more than the hasty conclusions of a hundred. Necessarily, then, the members of the conference ought to be carefully selected. This means that its proposed curriculum may be correspondingly restricted. It is possible that those most interested in curriculum construction-and who, therefore, would most readily serve at such a conference-would be those who are not best qualified to serve. Certainly college professors of education would be the most available for service on such a committee. But in this case the public occasionally points out that college teachers are likely to be out of touch with life situations. There is certainly no excellent reason why they should be, and the statement seems to be without foundation.

It is well to examine the recognized better qualities of the plan. From a number of standpoints the idea is excellent. First, it will bring together people who are interested in the reorganization of the curriculum. Second, it will interest people who have an opportunity to test under approved conditions certain of the new ideas. Third, it will attract those who are training teachers and who, therefore, may give instruction in the new curriculum. And fourth, it will tend to broaden the scope of the study because of the cosmopolitan nature of the group.

The second proposed plan for the construction of the curriculum is the experimental. This is a commendable plan and one which might give the results for which we are seeking if all the involved factors could be controlled. But every student of Education knows how difficult it is to collect reliable data in his field. The time element also enters into our problem when we try to solve it by this method. It would likely take a couple of generations to disclose the place at which we had arrived, and even then we might not recognize it with any degree of certainty. The educator who wishes to adopt scientific experimental methods of solving any educational problem is approved by some scientists and hooted by others. The latter point to the fact that it is

impossible to get really scientifically correct data from most educational experiments. This is true from their point of view. And yet this means, coupled with a bit of far-seeing reasoning, may after all, be our best method of attack.

At this point it might be well to indicate certain precautions that experimenters in the curriculum field should take. In the first place radical or revolutionary experiments have no place in our public free school system. If privately controlled schools should wish to attempt a series of experiments with children, less objection should be made because the patrons of the schools are put on notice and can accept or withdraw their children when they disapprove the policies of the schools. Obviously that is not universally true of the public schools-experiments should undoubtedly be permitted if properly examined and approved by the authorities beforehand and carefully supervised until they are rejected or established. One thing that is objectionable to some conservatives is the never-ceasing attempt on the part of some teachers and other school men to experiment with all the "newest ideas" in their schools. Occasionally pure humbug has found its way into our classrooms because it has been displayed by educational prestidigitators and immediately accepted by the gullible element in the teaching profession as the "latest thing out." Some of these things should have been subjected to careful experimentation over a long period of time before being generally accepted by the public schools. On the other hand in some cases "the latest out" is nothing more nor less than old wine in new bottles. The History of Education shows us how some of these so-called, "latest ideas" recur either in Europe or America about every two or three generations. It is generally conceded that subjectmatter and practices in Europe should not find a place in our American schools until they have been first properly experimented with under American conditions. Many European school usages have been extremely valuable to America, but in many cases European practices are certainly not as

useful to us as they are to the Europeans. Take, for an example from the history of American Education, our adoption of the German method of teaching spelling by phonics.

Our school health teaching-a subject which one would expect to find listed among those with which we have scientifically experimented-is, nevertheless, subjected to various deceptions. One example is sufficient to illustrate the point.— that we are accepting suggestions without testing them. Following a couple of books and a half a dozen magazine articles by people who were depending upon insufficient data for their conclusions, many people got the false notion that adenoids caused all mouth breathing and, a thing which was more untrue, that the latter condition always made children dull. The removal of the adenoids, therefore, became a panacea for all mental ills. Of course an operation is necessary when a careful examination discloses the fact that the nasal passages are closed. But the fact that a child breathes through his mouth is no sure indication that he has adenoids. to the extent that the same should be removed. Furthermore, to say that the removal of the tissue will result in increased mental power is a guess. And that is just the point in this discussion: no one knows yet one way or the other because not enough scientific data is available for a conclusion. As we view the entire field of Education it seems certain that we need more experimenting of the right kind to determine our curriculum.

We turn next to the third suggested method of determining the curriculum, viz. job analysis. It is obvious that this term was borrowed from the business world. Simply stated, it is a case of finding out how an expert's job is being done and what instruction is needed to produce a similar type of skill in another. This is not so difficult to do in the case where one has a specific "job" to analyze; but the task is prodigious when one considers the general curriculum which proposes "to prepare for life." The activities of the race must be analyzed in order to do that. But in the case of

the vocational subjects it certainly seems to be the logical way to proceed. Perhaps one of its most accessible fields at present is that of curriculum construction for teachertraining institutions. A thorough and extensive job analysis will give a consummate view of all school activities as nothing else can do. It will offer a means of checking the content of the training courses as now organized to determine whether they are including all the requisite teaching duties as well as the amount of non-essentials included. There is every reason why such a study should be a boon to writers of texts on special and general methods and very suggestive to the organizers of courses in observation and practice teaching. This complete analysis will furnish us with invaluable material as to the duties of superintendents, principals and supervisors. In this field one wishes that it might be extended to include the duties and activities of school board members of all types and sizes of school units. Undoubtedly one of the best and simplest ways for neophytes in the teaching profession to learn successful methods of teaching is to analyze the activities of some one who is doing the thing successfully. As a matter of fact that is what the average beginner in the high school teaching profession has done unless he has been carefully supervised. Usually he has gone into his first classroom and taught his group very much as his favorite college professor in that subject taught him. Not only has he carried the methods of his former teacher into his new situation but often in the small high schools he even attempts to teach much of the same material he was given in the college course. In an address to his faculty at the beginning of a session the president of a teacher-training institution said in substance: Make every lesson you teach a model because the pupils before you are analyzing your procedure and will, perhaps unconsciously, imitate it when they begin to teach, later. The job analysists for teacher-training curriculum are attempting to do scientifically what the students in teacher-training

institutions have usually been doing blindly. They are seeking to discover exactly what successful teachers do and to place the most significant of these activities in the teachertraining curriculum. Teacher-training can advance upon a firmer basis when their work has been completed. Not that we should stop there, the job analysists do not make that contention. The matter of job analysis is primarily a means of working through the problem of teacher-training from the bottom upward.

The philosophical attack, the next proposal for curriculum construction, must begin where the job analysis stops. But little advance may be expected unless our goal is placed ahead of the best we are now doing. The philosophy of education, unfortunately a term more or less in disrepute, has a distinct place in a teacher-training institution and will return or in many places has returned under the disguise of some new term. It might be stated parenthetically that here is another case where, in our hurry to be progressive and kept to the fore, we have dropped a few things to which we will have to return. And to that statement it might be added that it is a thing to be more or less deplored that our teacher-training institutions find themselves out of vogue if they don't at least change the names of their courses ever so often. From its nature perhaps the most logical field for a constructive philosophical study of the curriculum is in the graduate schools.

The conclusion seems obvious: we need to utilize each of these proposals and all worthy ones in the formation of a curriculum. A coalescence of principles which includes the best of each should give us the right basis for formulating a curriculum. No one person is likely to offer a suggestion that will be sufficiently inclusive to meet our needs. A finished product seldom springs from any one man's mind. The science of education is an accretion-each must strive to make his contribution and each must be ready to accept the contribution of the other when it is worthy.