Still More Diverse Curriculum Favored

But the Committee, in the case of high schools, does not view a tightening in the curriculum as the shield against these dangers. It suggests, indeed, "even a greater diversity than exists at present in the still largely bookish curriculum, since nothing else will match the actual range of intelligence and background among students."

In addition, however, it suggests a need for some principle of unity, since without it the curriculum flies into pieces and even the studies of any one student are atomic or unbalanced or both.

The force of the high school is not well defined, the Committee remarks. "The standard of our education is a strongly middle-class standard, which must disappoint and may embitter those (perhaps half of all the students in the high school) who find themselves cast for another role. Their good is still almost wholly to be discovered." And, failing to serve properly those not bookishly inclined, the secondary school "largely fails to find and force the able young person," the Report laments.

But the Committee is not in doubt as to what is needed: "The hope of the American school system, indeed of our society, is precisely that it can pursue two goals simultaneously: give scope to ability and raise the average. Nor are these two goals so far apart, if human beings are capable of common sympathies."

The Committee's recommendations for American high schools are of a general nature, though in Chapter Four of its Report it examines specific aspects. The secondary school, it concludes, must be concerned with the physical and mental health of its pupils. ". . . The educational process has somewhat failed of its purpose," says the Report, "if it has produced the merely bookish youth who lacks spirit and is all light without warmth."

Mental health, according to the Committee, involves social adjustment, an understanding of other people and a responsiveness to their needs with its counterpart of good manners, and personal adjustment, the individual's understanding of himself, his poise and adequacy in coping with real situations.

". . . Living is a cooperative process. Social adjustment is not something that just happens in the individual with the passing of years. One must learn to get along with other people just as one learns to use complex sentences. But the task of learning to get along with people is infinitely more difficult." Assistance in this task, as well as formal instruction, is the duty of the high school the Report states.