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superiors must give their instruction to subordinates under him,
through him, and after consulting him, when possible. In no case
must he be ignored unless he refuses to carry out instruction properly
assigned to him. Each head should receive and give definite written
instruction, or endorsement of his plans, for a definite period of time
and make his final report in writing on completion of his assigned
task. In other words, we must apply common business methods to
our school work; there is too much laxness and waste and often the re
turns are not commensurate to the investments. There are men and
women now in the service who are not sure as to what their duties are,
or to whom they must look for direction, and hence there is often con
flict and confusion, or even shirking of responsibility. There should
be a regular time during the day, when each head should present his
plans for the following, naming, the students needed, and get his plans
approved in writing At the close of the following day his work ought
to be approved or disaproved and work arranged for the next day and
so on. The custom that is sometimes followed, of depending on the
occasion or do nothing if desired, is not business.
Both economy, better business methods and more efficient instruc
tion, require the inauguration of a system of grouping of fields of work.
We would recommend the following groups: The academic group; the
home-making group; mechanical group; the agricultural group; the
trade group; and religion group. The details of each group will be
discussed in a later article; the present dealing only with the outline
of these groups.
1. The Academic Group should include about what it now includes,
except that while the advantages of proper grading is retained, all the
subjects in courses should be rated in proportion to time given to each
and its importance and then closely co-ordinated and correlated and
unified. The scientific grouping of our work might be greatly im
proved; the present arrangement copies too much after the average
antiquated state course. The backbone of our academic work should
be reading as a means of acquiring information; language as a means of
oral and written expression, and applied arithmetic. The hard and fast
line now existing between the academic and other departments must be
broken down Some of our strongest industrial schools under state
control do this by having most of the industrial teachers conduct certain
classes in the academic group in addition to giving the industrial, or
vocational instruction of their own department The separation be
tween our academic and industrial work, in some instances, is greater
than that formerly existing between the grammar and high school of
the states and which is now being obliterated by the creation of the
junior high schools. The subjects which are now often taught by the