River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-01-13
FIRES BROADS|DE
At HIGH SCHOOL
Do Not Meet Requirements Says
State Superintendent.
DIRECT AMBITIONS WRONG
Should Be Freed from Domination and
Not Like Peas in a Pod-Sees
Disintegration of These
Institutions.

Institutions.
Madison.-State Superintendent 9.
p Cary is sending to superindents'
principals and teachers of the state
letter regarding high school educa-
ton in Wisconsin in which he says
among other things:
Il am Of the opinion that the hIgn
schools of Wisconsin must awake to
new situation, or they may ultimately
find Othello's occupation gone. Thls
is what / mean: The people at large
desire in a kind of subconscious way
the high school to change and develop
TO meet modern needs. The h1gnest
ambition of many high schools is, IL
one may judge by appearances, 10
get on the accredited list of numerous
colleges and universities, and not to
study and to meet the fundamental
needs of the communities they claim
to serve. The high schools in Wis
consin, even at the height of their
present success, may, if they are sensl-
tive to the situation, discover that
forces of disintegration are at work.
i.
and success of the county training
schools for teachers, and the county
agricultural schools, both teaching
branches which the high schools
failed to meet.
THAT the work of the county train
ing school," he continues, land the
work of the agricultural school could
IN 70 10Th schools
Of this state, if the schools had risen
to the situation as they might have
done, nobody will question unless it
be a partisan of these institutions.
Furthermore, the course OF study IN
the high schools would have been four
years in length instead of two, and
the work would finally have been con-
nected up with the state university
and the advanced course in the nor
NAL schools This is the beginning,
but unfortunately not the end of the
splitting up of the high schools if they
are satisfied to rest upon their pres
ent laurels. We sometimes hear it
said that the high school is the peo-
pies college. Potentially it is, but
instead of splitting up and contracting
1.-THE first condition for the real
development of the high schools is
standardization from all domina-
ton. This is contamination that
believe is near at hand. At least it is
inevitable. The second condition is
that the schools and courses shall not
be standardized BY standardiZing
schools and courses ] mean making
them all as nearly alike as peas in
pod, If that is possible. Schools that
are standardized are crystalliZed, and
a thing that is crystallized has no
principle of development within it.
The third condition is that the higher
state institutions shall unhesitatingly
accept the graduates of modernized
courses of study. In other words,
higher institutions must adapt them
selves, if need be, to the changes in
high school courses.
Schools should meet insofar as
the size of the schools and their finan-
ciaI resources permit, the real needs
of the communities in which they ex-
ISL. III SOlllG dSl .
may be the commercial element.
1T is becoming painfully evident to
us to-day that boys in our towns and
cities are almost as much in need of
an opportunity to do some kind of
useful work to take the place of the
farm training that most boys used to
have, as they are in need of what we
t., 81
feasible for school men to-day to as
sist their boys in finding work of a
valuable kind at least during the long
vacations?
The criticism of the high school is
growing in volume and is taking on
more definite form. The criticism
that the schools do not connect with
life as it is to-day A serious because
true in too large a measure"