A Movement Emerges

1 VISION of American public schools into three levels, each of which con sisted of a number of grades, was neither an accident nor a decision suddenly arrived at and -quickly implemented. In colonial schools, periodic reclassification of pupils on the basis of achievement did not exist. The scheme of promotions from one grade to the next was a devel opment probably resulting from increasein the numbers of pupils and consequent increasing complexity, during the early and middle nineteenth century. Before the twentieth century began, the practice had become set into the familiar and still popular pattern of eight elementary and four secondary grades. As the nineteenth century came to a close, the eight-four plan had been accepted and implemented all over the country. However, criticisms of it, of its curriculum and its products, which have never been absent from American life, began to increase among administrators and professors in colleges and universities. Consequently investigations, studies, sur veys and conferences were organized by school people to search for the weak nesses in the public schools. The "Re organization Movement" got under way. Specific complaints and suggestions for changes that were made, dealt with duplication in content in the elementary grades; poor preparation evidenced by college freshmen; large drop-out in grades 7, 8 and 9; inadequate training of teach ers for grades 7 and 8; recognition of the early adolescent's need for extracurricular activities (something other than aca demic textbook learnings); growing pres sures to add practical and fine arts; and the increasing need for new buildings resulting from the rapid increase in en rollments. A potent force dictating change was the new knowledge of and insight into the nature of adolescence which pointed to the desirability of beginning secondary schooling at an age earlier than 14. In 1892 a group later to be known as The Committee of Ten, was appointed by the National Council of Education for the specific purpose of studying the sev eral subject matter areas included in the public school curriculum. Its report, one of the most significant in American edu cation, recommended introduction of science, algebra, geometry and foreign language in grades below 9, or, the reallotment of grades into six-year ele mentary and six-year secondary schools. In 1893 the Department of School Superintendence of the NEA, appointed the Committee of Fifteen to inquire spe cifically into the problems of reorganiza tion of the school system. Their survey