PREFATORY STATEMENT
For an understanding of some of the characteristics of this report it is necessary
to mention certain of the conditions under which it was prepared.
The printed course of study for the elementary schools to be found in June, 1915,
the time the facts were gathered for this report, was prepared under a former
administration. While its main outlines were still held to, it was being departed
from in individual schools in many respects. Except occasionally it was not
possible to find record of such departures. It was believed that to accept the
printed manual as representing current procedure would do frequent injustice to
thoughtful, constructive workers within the system. But it must be remembered
that courses of study for the city cover the work of twelve school years in a score
and more of subjects, distributed through a hundred buildings. Only a small
fraction of this comprehensive program is going on during any week of the
school year; and of this fraction only a relatively small amount could actually be
visited by one man in the time possible to devote to the task. In the absence of
records of work done or of work projected, unduly large weight had to be given
to the recommendations set down in the latest published course of study manual.
New courses of study were being planned for the elementary schools. This in
itself indicated that the manual could not longer be regarded as an authoritative
expression of the ideas of the administration. Yet with the exception of a good
arithmetic course and certain excellent beginnings of a geography course, little
indication could be found as to what the details of the new courses were to be.
The present report has had to be written at a time when the administration by its
acts was rejecting the courses of study laid out in the old manual, and yet before
the new courses were formulated. Under the circumstances it was not a safe time
for setting forth the facts, since not even the administration knew yet what the
new courses were to be in their details. It was not a safe time to be either