Form study should begin in the kindergarten, and it should develop through the grades and high school in ways similar to the arithmetic, and in conjunction with the arithmetic, drawing, and construction work.  Since geometrical forms involve numerical relations, they supply good materials to use in making number relations concrete and clear.  This is now done in developing ideas of fractions, multiplication, division, ratio, per cent, etc.  It should be done much more fully and variously than at present and for the double purpose of practising the form-ideas as well as the number-ideas.  Arithmetic study and form-study can well grow up together, gradually merging into the combined algebra and geometry so far as students need to reach the higher levels of mathematical generalization.

At the same time that this is being developed in the mathematics classes, development should also be going on in the classes of drawing, design, and construction.  The alphabet of form-study will thus be taught in several of the studies.  The application will be made in practical design, in mechanical and free-hand drawing, in constructive labor, in the graphical representation of social, economic, and other facts of life.  The application comes not so much in the development of practical problems in the mathematics classes as in the development of the form aspect of those other activities that involve form.

We have here pointed to what appears to be in progressive schools a growing program of work.  Everywhere it is yet somewhat vague and inchoate.  In connection with the arithmetic, the drawing, the construction and art work, and the mathematics of the technical high schools, it appears to be developing in Cleveland in a vigorous and healthy manner.

HISTORY

The curriculum makers for elementary education do not seem to have placed a high valuation upon history.  Apparently it has not been considered an essential study of high worth, like reading, writing, spelling, grammar, and arithmetic.  To history are allotted but 290 hours in Cleveland, as against 496 hours in the average of 50 progressive American cities.  This discrepancy should give the city pause and concern.  If a mistake is being made, it is more likely to be on the part of an individual city than upon that of 50 cities.  The probability is that Cleveland is giving too little time to this subject.

Table 8.—­Time given to history
===========================================================<
br> | Hours per year | Per cent of grade time|
Grade |-----------------------------------------------
| Cleveland | 50 cities| Cleveland | 50 cities |
-----------------------------------------------------------<
br> 1 | 0 | 27 | 0.0 | 3.1 |
2 | 0 | 31 | 0.0 | 3.4 |
3 | 19 | 35 | 2.1 |