Gummere, Head of William Penn Charter School, Writes Letter Giving Views on Education

The following comment on secondary education was written by Richard M. Gummere, headmaster of William Penn Charter School.

Every year in education is a radical one; and the theory of education should never be static. Mark Twain said that February was an especially dangerous month in which to buy stocks, and that the other dangerous months were January and March--December inclusive. Similarly, one can never feel secure in any system of education, and the wise man always looks ahead for possible improvement.

My own feeling is that honors courses, extended as far throughout every Senior class as possible, tutorial methods, and the research plan on a small scale, should be available for every school which hopes to meet the changing and developing needs of education. The transition to college will be much more comfortable for those who during their final secondary year have had not only a taste but a training in such methods. There should be less variety and more depth, fewer subjects and more time given to them. And language courses should be carried to a farther degree than at present before college entrance; although all of us know that a modern language, and especially French, is probably the most difficult thing to teach adequately. If Mathematics, English, and one foreign language, (preferably Latin for arts students) are soundly done--so that the college can at once begin advanced work in these lines, the "hobby" subjects will have their chance also, in an ancillary or cooperative capacity.

The school should not avoid its obligation to inculeate some citizenship and some science. I do not frankly see why the school should be forced to abandon the growing idea of catering to some one or two of a boy's enthustasms (magazine-writing, music, drawing, nature study in various forms, manual training or commercial geography, in its ramifications) in order to satisfy the rules of our colleges and universities that a modern language must be mastered before the candidate is eligible for a degree. The Progressive idea, in its essential features, has come to stay: and the secondary school must solve the problem as the elementary school and the graduate research department have solved it.

One can readily foresee that a future architect who enters college on Latin and German may find it necessary to master French in college, or that a growing interest on the part of a sophomore in technical engineering might bring about the necessity of studying German for two years before receiving his degree.

I am in sympathy with your suggestion that cramming in school should be avoided: but I believe that the only remedy in sight is the reduction in variety of required units and the more intensive study of four or five subjects during the three years before college, rather than the attempt to anticipate certain "grinds" which a man's college training for future business may make necessary.

For the school to take care of all elementary subjects, there would be involved a high-school treadmill program in comparison with which the present requirements would be Elysium. If would also seem that the transition to original work would be better managed in the case of boys who had had a taste of thorough mastery and research in school. As a concrete instance, the method of preparing at Winchester for Oxford will reveal a concentrated specialization on one or two subjects during the final year of school.