In 1893, the purpose of the American high school was as declared by the committee of ten of the National Education Association, the NEA, expressly academic. Mental discipline, the training of the intellect, was its overarching purpose. 25 years later, another committee of the NEA, the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, declared seven cardinal principles as the rationale for the American high school. Among which only one aim was academic, and vaguely academic at that. What explains this sea change in the National Education Association? Since 1857, an increasingly influential professional association of college and university leaders, school administrators, and classroom teachers, which exerted a powerful influence on public education in the first half of the 20th century. In this episode, we look at the report of the Committee of Ten. >> Mm-hm. By the 1880s, public high schools had cornered the market for secondary schooling in the U.S. As their major attraction, high schools gave students considerable flexibility to select so called modern subjects such as book keeping, stenography, mechanical drawing, French, and physics, alongside traditional subjects such as Latin, Greek, and ancient history. The education scholar David Cohen tell us quote by the 1890s, the high school curriculum had begun to resemble a species of jungle creeper, spreading thickly and quickly in many directions at once, unquote. Although most public high school students or, for that matter, private school students, didn't attend college in the 1890s, university presidents and other elite educators were concerned that lay boards of education were watering down the high school curriculum with low quality or non academic courses to the great detriment of both the colleges and the wider society. Now to rectify this situation, in the summer of 1892, the NEA appointed the committee of ten, whose membership included six university presidents with Charles W Eliot, president of Harvard as its chair. Rounding out the committee were William Torrey Harris, U.S. commissioner of education and noted philosopher, a professor of education, and the headmasters of two elite boarding schools. This was indeed a blue ribbon panel. >> Eliot, who had famously introduced elective studies at Harvard, held his committee to his conception of a proper secondary education. High school students should be able to choose among various academic programs. Underscore the word academic. Eliot had no use for vocational subjects. On his watch, there'd be no mixing of stenography in French from mechanical drawing in rap. >> Mm-hm. >> In the 19th century, classical languages in mathematics were prized for their presumed disciplinary value. That is, their utility for disciplining the mind. The classical curriculum's hold on the nation's colleges since the colonial period began to weaken after the Civil War. At Harvard, Eliot, while an advocate of mental discipline, expanded the range of subjects of pre, presumed disciplinary worth beyond Latin, Greek, and Hebrew to include the so called modern subjects: English, modern foreign languages, natural history, physical science, geography, and political economy. The students took electives at Harvard. They were restricted to choosing the liberal arts. In 1892-93, when Eliot's committee, The Ten, identified the elements of a generically appropriate secondary school curriculum, one that would prepare young people for both college and non college career paths, they laid out four courses of liberal studies, each of which would allow students to mix and match classical and modern subjects in various proportions. There were to be no tracks or ability levels. No watering down of any subject. Every student regardless of his or her probable career destination would receive cream. Vocational education was off the table entirely. >> Ironically, the report of the committee of ten appeared at a critical juncture in the nation's history. The unraveling of the American economy and a major Depression in 1893. The times were a-changing, and the Progressive movement was about to gather ahead of steam. A quarter century later, the American high school would look quite different than the one envisioned by the committee of ten. The report's impact was very limited. Our next episode takes up the Blue Ribbon Panel report that argued the rise of the comprehensive high school. [MUSIC]
