pupils, so that much reading can be covered rapidly.  Given the proper conditions—­chiefly an abundance of the proper books supplied in sets large enough for classes—­pupils can cover a large amount of ground, obtain a wealth of historical experience, and acquire a great quantity of useful information, the main outlines of which are remembered without much difficulty.  They can in this manner lay a broad historical foundation for the study of the social topics that should begin by the seventh grade and continue throughout the high school.

The textbooks of the present type can be employed as a part of this preliminary training.  Read in their entirety and read rapidly, they give one that perspective which comes from a comprehensive view of the entire field.  But they are too brief, abstract, and barren to afford valuable concrete historical experience.  They are excellent reference books for gaining and keeping historical perspective.

Reading of the character that we have here called preliminary should not cease as the other historical studies are taken up.  The general studies should certainly continue for some portion of the time through the grammar grades and high school, but it probably should be mainly supervised reading of interesting materials rather than recitation and examination work.

We would recommend that the high schools give careful attention to the recommendation of the National Education Association Committee on the Reorganization of the Secondary Course of Study in History.

CIVICS

Civic training scarcely finds a place upon the elementary school program.  The manual suggests that one-quarter of the history time—­10 to 20 minutes per week—­in the fifth and sixth grades should be given to a discussion of such civic topics as the department of public service, street cleaning, garbage disposal, health and sanitation, the city water supply, the mayor and the council, the treasurer, and the auditor.  The topics are important, but the time allowed is inadequate and the pupils of these grades are so immature that no final treatment of such complicated matters is possible.  For seventh and eighth grades, the manual makes no reference to civics.  This is the more surprising because Cleveland is a city in which there has been no end of civic discussion and progressive human-welfare effort.  The extraordinary value of civic education in the elementary school, as a means of furthering civic welfare, should have received more decided recognition.

The elementary teachers and principals of Cleveland might profitably make such a civic survey as that made in Cincinnati as the method of discovering the topics that should enter into a grammar grade course.  The heavy emphasis upon this subject should be reserved for the later grades of the elementary school.