Mathematics In The Public And Private Secondary Schools Of The United States PDF Download

The secondary technical schools of the United States, because of their heterogeneity, present peculiar difficulties to an investigation along the lines laid down by the International Commission. While such schools have existed for many years, it is particularly within the last decade that a great increase in their numbers has taken place, for it is within that period that the tendency to break away from the traditions of the general secondary schools and to bring the schools into close contact with industrial and commercial life, rather than to raise to a maximum their efficiency in furnishing preparation for higher education, has become a movement of sufficient strength to alter essentially the character of existing schools and to determine that of those newly established. The "manual training high school" is the oldest of the important types of public secondary technical schools in the country. As a type, moreover, it is the most conservative of the schools to be considered in this report, in that to a large extent the traditions of the general secondary school have been retained and the function of the school as an instrument of preparation for higher education emphasized. At the other extreme stands the "trades school," a type which is in its infancy as a public institution but examples of which existed for many years as private or endowed institutions. These school types are in the province of Subcommittee 1 (Public, Private, and Corporation Trade Schools). The schools considered by subcommittee 2 (Public and Private Commercial Schools) fall into three classes--high schools of commerce, commercial departments of general secondary schools, and private commercial schools (the so-called "business colleges.") The secondary agricultural schools studied by subcommittee 3 (Agricultural Schools) are of recent origin. More than the schools of the other two classes they are supported in whole or in part by State rather than municipal appropriations, and consequently are to a greater extent under State supervision. All of the schools in question are the most recent results of that movement which has led to the establishment of the technical colleges and secondary schools, namely, the movement toward bringing the instruction within the school into closer contact with the phenomena and problems of life outside the school, and toward making the knowledge gained in the school more immediately useful to the pupil when he leaves. Reports of the subcommittees and a supplementary report are presented herein. (Contains 2 footnotes.) [Best copy available has been provided.].