies in the fact that his pro-
gram brings both the opportunity and the responsibility for reading
and study wider than that which the average teacher has time to un-
dertake and enables him to keep in somewhat closer contact with pro-
gress nationally in his field. The present article is submitted in ac-
cordance with that point of view.
It would seem safe to say that right now our whole edvcational
system, in company with our economic and governmental systems,
is undergoing the most thorough and critical study and re-evaluation
that it has had in many decades. In it as in the others old ways are
being found quite insufficient to meet the demands of a changing
society, and the new and presumably better order has not vet fully
emerged. It is almost inevitable that at such a time teachers, faced
with the necessity of departure from their accustomed ways, should
have mingled feelings of hesitation at breaking with the past, of con-
fusion as to the present, and of hope and determination with respect
to the future. It is easy to recognize present or past shortcomings,
but it is quite a different matter to find successful ways of overcoming
or avoiding them.
Fortunately today, despite the differences of opinion between
ultraradicals and ultraconservatives (both always desirable if we are
to keep forging ahead and yet apply the brakes at proper times) the
problems of this period are being approached to a greater degree than
ever before through the methods of the scientist. Causes of failure
are being carefully diagnosed ; experiments looking toward improve-
ment are being intelligently planned and their results observed, meas-
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 311
ured, and interpreted discreetly; steps are being taken slowly on
ground determined to be reasonably solid; there is a broad tendency
to test, and when necessary to reconstruct, fundamental philosophies
before attempting to tamper with educational superstructures. Thus
better direction of the whole educational plan is assured.*
Science teachers, like all others, must inevitably play their part
in any coming reconstruction and be affected by it, for it will nec-
essarily influence their selection of course content, their methods
of directing work, and their bases for evaluating results. Some of
them (among whom we shall hope to find a goodly number from
North Carolina and the other southeastern states) will take leading
parts in charting the way; others, some willingly, others perhaps
reluctantly, will be constrained to follow as changes go into effect.
Professionally minded teachers as a class will strive of their own
accord to keep abreast of the general movement both through reading
and participation in the work of investigation and planning so far
as they are able.
Probably the most fundamental change now reaching the point
of application is that from the subject-centered to the child-centered
school. In theory this is not new. Nearly twenty vears ago the
“cardinal principles’ of education at secondary level were enunciated
through a committee of the N.E.A. in pupil-centered terms. Sub-
ject teaching, however, still went on relatively unaffected, and only
very recently has the point been reached where serious attempts are
being made over large areas to translate this theory into practice. In
the meantime it has become increasingly apparent that the old educa-
tion is failing to meet modern demands satisfactorily,
In the science field, aims have since been reworked and restated
in ways to emphasize less the mere imparting of scientific informa-
tion and more the solving of problems through the methods of the
scientist. Applied concretely, this means that in future we are to
give less attention to covering completely any field of knowledge,
alike for all, and more attention to discovering the aptitudes and the
limitations of individual pupils and to adjusting problem work, as
realistic in kind as we can make it, according to their several inter-
ests and needs so far as these can be aroused and discerned respec-
tively. The lockstep of the older day is tending to disappear, and
with it the use of a single textbook regarded as an infallible author-
ity, and authoritative teaching generally. In their places are ap-
pearing more and more freedom for individual pupil thought and
* To this editor a major weakness of the recently published “Study in Curriculum
Problems of the North Carolina Public Schools’ appears to lie in the neglect of this last
point.
312 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
greater recognition of the need for training in intelligently meeting
controversial issues.
A still greater change in the offing is that involving generally
integrated pupil programs. In the elementary grades this can be, and
is being, readily brought about; but in secondary schools depart-
mental feelings, some due to the human’s instinct for self-preserva-
tion, are still strong. It is significant, for example, that in the case
of the recent Virginia curriculum study, which represents extremely
thoughtful planning long continued, publication of the detailed pro-
gram for Grades 9, 10, and 11 has already been long delayed although
the general plan for these grades, together with the full “core curricu-
lum” details for these below, has been for some time in print. Such
integration means developing a new attitude on the part of teachers—
an attitude of willingness to think first not of subjects but of the all-
round growth of individual pupils, even to the point of sacrificing
the former at times to the greater benefit of the latter. The problem
statement changes from, How can I fit these pupils into my classes?
to, How can I fit all the resources that I, as a subject teacher, possess
to the needs of these young people ?
Likewise, when the school or class really becomes pupil-centered.
the basis of evaluating pupils shifts. John’s grade in science knowl-
edge indicates only a small fraction of his development in the science
class. Has John learned to use books more efficiently? To make
better use of his time? To cooperate more ably with his fellows? To
weigh more carefully what he hears or reads? To enunciate more
clearly and to clothe his thoughts in better chosen language? To be
more tolerant of opinions that differ from his own? To observe
more accurately, and to interpret more intelligently in the science
field? These and many other similar developmental characteristics,
not all of them perhaps capable of objective measurement, become
of far greater significance than merely reaching a passing grade in
subject matter. Here, it may be, is a boy who has never mastered
the mechanics of penmanship to the point where he can employ it
naturally and easily as a study tool, or as an instrument of communi-
cation. The lack of that mastery not only affects all his studies now
but will handicap him later in life; how can we, his teachers, work
concertedly to help him realize and overcome his weakness? Paul
is distinctly unsocial—alone on the playground and uncommunica-
tive in the classroom; who of us who meet him every day can dis-
cover the key that will unlock the door to his real self and, through
gaining his confidence, gradually help his personality to unfold to
the point of friendliness and active natura] participation in group
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 313
endeavors? It is far more important to Paul’s success in life that
he make this development than that he pass his science with a “C”
or even an “A.” Such illustrations as these could be many times
multiplied in the average classroom. No wonder that today much
attention is being devoted to the study of forms of report, including
reports to parents, used in our schools, to make them express more
nearly our estimate of real progress made in living!
Still another aspect of an integrated program is concerned, fun-
damentally, with making the school curriculum real and functional in
the world outside. Too much of our work, including science work,
is still academic, relatively unrelated to actual problems of living and
making a living. Our present sequence of hour periods tends to pre-
vent the practice of firsthand observation, under competent guidance,
of community life and community industries; still harder has it be-
come to participate in them as a means of learning. For example,
a trip to inspect a local dairy or dairies, arranged perhaps with the
hearty cooperation of the health authorities as well as the dairy
owners, would occupy a whole morning, assuming that rapid trans-
portation is provided.* <A trip to observe the state legislature in
session might occupy a whole day. Yet each of these activities pre-
sumably has a value equivalent to that of several hours spent in
classes within the building; for each represents actual observation
of real community functioning. Somehow, we must ultimately ar-
range among ourselves as teachers some sort of “give and take” plan
within our respective schools that will make frequent excursions of
this sort not only possible for our students but natural and expected.
As a matter of fact, each of the trips above described can be made
to yield valuable outcomes in several subject fields as well as others
that today we probably should call extracurricular. Reports con-
cerning them give opportunity for various forms of expression—
oral, written, perhaps graphic, even mathematical. The social or
civic import of dairy inspection is at least on a par with the scientific
import, and so on. Also, one can hardly think of such excursions
that would not raise questions leading to further investigational ac-
tivities both in and out of school, and that would thus furnish prac-
tice in additional study skills. The main things needed to initiate
them would seem to be an integrated faculty guided by an enter-
prising principal. In all probability, today, more opposition would
be found in the ranks of the teachers themselves than in the princi-
pal’s office. Departmental prejudice is still difficult to overcome.
*It is the writer’s understanding that, under present regulations, school busses in
North Carolina may not be utilized for any other purpose than transporting children
between home and school. To what extent is this a handicap to education? Is the policy
completely sound?
(Continued on Page 324)
314 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
The Physical Education Column
Conducted by OLtiveR K. CORNWELL
OR the past several years there has been much discussion with
HH eleven to the participation of girls in interscholastic athletics.
Miss Mary Channing Coleman, Professor of Physical Education,
The Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina, presents
the following material with reference to the subject.
ATHLETICS FOR Hicgu ScHooL GIRLS
|. Platform of the Women’s Division, National Amateur Athletic
Federation.
1. Promote such programs of athletic activities for all girls and
women as shall meet their needs, and as shall stimulate interest in
activities that are suited to all ages and capacities.
2. Promote competition that stresses enjoyment of sport and the
development of good sportsmanship and character rather than those
types that emphasize the making and breaking of records and the
winning of championships for the enjoyment of spectators or for the
athletic reputation or commercial advantage of institutions and or-
ganizations,
3. Promote interest in awards for athletic accomplishment that
have little or no intrinsic value.
4. Promote educational publicity that places the emphasis upon
sport and its values rather than upon the competitors.
5. Promote the use of suitable costumes for athletic activities.
6. Promote the provision of sanitary and adequate environment
and facilities for athletic activities.
7. Promote the apportionment of adequate time allotment for a
physical education program such as shall meet the needs of the vari-
ous age groups for growth, development, and the maintenance of
physical fitness.
8. Promote the training and employment of women administra-
tors, leaders and officials who are qualified to assume full responsi-
bility for the physical education and recreation of girls and women.
9. Protect the health of girls and women through the promotion
of medical examinations and medical “follow-up” as a basis for
participation in athletic competition, and of a system of supervision
that shall assure a reasonable and sane attitude toward participation
in activities at times of temporary physical unfitness.
10. Protect athletic activities for girls and women from the dan-
gers attendant upon competition that involves travel, and from their
commercialization by interest in gate receipts.
11. Promote the general adoption of approved rules for the con-
duct of athletics and games for girls and women.
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 315
12. Promote the study of the existing rules of all sports to the
end that they may be changed to meet the specific needs of girls.
II. From the Sixth Yearbook of the Department of Superintendence :
“The Society of State Directors look with favor on steps being
taken in various states at the present time toward the protection of
the physical welfare of girl students by the drawing up of regulations
which limit and safeguard competition in girls’ basketball.
The principle that girls should participate in athletics is wise and
good, but the problem is one of control and conduct.
Girls should not imitate the men’s and boys’ activities. They
should have a program of activities based on their interests and
needs.
The program should include more than basketball. It should
be a varied program of all kinds of sports including volley ball,
captain ball, dodge ball, field ball, soccer, swimming, hiking, and so
forth.
Girls’ games should not be staged with boys’ games, The perni-
cious habit of having girls’ games serve as curtain raisers and as
interludes for the boys’ games should be stopped.
Girls should have a program of activities that is broad and the
environment in which they play and compete should be conducive to
their health and wellbeing; and no one but trained women leaders
should be in charge. The great need, therefore, is for a right pro-
gram under scientific leadership.”
“Interscholastic competition for girls is to be discouraged in
schools with an enrollment permitting of intramural program, and
all teaching, coaching, and officiating must be in the hands of compe-
tent women teachers. Girls’ rules must be followed for all games and
activities for which such rules have been adopted.”
Excerpts from the Bulletins “Athletics for Girls” and “lH"omen
and Athletics’ are used for the following:
SuGGEsTED Topics FoR Discussion
Should Girls’ Athletics be considered as a part of the Physical
Education Program ?
Yes, girls’ athletics represent a fine part of the general pro-
gram.
Where do Interscholastic Athletics stand in a modern program
of physical education ?
Interscholastic athletics, as such, are of questionable value
Where they do exist, because of lack of numbers for any other
form of competition, they should be a part of the Physical Edu-
cation program. They do not, under any circumstances, come
first. A physical education program including every girl in some
activity is the foundation. No money, time, or effort should be
spent in developing a “varsity” until adequate facilities, equip-
ment, and teachers have been provided for the general student
body. This is wholly in accordance with the democratic prin-
ciples of modern education. Varsity teams represent the peak
of the program, not the center. To have every girl “in the
game” should be a standard by which to judge athletics, not
the number of victories or championships.
316 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
Can Athletics be justified as part of the curriculum of the schvol ?
This is the main basis upon which they can be justified.
Their educational value lies in the opportunities which they offer
to girls to get along better with each other, to enjoy their leisure
time, to improve their physical control, and to develop their
health.
Why are Interscholastic Athletics sometimes called a nuisance?
3ecause, traditionally, we have thought it necessary to have
rallies before and after games, yell leaders to tell us when to
applaud, hysterics after victory, or melancholia after defeat, ex-
cursion trains, banners, broken school days because of games,
expensive cups and sweaters, large stadia, over-exertion, and
extensive publicity. These, not athletics themselves, are nui-
sances.
Who is responsible, in the last analysis, for the so-called “over-
emphasis” in Athletics?
The principals and superintendents or administrative heads
of organizations. The public has been taught to sacrifice many
good things in order to get a winning team. Administrators can
bring them to recognize the value of sports for all. Athletics
should be administered as an educational activity for the good
of the players, not as a commercial enterprise for the advertising
value to the school, the community, town, or coach. Adminis-
trators can control this.
How important is winning to any school or club team?
Winning is the essence of the game; but winning means
playing at one’s best without degrading the losers. To hate the
opponents, to play grudge matches, to pray for victory over a
foe, to scream derision at opponents, or to feel disgraced because
of the loss of a game should not be a part of the winning spirit.
Fair play, courtesy, self-control, generosity, are as much a part
of winning as a high score.
Are Interscholastic Championships in any sport desirable ?
For younger groups including elementary and junior high
school girls, interscholastic championships are not desirable. In
older groups, including senior high school and college girls, inter-
scholastic championships are useful only in the absence of any
other opportunity for competition. In the schools in which the
number of students is not sufficient for intramural competition,
then competition between small schools is useful when conducted
properly. This does not mean, however, that county or city
tournaments are, under any circumstances, desirable.
What should be the qualifications of a coach and teacher of physi-
cal education in schools?
She should be trained in her work. Experience on a college
varsity squad does not constitute adequate training.
Should girls’ teams be coached by men?
No. Men, as a rule, do not recognize the limitations of girls;
men cannot frankly discuss health problems and conditions with
d
Ne
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 317
girls ; and, furthermore, men usually fail to understand the differ-
ent standards which exist between men’s and girls’ athletics.
How can we help students who “play to the grand-stand”?
Take away the grand-stand.
How was the team chosen? Was it the cream which rose to the
top as a result of a big intramural program in which each girl had
her share of participation, or was it a picked group from the begin-
ning of the season?
Were you sure that each girl on the team was physically able to
stand the strain?
Did she have a thorough physical examination before she started
playing, and an occasional check-up during the season?
Was the team coached by a woman, and did she foster a high
ideal of sportsmanship and friendly spirit of play, or was the team
coached by a man or woman who instilled into the team the desire to
win at any cost and with bitterness of feeling ?
Was any check-up made of the physical condition of each girl
at the time of each game? Was she allowed to play regardless of her
condition because the championship was at stake ?
What motivated that team? <A desire to PLAY basketball or a
desire to WIN the championship?
Were there desirable outcomes insofar as one can judge in the
way of friendly social intercourse on the part of participants and
spectators, or was there a feeling of bitter rivalry, either between
the players or spectators?
How was the team financed? By the Board of Education as a
part of the Physical Education program? Or was it financed by the
school body, by gate receipts, by the Rotary Club, by the Chamber
of Commerce?
Did the woman Physical Director or instructor of that school
approve of interschool competition of that type, or was she over-
ruled by the man in charge of the boys—or did the man in charge
of the boys take charge of this girls’ team backed by a Principal
who saw in it possible prestige for his school, a chance to “get its
name on the map”?
What about the nervous strain and the time lost from academic
work, both because of the excitement before and during the games
and the actual time needed for travel, practice, and play?
What was the program and opportunity for plav for the rest
of the girls in that High School? What proportion of time was the
“Gym” theirs as compared to the time it was being used by the
Varsity? Was a game of some sort offered to each girl?
\dditional suggested topics:
1. The seasonal program.
2. Can Athletics be “socialized” ?
3. What of the school with poor facilities ?
4. How can we secure better trained leaders ?
5. Education for spectator sportsmanship.
6. What of a state athletic association for girls?
318 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
STATE GROUP STUDIES HIGH SCHOOL
ATHLETIC PROBLEMS
fe R. B. House of the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill invited a representative group of school men to
meet at Chapel Hill on October 23rd for the purpose of discussing
various phases of the high school athletic situation. The following
men were present:
G. R. Wheeler, Sanford, Chairman, Executive Committee H. S.
Athletic Association; A. P. Routh, Greensboro, Executive Com-
mittee; C. R, Joyner, Winston-Salem, Executive Committee; I. E.
Ready, Rocky Mount, Executive Committee ; C. W. Phillips, Wom-
an’s College, Greensboro; P. A. Reid, Roanoke Rapids, President
City Principals; W. F. Warren, Durham, President City Superin-
tendents; W. H. Shaw, Raleigh, Executive Committee; O. A. Tut-
tle, Selma, representing Mr. B. E. Littlefield, President, District
Principals; B. D. Bunn, Oxford, Executive Committee ; L. E. Cook,
State College, Raleigh; Dr. O. K. Cornwell, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill; Guy B. Phillips, University of North Caro-
lina, Chapel Hill; R. M. Grumman, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill; A. B. Combs, State Department of Education, Raleigh.
J. H. Knox, Salisbury, and H. M. Roland, Wilmington, were not
present.
It was understood in the beginning that this group had no au-
thority to do anything except study the matter and suggest future
developments. It was further stated that this meeting was a definite
recognition of the fact that the school men should have full respon-
sibility for the control of the high school program and that the Uni-
versity is merely to be a means through which the plans may be de-
veloped. It was with this in mind that a large group of men repre-
senting all units of the North Carolina Education Association as well
as the State Athletic Association was invited.
The following problems were presented and discussed :
The development of a more varied program in which there will
be a larger number of schools participating.
The establishment of additional groups for more equitable com-
petition.
The development of conferences and districts.
The promotion of county-wide activities.
The relationship of Health and Physical Education to the Athle-
tic program.
The group unanimously approved a motion urging State Super-
intendent Erwin and Dr. J. Henry Highsmith to make provision
for a Director of Health and Physical Education in the Department
of Public Instruction.
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 319
Superintendent George Wheeler, President of the High School
Athletic Association, was instructed to prepare a comprehensive
questionnaire to be sent to all superintendents and principals in the
state for the purpose of getting a true picture of the present athletic
problems in all types of schools.
It will be very helpful if each person who receives a questionnaire
will give as full information as possible very promptly.
MATERIALS FOR UNIT ON SOUTH’S
BIRACIAL PROBLEMS
NINCE preparation for intelligent citizenship is an essential func-
~ tion of education, and since the most serious problems of citizen-
ship in the South are connected with the biracial situation, it seems
obvious that our schools should be doing something to prepare future
citizens to understand these problems and to solve them in wisdom
and justice.
Educators throughout the South are convinced of this fact and
recommendations to that effect have been embodied in official curri-
culum bulletins, teachers’ guides, and courses of study recently issued
by a number of state departments of education.
Thus Georgia’s new “Program for the Improvement of Instruc-
tion” (Bulletin No. 2, May 1937) lists as an important challenge to
the schools the obligation “to develop (among white children) an
honest and fair-minded attitude toward the other large racial group.”
The curriculum, it says, should contain experiences adapted to that
end. <A similar official study recently made in Louisiana urges the
schools of both races to work toward “a better understanding among
all racial groups and an attitude of mutual helpfulness and appre-
ciation.” Teachers’ manuals recently issued in Florida, Virginia, and
other states recommend the introduction of units of study on this
subject.
\nticipating this demand, a group of Southern educators com-
prising the Conference on Education and Race Relations has spon-
sored the preparation of materials for such a unit, and is making
them available in pamphlet form for use in classes in history, litera-
ture, civics, sociology, and music. These materials, it is stated, have
been utilized already with excellent results in 250 colleges and a
thousand public schools. The Conference, with headquarters in the
Standard Building, Atlanta, Ga., invites all teachers who are inter-
ested to write for free samples of these materials and suggestions for
their use. Address R. B. Eleazer, Secretary.
320 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
BOOK REVIEWS
Behave Yourself! Betty Allen and Mitchell Pirie Briggs. J. B.
Lippincott Co., 1937. 156 pp. $1.00.
This book attempts to keep boys and girls “Emily Posted” in a brief and
pleasing way. It is written in a light and breezy manner. The following
few lines will suffice to indicate the style:
“Eat your soup slowly and quietly from the side of your spoon. Don’t
meet the plate halfway when taking a sip. Remember that this is one food
to be pursued, not coaxed. In other words, dip the spoon forward, away from
you. Return your spoon to your soup plate when you are not using it.”
“Always remember that food should be seen, not heard.”
“Always practice your good table manners at home.”
There are numerous clever cartoons by Fred Eisenzoph, which help im-
press on the readers the statements in the book
The authors have well covered the common problems of social behavior of
the adolescent. They have stated them in a way that parents could not;
and if they did, most children would not pay much attention to them!
This is an excellent book to leave lying carelessly on the table where the
children will accidentally come upon it. They will read it with eagerness and
profit if it is not imposed on them.
H. G
Youth at the Wheel. John J. Floherty. J. B. Lippincott Co.,
1937. 136 pp. Questions, pp. 137-154.
This book is intended to make youth “safety-conscious.” On the jacket
we read that the book is “to be used as a basal text for any course in the
junior or senior high school that deals with present-day problems of traffic,
driving, and highway safety, or as a supplementary text where such instruct:on
is given in connection with some other course in the school curriculum.”
This is another good book to leave lying around where it will be found
by the children. I believe that it will be far more effective if young folks
read it of their own volition than if it is part of some classwork.
H. G
Vodern Foreign Languages and Their Teaching. Robert D. Cole.
Revised by James B. Thorp. Appleton-Century Co., 1937.
640 pp. $3.50.
This new edition of Cole’s well-known book brings the methodology ot
foreign language teaching up to date. It is replete with suggestions for im-
proving the teaching of the modern foreign languages, and contains a very
extensive and helpful bibliography. Teachers will do well to keep a copy
on their desks for reference.
H. G.
Unified French Course. Irville C. Lecompte and Myrtle V. Sun-
deen. D. C. Heath & Co., 1937. 599 pp.
The authors of this new text emphasize the fact that they set up a marimum
rather than a minimum program, thus supplying material to take care of
individual differences. The development of reading ability is particularly
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 321
stressed. There is ample opportunity for this; in fact much more than is
usually found in this type of text. There are a goodly number of “Cultural
Essays” in English which will give the pupils a chance to learn about France
and the French people with a minimum of effort. The vocabulary is of course
based on the Vander Beke “French Word Book” and the Cheydleur “French
Idiom List.”
The authors say that the material is such that it can be easily adapted
to any method that the teacher may prefer.
There are numerous good illustrations. The exercises are of the new type
and afford much drill on the material. One of the best pedagogical features
is that in those lessons in which new grammar is taken up the vocabulary does
not increase in difficulty, and in those lessons in which there are many new
words the grammar is simple. There are a number of other features that
recommend this book as worthy of trial.
H. G.
High School Administration. C. R. Maxwell, L. R. Kilzer. Double-
day, Doran & Company, Inc., 1937. 514 pp. $2.50.
This book, based on the newer concepts of secondary education, attains a
happy combination of theory and practice to guide those who are seriously
concerned with the complex educational problems of this age.
While the authors state that it has been prepared primarily for the guid-
ance of high school principals it will serve as an excellent framework for the
development of the classroom teacher.
It furnishes a brief historical background for the high school and the
position of the principal. From that point the various problems of the
high school are discussed. The chapter on extra-curricular activities is espe-
cially helpful. The newer point of view is recognized in a chapter on educa-
tional and personal guidance. This is in addition to the chapter on vocational
guidance
An exceedingly important contribution is made in the discussion dealing
with interpreting the secondary school.
Each of the 17 chapters, ranging from the one on schedule making to
curriculum problems, has an appropriate set of exercises and problems as
well as a comprehensive list of references.
This book is rich in practical discussions regarding most of the problems
of the modern secondary school. It offers enough material for a professional
study group for in-service training.
Integration, Its Meaning and Application. L. Thomas Hopkins.
D. Appleton-Century Company, 1937. 320 pp.
This book attempts to take the much used and often confused term Integra-
tion and clarify its meaning and application to an extent that will enable school
executives and students to profit in curriculum studies. It was prepared under
the auspices of the Society for Curriculum Study.
In the first part of the book eight specialists deal with the meanings, prin-
ciples, and ideals of Integration in rather scientific terms. In this division
the points of view of the Educator, the Philosopher, the Biologist, the Psy-
chologist, the Psychiatrist, and the Artist have been clearly stated as a back-
ground for the application which is presented later.
322 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
These chapters are somewhat technical but can well become the material
for teacher study.
In the second part of the book Mr. Hopkins analyzes the various practices
in curriculum work throughout the country and applies to them the yardstick of
integration as set up in the beginning. He discusses each topic as the Corre-
lated Curriculum, the Core Curriculum, the Experience Curriculum, and the
Broad-Fields Curriculum.
The closing chapter shows the workings of Integration in Courses of Study.
The various states have had a part in the preparation of the material through
a state representative who sent in various contributions.
It is a very timely discussion of an important term which should be better
understood by many of those who use it so readily.
G. B. P.
Directing Study Activities in Secondary Schools. William G, Brink.
Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1937. xiii + 738 pp. $3.00.
A very comprehensive and thorough book devoted to an extremely im-
portant subject.
Part I (pp. 1-299) deals with the more general aspects of the problem—
its scope, developing effective study habits, motivating study activities, the use
of the assignment in directing study, directing pupils in reading and in the
use of the library, directed study from the administrative angle. Part II
(pp. 301-650) takes up study direction in the various fields—English, the
social studies, foreign languages, science, mathematics, the fine arts, the prac-
tical arts. The plan of organization within this part is the same for each
chapter, as follows: (1) significant trends in teaching; (2) activity analvsis
(a) reading activities, (b) problem-solving, (c) using books and supplementary
materials, (d) expressional activities, (e) drill; (3) suggestions as to direc-
tional methods for each group of activities. Part III (pp. 651-723) considers
briefly various attempts at developing an integrated program.
This book is not one to be read once and then laid aside; it wel! deserves
careful and repeated reading, for its fund of helpful discussion is not easily
exhausted. Despite the fact that there is naturally much similarity in certain
parts of the several activity analyses, one cannot help being impressed with
the magnitude of the task which the author set for himself in thus attempt-
ing to include separate examination and treatment of each one of the major
fields of secondary school work, and with the completeness both as to breadth
and depth of thought with which he has achieved his objective.
Directing Study Activities can be heartily recommended for study by all
professionally minded high school teachers.
cs ¥.
High School Teachers’ Methods. Charles E. Holley. The Garrard
Press (Champaign, Ill., 1937). vii + 514 pp. $3.00.
Rather than present at any length an orienting philosophy of teaching, to-
gether with suggestions for its application under different conditions, the
author prefers first to tell prospective teachers the various devices they can
use and the things they should do in order to start “keeping school.” Following
this, he enters upon a discussion of various techniques, usually raising ques-
tions (given as headings) which he answers at some length, always from
the “practical” standpoint, with a view to transforming the mere school-keeper
THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL 323
gradually into a leader or director of study activities. Some running classifi-
cation of techniques is made into those appropriate to teacher-centered and to
pupil-centered schoolrooms. The instruction as to their use often takes the
form of a numbered list of precepts. The total list of techniques, plans, and
devices thus included is extended and comprehensive.
To this reviewer, the author seems rather to be willing to accept today’s
schools as he finds them than to look forward with earnest striving toward
those that are better. The inspirational note seems somehow lacking, and its
absence constitutes the book’s chief weakness. One can imagine students
trained in accord with it going out to begin service with the idea that plans
and devices, rather than clearly sensed purposes and visualized higher goals
of pupil development, are paramount in teaching.
Ce
Pupil Rating of Secondary School Teachers. Roy C. Bryan. Bureau
of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, New
York, 1937. 96 pp. $1.60.
This volume, the author's dissertation, contains an account of what junior
and senior high school pupils think of their teachers.
On a rating scale, devised by the author, about 900 junior high and 600
senior high school pupils rated their teachers on a variety of items. Compari-
sons were made with the ratings given the teachers by administrators in the
two schools studied. Items found to have most weight with these pupils in
determining general teaching ability were: (1) Amount pupils are learning
(2) Ability to explain clearly (3) Teacher knowledge of subject and (4)
Amount of work done by the teacher.
The author in this study presents a good case for the values in pupil
ratings of teachers under certain prescribed conditions.
Ropen J. MAASKE.
School Size and School Efficiency. Warren C. Seyfert. Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, 1937. 316 pp. $1.50.
The author undertakes in this study the task of ascertaining enrollment
points at which, and the extent to which, size-of-school affects the organization
of reorganized secondary schools.
Comparisons of various size reorganized junior and senior high schools are
made on such bases as (1) Plan of Organization (2) Composition of Teaching
Staff (3) Program of Studies (4) Guidance Program and (5) The Extra-
curriculum. The general conclusion is reached that schools with fewer than
sixty pupils per grade in a reorganized unit (such as three-year junior high;
three year senior high) tend to be handicapped by their small size, while in
schools having over 150 students per grade, improvement authoritatively at-
tributable to size is negligible. Reorganized units with enrollments between
these points tend to regress somewhat toward the “small” or “large” school
type, depending upon the ingenuity exercised in the shepherding of available
resources.
Rosen J. MAASKE.
Our Country from the Air. Edna E. Eisen. Wheeler Publishing
Company, 1937. 224 pp. $1.20.
Full-page photographs alternate with descriptions and notes for picture-
study. The book will find its main use in upper elementary grades, particu-
324 THE HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL
larly as an aid to map-reading, but can be used also supplementarily in geogra-
phy courses at higher levels.
i 8 FF.
Il"orkbook in General Science. Hanor A. Webb and Robert
Beauchamp. D. Appleton-Century Company, 1937. vi +
pp. $ 88.
Prepared to accompany the authors’ text, “Science by Observation and Ex-
periment,” and not usable as a whole with any other book. The comment on
the text which has already appeared in this column may be taken to cover
the workbook as well
oe ae
THE SEWANEE FRENCH SCHOOL
(Continued from Page 309)
from the French Government in the form of a number of books and
two medals, offered through the courtesy of the ambassador, his
Excellency M. Georges Bonnet, recently recalled to France as mini-
ster of finances. These medals, the famous George Washington-
Yorktown and Lafayette bronze miniatures, were awarded as prizes
to the two best students in the school, during the closing €XETCISES,
Tuesday evening, July 27.
Bulletins containing announcements for the 1938 session will be
mailed, toward the latter part of February, to teachers of French in
the high schools and colleges of about twenty Southern and Mid-
Western states
THE SCIENCE COLUMN
(Continued from Page 313)
\ccording as they keep themselves informed of, and adjusted to,
the trends here discussed, science teachers apparently have the op-
portunity to be among the leaders or among the trailers in this edu-
cational progress. It is of course futile to attempt innovations faster
than one’s colleagues can be thoroughly convinced of their sound-
ness; nevertheless, the influence of each individual can gradually
make itself felt upon the group. It remains for us to see to it that
such influence is in every case exerted in forward directions that
seem to have been found desirable as a result of careful study.
Suggested reading: The Changing Curriculum, Tenth Yearbook,
Department of Supervisors and Directors of Instruction, N.E.A.
and Society for Curriculum Study. 1937 (D. Appleton-Century Co).
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