REPORT 
 
 of 
 
 gden Public School 
 
 Survey 
 Commission 
 
 Published by the 
 
 State Department of Education 
 
 by permission of the 
 
 Ogden City School Board 
 
GIFT OF 
 
 a*&7 A 
 
REPORT 
 
 of 
 
 Ogden Public School 
 
 Survey 
 Commission 
 
 Published by the 
 
 State Department of Education 
 
 by permission of the 
 
 Ogden City School Board 
 
Report of 
 
 Ogden Public School 
 Survey Commission 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. 
 
 Bureau of Education, Washington. 
 
 Division of School Administration. 
 Mr. J. M. Mills, Supt. of Schools, 
 Ogden, Utah. 
 
 My Dear Mr. Mills : I am sending you a copy of our re- 
 port as edited by the Editor of this Bureau. It seems to me 
 that you should have an introductory page or two, and that 
 among other things you should call attention to the fact that 
 throughout the report the criticism made in our part regarding 
 the half day plan refers only to the work inside the school. 
 You will find that we recommend credit for work outside the 
 school. Professors Ward and Roylance also treat of this 
 phase of your school situation. A summary of our report, it 
 seems to me, would be an excellent thing. 
 
 Please send me several copies of the printed report. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 (Signed) W. S. DEFFENBAUGH, 
 Specialist in School Administration. 
 
 402962 
 
OGDEN SCHOOL SURVEY REPORT. OGDEN, UTAH. 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE HALF DAY SESSION PLAN. 
 By Supt. J. M. Mils. 
 
 A year ago a proposal was made in Ogden for vitalizing the 
 schools by reorganizing them on an industrial plan, having a half 
 day of academic and a half day of industrial, social and physical work, 
 and in certain cases boys and girls were to be excused from the in- 
 dustrial half day of the school to take their industrial work in some 
 of the approved industries of our city on the co-operative plan, on 
 the theory that the real, practical work of life should be an essential 
 part of our educational system; provided that it shall be thoroughly 
 supervised and that the intellectual, physical and social progress of 
 the student shall not in any way be hampered. Some kinds of work 
 have little or no educational value. Other kinds are injurious to body, 
 mind and morals. The child should be protected by the school from 
 entering such employments. It was also thought that the educational 
 value of earning and saving money was an important thing in the 
 training of young people. This plan was intended to make full use 
 of the school plant all the time day and evening the year around. 
 The proper mingling of work, play and study can lengthen the school 
 day without injury to any child, while under the present system the 
 present day is too long. Cramming the child with a mass of unrelated, 
 disconnected, disassociated, meaningless abstract formalities is mak- 
 ing a generation of mental dyspeptics unfitted for usefulness. The 
 benefits of longer supervision in related activities are numerous. The 
 rights of every individual child should be safeguarded, and in some 
 cases it is known that the home can provide better training than the 
 school for a part of the time each day. Great care should be taken 
 by the school officers, however, that careless and grasping parents 
 should not exploit their children for mere financial gain. Junior and 
 Senior High School boys and girls may be directed by the home, 
 with great profit, in housekeeping, dairying, cabinet making, garden- 
 ing and many other occupations, as well as in private lessons in art, 
 music, languages, elocution, etc. The daily program should be such 
 that the book-minded or the hand-minded child can be cared for 
 and his choice under guidance should be encouraged. Many boys and 
 girls, too, could be brought back to school for the academic half day, 
 who are compelled to leave school, continuing the industrial half day 
 away from the school plant. If their necessities demand their full 
 time outside, their academic training could be obtained in the evening 
 school, provided in the Social Center. 
 
 The Social Center. 
 
 Every school building should be kept open all day and evening. 
 Work, play and study should be the program of each session. Run- 
 ning a school system should receive as much business sense as any 
 other big business. Any other business, after having built a large 
 expensive plant would want to use that plant to its capacity. School 
 buildings are generally used five and a half hours a day, five days in 
 a week, nine months in the year, and stand idle the other half of the 
 time. Why this appalling loss? The Ogden Plan calls for the full 
 use of the plants all the time, each building containing full facilities for 
 
5 
 
 all lines of development be they manual training, sewing, cooking, 
 swimming, bowling, hand-ball, gymnasium work, reading, lectures, 
 music, dancing, dramatics, or any training wanted by both young and 
 old of both sexes. 
 
 Work. 
 
 There is no one thing in all the experience of youth that does 
 more to develop men and women of common sense than work. The 
 weakest point in our American school system is that there is little 
 provision for training boys and girls to be useful. A little work 
 scattered along in all the years of the student's life will make him 
 more reliable, his reason more logical, his judgment more sound, his 
 aspirations more lofty, and his ambitions more enduring. The tendency 
 of physical work is to promote and sustain the mental and physical 
 organization in an uninterrupted action of health until it shall be 
 broken up and dissolved in death. Man is kept in life by work, and 
 dies because he will not or cannot work. Every boy should know how 
 to make a living when he leaves school, and every girl how to make 
 and keep a pleasant home. 
 
 Education is the acquisition of power; not an accumulation of 
 facts. The one who is best educated is the one who is best fitted for 
 life, and it often happens that a man is best educated who has never 
 been in school, and that a man who has been through college is most 
 unfitted for life. When the time comes that anyone may properly 
 fit himself in the school-room for life's duties, our schools will serve 
 their best purpose. The kitten in its play imitates the more serious 
 work of the grown animal. This helps to fit it for its later work. 
 There can be no valid reason given why the training of children 
 should be entirely unlike their later duties. The school should be 
 industrial, cultural, and social, and should provide training along all 
 these lines. "We learn to do by doing." The school should provide 
 as nearly as possible the laboratories for training in the various lines 
 that may be taken up later in life. It is especially difficult to see why 
 the school plant should open for operation at nine o'clock in the 
 morning and close at three o'clock in the afternoon. In most places 
 there is no reason except an ancient tradition, why it should not run 
 on Saturday and in the summer. School should be made as much like 
 real life as possible since its purpose is to prepare for life. 
 
 Our education is continuous. It begins in the cradle and ends 
 with the grave, and is made up of work, play and study. Too often 
 one or two of these sides may be overlooked or eliminated from our 
 training, giving us at best an imperfect preparation. The man or 
 woman who does not know how to work is handicapped through life 
 even though a legacy might have been left to him through the death 
 of a wealthy ancestor. One who does not know how to play becomes 
 old while yet young and misses the pleasures of his own life and fails 
 to know those of the lives of others. 
 
 The Bad Boy. 
 
 In every school there should be lines of preparation for the 
 hand-minded as well as the book-minded boy. In our bookish schools, 
 the boy who does not fit becomes nervous and irritable. His very 
 being revolts against what is to him meaningless abstration. This 
 type of boy is extremely energetic, and must express himself in some 
 manner that gives to himself satisfaction. The ordinary school does 
 not provide the opportunity except through truancy and worse mis- 
 behavior. Truant officers and probation officers are put on his track. 
 
They hound him about. Much effort and energy are put forth to 
 make him fit the school. Half the effort to make the school fit him 
 might solve the problem. He is called a bad boy. A bad boy is simply 
 a misfit. Bad boys are often the best boys in the community. They 
 revolt against the so-called cultural education. Their teachers have 
 failed to comprehend them. 
 
 These proposals aroused considerable opposition in the com- 
 munity, and the Superintendent proposed the appointment of a com- 
 mission to survey the schools. This commission was appointed by 
 United States Commissioner of Education, P. P. Claxton, President 
 J. T. Kingsbury of the University of Utah, and Professor Milton Ben- 
 nion of the Utah State Normal School. They in turn appointed as the 
 Survey Commission, Professor W. S. Deffenbaugh, Specialist in School 
 Administration of the United States Bureau of Education at Wash- 
 ington, Professor Edward J. Ward of the University of Wisconsin, 
 Superintendent Charles S. Meek of the Boise, Idaho, Schools, Pro- 
 fessor W. G. Roylance of the University of Utah, and Professor 
 George A. Eaton, Principal of the Salt Lake City schools. 
 
 These men worked earnestly and vigorously during the time 
 that they were in Ogden, but their time was limited to one week. 
 
 Following is a copy of their report: 
 
 REPORT OF SCHOOL SURVEY COMMISSION. 
 
 Ogden City, Utah, May llth, 1914. 
 To the Board of Education of Ogden City, Utah. 
 
 Gentlemen: We recognize that a comprehensive inquiry into 
 the efficiency of any public school system, such as you have requested 
 the committee to make fer Ogden, has two main aspects, first, the 
 aspect in which the school system is considered specifically as the 
 actual machinery for the instruction of children, and second, the 
 aspect in which it is considered as the potential machinery for the 
 whole community's co-operation in an educational process that in- 
 cludes also the systematic organization of the political, economic, and 
 recreational life of adults and older youth. On account of shortness 
 of time, the committee has divided its labor, allotting to three of its 
 members, Messrs. Deffenbaugh, Meek, and Eaton, the study of the 
 public school system under the former aspect; and to two of its 
 members, Messrs. Roylance and Ward, the study of the school system 
 under the latter aspect; and we beg leave to submit the following 
 report: 
 
 School Organization, Curriculum, and Instruction. 
 By W. S. Deffenbaugh, George A. Eaton, Charles S. Meek. 
 
 The treatment of the topics alloted to us partakes more of the 
 qualities of a school investigation than of a survey. The policy of 
 the administration in organizing sub-high schools, establishing a 
 very liberal elective system in the high school, and reorganizing the 
 sub-high schools on a half day plan, has aroused much discussion in 
 your city. Our report, therefore, may appear to give undue emphasis 
 to these phases of administration. 
 
School Board and Superintendent. 
 
 Your committee has been asked to define the relationship that 
 should exist between a school board and the superintendent of schools, 
 and between the individual members of the board and the superin- 
 tendent. The following is our report: 
 
 Legally the power of a school board when in session as a board 
 is supreme, but when not in session, the individual member is only 
 a citizen; hence he has no right to attempt to dictate school policies 
 or to listen to complaints from principals, teachers, or parents. All 
 such should be referred to the superintendent. An individual board 
 member does not have even the authority of the lowest paid employe, 
 unless the board by resolution has delegated him to exercise authority 
 in certain matters. A board of education should employ a superin- 
 tendent of schools to act as its executive officer. To him it should 
 delegate the authority to nominate teachers and recommend their dis- 
 missal, to select text books, to formulate courses of study, to recom- 
 mend increases in teachers' salaries for efficient service, and to have 
 general supervision of instruction. The affairs of the school board 
 are largely matters of business. A somewhat similar relation should 
 exist between a board of education and the superintendent of schools 
 as exists between a board of bank directors and the cashier of the 
 bank, or as exists between a board of directors of a hospital and the 
 superintendent of the hospital. 
 
 The superintendent should be the head of the system and not a 
 figurehead to be ignored by employees of the board. The highest 
 compliment that can be paid a superintendent is that he will not be 
 dictated to by individual members of the board or by politicians who 
 wish to exploit the public schools; that he exacts obedience from his 
 teachers; and that he will not permit disloyalty. 
 
 Your committee commends the stand taken by the school board 
 of Ogden in the management of your schools, whereby the superin- 
 tendent is permitted to be the head of the school system. Any other 
 plan is to be condemned. 
 
 The School Plant. 
 
 The commission finds that the school plants in the city of Ogden 
 are not up to the standard of cities of the same size in other parts of 
 the country. From the standpoint of school hygiene and sanitation the 
 Madison School is unfit to house school activities. 
 
 Below the High School there are 150 class rooms. Of these only 
 31 have a fair system of ventilation. No building in your city, not 
 even the High School, has an automatic thermostat system of control. 
 You have 21 rooms in basements used as class rooms. If the city of 
 Ogden were under a system of State sanitary control, the Madison 
 building would be condemned. The Dee, the Five Points, and 
 Central Junior High are not up to any accepted standard from the 
 standpoint of sanitation and hygiene. 
 
 The city of Ogden has not done its duty to its children in furnish- 
 ing adequate buildings and equipment. It has but a $195,000 school 
 bond, with a bonding limit of $441,735.00 Within that limit it can 
 yet vote $246,735.00 Few cities in this growing Western country have 
 so low bonded indebtedness, and such a broad margin for the voting 
 of additional bonds. The city should immediately awaken to the 
 duty it owes to its children. 
 
Average Enrollment of Pupils per Teacher Average Salaries. 
 
 In the city of Ogden grades seven and eight are organized into 
 three sub-high schools. Grades one to six are termed elementary 
 schools. 
 
 The average salary of the teachers in the sub-high schools is 
 $841.00. The enrollment of pupils per teacher in the sub-high schools 
 is 29. The average salary of teachers in the elementary school is 
 $649.00. The average enrollment per teacher in the first grade is 
 50, in the second 48, in the third 44, in the fourth 36, in the fifth 36, and 
 in the sixth 37. 
 
 The average enrollment of pupils per teacher in the first grade 
 is almost double that of the eighth grade. The large number of pupils 
 in the first three grades necessitates an arrangement whereby, one 
 group of pupils attend school in the forenoon and another in the 
 afternoon. This policy of half-day attendance of children in the first 
 three grades may be accepted because of over-crowded condition of 
 schools, but it should not be dopted as permanent educational policy, 
 though there is educational authority for half-day sessions in the first 
 primary grade. 
 
 The salaries of teachers in the elementary schools (grades one to 
 six) average, $192.00 less than teachers of the sub-high schools. Eighty- 
 two teachers in the elementary schools have salaries ranging from 
 $700.00 maximum to $300.00 minimum. These relatively lower salaries 
 mean that very large numbers of young teachers with limited exper- 
 ience and limited professional training are in the primary grades. 
 Furthermore each of these teachers is intrusted with a much largei 
 number of pupils than in sub-high schools. 
 
 The Commission does not believe that the sub-high school teachers 
 should have more pupils per teacher and be paid less, but that the 
 elementary schools should immediately be given more teachers, and 
 salaries so increased that teachers of extended training and long ex- 
 perience may be attracted to this department, which is certainly as 
 important as any other part of the system. 
 
 The Teaching Force. 
 
 Ogden does not present a situation regarding teachers materially 
 different from that of many cities throughout the country. The 
 necessity for professional training of teachers has long been recog 
 nized. The average salary for teachers in the eight grades of the 
 Ogden schools for the past four years has been: 
 
 Grades 1 
 Year High School to 8 inc. 
 
 1910-1911 $1,004.00 $547.66 
 
 1911-1912 1,040.00 591.16 
 
 1912-1913 1,070.37 629.44 
 
 1913-1914 1,140.83 098.28 
 
 This low salary schedule necessarily means that a high standard of 
 professional efficiency is impossible. The increase of salary during 
 four years demonstrates that the school management has recognized 
 the necessity for raising the standard. 
 
 The Commission has investigated the educational equipment of 
 the present teaching force to determinate the extent of the academic 
 and professional training the teachers have acquired beyond the 
 usual high school courses. It finds that no teacher is employed who 
 
has not had at least some training beyond the high school. Ten have 
 attended summer schools, 10 have had one half year's college or 
 summer school training, 54 have had one year, 48 two years, 9 three 
 year, 25 four years, 11 five years and more. 
 
 For the eight grades the present standard of eligibility is two 
 years of college or normal training beyond the high school. Candi- 
 dates for positions in the high school must be graduates of standard 
 colleges. In the high school at present all teachers are college grad- 
 uates, except the teachers of art, music and manual training, who have 
 had training in special schools. The teachers of household economics 
 have college degrees. These facts demonstrate that the school author- 
 ities recognize the necessity of professionally trained teachers, and 
 have already reached a standard which is distinctive when considered 
 in' the light of low salaries paid. 
 
 Particularly commendable is the policy of the school board to in- 
 crease salaries of the present force, as they present their certificates 
 showing they have pursued college extension courses. Eight-seven 
 are now doing college extension work, certificates for successful 
 completion of which will be factors in determining salaries for next 
 year. 
 
 Retardation and Elimination of Pupils. 
 Table One. 
 
 A comparison with respect to retardation was instituted between 
 Ogden and 386 other cities on the scale of 1,000 pupils in the first 
 grade. The eight grades are designated by the figures 1 to 8; the 
 high school is designated by the Roman numerals I to IV. 
 
 386 Cities- 
 
 Grade 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. I. II. III. IV. 
 1,000 723 692 640 552 462 368 263 189 123 81 56 
 
 Ogden City- 
 Grade 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. T U. III. IV. 
 1,000 777 766 762 660 632 589 458 362 186 102 91 
 
 Table One shows the comparison of the grade distribution of pu- 
 pils in the Ogden City schools with that of 386 cities as compiled by 
 Doctor Leonard Ayres, of the Russel Sage Foundation. The 2,421,988 
 pupils distributed throughout the grades of these cities were arranged 
 in a scale of 1,000 in the first grade and the proper fraction of that 
 scale for each of the twelve grades. Measured by this scale/ the city 
 of Ogden makes a favorable showing, particularly for the first eight 
 grades. For every 1,000 in the primary grades, Ogden has 458 in the 
 eighth grades, while the 368 cities have 263 in the eighth grades. The 
 high school does not show as favorably but is above the Ayres' scale. 
 For every 1,000 in the first primary grade, Ogden has 91 in the fourth 
 year of high school, while the 368 cities have but 56. The fact that 
 the high school does not retain as large a relative number of pupils 
 as do the grades, may be explained by the fact that there are in Ogden 
 two other secondary schools Weber Academy, the enrollment of 
 which is 400, and the Sacred Heart Academy, the enrollment of which 
 is 260. 
 
10 
 
 TABLE TWO. 
 Ogden Public Schools. 
 
 All Schools. 
 
 AGE 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 1. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Totals 
 
 Five 
 
 219 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 219 
 
 Six 
 
 487 
 
 103 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 591 
 
 Seven 
 
 127 
 
 371 
 
 81 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 686 
 
 Eight 
 
 26 
 
 158 
 
 801 
 
 93 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 679 
 
 Nine 
 
 5 
 
 29 
 
 185 
 
 281 
 
 68 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 570 
 
 Ten 
 
 
 8 
 
 69 
 
 186 
 
 225 
 
 74 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 565 
 
 Eleven 
 
 
 3 
 
 22 
 
 63 
 
 173 
 
 183 
 
 55 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 500 
 
 Twelve 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 22 
 
 H 
 
 167 
 
 162 
 
 50 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 486 
 
 Thirteen 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 34 
 
 100 
 
 172 
 
 131 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 
 467 
 
 Fourteen 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 22 
 
 95 
 
 138 
 
 90 
 
 
 
 
 352 
 
 Fifteen 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 29 
 
 61 
 
 135 
 
 33 
 
 
 
 269 
 
 Sixteen 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 23 
 
 61 
 
 67 
 
 20 
 
 6 
 
 182 
 
 Seventeen 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 40 
 
 43 
 
 29 
 
 120 
 
 Eighteen 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 23 
 
 31 
 
 66 
 
 Nineteen 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 19 
 
 7 
 
 14 
 
 40 
 
 Twenty 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 Over 
 Twenty 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 TOTALS 
 
 864 
 
 672 
 
 663 
 
 (560 
 
 585 
 
 561 
 
 523 
 
 407 
 
 322 
 
 166 
 
 93 
 
 83 
 
 5599 
 
 No. above 
 Normal 
 Age 
 
 31 
 
 40 
 
 95 
 
 93 
 
 118 
 
 135 
 
 131 
 
 87 
 
 71 
 
 66 
 
 30 
 
 20 
 
 917 
 
 % above 
 Normal 
 Age 
 
 .035 
 
 059 
 
 .143 
 
 .14 
 
 .20 
 
 .24 
 
 .25 
 
 .21 
 
 .22 
 
 .39 
 
 .32 
 
 .18 
 
 .198 
 
 September 1, 1913, basis of calculation. 
 
11 
 
 Table Two. 
 
 Table Two shows the extent to which children are retarded or are" 
 above the normal age to which they belong. 
 
 In an investigation of 318 cities of the United States it was dis- 
 covered that one-half of the cities had more than 36 per cent of their 
 children over age for the grade in which they were found. In the 
 City of Ogden, in the present year, but 19 per cent of the children are 
 over age. This is a very favorable indication as to the successful 
 handling of the problems of retardation. (Table Two on page 6). 
 
 Table Three. 
 
 Age 
 
 Census 
 
 School 
 Enrollment 
 
 Number 
 out of 
 School 
 
 Six years 
 
 ..1 155 
 
 589 
 
 566 
 
 Seven years . . . 
 
 683 
 
 597 
 
 86 
 
 Eight years 
 
 598 
 
 589 
 
 9 
 
 Nine years ... 
 
 646 
 
 580 
 
 66 
 
 Ten years 
 
 581 
 
 572 
 
 9 
 
 Eleven years 
 
 510 
 
 502 
 
 8 
 
 Twelve years 
 
 586 
 
 536 
 
 50 
 
 Thirteen years 
 
 528 
 
 433 
 
 95 
 
 Fourteen years 
 
 495 
 
 378 
 
 117 
 
 Fifteen years ... 
 
 . . . 496 
 
 314 
 
 182 
 
 Sixteen years 
 
 506 
 
 242 
 
 264 
 
 Seventeen years 
 
 . . 502 
 
 193 
 
 309 
 
 Eighteen vears . 
 
 577 
 
 106 
 
 471 
 
 Totals 7,863 
 
 5,631 
 
 2,232 
 
 Table Three. 
 
 Table Three shows the age distribution of pupils and the number 
 out of school for each age. The students in the two church schools 
 and resident were added to the attendance of those in the public 
 schools, and the children of each age were subtracted from the 
 number of like age from the school census. A study of the table 
 shows the following: Children 12 years of age, but 9 per cent are 
 eliminated; of these thirteen years of age, 16 per cent; of these 14 
 years of age, 23 per cent; 15 years of age, 38 per cent; 16 years of age, 
 52 per cent; of 17 years of age, 61 per cent and of 18 years of age, 81 
 per cent. The large per cent of elimination of boys and girls 17 and 
 18 years of age is caused by graduation from the high school or acad- 
 emy. These two comparisons show that the Ogden schools retain a 
 large proportion of the children until graduation from the high 
 school. 
 
 For the 318 cities of which figures are available, one-half have 
 more than 20 per cent of their children eliminated by the time the fifth 
 grade is reached, and more than 50 per cent eliminated by the time 
 the eighth grade is reached. The City of Ogden has no figures to 
 show definitely the grade elimination, but it does eliminate 52 per 
 cent at the age of 16. By this time the great majority of children are 
 far beyond the eighth grade, and some of them have reached their 
 senior year in high school. Few citites can make a better showing of 
 retention of pupils in school and a smaller per cent of those who have 
 been eliminated from school in the early elementary grades. 
 
12 
 
 4 
 
 Average Cost Per Capita. 
 
 The following tables represent the relative cost of elementary and 
 high school educated in groups of cities selected for the most part 
 from cities of 25,000 to 100,000 population. Some larger Western cities 
 were selected. Had the list of cities been continued to twice the 
 number, the same story would have been told, revealing that is Ogden 
 is considerably below the average in per capita cost of education in 
 both elementary and high schools. 
 
 Average Cost Per Capita Per Annum for Elementary Schools. 
 
 1. Berkeley, California $51.32 
 
 2. New Rochelle, N. Y 49.51 
 
 3. Clinton, la 48.47 
 
 4. Oakland, California 43.64 
 
 5. Newton, Mass 41.41 
 
 6. Spokane, Washington 41.05 
 
 7. East Orange, N. J 40.54 
 
 8. San Diego, California 39.64 
 
 9. Riverside, California 41.24 
 
 10. Fresno, California 39.42 
 
 11. Salt Lake City, Utah 38.34 
 
 12. Hampton, N. J 37.41 
 
 13. Quincy, Mass 37.15 
 
 14. Holyoke, Mass 37.41 
 
 15. Troy, N. Y 37.40 
 
 16. Springfield, 111 37.19 
 
 17. Santa Cruz, California 37.00 
 
 18. Tacoma, Washington 36.32 
 
 19. Pawtucket, R. 1 36.85 
 
 20. Fresno, Cal 36.14 
 
 21. Newark, N. J 35.44 
 
 22. Denver, Colorado ' 35.04 
 
 23. Eureka, California 35.32 
 
 24. Saginaw, Michigan 34.07 
 
 25. Youngstown, Ohio 34.94 
 
 26. Bayonne, N. J 34.07 
 
 27. Utica, N. Y 34.61 
 
 28. Meridian, Conn. . . . 33.08 
 
 29. Topeka, Kansas 33.66 
 
 30. Elmira, N. Y 33.69 
 
 31. Evansville, Indiana 33.38 
 
 32. Dayton, Ohio 33.54 
 
 33. Saginaw, West Side, Michigan 32.41 
 
 34. New Bedford, Mass. 32.58 
 
 35. Sioux City, la 32.61 
 
 36. East St. Louis, Mo 31.03 
 
 37. South Bend, Indiana 32.27 
 
 38. Fitchburg, Mass 31.33 
 
 39. OGDEN, UTAH 30.37 
 
 40. LaCross, Wisconsin 30.64 
 
 41. Decatur, 111 29.25 
 
 42. Ithaca, N. Y 29.65 
 
 43. New Luchet, Conn 29.59 
 
 44. Altoona, Pa. . . 28.22 
 
 45. Sheboygan, Wisconsin 28.29 
 
 46. York, Pa. . . : 28.02 
 
 47. Elizabeth, N. Y 28.77 
 
13 
 
 Average Cost Per Capita Per Annum for Secondary Schools. 
 
 1. Niagara, N. Y .$101.20 
 
 2. Seattle, Washington 101.00 
 
 3. Bayonne, N. J 100.00 
 
 4. San Diego, California 99.04 
 
 5. East Orange, N. J 9870 
 
 6. Evansville, Ind 92.78 
 
 7. Newark, N. J 89.50 
 
 8. Watertown, N. J 87.75 
 
 9. Dayton, Ohio 86.87 
 
 10. New Rochelle, N. Y 86.56 
 
 11. Riverside, California 85.33 
 
 12. Pueblo, Colorado 85.35 
 
 13. Spokane, Washington 82.78 
 
 14. East St. Louis, Mo 82.75 
 
 15. Fresno, California 82.32 
 
 16. El Paso, Texas 81.35 
 
 17. Cambridge, Mass 79.98 
 
 18. Muskogee, Okla 79.83 
 
 19. Troy, N. Y 79.93 
 
 20. Hampton, N. Y 79.50 
 
 21. Yonkers, N. Y 79.70 
 
 22. Montgomery, Ala 79.63 
 
 23. Santa Cruz, Cal 79.63 
 
 24. Salt Lake City, Utah 79.19 
 
 25. Rockford, 111 78.83 
 
 26. San Jose, California 78.75 
 
 27. Hoboken, N. J 75.80 
 
 28. Elizabeth, N. J 75.40 
 
 29. Torrington, Conn 75.14 
 
 30. Eureka, California 75.09 
 
 31. New Bedford, N. Y 75.00 
 
 32. Denver, Colorado 72.93 
 
 33. Decatur, 111 69.74 
 
 34. Waterbury, Conn 69.73 
 
 35. Tacoma, Washington 69.66 
 
 36. Poughkeepsie, N. Y 69.44 
 
 37. Evansville, Indiana 69.09 
 
 38. Auburn, N. Y 68.89 
 
 39. Utica, N. Y 68.67 
 
 40. Maldon, Mass 68.55 
 
 41. New Port, R. 1 66.38 
 
 42. Bayonne, N. J 65.14 
 
 43. Cairo, 111 64.21 
 
 44. Everett, Mass 64.00 
 
 45. OGDEN, UTAH 60.83 
 
 46. Fitchburg, Mass 56.24 
 
 47. Canton, Ohio 55.30 
 
 48. Topeka, Kansas 54.93 
 
 49. Altoona, Pa., 53.09 
 
 50. Green Bay, Wisconsin 52.25 
 
 51. Kingstown, N. J 50.64 
 
14 
 
 COURSE OF STUDY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 
 
 Your committee has not attempted to make a thorough study of 
 every phase of the curriculum, but only of those points that have been 
 the subject of criticism. 
 
 The course of study is comprehensive and rich in educational 
 subjects. Many useless topics have been eliminated, but the funda- 
 mentals have been retained and more modern material introduced. 
 
 The printed course does not show what topics of arithmetic are 
 taught, but by inquiring of teachers we find that the four fundamentals 
 are emphasized. The work as outlined in arithmetic for the first six 
 grades fits in with the work of the seventh as well as in other courses 
 of study. A commendable feature is that no formal number work is 
 required of children in the first primary grade and only a limited 
 amount in the second grade. 
 
 The course in language for the primary grades emphasize ex- 
 pression through story telling, and dramatization. In the Junior High 
 Schools grades emphasis is placed upon written composition. We find 
 more than the usual amount of time given to this form of composition, 
 and less time to text-book technical grammar, which is closely co-ordi- 
 nated with the work in composition. This makes the study of technical 
 grammar practical, and is thoroughly in line with the best modern 
 theory and practice. 
 
 The course of study advises that reading in the primary grades 
 be taught by a combination method of the strongest points of the sen- 
 tence, action-word and phonic methods, all of which are important in 
 teaching the mechanics of reading. The phonic system is likely to be 
 unduly emphasized, but from what we have been able to observe the 
 amount of time given to phonics in your schools is not excessive. 
 
 The subjects of history and geography are considered as one sub- 
 ject in the seventh and eighth grades. We believe that these subjects 
 should be closely correlated, but we doubt whether the plan has been 
 worked out as well as it might be. There is at least room for improve- 
 ment. 
 
 Provision is made for physical training by means of plays, games, 
 and drills. This method is in thorough accord with the best educa- 
 tional thought and practice. A commendable feature is the introduc- 
 tion of folk dancing. 
 
 To make any course of study effective, the teacher must be pro- 
 vided with the best text-books obtainable. The text-books used in 
 your schools, with probably one or two exceptions, are admirably 
 adapted to the course of study. Many of these books are the best on 
 the market. 
 
 Sub-High Schools. 
 
 We wish to commend the school board for establishing sub-high 
 schools. These schools are composed of the seventh and eighth 
 grades and are conducted upon the departmental plan, a subject or 
 two being assigned each teacher. 
 
 In this country, the movement at present is strongly toward de- 
 partmental instruction in the upper grammar grades. New York City 
 was probably the first to adopt this method of organization, and it has 
 proved so successful that three-fifths of the grammar schools of that 
 city are now so organized. School men throughout the country ap- 
 prove of the plan. Many of them have adopted it and others are pre- 
 paring to do so. Of 810 cities replying to a questionaire recently 
 submitted by the United States Bureau of Education, 416 have depart- 
 
15 
 
 mental instruction. Of these 416 cities, 240 report a lower per centage 
 of failures since the introduction of this method of instruction; 78 
 report more failures and 143 have no data; 250 find a larger percentage 
 entering high school, while 61 find no increase; 302 report that the 
 pupils are much better prepared for high school work; and only 34 
 can see no improvement. We shall not discuss many of the advan- 
 tages of the system, but chiefly the criticisms that have been urged 
 against the system as operated in your city. 
 
 We find no evidence that the pupils in your sub-high schools 
 are overworked. Assignments are not excessive. We wish to com- 
 pliment the teachers upon the excellent spirit of co-operation that 
 exists between them and their pupils. The teachers give pupils all 
 the individual attention necessary; part of each 45-minute period is 
 often given to individual instruction, in order to bring backward pupils 
 up to grade. The discipline in each of your sub-high schools is excel- 
 lent. The changing of classes every 45 minutes gives the pupils an 
 opportunity to relax for a few minutes, and tends to improve discipline. 
 
 We wish to call your attention to one of the advantages of the 
 system. The great evil in the grammar grades of the schools of our 
 country has been that whenever a pupil fails in one or two subjects 
 he must repeat the work of the grade for another year or half year. 
 This is discouraging to pupils in the adolescent stage of development. 
 Too many of those compelled to repeat subjects in which they have 
 successfully passed drop out of school. Under the departmental plan 
 the pupils in your school who fail in one or two subjects are not re- 
 quired to repeat those subjects in which they have made a passing 
 grade, but are permitted to take up new subjects with a higher class 
 and required to repeat only those in which they have failed. 
 
 At present no high school subjects are given below the ninth 
 grade. Your sub-high schools should partake more of the nature of 
 junior high schools, and two courses should be offered one an 
 academic or literary course, the other a prevocational course. In the 
 literary course emphasis should be placed upon the subjects usually 
 taught in the seventh and eighth grades. Such subjects as algebra 
 or a foreign language could be introduced. In the prevocational course 
 emphasis should be placed upon industrial or commercial subjects, but- 
 in no way should the essentials in the usual subjects be neglected. At 
 present it is not practicable for you to offer extensive work in a pre- 
 vocational course as you would need more equipment, and you should 
 have more. 
 
 Some credit could be given for work done outside of school, but 
 such work should be standardized and closely supervised by the school 
 authorities, and it should in no way exploit children for the sake of 
 productive labor. 
 
 The best educational thought favors a six-year elementary course 
 and a six-year high school course. The United States Commissioner 
 of Education says: "The reason for grouping the twelve years of ele- 
 mentary and secondary into six years of elementary and six years of 
 high school are numerous. I know no valid reasons for the present 
 plan of eight and four. My suggestion is that there should be six 
 years of elementary school and six years of high school, the high 
 school period being divided into two sections of three years each; 
 the first three might be called the Junior High School, the second 
 three years the Senior High School." 
 
 Several years ago the National Education Association appointed a 
 committee of practical school men to investigate the subject of Econ- 
 omy of Time in Education. This committee recommends that elemen- 
 
16 
 
 tary education should end at the close of the sixth grade. That present 
 educational thought regarding a six year elementary course and a 
 six-year high school course, may be more fully understood, we quote 
 from the report of this committee: "There is a very widespread belief 
 among school men that the fundamental facts, habits, attitudes, and 
 ideals demanded by the generals needs of our civilization can be fixed 
 in the nervous system of the child in six school years, particularly if 
 the less useful parts of the course of study are eliminated and more 
 efficient methods are introduced. 
 
 "In the second place, the compulsory-education law under our 
 present organization gives society control of the child only long 
 enough to guarantee the ablest child eight years of general training. 
 It cannot guarantee him the additional years of vocational education 
 required to make him an efficient, self-supporting, and self-reliant 
 citizen. To shorten the elementary school to six years without im- 
 pairing its efficiency is to guarantee every child who does not go to 
 high school some vocational education. The need to guarantee some 
 vocational education to the retarded pupils is so important that many 
 careful students of social conditions are ready to say that the com- 
 pulsory school age must be extended to 16 years, so as to carry the 
 least able elementary school children, who now get no further than the 
 fourth, fifth, or sixth school year, through one, two or three years of 
 vocational education. 
 
 "In the third place, the six-year articulation is regarded not only 
 as a better ending point for the general elementary studies, but as a 
 better beginning point for the secondary studies. There are cer- 
 tain inner physiological changes that usher in adolescense that now 
 occur at about the time when the average child makes the transition 
 from elementary to secondary school. The strain of outer and inner 
 conditions are more or less coincident. Therefore, the resulting 
 school mortality is likely to be larger than it ought to be; or school 
 life is continued at a larger physical and nervous cost than ought to be 
 the case. It would be a distinct gain for a child to get fairly well 
 started and adjusted to his new school life, vocational or secondary, 
 before the full weight of physiological and nervous changes are thrust 
 upon him. The two adjustments can be better cared for in series than 
 together. 
 
 "Again, it is the opinion of schoolmasters in general, that, to those 
 who have the peculiar mentality to go on to the ordinary academic 
 high school, it is decidedly more profitable to begin the foreign lan- 
 guages at 12 and at 14 years of age. The same advantage may be had 
 in other subjects where a large acquisition of facts is necessary to suc- 
 cessful work. 
 
 "In the case of those children who are more given to action than 
 to abstraction, it is equally profitable to begin to center their intellec- 
 tual work about an active vocation early. To begin vocational educa- 
 tion with its practical life-career appeal, at 12 rather than at 14 is to 
 save many children from truancy and disinterest. It will extend their 
 school life so that they will not be too early driven into unprofitable 
 and futureless employments. They will still take up much general 
 training parallel with and motivated by their broad study of vocational 
 work. 
 
 "Here again the practicability of a reorganized elementary school 
 period finds adequate sanction in experience. We have only to turn to 
 the concrete efforts in this direction that have already been made by 
 American schoolmen. Such experiments as have been tried in Amen 
 
17 
 
 can school systems under practical operating conditions prove with 
 certainty that the elementary school may be reduced to seven years; 
 and that there is an almost equally strong probality that an elementary 
 school of six years would be fully as efficient. Where the seven years 
 school has been tried, the school officials very generally anticipate a 
 six-year plan. 
 
 "The organization of junior high schools out of the two upper 
 grammar grades and the first-year high school class is a distinctly 
 successful move in the same direction. Here the high school begins to 
 reach down into the grammar school. The establishment of separate 
 departmental schools in the elementary system, consisting of the two 
 upper elementary years and given over to manual activities, is the 
 vocational movement beginning to claim its own from the elementary 
 school system. All sorts of successful experimentation tending to re- 
 strict the general elementary curriculum to six years give at least ten- 
 tative, fragmentary approval to the practicality of the plan suggested." 
 
 Educational associations every where are endorsing the plan. 
 Only a few weeks ago the Inland Empire Teachers' Association, com- 
 posed of the teachers of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, recom- 
 mended that the schools of those states be reorganized with six years 
 in the elementary schools and six in the high school. 
 
 The movement to establish Junior High Schools in your city we 
 consider a great step forward toward the improvement of your schools. 
 We recommend that as soon as practicable your sub-high schools be- 
 come junior high in the real sense of the term, and include the ninth 
 grade. 
 
 Character of Teaching. 
 
 The classroom work on the whole is good; it is much better than 
 could reasonably be expected considering the fact that supervision 
 under the existing plan is necessarily very meagre. Eighty teachers 
 were visited and their work observed. No teacher in that list should 
 be classed as a failure. Most of them are doing average work and a 
 few are accomplishing unusual results. All the teachers show a spirit 
 of co-operation and a desire to contribute their part toward raising 
 the standard of teaching. 
 
 There is an absence of uniform tests throughout the grades and 
 the sub-high schools which should be corrected. The uniform test 
 given from time to time and particularly upon the completion of the 
 work of a grade or a semester is by no means an infallible guide in 
 determining efficiency, but it does act as a salutary spur to the indif- 
 ferent or lagging teacher and is never a matter of dread to the capable 
 and conscientious one. The commission agrees that the teaching in 
 the city of Ogden should be carefully standardized, to the end that 
 more definite standards of achievement for each grade be established; 
 that the results of instruction be more carefully measured by the use 
 of standard tests of efficiency such as the Ayres and Thorndyke scale 
 in writing, the Hillegas scale in English, and the Courtis test in Arith- 
 metic. 
 
 Grade Supervision. 
 
 These improvements and many others will result if supervision is 
 made more effective. The plan in operation is thus outlined in the 
 course of study, Ogden City Public Schools, 1912-13. 
 
18 
 
 Supervisors. 
 
 "The Supervisors in the Ogden Public Schools inspect at regular 
 intervals the work that is being done in their respective departments, 
 and suggestions are made to the principals and the superintendent 
 with reference to the way those subjects are conducted; and where 
 necessity demands it, the supervisor in the presence of the principal of 
 the school will offer the needed corrections to teachers. 
 
 "Each grade and each special subject has a supervisor. These 
 supervisors, in addition, all occupy other positions either as head of 
 a department in high school or as principal of one of the grade 
 schools and meetings are held once each month by each supervisor 
 with all the teachers in his department. In fact most of the supervi- 
 sion is done in this way. In all cases the principal is supreme in his 
 building, and the supervisor is simply an advisory person." 
 
 It does not appear that this plan can produce or has produced 
 entirely satisfactory results. In the first place, the principal of a 
 grade school or the head of a department in a high school may be fully 
 equal to the task of carrying on the work of his chosen line and yet 
 may not be fitted by temperament or preparation for supervisory 
 work in the lower grades. It would only be natural to assume that 
 the preparation of these principals has been adequate for the position 
 they occupy rather than for the secondary or delegated one. Hence 
 the qualifications of such persons for grade supervisorship may rightly 
 be called in question. Moreover, it is doubtful if they can approach 
 the work in the proper spirit since each one would be inclined to view 
 it as secondary to that of his own school or department. 
 
 The limitations of time, also, so important a theme of discussion 
 in this report, would militate against such a division of supervisory 
 labor. This has been proved by the experience of the past year. All 
 prinicpals who have expressed themselves on the working possibilities 
 of this plan have agreed that if for uo other reason than that of time, 
 satisfactory supervisory results under this system can not be obtained. 
 
 The commission recommends that at least one person especially 
 trained be employed to carry on the work of ordinary grade supervi- 
 sion up to the sub-high schools. The principal thus relieved of the 
 work and responsibility of special grade supervision over the city, 
 might devote this time to direct teaching within his school. In the 
 opinion of the commission this change would be welcomed by both 
 principals and teachers; it should entail no extra cost and would ad- 
 vance the standard of efficiency all along the line. 
 
 Half Day Plan. 
 
 The half day plan of school organization as set forth by the 
 superintendent is as follows: 
 
 The quotation is from Superintendent Mills in reply to a list of ques- 
 tions propounded by the Commission. 
 
 "The school according to the half day session would have four 
 units of accredited study in one half day and the other half day would 
 be made up of music, art, study, sewing, cooking, manual training, 
 bookbinding, and physical culture. A large study hall with a super- 
 vising teacher in charge in control of large groups of students in place 
 of the present small groups. Also music could be handled in large sec- 
 tions. This would save a number of teachers. Manual training and 
 sewing have sufficient equipment for 30 pupils at a time. Two hours 
 a day is all that we would be prepared to devote to the purely indus- 
 trial work. The rest of the half day would be devoted to the social 
 
19 
 
 studies, including music, art, physical culture and study hall. The or- 
 ganization of this plan would be a big financial saving to the school 
 system and would also increase the efficiency. We could organize a 
 school of 500 students, 250 in each half day, shifted to the other half 
 day for the other class of work as follows: 250 take academic work in 
 the forenoon. In round numbers 125 boys and 125 girls. This would 
 make eight classes of 31 students each. Eight teachers would give 
 these students their academic work in the forenoon and the other 
 group in the afternoon. The study hall would hold about 150 students 
 who could study an hour or an hour and a half in the afternoon at one 
 time or at two different times under one teacher, while the other one- 
 hundred students 50 boys and 50 girls might take music, art, physical 
 culture, manual training, and sewing under two or more teachers. The 
 eight teachers in the morning plus three special teachers in the after- 
 noon plus the study hall director would make 12 teachers handling 
 500 students. When one class of these special students has finished its 
 rounds, it can be returned to the study hall (a general clearing house), 
 and another group given their work. These larger groups would save 
 in teachers' salaries considerable money. We now have from 13 to 15 
 teachers in each building for each 300 students. We have enough 
 manual training and sewing equipment to carry out this plan. I do not 
 mean to convey the idea that we could not use more or that we would 
 not get more. This plan then of the double half day system of 
 academic work and industrial, social and physical work would provide 
 smaller classes in the academic work, increasing the efficiency and 
 larger lasses in study hall, music, physical culture, etc., increasing the 
 efficiency there, the whole decreasing the expenditures. This, of 
 course, is on the assumption that all boys and girls will be in school 
 both sessions for longer hours." 
 
 We must take issue with the superintendent in respect to the 
 plan as being unpedagogical, unnecessary, and well nigh impossible of 
 realization. In the first place, no teacher can sustain for any length 
 of time the mental and physical strain incident to teaching daily eight 
 forty-five-minute classes of 31 pupils each. In addition to the work 
 of the class room, there would naturally be, in all grades except the 
 very lowest, a certain amount of written work to be passed in daily, or 
 at stated intervals. This would call for correction and return to the 
 pupils. Clerical work of this type is conceded as essential to correct 
 teaching. Even the minimum of this character of work, with 250 pupils 
 daily, would be a stupendous task in itself. The thorough preparation 
 of the lesson by the teacher in all its phases of development is another 
 very important element in good teaching. This also takes time; in fact, 
 it should take much more time than it does under the ordinary or 
 present plan. It would seem that the dynamic energy, mental and 
 physical, of a teacher would have to be doubled in order that good 
 teaching under this scheme should obtain. Otherwise the teacher 
 would simply be compelled, for self-preservation, to slight her work 
 to the point of inefficiency. It is doubtful even then whether the mere 
 routine of teaching in any way eight 45-minute classes of 31 pupils 
 each, day in and day out, would not utterly exhaust her vitality. 
 
 In this connection nothing has been said of that most important 
 of all principles in successful teaching individual instruction. Class 
 instruction to be efficient must be supplemented by that of the in- 
 dividual. The teacher in her period of preparation for the lesson of 
 the coming day must have in mind certain individuals in her class, 
 whose interest must be awakened and whose comprehension of the 
 subject matter must be facilitated or made possible by presenting the 
 subject in a peculiar or extraordinary way. She should have some 
 
20 
 
 time within the school day to give individual instruction to those 
 pupils whose grasp has not been as ready as that of others. This has 
 no reference to sub-normal pupils, who should, of course, be segre- 
 gated and have peculiar attention and instruction by special teachers 
 but to the rank and file of school children. 
 
 The above findings are all on the assumption that the teacher has 
 but one subject lesson to teach every one of the eight periods. If 
 she had more than one subject lesson to teach, the task would ob- 
 viously be greater. 
 
 As to the pupils, the experience of teachers has been that four 
 consecutive periods of recitation on four different subjects is not as 
 satisfactory as where a relaxation or study period intervenes; e. g., 
 two recitations one study period two recitations; and the school 
 programs of high school and sub-high school pupils are thus arranged 
 whenever possible. The average boy or girl does not differ from the 
 adult in this particular. The mind needs some time to do its assorting 
 and composing after it has received the consignment of material. 
 
 For the sake of clearness we may issue from the plan as outlined 
 that not more than half, or 125, of the afternoon pupils are in the 
 study hall at any one time; the others would be distributed in classes 
 of 41 among three teachers, who are to give them training in music, 
 art, physical culture, manual training, and sewing. Here again arises a 
 difficulty. The classes are much too large for efficient instruction, un- 
 less it be in music and physical culture. Moreover, it is not an easy 
 matter to find three teachers who could combine in the teaching of 
 these diversified subjects. We might reasonably look for teachers 
 who could give instruction equally well in arithmetic, grammar, and 
 history, since the scope of general school training has naturally cov- 
 ered these branches; but the lines of work referred to are special in 
 their nature and a teacher who has fitted herself to teach in one of 
 them is rarely equipped to give instruction in any of the others. 
 
 To summarize on this point: The proposition to assign the work 
 of teaching 500 pupils to 12 teachers who are to work eight 45-minute 
 periods each day from nine to twelve in the morning and from one to 
 four in the afternoon is, to say the least, impracticable from every 
 point of view. 
 
 With the exception of the high school, which has admirable facili- 
 ties in rooms and equipment for domestic science and domestic art, 
 the physical limitations in buildings and equipment are entirely inade- 
 quate for carrying on instruction in manual training and domestic 
 science, even under the present system, where such instruction is con- 
 fined to the high school and the three sub-high schools. These sub- 
 jects should not only be amplified and enriched in these schools, but 
 the work in more elementary form should be given at least as low as 
 the fifth and sixth grades. To do this will entail considerable expense 
 in the proper equipment and refitting of rooms, but it will be money 
 well spent and will be amply repaid to the community in the increased 
 efficiency of the school product. The industrial phase of community 
 education is no longer in the experimental stage. It is here and here 
 to stay. But the training of the hand should be combined with that of 
 the head in an intelligent and systematic manner. Nor should the 
 work in the industrial arts be relegated to some dingy basement room, 
 which had probably served time as a coal-bin or junk closet. It should 
 be made pleasant in its surroundings and should be clothed with all 
 the attractiveness of class room work in other subjects. 
 
 The dignity of labor is and should always be the big plank in the 
 platform of every child's education, but to place the mere earning of 
 money by the boy or girl during the school life as a meritorious 
 
21 
 
 achievement is of doubtful value educationally, and may have a posi- 
 tively demoralizing effect on the character and habits of the child. 
 Every home may provide all the necessary diversion in the way of 
 household duties for either boy or girl to satisfy the "dignity of 
 labor" requirement. In point of fact some homes are requiring so 
 much home work that not sufficient time is left for study. This is 
 especially true in the case of girls from poor families. Until the eco- 
 nomic needs of a community call upon the schools for help, there can 
 be no occasion for a radical change in the scheme of school attendance, 
 which would be justified only on the assumption that such a call had 
 been made. 
 
 The Elective System. 
 
 The best authorities on secondary education are practically a 
 unit in their advocacy of a certain amount of elective work in the high 
 school. Where these authorities may differ is in the maunt of elec- 
 tive work thus permitted, the manner in which the choice of studies 
 is made, and in the recognition given for the work. In an impartial 
 consideration of this subject we should not view the high school 
 merely as a means of preparation. This is one of its functions, but 
 probably the least of them. The high school of today has been appro- 
 priately termed "The People's College," and its first and principal rea- 
 son for existence and for community support is beacuse it affords a 
 training in keeping with the needs of the community. "The greatest 
 good to every child" should ever be the animating motive in all its 
 instructions. The broadening of the curriculum of the modern high 
 school is all in this direction. Within comparatively recent years 
 courses in manual training, domestic science, domestic art, work in 
 copper, brass and leather, bookbinding, printing, agriculture, horticul- 
 ture and a host of other subjects have been added to the high school 
 family. The high school with the so-called traditional course of 
 studies and "hew to line" methods as its only offering would rightly 
 be considered an anachronism today. 
 
 Yet in the delight of freedom from bondage there is grave danger 
 of license. The pupil upon entering high school if this is impossible 
 before should be made acquainted with the purpose and trend of 
 each study and each course, where separate courses are offered. The 
 selection of his studies should be made, whenever possible, and it is 
 usually possible, by the pupil himself only after conference with a 
 teacher adviser and with his parents. At this beginning stage there 
 should be no difference of opinion. The teachers' part in this pro- 
 ceeding is to advise, not to require. The pupil is looking forward to 
 his future, but often with a very vague notion of where this or that 
 road will lead him. The teacher has traveled the road and his retro- 
 spect is safer as a guiding force than the pupil's prospect. 
 
 It would seem best that a grouping of certain studies, togethei- 
 with the reason and purpose for this grouping, be made, to the end of 
 aiding the pupil in his task of election. As a usual thing the pupil 
 who is worth while wishes to arrive somewhere; and since this 
 grouping into suggestive courses would be of distinct assistance to 
 pupil, teacher, and parent alike, there can be no valid objection to it. 
 
 The advisory system of supervision for high school pupils has 
 now come to be looked upon as an indispensable factor jn modern 
 secondary school administration. The details of the system are not 
 material for a report of this nature, but are easily accessible in many 
 educational publications of recent date. One feature in this system is 
 the special emphasis placed upon the selection and approval of the 
 pupil's subject of study by the teacher adviser. The adoption of this 
 system in its entirety is strongly recommended. 
 

 22 
 
 The opportunity should be given every boy and girl to develop 
 within themselves their maximum efficiency. We should endeavor to 
 make of them the best citizenship possible. It may be that this or that 
 individual child is not mentally or physically adapted to a certain line 
 of work, but there will surely be enough of other work in which he 
 may exercise_his bent, and by means of which he may bring to the 
 surface all his latent possibilities. This must surely be our educational 
 creed if the "greatest good to every child" is realized. 
 
 (Signed) W. S. DEFFENBAUGH, 
 
 CHARLES S. MEEK, 
 GEORGE A. EATON. 
 
 Supplementary by Mr. Eaton. 
 
 Up to the point of requiring a passable proficiency in certain 
 studies that are deemed basic, the members of the Commission have 
 been in perfect accord. For my own part I wish to thank my col- 
 leagues for the generous consideration they have shown me personally 
 and for the splendid spirit of co-operation and genuine altruism they 
 have evinced in discussions of the local situation, and, in fact, through- 
 out the entire work of investigation. I deeply appreciate not only the 
 pleasure but the honor that has fallen to my lot through being asso- 
 ciated with these gentlemen in this survey. 
 
 While the matter of selection and election of studies to accom- 
 modate individual needs should be a fundamental policy of high school 
 administration, there should be a residum, so to speak, in the nature of 
 basic studies to act as ballast or foundation work for the educational 
 structure. In other words, the diploma of graduation from an accred- 
 ited high school should mean that the graduate has a good training 
 in the use and the interpretation of the English language; he need not 
 be a mathematician, but he should have some knowledge of algebra 
 and geometry; he need not be an expert in any branch of natural 
 science, but he should at least have delved into the soil of this rich 
 field sufficiently to acquire an elementary knowledge of some of these 
 sciences; for broadening his outlook on life he should have taken at 
 least one year in history, preferably U. S. History. It would be very 
 desirable, although not necessary, that he complete two years' work 
 in a modern language French, German or Spanish. 
 
 In your high school the only requirement as a study for gradu- 
 ation is three years' work or three units of English; the other twelve 
 credits may be chosen from any of the other subjects taught in high 
 school. It would be possible to obtain these credits from studies, or 
 rather from subjects that required no study, at least no preparation 
 study. The result is bound to be a cheapening of the high school 
 diploma ,which should stand for something substantial in an intellec- 
 tual way. The present elective plan has been in operation but two 
 years and already the tendency to withdraw from the more intellectual 
 work is shown in the list of credit units of the graduating class. It 
 would only be natural to suppose that this tendency, unless corrected, 
 will grow stronger as years go on. 
 
 Now the subjects of instruction offered in high school may readii> 
 be classified in a grouping scheme and the groups may be defined as 
 follows: Scientific, English or Literary, Classical, Normal Prepara- 
 tory, Domestic Science, Mechanic Arts and Commercial. These names 
 are suggestive merely, but indicate in a general way the scope of train- 
 ing under their respective heads. 
 
23 
 
 In all the above groups except the commercial, which represents a 
 specialized training in certain lines and calls for its special require- 
 ments, the subjects of English, algebra, plane geometery, history and 
 science should be required as a basis for graduation. The first four 
 groups should also include the completion of at least two years work 
 in a language. 
 
 This general requirement will constitute about fifty per cent of 
 the credit necessary for graduation. The remaining credits would then 
 be made up from those subjects which are distinctive of the course, or 
 they may be made up from any other subjects in the high school 
 curriculum, in which case the grouping might be called "Elective." 
 
 This, in a general way, is the plan in vogue in most of the strong 
 high schools of the country. It represents no extreme view. There is 
 nothing mandatory in such a scheme; it simply points the way, advises 
 and suggests. 
 
 I have firm convictions on the subject of the elective system of 
 studies for high school students. The tendency in such a system, with 
 little or no modification, is bound to be in the direction of weak 
 scholarship. This tendency may be checked by a rigid advisory super- 
 vision, to which all will subscribe, but it will not be eliminated. Thert 
 should be some differentiation in the recognition given to a high school 
 course which has embraced a training in those studies commonly ac- 
 cepted as basic in the development of the several mental faculties, and 
 one which discards these studies in whole or in part, and substitutes 
 therefor a purely manual or mechanical training. 
 
 (Signed) GEO. A. EATON. 
 
 A PLAN FOR MUNICIPAL AND EDUCATIONAL UNITY OF 
 
 ADMINISTRATION. 
 Prepared by W. G. Roylance and Edward J. Ward. 
 
 Ogden is a community of thirty thousand members. By reason 
 of its location at the mouth of Weber Canyon, one of the easiest 
 avenues of ingress to the Great Basin, and at the junction of three 
 trans-continental railroads, it has been from the beginning an im- 
 portant commercial center. As a result of this, its population has been 
 and is of a mixed and diversified character, making the problem of its 
 unified advance difficult, but giving promise of a richly varied and 
 interesting common life as the city finds itself. 
 
 Diversity Increasing. 
 
 The city is at the heart of a bountiful agricultural district, well 
 watered by the confluence of the Weber and the Ogden, two 01 me 
 largest rivers in Utah. Until recently, the industrial development has 
 been comparatively slow because of the absorption of the community 
 in commercial activities. But within the last few years the production 
 of raw materials in the country about Ogden has increased so rapidly 
 as to justify and necessitate the establishment here of manufactories 
 on a large scale. The City is rapidly changing from being merely a 
 market place for the exchange of commodities produced elsewhere to 
 one whose possibilities of development are based upon its own pro- 
 ductive industry. Already there are in Ogden or in its immediate 
 vicinity twenty-five canneries, great railroad shops, and plants for the 
 manufacture of sugar, confectionery, clothing, structural iron, brick 
 and tile, and cement; and two new manufacturing plants are in process 
 
24 
 
 of erection. In addition to the divergence of employment of the 
 citizens engaged in professional, commercial, and agricultural pursuits, 
 over seven thousand members of the community are at work in most 
 widely various forms of industry. 
 
 A Threat? Yes And a Promise. 
 
 By reason of its industrial development, the people of Ogden are 
 going farther apart in specialism of occupation, in the earning of 
 livelihoods, and this, taken with the separations that are due to differ- 
 ence of race origin and diversity of opinion or belief, augments in- 
 creasingly the threat of social disintegration, the falling apart, which, 
 unless counteracted by an equally strong unification, spells civic, moral 
 and finally economic deterioration for any community. 
 
 If, however, this fundamental unification is secured and developed, 
 the very diversities of interest, which otherwise threaten dissolution, 
 will become the resource of a successful, vigorous and satisfying civic 
 life. 
 
 City's Consciousness of Need. 
 
 That the consciousness of the need of fundamental unification and 
 the will to achieve it, exist in greater or less clearness and strength, 
 universally, among the people of Ogden, is apparent to those studying 
 the city and conversing with its inhabitants. In civic matters there 
 is the desire for understanding and the removal of artificial partitions, 
 which has expressed itself in the adoption of the commission form of 
 government, with its removal of party distinctions and obliteration of 
 ward boundaries in the selection of these agents of the City's co- 
 operation. In recreational development it has expressed itself in the 
 provision, or rather the beginning of provision, of means for the 
 growth of public cordiality through the people's enjoyment together 
 of common pleasures. In commercial and industrial matters it is 
 apparent in the conversation of business men who seek to call forth 
 the spirit of civic pride and "get-together' for the prosperity of Ogden. 
 This out-reaching consciousness and will for unity which is the basic 
 hope of a progressing civilization, is present in every American com- 
 munity, but in none is it stronger, more variously expressed or more 
 apparent than here. It is the democratic repetition of the ancient story 
 of creation, the spirit of unity, of order and organization brooding 
 over Chaos, and willing that out of it shall come Cosmos. 
 
 Machinery of Organization Necessary. 
 
 There is abundant evidence of dissatisfaction with the present 
 fundamental apartness of the people of Ogden, and sincere regret at 
 the misunderstandings, pettinesses, frictions, antagonisms and preju- 
 dices which exist. There is no person in Ogden who is not somewhat 
 ashamed of the fact that there is no adequate public provision for the 
 young people of the City "to have a good time without going wrong," 
 ashamed of the fact that there is dissipation of the energies of Ogden's 
 youth where there should be constructive well-directed and wholesome 
 recreation. There is also abundant evidence of the growth of genuine 
 community ambition, a sentiment of deep desire for the realization 
 of the greater strength and wealth and happiness which democracy 
 and neighborhood ought to afford. But this dissatisfaction with 
 disunity, this sentiment of community ambition, this broadening of 
 human feeling, is not all that is necessary to bring ordered unity out 
 of the city's civic, recreational and economic disconnection. There 
 is the practical, material necessity of machinery of understanding, 
 acquaintance and co-operation. The best thought of the past century 
 
25 
 
 has been devoted to the invention and perfecting of machinery by 
 which things should work together for good, by which physical forces 
 should be combined for the production of wealth. Today it is recog- 
 nized that the problem of community adjustment includes the neces- 
 sity of perfecting machinery by which people may work together and 
 think together, and enjoy together for good; by which social forces 
 and individual energies may be combined, not to produce wealth 
 merely, but to produce that which gives wealth all its value human 
 welfare. The perception of this practical necessity of a means of our 
 getting together as members of the community in an organization 
 that shall place under our diversities of interest and activity, a real 
 and working unity of basic integration, is becoming general in the 
 thought of the leaders throughout America today. President Wilson 
 recently phrased this general perception in these words: 
 
 "It is necessary that simple means be found, by which, by 
 an interchange of points of view we may get together, for the 
 whole process of modern life, the whole process of modern 
 politics, is a process by which we must exclude misunder- 
 standings, bring all men into common counsel and so discover 
 what is the common interest. This is the problem of modern 
 life which is so specialized that it is almost devitalized, so 
 disconnected that the tides of life will not flow." 
 
 In order to get together into a single organization of the whole 
 citizenship, it is first of all necessary that the City be equipped with 
 a system of commonly owned and conveniently distributed buildings 
 and grounds capable of being used as centers of orderly assembly for 
 the presentation and all-sided discussion of public questions, capable 
 of being used also as neighborhood club houses and centers of well 
 directed and wholesome recreation. There is necessary also the em- 
 ployment of a staff of community servants, men and women hired in 
 each district, not to promote any individual or private advantage, 
 but devoted solely to serving the community as a whole. This need 
 of practical machinery for citizenship organization and co-operation 
 in the wholesome use of leisure is universal; but nowhere is this need 
 greater than in Ogden. 
 
 Necessary Machinery Now Here, But Unappreciated and Unused. 
 
 In its system of public school buildings and yards, Ogden now 
 has a distribution of neighborhood houses and grounds, belonging to 
 all the people and capable of being used, even in their present state 
 of inadequate equipment, as district centers of citizenship-organization, 
 not only for voting, but for that orderly, all-sided deliberation upon 
 public questions which is the recognized prerequisite of intelligent 
 voting; capable of being used and indeed inviting use as neighborhood 
 club houses and centers of well planned and directed recreational 
 activity. In its public school system, even as now unused most of the 
 time and with its full development all unrealized, Ogden has what 
 biologists call the adumbration, the foreshadowing of the adequate 
 machinery of its practical self-organization. It is no question of 
 creating a new system of community equipment. It is merely a 
 question of the city's economical and efficient use and development of 
 its existing conveniently distributed machinery. 
 
 A few years ago, if one had asked what stands in the way of the 
 full use of this system of neighborhood buildings as centers of organ- 
 ized civic expression and wholesome recreation, the answer might 
 have been given that these buildings are for educational use, and 
 citizenship expression and recreational activities are not educational. 
 
26 
 
 Today that answer can no longer be given, for the constructive (to- 
 gether-building) processes of civic expression and organized recreation 
 on the part of adults and older youth, are seen to be as truly educa- 
 tional as the instruction (in-building) of children. The old idea of 
 education as being merely a juvenile function is no longer in the way 
 of the city's making full civic, social and recreational use of its 
 neighborhood equipment. 
 
 What, then, is in the way? 
 
 It may be answered that the trouble lies in the character of the 
 public servants employed in each of these district buildings and the 
 conception that exists regarding their function. They are teachers, 
 and the service that adult citizens require in their use of the school 
 buildings is not that of teachers over them, but of clerks or civic 
 secretaries under them, and the service that is needed for the recrea- 
 tional use of the common school houses is not that of teachers over 
 the older youth in their use of the buildings, but rather that of leaders 
 and companions with them in their recreations. Moreover, it may 
 well be said, that for the systematic organization of the use of the 
 schoolhouses by adults and older youth during the time that they 
 are unoccupied by the children's instructional activities, it is neces- 
 sary that a civic secretary and general director of recreation be 
 appointed as associate or assistant to the superintendent of schools. 
 All this is true, but this increase and adjustment of the personal ser- 
 vice that is necessary for the systematic organization of the full civic, 
 social and recreational use of this common property may be expected 
 to be quickly made when once the great obstacle to the city's use 
 of its community equipment is removed. 
 
 What is that obstacle? 
 
 Before considering the answer to that fundamental question it 
 may be well to see how, from within the school system of the city, 
 there has been growing a movement of out-reaching development 
 tending to fit the schools for meeting this need. 
 
 Striving Within School System to Meet Community Need. 
 
 While there has been growing in the mind of the city the con- 
 sciousness of its need of such unification as only the full use of the 
 public school system is capable of satisfying, there has been a marked 
 tendency toward community adjustment from within the school system 
 itself, and the internal efficiency of the system has been strengthen- 
 ing and perfecting so as to make it increasingly capable of meeting the 
 city's need. 
 
 When the conditions of the school system five years ago are 
 considered, and the comparatively limited resources with which the 
 present administration has had to work, the progress made by it 
 must be a cause of pride to every observing and thoughtful citizen of 
 Ogden. The improvement in the method of appointment and advance- 
 ment of teachers and the scheduling of salaries has brought the sys- 
 tem of Ogden from its position near the worst among American cities 
 to a place which compares favorably with any in the systematic handl- 
 ing of this essential matter. The encouragement of professional 
 self-improvement on the part of teachers through university-extension 
 study has been most commendable. As compared with the average 
 school system there has been brought about by the present adminis- 
 tration throughout Ogden's teaching staff an excellent spirit of co- 
 operation and esprit de corps. A careful investigation has failed to 
 reveal any more dissention and disloyalty than unfortunately exists 
 in practically all school systems, and much less than might be ex- 
 
27 
 
 pected, considering the low scale of salaries which the poverty of the 
 system requires here. The perception of the importance of the per- 
 sonality and professional equipment of the teaching force, and the 
 willingness to sacrifice everything else for it, if necessary, shows 
 true pedagogical understanding in the present administration. There 
 has been, not only indirectly, through the better organization of the 
 teaching staff, but directly in better grouping for instruction and other- 
 wise, a marked improvement in the service of the schools to the 
 children. The course of study, while still imperfect, as is the case in 
 every city, has been systematically organized, with such enrichments 
 as are approved by modern educational thought. The school plants, 
 though still far from adequate in extent and equipment of ground, 
 and though far from the practical ideal in design and equipment of 
 buildings, have yet shown a steady improvement. But in nothing has 
 there been greater significance than in the tendency shown to adjust 
 the character and activities of the school system to the larger task 
 of community integration. The inauguration of industrial training, 
 the extension of school and home gardening, the establishment of an 
 evening class in domestic science for young women, not otherwise 
 enrolled in the schools, the practical demonstration given of the 
 economy and feasibility of the school houses being used as polling 
 places, the method followed in securing decorations and much needed 
 special equipment by the fostering of community contribution when 
 public funds were not available, and the beginning of the practice 
 of first hand conference with the citizens in the various districts upon 
 important questions of policy all these are signs of out-reaching 
 within the school system to meet the larger need. And the much 
 discussed "half day" plan, considered both as an experiment partly 
 worked out in practice, and a proposed program of future policy, is 
 to be intelligently comprehended only w T hen it is seen as an expression 
 of this earnest striving from within the system to bring about the 
 adjustment of the schools to actual community needs. 
 
 In the discussion of the "half day" or part-time plan, it appears 
 that most of the emphasis has been placed upon the pupil's being out 
 of school part of the time. At least equal emphasis should be placed 
 upon the possibility under this plan, of bringing into the schools per- 
 sons who otherwise would get no instructional benefit from them. 
 The great underlying purpose of the proposal is educational expansion 
 through co-operation of the school with the industrial and the home 
 life of the community. If it can be carried out in an atmosphere of 
 constructive criticism and appreciation of its splendid aim, on the 
 part of the people of Ogden, it will tend to vitalize the work of the 
 schools by keeping it in touch with reality, and at the same time will 
 carry into the domestic circle, and the industrial activities of the 
 community the trained intelligence and the high ideals of the 
 schools. The thought underlying the part-time plan is not new. For 
 a quarter of a century and more the educational thinking of the nation 
 has striven toward the closer unity and the ultimate identity of 
 school activities with all the community's life functioning. Part-time 
 in school, and part time out the whole conceived as education is in 
 successful operation in Munich and many other places in Europe, and 
 in Cincinnati, Fitchburg, and many other cities and towns on this 
 continent. The plan proposed in Ogden which aims to combine the 
 best features of the plans in operation elsewhere, so far as possible 
 with the resources that have been available in the Ogden schools, 
 has received the approval of educators of national repute such as P. 
 P. Claxton, M. V. O'Shea, and John Francis, who, by reason of their 
 familiarity with the problem have comprehended the larger signifi- 
 
28 
 
 cance of the Ogden half-day plan. So important a matter as this 
 should not be judged merely with regard to the practicability of tran- 
 sitional and experimental arrangements incidental to its trying out. 
 It is unreasonable to expect that so important a readjustment could 
 be planned so completely de novo that no changes would have to be 
 made as the result of experience. It should be judged upon its merits, 
 never forgetting that it is aimed, as education must be aimed, to meet 
 not past conditions nor theoretical situations, but present conditions 
 and immediate necessities, and remembering the unfortunate fact that 
 like other recent developments in the schools of Ogden this begin- 
 ning has been made under conditions which have produced financial 
 stringency for the whole system. 
 
 This process, variously expressed, of expansion from within the 
 school system to meet the city's need as at present divorced from the 
 central administration, seems to have gone about as far as its re- 
 sources will permit. 
 
 Here, then, is the situation. The City needs and is becoming 
 conscious that it must have access to the machinery of its com- 
 prehensive self-organization, civic, recreational, economic, which only 
 the full use of its public school system can furnish. And here is 
 this equipment of community property, served by a publicly em- 
 ployed staff of men and women, in whose conduct and administration 
 there is an evident striving under difficulties to be of use as the city's 
 machinery of adequate self-organization. 
 
 What is the Obstacle? Disunity. 
 
 It requires no profound study, but simply a little clear eyed look- 
 ing at the matter, and the practical application to it of a modicum of 
 common sense, to see that the root of the difficulty lies in the dis- 
 unity of administration, the fact that the city has two commissions for 
 the management of its public business which can be efficiently man- 
 aged and developed only as unity of administration is secured. 
 
 Unify. 
 
 Because of the financial saving and the business efficiency that 
 would result from unification of administration; because the public 
 school system cannot succeed even in its prime function of effectively 
 training children for citizenship and promoting their morality unless 
 the adults and older youth of the community make use of the school 
 houses as centers of organized civic expression and wholesome recre- 
 ation: And because this full use of the public school system as the 
 machinery of the City's comprehensive self -organization depends ab- 
 solutely upon the unification of its municipal and public school admin- 
 istration. Therefore, we find, after careful study of all the elements of 
 the situation and after consulting officials and other responsible and 
 well informed citizens, that the key to the solution of Ogden's problem, 
 civic, moral and economic, is the consolidation and identification of its 
 municipal commission and its board of education. 
 
 Save Money. 
 
 At present, Ogden has two commissions for the administration of 
 its municipal affairs; one, whose headquarters is in the City Hall, an- 
 other with its headquarters in the Colonel Hudson building. The 
 duplication of office equipment and help is but the obvious outcrop- 
 ping of a duplication of systems of equipment and service that would 
 be financially extravagant and wasteful even if the taxpayers had 
 money to throw away. For instance, the taxpayers are paying 
 
29 
 
 rental upon polling places and hiring special clerical service for their 
 voting when, conveniently distributed throughout the City arc build- 
 ings which the taxpayers now own, capable of being used for voting, 
 and in each of these buildings is a publicly employed person well-fitted 
 to furnish the clerical service. Each election costs the taxpayers 
 directly, considerably more than a thousand dollars. The last election 
 cost $1,378.32. Most of this expense would be obviated by the use 
 of the school system as the election machinery. But this is not the only 
 saving that would be effected in connection with elections through 
 the civic use of the school buildings. A large part of the campaign 
 expenses, those that go for hall rent and publicity, all of which comes 
 directly or indirectly out of the taxpayers' pockets would be saved, 
 by the use of the school houses as common places of citizens' assembly 
 to hear the claims of the various candidates and the arguments for 
 voting this way or that. And not only this way but in many others, 
 is the supporting of two separate and duplicating systems of public 
 equipment financially extravagant, and apparently the community has 
 already entered upon a program of further wasteful duplication of 
 expensive equipment. 
 
 In Liberty Park, there is an out-door recreation outfit which cost 
 the citizens some twenty-eight hundred dollars. It is not a complete 
 playground equipment because there is not a public building there 
 located for the children and older people to use during the evenings 
 and during cold or otherwise inclement weather. Without such a 
 building as part of the recreation equipment ,this outfit is bound to 
 stand idle most of the time. Meanwhile, the children of the citizens, 
 the same taxpayers whose money paid for that unused equipment, are 
 and will continue to be assembling in neighborhood buildings and 
 upon neighborhood grounds; and there, where the children actually are, 
 there is practically no equipment indoor or out for wholesome re- 
 creation. And now there is in the hands of the municipal commission 
 that meets in the city hall, a petition signed by some nine hundred of 
 the citizens residing in one section of the city, for the establishment of 
 a community plant that will afford recreation opportunities. A com- 
 munity plant, to be complete even for recreation alone, means a build- 
 ing as well as a piece of ground. Meanwhile, in that very district, as 
 in every section of Ogden, there is a community building and ground 
 that now belongs to the citizens, which is idle during practically all 
 the time that a special recreation center would be in use, and which 
 must have practically all the equipment that would be installed in a 
 recreation center, if it is to do its prime work well. If this petition 
 is granted for this district it is likely to be followed by similar peti- 
 tions from other districts. This points to the purchase of land for 
 small parks and to the erection of buildings to be used as recreation 
 centers in every district of the city. Meanwhile the existing public 
 buildings will stand idle during practically every hour of the time 
 that such a duplicate system of neighborhood equipment as is pro- 
 jected, would be in use. The result will be two poorly supported and 
 half used systems of community equipment, costing enormously and 
 the financial necessities of each preventing the other from getting the 
 money it needs for efficient service. 
 
 The separate small park and recreation center duplication of the 
 public school system has been attempted in Chicago. Beginning a 
 score of years ago when the idea of divorce of education from practi- 
 cal affairs was at its most absurd extreme, the taxpayers of Chicago 
 have poured twenty million dollars into this extravagance, and secured 
 for it the equipment of less than one-tenth of Chicago's neighborhoods, 
 at the expense of robbing the whole school system of financial sup- 
 port, and deprived nine-tenths of Chicago's children of the recreational 
 
30 
 
 equipment that twenty million dollars would have purchased had it 
 been devoted to securing equipment to be installed in the existing 
 school buildings and upon the existing school grounds, instead of being 
 spent for new grounds and new buildings. The result today is sum- 
 med up by John R. Richards, Superintendent of the South Park Sys- 
 tem and agreed to by his predecessor E. B. DeGroot, and the greatest 
 recreation center and school architect in America, Dwight H. Per- 
 kins, as an absurd and increasingly expensive community extravagance; 
 increasingly expensive because it is now seen that, if the recreation 
 center is to be fully developed, it must have practically the full equip- 
 ment of a modern school plant, just as it is coming to be seen that the 
 modern school plant is not properly designed and completely outfitted 
 unless it has all the equipment of a well-appointed recreation center. 
 
 Putting the question on its lowest grounds; can the taxpayers af- 
 ford this progressively increasing extravagance of duplication? 
 
 The City Cannot Afford This Extravagance. 
 
 Whether the recognition that civic expression is education is 
 universal or not; that is, whether it is recognized that the provision of 
 separate places for voting, instead of using the school houses for 
 this purpose, is actual duplication of educational equipment; every 
 intelligent person recognizes that organized recreation is an educa- 
 tional function and that the building of separate recreation centers 
 when the schoolhouses are idle, is distinctly a duplication of educa- 
 tional equipment. 
 
 Now, the question is judging from Ogden's present expenditure 
 for educational purposes, can it afford the extravagance of duplica- 
 tion? 
 
 The total cost of running the schools of Ogden for the year 1912- 
 1913 was $276,697.52. This amount was derived from the following 
 sources: 
 
 Ogden's apportionment of state school fund $ 59,484.32 
 
 Ogden's apportionment of county school fund 23,393.42 
 
 From local taxation, interest on investments, etc 193,819.78 
 
 Total expenditures $276,697.52 
 
 As Ogden pays into the state and county funds more than it draws 
 from them, these figures do not represent the total expenditure of the 
 city for the support of public education, not to mention the large ex- 
 penditure for denominational and other private education which, of 
 course, comes out of the community's resources precisely as does the 
 public tax. On its assessed valuation of $14,724,530, Ogden paid a 
 county school tax of 7.637 mills, amounting to $103,616.52, and a state 
 school tax of 3.5 mills, amounting to $51,536.85. That is, the city 
 pays into these two funds a total of $155,153.37, and recieved from 
 them $82,877.74. Thus the citizens of Ogden contribute to the support 
 of the schools of the state and the county $72,275.53. In addition to this 
 Ogden's portion of the state expenditures for the support of higher 
 education is $46,725.75. Therefore, the total expenditures of Ogden 
 taxpayers for the support of public education are: 
 
 For city schools $276,697.52 
 
 For county schools 72,295.53 
 
 For state schools 46,725.75 
 
 Total $395,718.80 
 
 The total per capita expenditure of Ogden for public education is 
 $13.19 on the basis of thirty thousand population. Its per capita for 
 the support of its own schools, for the year 1912-13 was $9.22. 
 
31 
 
 As there are no accurate figures available from which we can de- 
 termine the earnings of the community, it will be difficult even to 
 estimate how much of a draft upon its resources, these expenditures 
 constitute. The total percentage of the assessed valuation of its 
 property for all school purposes is 2.266; of its total wealth .755. 
 We have figures which give some indication of the average earnings; 
 as, There are 7,000 persons employed in the trades, at an average 
 wage of about $3.00. These earn in the aggregate probably about 
 $4,000,000 annually. These, however, must represent more than half 
 the earners of the city. And if we suppose that there are four 
 thousand more, in business and the professions, with an average in- 
 come of $1,000, it will give another $4,000.000. There are nearly $10,- 
 000,000 of bank deposits, which perhaps pay a total income of $500,- 
 000. The total is $8,500.00 This divided by thirty thousand gives an 
 average income of $283 per capita. Of course, so rough an estimate 
 is of no value, except merely as an indication, but there are many 
 other things which point to the conclusion that earnings and incomes 
 in Ogden average high. Counting five to the family, we should have 
 an income per family of $1,415.00 annually. 
 
 The statement that Ogden cannot afford the duplication of its 
 public equipment for community purposes is not based upon the 
 supposition that the city is poor. That is not the case. On the 
 contrary, it is comparatively rich. Nor is it based upon the assump- 
 tion that Ogden is paying a high percentage of its income for public 
 education, in comparison with other cities. That assumption does 
 not seem to be well founded. Some of the smaller cities of Utah pay 
 a much higher rate. Qgden's percentage of income expended for all 
 public purposes is 4.6. One Utah town expended, last year, for public 
 educational purposes 21 per cent of its entire income. Three other 
 towns averaged 15 per cent. No data are obtainable to show 
 how Ogden compares with other cities of like size and industrial 
 character in this respect. The expenditures per capita, however, are 
 available. Comparison with other cities shows that Ogden has a 
 very high expenditure per capita of population, but its expenditure 
 per capita of the children enrolled in the public schools is lower than 
 any other cities comparable in size, as shown in table on page 9. 
 The following table gives the cost per capita of population for Ogden 
 and eight other cities, which however have a much larger popula- 
 tion: 
 
 Chicago per capita population $4.54 
 
 St. Louis 4.20 
 
 San Francisco 4.26 
 
 New Orleans 2.89 
 
 Los Angeles 4.76 
 
 Newark 6.02 
 
 Milwaukee 3.66 
 
 Salt Lake City* 7.39 
 
 Ogden* 6.28 
 
 *For 1912-1913, excluding payment of matured bonds. 
 
<* 32 
 
 Of its total revenues for all purposes, Ogden expends 36% for 
 the support of its schools. The following gives the comparison with 
 nine other cities: 
 
 Chicago 26 
 
 St. Louis 23 
 
 San Francisco 23 
 
 Milwaukee 25 
 
 Newark 32 
 
 New Orleans 23 
 
 Los Angeles 35 
 
 1 Salt Lake City 
 
 Ogden 36 
 
 The expenditures of Ogden for the support of public education 
 were $68,186.23 greater in 1912-13 than in 1911-12. $35,000.00 of this 
 increase was in payment of matured bonds, leaving a normal increase 
 of $33,186.23, or 5.6 per cent. This rate of increase, which no doubt 
 is safely within the ability of the taxpayers is, however, far from 
 sufficient to enable the schools to maintain their present rate of 
 progress. It is wholly inadequate to enable the schools to keep 
 pace with the rapid growth of the community. The local tax levy 
 is 8.363 mills, nearly the limit that can be reached without a vote 
 of the taxpayers, a little more than in Weber County, but much less 
 than in many Utah districts. It is certain, however, that the improve- 
 ments needed in the Ogden schools, simply to provide the necessities 
 for their narrow use as merely the centers of children's instruction, 
 cannot be made from the proceeds of tax levies alone. Bonding is 
 necessary. An analysis of the financial condition and a comparison 
 with other Utah cities and districts will show that relatively and 
 absolutely the city may safely bond much more heavily for school 
 purposes. At present Ogden is carrying a municipal bonded indebted- 
 ness of over $1,000,000, and the school bonds of only $195,000, or 
 more than five times as much for general municipal as for school 
 purposes. Generally throughout the state, the proportion for schools 
 is larger than this; in the smaller towns, much larger. Relative to 
 population and to assessed valuation, it is much greater in Salt Lake 
 City and Murray, though less in Logan and in Provo, as shown by 
 the following table: 
 
 Cities 
 
 Population 
 
 Assessed 
 Valuation 
 
 School 
 Bonds 
 
 Municipal 
 Bonds 
 
 Salt Lake . . . . 
 
 .. .. 105000 
 
 
 $1 485 000 
 
 $4 398 000 
 
 Ogden 
 
 30,000 
 
 $14924,531 
 
 195000 
 
 1.005,000 
 
 Provo 
 
 10000 
 
 
 182 000 
 
 
 Logan 
 
 10 000 
 
 
 162000 
 
 
 Murray 
 
 5 000 
 
 
 22000 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 But the true test of ability to bond is the present earning power, 
 the rate of its increase, and the assurance that there will continue to 
 be a sufficient increase in the earning power of the community. We 
 must bequeath to the future, not only the debt, but the ability to pay it. 
 
 From the above it appears that Ogden is comparatively well able 
 to make a considerable bond issue for the immediate improvement 
 of its school plant and equipment. We suggest the advisability of 
 caring for all permanent improvements for some time to come by 
 
33 
 
 bonding, leaving all that can be derived from annual taxation for the 
 maintenance of the schools. 
 
 Of the permanent improvements needed, some of which are men- 
 tioned in other parts of this report, the following should be supplied 
 as soon as bonds can be voted: 
 
 The placing of all school buildings in a thoroughly sanitary 
 condition. 
 
 The installing of adequate, modern heating and ventilation in all 
 buildings. 
 
 Indoor and outdoor gymnasium equipment sufficient to meet the 
 needs of all the school children. 
 
 The extension of the school grounds to provide for school gardens 
 as well as adequately to provide for space for play. 
 
 The removal or renovation for use of the two old buildings in 
 the rear of the Central Junior High School and the Madison School 
 respectively. 
 
 Such addition to present buildings or construction of new build- 
 ings as will relieve the congestion that now exists in some of the 
 schools, and will make unnecessary the use of rooms below the 
 ground level for study or recitation. 
 
 Increased equipment for industrial training in the High Schools 
 and adequate industrial training equipment for all schools, elementary 
 as well as high. 
 
 Ogden Has Not One Cent to Waste on Duplication. 
 
 Ogden's bond limit for school purposes is $441,735.00. The out- 
 standing bonded indebtedness for schools is $195,000. This leaves in 
 round numbers, $250,000, that the taxpayers may yet elect to issue. 
 If this whole amount were issued, it would not be sufficently adequate 
 to meet Ogden's need for ample school grounds, buildings and equip- 
 ment. With less than the amount of money that this bond issue will 
 yield, the schools will not only be physically hampered, but their 
 deterioration cannot be prevented. 
 
 The public school system of Ogden needs for its efficiency, con- 
 sidered merely as its public instrument of instruction of children, 
 MORE money than can be secured from annual taxation and from 
 bonds. Obviously Ogden cannot afford to waste one penny in the 
 purchase of land and the construction of buildings for a duplicate 
 system of community equipment. But, this is what it does when 
 money is spent for the rental of places for voting while it has and 
 might be using its public school houses for this purpose; and this 
 is what it has begun to do in its installation of recreational equip- 
 ment in Liberty Park and this is what is likely to be done on an 
 extensive scale if the petition in the hands of the Mayor is granted 
 and the policy of small parks and recreation centers separate from 
 the public school buildings and grounds is followed out. This is what 
 is being done and is likely to continue to be done if the city com- 
 mission and the school board are not consolidated. 
 
 Community Plants are Best and Cheapest School Plants. 
 
 It is obvious that the ground that is used as a school yard during 
 the early part of the school days can be used as a small park and 
 recreation field by all of the people in the community and that the 
 best school ground is the best park and recreation field, and vice 
 versa; so that the purchase of separate plots of ground for recreation 
 purposes is a clear duplication. To one who is not familiar with the 
 recent and best developments in school and recreation center archi- 
 
34 
 
 lecture, it may not be so obvious that the building of community 
 recreation centers, separate from the schools is a clear duplication. 
 For a number of years Dwight H. Perkins was school architect of 
 Chicago. He then became the architect of recreation centers in the 
 Lincoln Park system. For several years he worked on the two sorts 
 of buildings. About a year ago, to meet the requirements of a com- 
 munity that needed a new school house and also wanted a recreation 
 center, but could not afford two separate plants, he worked out a 
 school plan that combines the features of the two sorts of buildings. 
 The result was a structure that is not only perfectly adapted for use 
 by the adults and older youth of the community as a civic gathering 
 place and recreation center, but is better adapted for use as a school 
 house and more economically arranged than the traditional type of 
 school buildings. And instead of being more expensive, this combina- 
 tion school house and recreation center is actually cheaper than the 
 old style of construction. The idea is being copied in many places 
 in the middle western states. 
 
 The first outstanding feature of this style of building is that it 
 wastes no space in halls and stairs. It is a one-story structure. Most 
 of the school buildings in Ogden have from a fourth to a third of 
 their space given up to halls and stairs. It is top-lighted so that there 
 is no difficulty in difference of lighting on account of nearness or 
 distance from windows. It is absolutely free from fire risk, for the 
 children can get out of the building without any stairs or fire escape 
 to descend. And obviously it is not only more convenient for the 
 use of the older people who come to the building in the evening by 
 reason of the absence of stairs to climb, but is also more convenient 
 for the teachers and pupils. 
 
 Another feature is the practical combination of an auditorium 
 equipped with a full sized stage and a gymnasium. The size of the 
 stage is secured without robbing the rest of the building by its 
 being the kindergarten during the day; heavy sound-proof curtains 
 shutting it off from the large auditorium when it is being used as a 
 kindergarten. This stage being raised affords a place where the 
 seats needed for its use as an auditorium may be stored when the 
 room is being used for dancing or as a gymnasium, and also affords 
 space for storing gymnasium apparatus when the room is being used 
 as an auditorium. 
 
 Now it is not to be expected that the architecture of the Ogden 
 school ^ buildings will be suddenly transformed by the systematic 
 beginning of their use as centers of civic, social and recreational activ- 
 ities during the time that they are now idle. Certain minor changes 
 and additions to their equipment must be made at once, such as the 
 installation of electric lighting. But in the future there is sure to be 
 a tendency to modify the architectural character of the Ogden school 
 houses to adapt them for full use as neighborhood centers, and the 
 point here to be ^emphasized is that this means better schoolhouses 
 for the children, instructional use, and actually cheaper construction 
 than Ogden has at present. 
 
 If the city commission and the school board are combined, the 
 first step is taken toward the working out of a model system of 
 centralized neighborhood equipment, at once better schoolhouses than 
 the city has at present, and better recreation buildings than could be 
 secured otherwise. If on the other hand the present disunity of 
 administration is allowed to persist, Ogden will continue to be with- 
 out modern physical equipment for either the purpose of children's 
 instruction or civic and recreational uses by the rest of the members 
 of the various districts in the city. 
 
35 
 
 Avoid Duplication of Function. 
 
 The addition of the work of the school board to the present and 
 recognized work of the municipal commission would require no 
 change in the character of its duties, but only the logical extension of 
 its functions on the lines of its present responsibility. The various 
 sorts of duties which are now handled by the school board without 
 business-like division, such as would make the definite placing of 
 responsibility possible, may easily be distributed among the several 
 municipal commissioners on the precise lines of their present division 
 of responsibility. For instance, the finances of the public school sys- 
 tem would be taken care of by the department of finance of the city 
 government and be under the supervision of the head of that depart- 
 ment; the care of the school buildings and grounds would be looked 
 after by the department of the city commission that has charge of 
 public property, and be under the supervision of the head of that 
 department; the work of truancy prevention, sanitary inspection, and 
 so on, would easily be included in the care of the department of public 
 safety. 
 
 There are now two systems of bookkeeping, budget making and 
 financial accounting. Under the unified administration of the city's 
 affairs there would be but one and this would not only cost less, but 
 obviously it. would be more efficient. There are now two separate 
 elections of public servants to whom the affairs of the city are com- 
 mitted. With the unification of administration the time-waste and the 
 expense of one of these elections would be obviated. There are 
 two systems of report printing. With the adoption of unification, 
 there would be issued more comprehensive and valuable reports at less 
 cost than is at present incurred. The city has two systems of policing. 
 Though not usually recognized, the function of a police department 
 does reside and has from the beginning resided in the public 
 school officials, the principals, the teachers and the truant officer. 
 The duty of preventing disorder and promoting morality is common 
 to both. Their efficient correlation demands their being combined 
 under one administration. Obviously the maintaining of two systems 
 of caring for the gardening and parking of public grounds is wasteful 
 and ineffecient. The care of all public grounds should be under one 
 management. The same is plainly true of the work of public archi- 
 tecture and engineering ;and emphatically true of the work of health 
 inspection, promotion, and sanitation. Beyond question, the work of 
 the juvenile court and the distribution of relief should be under the 
 same administration with that of the schools. In their provision of 
 texts and supplementary reading material, the public schools are now 
 maintaining a public library. Meanwhile over the door of the "Public 
 Library" are these words, "In the education of its people lies the 
 safety of the republic." Could there be a plainer declaration of dup- 
 lication, especially as this is backed by the fact that the public 
 schoolhouses are used practically not at all as branch public libraries, 
 as they, of course, would be if these two parts of the city's educational 
 equipment were unified under one efficient administration. 
 
 The School Superintendency. 
 
 Of course, as the appointee of a school board that is also the 
 municipal commission, the superintendent of schools would have the 
 same responsibility and function as at present, but obviously, he 
 would be in a better position for efficient work than the occupant of 
 this office now is. 
 
36 
 
 He would derive his authority from, and have the co-operation 
 of, a body of men devoting their whole time and energy to the admin- 
 istration of the city's business, instead of having for authorization and 
 counsel, a body which meets for but an hour or so each week. 
 
 His work would not be hampered by the annoyances of an oppo- 
 sition that arises, at least in part, from old jealousies, antagonisms 
 and prejudices due to the division of, and the differences between, 
 the board of education and the municipal commission. 
 
 By having the co-operation of the department of finance in hand- 
 ling the money affairs of the school system, the co-operation of the de- 
 partment of public property in looking after the buildings and grounds, 
 and the co-operation of the department of public safety in the work 
 of truancy prevention and inspection, the superintendent would be 
 relieved of much of the business management to which he now has 
 to devote his energy and time, and would be able to center his atten- 
 tion and effort upon the more professional part of a superintendent's 
 work. 
 
 Moreover, by his position as the executive appointee of the 
 single administrative body of the city, the superintendent would serve 
 not only to make the work of educating the children more effective 
 by his having access to the resources of the various departments of 
 the city government insofar as their work may be advantageously 
 correlated in the efficient administration of this most important work, 
 but he would also serve, in some degree as a preserver and promoter 
 of unity of organization in the work of the commission itself. In this 
 position, the superintendent would not be a' "city manager;" but if 
 this plan is adopted, it will be seen by students of municipal admin- 
 istration that under this plan, the advantages of both the "commission 
 form" and the "city manager" plan are secured the distribution of 
 functions which belongs to the commission plan is preserved, and at 
 the same time, the centralization of those responsibilities that should 
 be centralized, with the consequent unification of the work of the 
 whole body, is secured. It has all of the advantages of the "city 
 manager" plan, without carrying too far the centralization of responsi- 
 bility, as seems to have been done in the cities and towns that have 
 gone to this extreme in striving after unity in municipal administra- 
 tion. 
 
 Obviously, the focussing of attention upon the work of the super- 
 intendent, which the establishment of his office under the unified com- 
 mission would secure, would tend to call forth the highest capacities 
 of the man who occupies this position, would protect him from the 
 indignities that the present occupant of the superintendency is called 
 upon to suffer, and would be a guarantee that the selection of a man 
 for this position will continually be upon a high standard. 
 
 The Civic Secretaryship. 
 
 As has been suggested above, the increased use of the public 
 school buildings and grounds as centers of civic expression and muni- 
 cipal recreation, which would be facilitated by the placing of their 
 control in the hands of the single commission, would imply the estab- 
 lishment of the office of general civic secretary and executive organ- 
 izer and director of the wider uses of the public school plant. 
 
 The responsibility of this office would not conflict with that of 
 the superintendent of schools, but would begin where the responsi- 
 bility of the superintendent now ends. The superintendent is officially 
 responsible for organizing and directing the use of this system of 
 neighborhood buildings as centers for the instruction of children. 
 His responsibility is simply over the children who are enrolled in the 
 
37 
 
 public schools. He has the regular and established use of this system 
 of buildings under his administration. Now the whole realm of the 
 use of these buildings by adults for voting and for other civic activ- 
 ities and their use by young people for training in self government, 
 and their use by all the people as centers of recreation and culture, 
 requires as definite and systematic organization, and continuous at- 
 tention as does the work now established in the hands of the super- 
 intendent of schools. 
 
 The function of this office of civic secretary would include the 
 arrangements for and the handling of the details of the use of the 
 public schoolhouses as polling places and as centers of civic assembly. 
 In his relation to the adult citizens in their use of these buildings, the 
 civic secretary would obviously not be over the citizens in authority, 
 but under them as the clerk of a board of aldermen or of a deliber- 
 ative assembly in the state house or the national capitol is under its 
 membership, or as the clerk was, in the old New England Town, not 
 over the citizens, but at their service and command. 
 
 In order to work out efficiently and economically the use of the 
 use of the schoolhouses as centers of district citizenship organization 
 and expression, it will of course, be necessary to have district secretar- 
 ial service provided. 
 
 It has been found that normally this work may be rendered best 
 by the school principal in each district. 
 
 In order to take charge of the work of social center organization it 
 is obviously necessary that the school principal should be relieved of 
 some of the detail work for which he is now engaged. Obviously, the 
 authorization of the principal as the district clerk for voting and for 
 deliberation of the citizens will tend to make his service as principal 
 over the children in a community more vital and efficient by as much 
 as he will be kept constantly and officially in touch with the adults 
 of the district. Not always, however, is the principal qualified to 
 render this service, and in some cases it may be necessary to arrange 
 for its being rendered by another competent person. But whether the 
 school principal directly administers this work or not, it ought to be 
 organized under his general supervision so as to keep the unity of the 
 social center with the work that is now being carried on in the building. 
 But whether the school principal directly administers this work or 
 not, it should be definitely remunerated from the beginning for it 
 is as real public service as the teaching of children, and without remun- 
 eration there is no definite fixing of responsibility. 
 
 A few years ago it was supposed that the administration of the 
 uses of the schoolhouses as civic and recreation centers necessitated 
 the appointment of a general civic secretary separate from the city 
 superintendent of schools. But during the past year Mr. W. E. Mad- 
 dock, the superintedent of schools at Superior, Wisconsin, has demon- 
 strated that the administration of social center activities may be car- 
 ried on by the superintendent himself. To be sure, Mr. Maddock had 
 one assistant whose work it was to organize and outline this develop- 
 ment, and now Mr. Mladdock has six assistants specificially engaged 
 for this work of community organization. But the experience of 
 Superior has shown that the function of general civic secretary may 
 be, and indeed does tend to be combined and unified with that of the 
 city superintendent. 
 
 Whether this work be done by an associate or assistant the 
 superintendent or directly by the superintendent, it is important that 
 it be officially defined. The general civic secretary occupies some- 
 what the same relation toward the school principals in their work as 
 district secretaries that the superintendent of schools occupies to- 
 
38 
 
 ward the principals in their work of directing the children's instruction. 
 The general civic secretary will assist in bringing about the initial 
 organization, in suggesting constitution, programs, speakers, and in 
 assembling, organizing and transmitting the information gained from 
 the experience of the various communities, so that this may be avail- 
 able for the use of all the communities. 
 
 By having this general civic secretarial office established at the 
 center of administration of the city's affairs, it will serve as a con- 
 venient agency for the municipal commission in bringing about the 
 orderly consideration by the citizens of such matters as the com- 
 missioners might wish to refer to the people, and so would help to 
 bring about a more discerning and intelligent support of the citizens' 
 agents in their work. On the other hand, his appointment and the 
 establishment of his office would tend to prevent the bothering of 
 the commission by individuals "cranks" and to obviate interference 
 with the commission's work by little private, volunteer and irrespon- 
 sible organizations of factional character and partisan bias. It would 
 bring the citizenship as an organized body closer to its municipal 
 agent, and conversely, it tends to prevent the municipal agents from 
 either lagging behind or going ahead of the intelligent and well-con- 
 sidered desire of the people whose servants they are. In addition to 
 his service for the systematic consideration of local questions, of 
 course, it would be the duty of the Civic Secretary to study how the 
 problems of state and national welfare, for whose decision the citizens 
 of Ogden have their full share of responsibility may be presented so 
 as to have their consideration fair and the examination into their 
 merits thorough. 
 
 In addition to his service as civic secretary under the citizenship, 
 devoted to the work of making the common interest interesting, which 
 would give its fundamental and basic character to his office, the man 
 appointed to this position would have charge of the organization of 
 the youth, the young and men and women of each neighborhood who 
 are between school age and adulthood into a self-governing club 
 patterned upon the adult civic organization of each district. At 
 present there is no systematic training in self-government given 
 to the young men and women who are soon to assume the 
 full responsibilities of citizenship. By the adoption of this plan, 
 this vital lack would be supplied in such a manner as to 
 assure increasingly efficient citizenship in the future. Of course 
 this work must be directed and for its direction there must be 
 local responsible leadership. This is not a matter of considerably 
 increased expense, however, for it has been found that this work can 
 be well done by men and women who are already in the employ of the 
 school system. Of course this young peoples club directorship, like 
 the district secretaryship for adult civic assembling should be re- 
 munerated, but with an organizing general director of the work in 
 the person of the Civic Secretary, it is not necessary to engage the 
 whole time of the local directors of this activity. 
 
 The third general function that would come within the direction 
 of the Civic Secretary would be the supervision and systematic organ- 
 ization of the recreational uses of the school buildings, their use for 
 physical culture, for musical and dramatic expression, for lectures, 
 motion pictures and entertainments of various kinds; and, as other 
 forms of community co-operation centering in the neighborhood build- 
 ings are decided upon, it will be the work of the Civic Secretary to 
 serve the people in the effecting of these co-operations, and to study 
 constantly the problem of correlation and adjustment of the various 
 activities that are carried on in the neighborhood centers in the school 
 
39 
 
 buildings and upon the school grounds so that the adult and youthful 
 activities may be efficiently adjusted together and so that these non- 
 compulsory use of the school houses may be correlated with the 
 compulsory use of these buildings by the children. The function of 
 the Civic Secretary might be considered here in further detail, but 
 obviously no man would be likely to be appointed to assist the super- 
 intendent in this work who would need detailed directions, and 
 enough has been suggested as to his duties to indicate the necessity 
 of the appointment of a man for this position, if the civic and recrea- 
 tional efficiency of the city is to be secured. 
 
 This Plan Necessary to Educational Efficiency. 
 
 It has come to be regarded as axiomatic that efficiency, not only 
 in citizenship and in the power constructively to use leisure, which 
 is the very core and fiber of morality, but also industrial and economic 
 efficiency, which is at the basis of all possible advance, is first and 
 finally dependent upon educational efficiency. 
 
 It has long been recognized by clear-seeing students of the great 
 problem of human together-living that the development of that Public 
 Spirit which is the breath and life-force of civic, moral and economic 
 efficiency is dependent upon establishing an actual school for con- 
 venient use by the whole membership of a community a "School of 
 Public Spirit." The description given long ago by John Stuart Mill 
 of the Society in which this provision is not made, appears to be 
 not totally inapplicable to Ogden. 
 
 "Where this School of Public Spirit does not exist scarcely any 
 sense is entertained that private persons . . . owe any duties to 
 society, except to obey the laws and submit to the government. There 
 is no unselfish identification with the public. Every thought or feel- 
 ing, either of interest or of duty, is absorbed in the individual and in 
 the family. The man never thinks of any collective interest, of any 
 objects to be purchased jointly with others, but only in competition 
 with them, and in some measure, at their expense. A neighbor not 
 being an ally nor an associate, since he is never engaged in any com- 
 mon undertaking for joint benefit is, therefore, only a rival. Thus 
 even private morality suffers, while public is actually extinct. 
 
 "It is not sufficiently considered how little there is in most men's 
 ordinary life to give any largeness, either to their conceptions or to 
 their sentiments. Their work is a routine, neither the thing done nor 
 the process of doing it introduces the mind to thoughts or feelings 
 extending beyond individuals; if instructive books are within their 
 reach there is no stimulus to read them; and in most cases the 
 individual has no access to any person of cultivation much superior 
 to his own. Giving him something to do for the Public supplies, in 
 a measure, all these deficiencies." 
 
 This recognition of the community need of an institution for the 
 educating of Public Spirit, is applied to the problem of the American 
 community in the words of President Wilson, quoted above. In the 
 same address, in which those words were spoken, President Wilson 
 declared that without the practical educational working out of a system 
 of civic co-operation, the American experiment in self-government 
 cannot succeed: 
 
 "There is no sovereignty of the people if the several sections of 
 the people are at loggerheads with one another. Sovereignty comes 
 with co-operation." 
 
 And today the perception of thoughtful men and women every- 
 where is clarifying to the recognition that the characteristic institu- 
 tion of America, the public school, is not only failing of two-thirds 
 
40 
 
 of its service when used merely for the instruction of children, but 
 that this established function of the public school cannot be success- 
 ful unless the school house is made the center of civic co-operation 
 and recreation for the whole community. 
 
 For instance, but a short time ago the International Congress on 
 the Welfare of the Child at its meeting in Washington, D. C, put 
 forth the following declaration: 
 
 "WHEREAS: The nation's system of district buildings, now used 
 only for the instruction of children, affords the worthy, convenient, 
 and appropriate machinery for citizenship-expression in voting and 
 for that organized all-sided deliberation upon public questions without 
 which voting cannot be intelligent, and for the training in self-govern- 
 ment of youth between school age and adulthood; and 
 
 "WHEREAS: America's system of public school houses, repre- 
 senting as it does our great and primary co-operation, is capable of 
 being used as the machinery of further co-operation in practically and 
 permanently reducing the cost of living and in resolving industrial 
 maladjustment and unrest; and, 
 
 "WHEREAS: Our system of common school plants, now idle dur- 
 ing the time of public leisure which is the time of public dissipation, 
 is ready to be used for constructive, well-planned, well-directed, whole- 
 some recreation and for the democratic expression of music, the 
 drama, and all the arts; and especially, 
 
 "WHEREAS: Only when the public school building is fully used 
 by adults and older youth as the social center, the commonplace of 
 civic, industrial, and recreational co-operation, can it efficiently fulfill 
 its prime function as the training place of the child; 
 
 "THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the public school 
 house be made the polling places and common council headquarters 
 of citizenship and the training places in self-government of youth 
 between school age and adulthood; 
 
 "That the public school buildings be used for such extensions of 
 co-operative enterprise as the assembled citizens may agree upon, and 
 that the use of the school houses as employment offices be correlated 
 with their use for vocational training; and 
 
 "That the public school buildings and grounds as opened, during 
 the time that they are now idle, as branch public libraries, art galleries, 
 centers of musical and dramatic expression, lecture halls, motion 
 picture theatres, gymnasia, and recreation centers for all the people." 
 
 Ogden's Present Illustration of This Necessity. 
 
 The general statements given above pointing to the necessity of 
 the school's full use, if it is to succeed in its prime function, apply 
 as clearly and as strongly to Ogden as to any other community. But 
 it may be well to indicate how the present unfortunate situation in 
 regard to the Ogden school system illustrates this necessity. 
 
 The first and final responsibility for the character of the public 
 school system rests upon the adult members of the community of 
 Ogden. The public education of the children is the chief co-operative 
 enterprise in which all the citizens of Ogden are united. This co- 
 operative enterprise of the children's education differs from all others 
 in which the men and women of the city might engage, in this 
 however earnest and well directed may be the efforts of the adminis- 
 trative agents of the citizens, the superintendent of the school staff, 
 yet the strongest influence making for the success or failure of this 
 enterprise is and will continue to be the example set by the adult 
 citizens of the community. 
 
41 
 
 Investigation has shown that the present school administration 
 and staff of employes is conscientiously endeavoring to develop in 
 the children, by and through all the special training of mental percep- 
 tion and manual skill, the spirit of good citizenship, the capacity and 
 will, not to shirk public responsibility, but to see in the co-operation 
 of mind and hand and heart for the solution of the problems of public 
 welfare, the supreme opportunity of life. 
 
 The first question to be asked is whether the adult citizens, whose 
 example is the most powerful factor in the efficiency of the public 
 school system, are setting such an example as tends to make possible 
 the success of the public schools in their highest function. 
 
 Great and complex problems of national and state welfare, the 
 selection of public agents and the determination of policies, are con- 
 tinually and urgently demanding careful examination and orderly all- 
 sided discussion on the part of the citizens who are finally responsible 
 for their solution. In the face of this demand for organized delibera- 
 tion upon the vital questions of the common life, the citizens of Ogden 
 have not been systematically "going to school to one another in the 
 understanding of public questions." And even when questions of 
 policy and method in the conduct of the great local co-operative 
 enterprise of the children's education arise, such as those which have 
 been agitating this community, they are not made the subject of calm 
 and orderly consideration by the whole good natured citizenship 
 assembling in the convenient and friendly district buildings that the 
 city has. Does anyone imagine that the children's training in citizen- 
 ship could be efficient, with such an example of bad citizenship set 
 before them, as the children have had in the manifestation of intense, 
 narrow and obviously prejudiced partisanship among a few busy 
 people on the one hand, and the equally blameworthy (were people 
 to be blamed for what is a fault in the system) lack of intelligent 
 interest on the part of the majority of Ogden's citizens, on the other, 
 in the treatment of such important questions of public policy as 
 have been under consideration? 
 
 The futility of moral training of children in the schools, while 
 the city is doing nothing constructively to prevent the leisure of the 
 older youth, who set the children's actual moral standards, from 
 being used for dissipation, is too obvious to require forth-setting. 
 
 The converse of the statement that the schools cannot succeed in 
 their prime function of children's instruction unless they are fully 
 used by adults and older youth as centers of civic expression and 
 wholesome recreation, is equally true. The experience of communi- 
 ties all over the country where beginnings have been made in the 
 full use of school plants proves that this is the way not only to im- 
 prove architecture and better equipment of the buildings, but is the 
 way directly to the increased efficiency of the service of the school 
 as the center of children's instruction. 
 
 This fact of the futility of the public school's effort at civic and 
 moral in-building of children except as it is made the center of adult 
 civic expression and constructively planned and wholesome fun, and 
 the hope of instructional efficiency that lies in the full community 
 use of these buildings, which has its illustrations here in Ogden, is 
 stated in these words, by Dr. Edward C. Elliott, one of the nation's 
 keenest students of school efficiency. 
 
 "Nine-tenths one may be fair of the so-called instruction that 
 aims to make for healthy active standards of citizenship is devoted to 
 the mouthing of the mere forms of civic existence. Vital instruction 
 
42 
 
 in the civic virtues means contact with the real pulsating civic life. 
 The citizenship of the future must be trained in the civic forums of 
 today. And the civic forum contemplated in the organization of the 
 social center gives more promise of contributing virility and strength 
 to civic education than any effort that has sought to bulwark political 
 institutions since the days when the Athenian boy became a Greek 
 through vitalizing contact with the life of his elders and the Roman 
 boy was educated with and by Roman citizens. 
 
 "Closely linked with civic education is the more fundamental 
 moral education. The school is learning that ethics and morals, to be 
 effectively taught, must employ those channels of influence that have 
 been found to be necessary in other subjects. Words and formularies 
 will not be effective. The school must dig deeper if it wishes to 
 reach those strata of human nature out of which comes the richness 
 of a national conduct." 
 
 The Time is Here. 
 
 So to sum up the results of the investigation of Ogden's public 
 school system from the point of view of its adaption to the needs of 
 this community: 
 
 A study of the character of the population and the industrial 
 development of the city, revealed the urgent and growing need of 
 comprehensive and effective citizenship organization. As the ade- 
 quate and feasible way to meet this need, the recommendation that 
 the system of public school buildings be used as the system through 
 which this may be accomplished, was soon agreed upon. 
 
 A consideration of the absence of constructive public provision 
 for the leisure-time needs of the community showed the need of 
 recreational co-operation. The economical answer was apparently to 
 be found in the use of the public school buildings and grounds as 
 recreation centers. 
 
 With the progress of the investigation, it became increasingly 
 apparent that the educational, civic, recreational and economic needs 
 of Ogden can be suoplied only by the economizing of money and 
 effort. Thus, the unification of the city administration through com- 
 bining the work of the school board with that of the municipal com- 
 mission, the key to the whole situation, came to be seen for what 
 it is not only an ideal arrangement, but an immediate necessity. 
 
 As to the wisdom of making this recommendation at just this 
 time, conferences were held with both the municipal commission and 
 the board of education. Though no official action upon it was asked 
 for or taken, not only did the plan meet with the approval of the 
 members of both boards, but there seemed to be unanimity as to the 
 desirability of the plan's being set forth at once, so that no time may 
 be lost in having it thoroughly considered by the citizens of Ogden 
 and, if approved, that a movement be quickly set on foot for its real- 
 ization. 
 
 The plan cannot be put into operation without legislative enact- 
 ment. This, instead of being disadvantageous, is a positive advantage. 
 It will assure the full and careful consideration of the plan and its- 
 thorough understanding before it can be put into operation. 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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