CIVICS
Civic training scarcely finds a place upon the elementary school program. The
manual suggests that one-quarter of the history time—10 to 20 minutes per week
—in the fifth and sixth grades should be given to a discussion of such civic
topics as the department of public service, street cleaning, garbage disposal,
health and sanitation, the city water supply, the mayor and the council, the
treasurer, and the auditor. The topics are important, but the time allowed is
inadequate and the pupils of these grades are so immature that no final treatment
of such complicated matters is possible. For seventh and eighth grades, the
manual makes no reference to civics. This is the more surprising because
Cleveland is a city in which there has been no end of civic discussion and
progressive human-welfare effort. The extraordinary value of civic education in
the elementary school, as a means of furthering civic welfare, should have
received more decided recognition.
The elementary teachers and principals of Cleveland might profitably make such
a civic survey as that made in Cincinnati as the method of discovering the topics
that should enter into a grammar grade course. The heavy emphasis upon this
subject should be reserved for the later grades of the elementary school.
In the high schools, a little is being accomplished. In the academic high schools,
those who take the classical course receive no civics whatever. It is not even
elective for them. Those who take the scientific or English courses may take
civics as a half-year elective. In the technical high schools it is required of all for
a half-year. The course is offered only in the senior year, except in the High
School of Commerce, where it is offered in the third. As a result of these various
circumstances, the majority of students who enter and complete the course in the
high schools of Cleveland receive no civic training whatever—not even the
inadequate half-year of work that is available for a few.