Progressive and Democratic: Charles William Eliot’s Thoughts and Practices on Secondary Education Reform

• In Event: Guiding Social Justice: Educators as Duty Bearers for Student Action

Proposal

The meeting theme of the 68th annual conference of CIES is the power of protest. Protest is an expression of people’s struggle for equal rights, and it is also an important embodiment of the democratic spirit. This research is based on Harvard University President Charles William Eliot’s democratic educational concept to respond the theme of this conference. Eliot situated education as a human right and endeavored to bring about more just and inclusive educational futures. In order to realize the concept of democratic education, Eliot actively engaged in the reform of secondary education in the United States and the cause of strengthening the effective articulation between public high schools and universities, speaking for the bottom of society, and working to safeguard everyone's equal right to education. The thought of democratic education and the idea of equal right to education advocated by Eliot had became the educational creeds believed by all countries in the world, transcending class, nationality and race.
Charles William Eliot served as president of Harvard University from 1869 to 1909. During his administration, he actively promoted the reform of Harvard College’s organizational system and introduced elective system, which made Harvard College develop from a local college to a national comprehensive university and then a world-class university. However, Eliot has made outstanding contributions not only in the field of American higher education, but also in the field of American secondary education. He published lots of speeches and articles on secondary education reform, actively participated in the practice of American secondary education reform in the late 19th century. In 1892, Eliot served as Chairman of the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies established by the National Educational Association (NEA) of the United States and compiled the famous Report of the Committee of Ten in the next year. The report had aroused wide concern and great controversy. After the report was issued for nearly a quarter of a century people who discussed secondary schooling did so in large measure for or against the ideas that Eliot had provided (Edward A. Krug,1961). Although Eliot had a great influence on the reform of American secondary education, academics haven't paid enough attention to it. The research on Eliot's educational thought and practice mainly focused on the field of higher education, such as college education, college writing teaching, college sports and so on (Raymond H. Fisher,1936; Terrance J. Flaherty,1978; Alar Lipping,1980; Elizabeth A. Melia,1995). Research on the subject of “secondary education” was rare. Through this study we can form a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of Elio’s thoughts and practices of secondary education reform and the problem of the articulation between secondary schools and universities in the United States.
This study attempts to answer the following questions: What are Eliot’s efforts in the process of American secondary education reform? What are Eliot’s main views and suggestions on the reform of American secondary education? What are the essential attributes of Eliot’s ideas on secondary education reform or the Report of the Committee of Ten? Is it conservative or progressive? Is it elitist or democratic?
The main research method adopted in this study is historical documents analysis. Through the analysis of Eliot’s books, articles, speeches, reports, proceedings and addresses of NEA annual meetings, Report of the Committee of Ten and other primary documents, this paper combs Eliot’s thoughts and actions on the reform of American secondary education, and summarizes the comments on the Report of the Committee of Ten. Based on this, to explain the essence and basic attributes of Eliot’s thoughts on secondary education reform.
This study found that Report of the Committee of Ten had received many criticisms and charges, the most two important of which were the criticism of conservative or traditional and elitism or academic-orientation. The main criticism of conservatism was that the report is traditional and conservative, based on an already outdated concept of learning, faculty psychology, which emphasizes mental training, the value of classical subjects and ignores the value of modern subjects (Daniel Tanner,1990; William F. Pinar,1995). The criticism of the elitist orientation mainly means that the report is elitist rather than democratic. The report was based on the interests of universities. It argued that secondary education is mainly academic rather than practical. It emphasized academic courses and served a small number of students who will enter higher education (Granville S. Hall,1907). However, either the criticism of conservative or the criticism of elitism is untenable.
This study came to the following conclusions:
Firstly, it is undeniable that an important goal of Eliot and the Committee of Ten is to strengthen the articulation between secondary schools and colleges, but Eliot did not blindly apply the traditional “mental training” theory, nor did the Report of the Committee of Ten ignore the value of modern curriculum.
Secondly, the Committee was not only based on the interests of the university or to meet the needs of a small number of students who want to go to college. The main objective of the report was to establish a unified national curriculum plan for secondary schools and university admission criteria, so that all graduates who successfully complete the secondary school curriculum have the freedom to choose to go to college and employment (NEA,1894).
Thirdly, Like Thomas Jefferson and Horace Mann who held firm ideals and beliefs in American democracy, Eliot was also an educator who highly respected the democratic system, and also regarded education, especially public school’s education, as the best way to maintain the orderly operation of a democratic society (Charles W. Eliot,1901). Adhering to the democratic educational concept, Eliot protested against the deep-rooted elite tradition of American higher education, and advocated that both the children of the upper class and the children of the lower class should enjoy the right to receive higher education equally. He was therefore actively involved in the reform of secondary education and in strengthening the link between secondary and higher education so that higher education was accessible to all.

Author

• Fan Yang, Graduate School of Education, Beijing Foreign Studies University