Instruction in American Government in Secondary Schools
A COMMENT ON THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF FIVE.
BY WILLIAM A. SCHAPES, Chairman of the Committee of Five, Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
The American Political Science Association has taken an interest, not only in the investigation and discussion of the scientific questions arising within the field of Political Science, but has also paid attention to the problem of improving the instruction in Government in our schools and colleges. To further this work a section on instruction in Political Science was organized at its first annual meeting. In 1906 the committee of five, originally of three members, was appointed to complete certain investigations which had been started in the section on instruction, the partial results of which had been published in a paper by the writer in the proceedings for 1905. The committee was required to ascertain the amount and kind of instruction in American Government being offered in the secondary schools of this country and make recommendations for the consideration of the association. In accordance with these instructions the committee undertook to collect its information directly by correspondence with the teachers in about 600 high schools distributed throughout the United States. The work extended over more than two years, the final report being read at the Richmond meeting in December, 1908, and published in the proceedings for that year.
The point on which the report lays greatest stress, namely, the necessity of teaching Government as a distinct subject in the secondary schools, was expressly approved by the association without a dissenting vote. It does not follow, of course, that the report expresses the views of every member of that association, in every particular. In fact it does not. The report does represent the views of the entire committee after making an exhaustive study of the question.
The report covers 38 pages of the proceedings, and is therefore too elaborate to be properly presented in a brief article. Only a few of the essential features will be referred to.
At the very outset the committee was confronted with the pedagogical question as to whether Government should be taught as a distinct subject or whether it should be taught in connection with history. The teachers are still somewhat divided on the subject, and practice varies. The information collected indicates that the teaching of American Government, Civil Government or Civics as it is still barbarously designated, is suffering from a lack of proper recognition in the school curriculum, for want of especially trained teachers, from lack of a working school library on Government and from inadequate text-books. It seems a curious thing that our public schools, which were instituted and are operated by governmental agency to maintain an enlightened citizenship, have taught every other subject excepting Government. There can be little doubt that the rather confused and contradictory recommendations of the Committee of Seven ten years ago helped materially to spread the impression among high school teachers that the subject of Government could not be successfully studied apart from History, and that it is a sort of poor relation to it on which little time need be spent. The suggestion of the Committee of Seven that the subject might be taught in connection with American History was adopted by a large number of schools. The results obtained are generally considered to be unsatisfactory. In the West out of 240 schools heard from, 153 were offering separate instruction in Government, 47 taught the subject in connection with History, and 40 failed to specify the plan in use. The teachers or principals in these schools personally preferred the separate course by 158 to 30, 54 failing to commit themselves.