Utilize scientific conclusions in education when available. -As indicated on page 100 in discussing Spencer and Dewey, at the present time scientific facts are lacking to decide many educational problems. Even such a simple matter as the spelling vocabulary was not scientifically canvassed until about 1913. In the absence of scientific conclusions it is necessary to rely on the opinions of such notable students as Spencer, Dewey, and others. In the chapters that follow, however, we shall utilize wherever possible the results of mathematically precise, objective, impartial investigations, meager as these results still are in the field of methods of teaching.

Conclusion of discussion of social and relative values of subject matter. This will conclude our discussion of the selection of subject matter. Working from the social point of view, we described social changes in American life which have necessitated radical changes in the teaching of oral and silent reading, arithmetic, religious-moral and civic-moral instruction and kindergarten activities. Following precise, objective, scientific studies we described the enormous variation in the relative value of topics in arithmetic and different words in spelling lists and then utilized the spelling investigations to illustrate the general nature of scientific procedure in selecting subject matter.

Having determined the principles which govern the selection of subject matter for schools, we shall turn in the next chapter to a discussion of the organization of the selected subject matter.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

The references marked with an asterisk are especially recommended to beginners.

General. —1. BOBBITT, J. F. *(a) What the Schools Teach and Might Teach. (Russell Sage Foundation, New York City, 1915.) Practical application of the social point of view to a survey of the subject matter of Cleveland schools. Simple, practical, illuminating. (b) The

Curriculum. (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918.) The most scientific treatment of what to teach. Social point of view.

* 2. Dewey, JoHN. The School and Society. (The University of Chicago Press, 1899; enlarged, 1915.) Chap. i has been very influential. The title, even, has become a byword. Simple but rather theoretical compared to the Bobbitt references listed above.

*3. SPENCER, HERBERT. Education. (1860.) Chap. i, entitled What Knowledge is Most Worth. A classic statement of the sociologist's point of view.

Historical. * 4. PARKER, S. C. History of Modern Elementary Education. (Ginn and Company, 1912.) Chap. iv, on religious content of colonial elementary schools; chap. xviii, on the history of the kindergarten.

Scientific. 5. BOBBITT, J. F. Summary of the Literature in Scientific Method in the Field of Curriculum-Making. Elementary School Journal, November, 1917, Vol. XVIII, pp. 219–229.

6. Thorndike, E. L. Principles of Teaching. (A. G. Seiler, 1906.) Pp. 265-268. Characterizes science versus opinion.

7. Minimum Essentials in Elementary-School Subjects. (a) Fourteenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I, and (b) Sixteenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I. (c) Seventeenth Yearbook; Part I. (Public School Publishing Co., Bloomington, Illinois, 1915, 1917, 1918.) Reports of concrete efforts to determine relative values in all elementary-school subjects. Very helpful.

Spelling vocabularies.

8. AYRES, L. P. The Spelling Vocabularies

of Personal and Business Letters. (The Russell Sage Foundation, New York City, 1913.) Tabulated 2001 different words from 2000 short letters.

9. Cook, W. A., and O'SHEA, M. V. The Child and his Spelling. (The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1914.) Pp. 135-225. Describes tabulation of words used in extensive family correspondence.

10. JONES, W. F. Concrete Investigation of the Material of English Spelling. (University of South Dakota, Vermilion, South Dakota, 1914, price ten cents.) Tabulated 4532 different words from 75,000 themes by elementary pupils.

Quoted incidentally.—11. MCMASTER, J. B. Benjamin Franklin as a Man of Letters. (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1887.)

CHAPTER V

ORGANIZING SUBJECT MATTER

TEXTBOOKS; PROJECTS; PSYCHOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION

Main points of the chapter. 1. Above the first grade, textbooks determine the organization of subject matter for most teachers. 2. Hence textbooks (as well as other materials of teaching) should be organized according to sound principles.

3. The first of these principles to be discussed is that subject matter should be organized around certain large meaningful topics or projects, instead of consisting of isolated encyclopedic details.

a. Hence, the old-fashioned crazy-quilt geography is being replaced by studies of important regions, industries, and geographical influences.

b. In history teaching, emphasis is being transferred to the vivid comprehension of large issues.

c. In the kindergarten, a superficial encyclopedia of trades is being replaced by a few large projects, such as a playhouse, a grocery store.

d. Such large projects give generalized knowledge which is widely useful.

e. Many related details are necessary to give vivid comprehension of large projects.

f. The details may be forgotten, but the general impressions, ideas, and methods of work should be retained permanently.

4. The second principle is that subject matter should be organized as pupils learn it best, not merely as determined from the subject itself.

a. Hence the chronological order in history is abandoned in the primary and middle grades in favor of a psychological order of topics beginning with familiar local events and vivid historical situations.

b. Such psychological organization of subject matter was proposed by Rousseau, who advocated studying childhood to determine the correct order of topics.

c. Instead of doing this, an alphabet of the elements of each subject was organized by Pestalozzi, who established the common A BC methods in reading, writing, drawing, and gymnastics.

d. Similarly, an ABC of geometrical forms was devised by Froebel for kindergarten children.

e. These A B C methods were based on the idea that children learn best by being fed the elements of subjects which have been dug out by the teachers and arranged from the simple to complex.

f. Modern psychology, however, shows that children learn best through their own efforts in analyzing complex meaningful objects or situations.

g. Hence, reading and writing begin with words or phrases or sentences, not letters and lines; drawing begins with representing ideas; and the kindergarten begins with projects instead of geometrical elements.

Relation to preceding discussion. In the preceding chapter we considered the selection of subject matter from the social point of view and in the light of scientific methods of determining relative values. We shall now consider certain fundamental facts and principles which govern the organization of the selected material. The first point to notice in this connection is the large influence exerted by textbooks in determining both the selection and organization of subject matter in the case of many teachers.

Often textbooks determine organization above first grade. In the course of our discussion of selecting subject matter we described the efforts which had been made to determine the content of arithmetic and spelling by precise, objective, scientific studies of social needs and relative values. In the case of spelling, we noted that this scientific effort had culminated in the production of spelling books which effected an enormous social economy by presenting only the words which are in common use. This type of achievement

is desirable in all subjects, namely, scientific determination of the subject matter which is socially most valuable and its effective organization into textbooks. This last step is especially important because most of the elementary teaching in America is textbook teaching. Such teaching varies from mere memory recitations upon the textbook to the most elaborate supplementing of the text. In the latter case the textbook often serves merely as an outline or summary for long discussions to which the teacher and pupils bring supplementary material from many sources. Usually except in kindergartens and first grades, young teachers are especially dependent upon textbooks, and this fact determines very largely their selection, organization, and use of subject matter.

Consequently textbooks should be carefully selected. — In view of these facts, it is important that teachers be guided in their choice of textbooks by sound principles of selecting and organizing subject matter. This is especially important in the middle grades, where textbooks and supplementary books are used in larger and larger quantities as the improved methods of teaching reading result in children being able to do quite rapid silent reading by the end of the fourth grade. In the kindergarten, since the children cannot read, the teachers cannot rely on textbooks, nor can they in the first and second grades for much of the work in community life and nature study. In such cases, however, the same principles apply in the organization of subject matter as in the case of textbooks.

Two principles: intensive study; psychological organization. In this chapter we shall discuss two of the most important principles of organizing subject matter; namely,

I. The intensive study of carefully selected large topics, instead of the superficial encyclopedic study of many topics.

II. The organization of a subject psychologically, as children learn it most effectively, instead of organizing it merely in terms of the subject itself,