ics."16 Miss Bessie L. Pierce, of the State University of Iowa, tells us that community civics hasn't enough meat in it, that it is given for a full year, though having subject matter for about one-half year only. A committee appointed by the American Political Science Association, and reporting to it December 27, 1921, stated that the result of having civics include the whole range of the social sciences, "with the basic subject of American government thrust far into the background," was to make high school instruction in that subject superficial and ill organized.18 The committee held, with respect to civics, that "the study of governmental organization and the functions of public authority ought to be the center or core of any high school course.' University professors sound a new note of warning against sacrificing history too far, or console themselves with the thought that the danger is not imminent.19 In short, it is clear that there are questionings here and there, significant, at least, in intimating that colossal efforts will have to be expended in clarifying the situation, in order to lead the social studies to some haven of rest. There is apparently a tendency to give a less important place to history in the new curriculum than history was wont to enjoy. Less than a generation ago, the Committee of Seven appointed by the American Historical Association, laid down the four-year high school program of ancient history, medieval and modern, English, and American history and civil government, a program which attained general vogue throughout this country, and which still holds sway in many a school. The committee, moreover, was of the opinion that it would be an ill-considered policy to omit any one of these courses, as they were all needed to construct a firm and solid structure of historical knowledge. Today history, despite its time- honored antecedents, is on the defensive. We have the demand of those who would wipe history off the secondary school slate

16 Journal of Political Economy, Feb. 1922, p. 17.

17 Historical Outlook, March 1922, p. 86.

18 Historical Outlook, Feb. 1922, p. 42.

19 Historical Outlook, March, 1922, p. 89.

altogether, except as an unanalyzed element in a new social studies compound.

The challenge has come from a number of places. The Commission of the Association of Collegiate Schools, commenting on the report of the N. E. A. Sub-committee on Social Studies, which calls for two years of history in the tenth and eleventh grades, and two years of generalized social studies in the ninth and twelfth grades (a plan concurred in, on the whole, by the Committee on History and Education for Citizenship), admitting that this report, "more than any other report," displays a desire to make the student acquainted with the various aspects of the society in which he lives,"20 nevertheless goes on to say: "But even that report blocks out a plan which is entirely inadequate. . . . The document shows the influence of the historian, the political scientist and the sociologist, but not sufficiently that of the economist."21 The Commission also declares that, "it is essential that we free our minds from any such issue as the claims of history versus those of economics, vs. those of governments, vs. those of sociology. These branches of social study are not separable, save for the purpose of emphasizing some particular point of view in social living."22 Dr. Harold Rugg, of the Lincoln School of Teachers College, insists "that all economic, industrial, social and political material shall be woven together in one course, as contrasted with three or more in current practice-history, geography, civics, economics, etc."23

Though the tendency on the part of the newer subjects to dispute with history the control of certain territory in the secondary schools is clearly marked, history still seems to hold its place of vantage. Doubtless it will require a good deal more than these advance warnings to dislodge it. A study made by Professor C. O. Davis of citizenship training in the secondary schools of the North Central Association,

20 Journal of Political Economy, Feb. 1922, p. 17.

21 Ibid.

22 Journal of Political Economy, Feb. 1922, p. 44. 23 Historical Outlook, October, 1921, p. 252.

showed that whereas 1,148 schools out of 1,180 offered civics in the social studies curriculum, 696 elementary economics, 298 sociology, 112 morals, manners and life problems, every public secondary school in the association taught history.24 A tabulation of the first 150 college freshmen registerd in the School of Commerce and Administration of the University of Chicago, fall quarter 1920, showed that the average freshman presented about two and one-half years of work in the social studies, and that mainly history.25 Again the fact needs to be noted that the two reports coming from the N. E. A. Subcommittee and the Committee on History and Education for Citizenship, still place considerable stress on history. Where changes in line with these recommendations have actually been made, the introduction of new material, the general insistence that American history be required of all students before graduation, the development of more intelligent and systematized instruction, have, on the whole and for the time being, helped to improve the position held by this subject. Those who cherish an affection for history, who believe that the schools can ill afford to lose it, that of all subjects it can be made, by the right approach and by a rational methodology, a source of illumination to the student and a means of genuine intellectual and ethical growth, still have ample opportunity of proving their case.

On the whole, the conclusion seems warranted that we are in a period of transition. The pull leftward is strong, but this is more than counter-weighed by the great number of schools throughout the country which still find themselves in the old rut, or which have responded only with slight alacrity to the persuasion of the modernists. Yet the better known school systems have responded, and hundreds of secondary schools in the larger educational centers of the United States have readily reorganized their social studies to carry out, as far as consistent with special circumstances, the recommendations

24 School Review, Vol. 28, p. 270-2.

25 Journal of Political Economy, Feb. 1922, p. 21.

of the N. E. A. Subcommittee or the Committee on History and Education for Citizenship. Professor Davis, after his study of the more than one thousand secondary schools of the North Central Association, concluded that, on the whole, the schools were responding. That there is a tendency to blaze out new trails, no one can seriously think of disputing; but just where they will end up, and when, remains unanswered.

Perhaps, however, the answer will be forthcoming sooner than we have any presentiment of, if the attempt to settle these perplexing issues by the method of experimentation and science, as explained by Dr. Harold Rugg, is an earnest of what is to be expected in the future. Dr. Rugg questions the serviceability of the work of any committee, such as the Committee on History and Education for Citizenship, because it has failed, he tells us, "to bring about sound, scientific and relatively permanent reconstruction of the school curriculum."26 Hence, to determine a curriculum scientifically, he would have, first of all, "a careful quantitative inventory" of the actual institutions, activities and issues of the day. It is a call for scientific detachment, for statistical data, for cold objectivism in the settlement of these matters.

What does this method require? The answer is found in the procedure of the Lincoln School group. As Dr. Rugg explains it, we must get a tabulation of the contents of a number of weekly magazines ("of all shades of political, social and economic faiths") over a long period of time, say twenty years; careful and extended research to determine what are the unsolved issues and problems of the day; the consensus of judgment of about one hundred of our most noted savants in the fields of economics, government, journalism, history, sociology and anthropology; and supplementing the list of writings named by these authorities, the reading of a vast number of book reviews appearing in select weekly journals, and examin

26 Historical Outlook, October, 1921, p. 249.

ation of numerous other books dealing with any aspect of the social sciences, such, for example, as appear on the shelves of the Columbia University library. As a result of this method the Lincoln School group had before the end of 1921 succeeded in listing eighty contemporary problems, a list, which Dr. Rugg says, "forms the core of our high school course;"2" also a number of social science pamphlets for the school grades seven, eight and nine, have been printed, e. g., Resources and Industries in a Machine World, Americanizing Our Foreign Born, etc., to be tried out experimentally in schools with which arrangements have been made. The effort is praiseworthy, and it surely will be interesting to watch the outcome of the experiment, seeing that there are earnest, enthusiastic and trained men bound up with it.

There still remains to point out the unmistakable tendency in the direction of new and more telling methods of instruction. Dependence solely on text material and the formal recitation is becoming more and more obsolete. Teachers have discovered instrumentalities that are far more potent. In the socialized recitation, dramatization, and the use of well selected projects or problems, the resourceful teacher has found herself manipulating a sort of wonder-working rod, capable of bringing forth an outpouring of interest and enthusiasm from otherwise resistant minds. These are methods which are destined to preempt the field of education, and the sooner they become established in the school system the better. But the impact of all these tendencies on the teacher calls for much more orientation than is found in the adoption of new methods. The social studies, as they are being projected in the future, will require teachers who have been carefully and specifically trained, not as specialists merely in history, economics, or civics, but with an eye to the entire group of subjects, constituting the new program. Says Professor Edgar Dawson, who has made a careful study of the prepara

27 Historical Outlook, October, 1921, p. 250.