rapid development of the Children's Museum in Boston, and by the completion of the $400,000 new building of the Toledo Museum of Art as the crowning achievement of a brief 10 years of growth. It has emphasized the value of museums of culture in university instruction, and it has seen museum extension work more thoroughly and effectively organized than ever before. The increasing educational work of art museums is especially interesting.

For a proper appreciation of the present status of American museums in educational work, it must be remembered that the great bulk of this work is accomplished by museums receiving their maintenance chiefly from city governments and from private contributions. In other words, the most significant educational work is accomplished by approximately one-quarter of the museums of the country, while fully half of the museums are in an inactive or moribund state. It is important to determine whether the inevitable development of the educational function of museums will be accomplished by the reorganization and revivification of these inactive museums or whether they must be replaced with new museums. The American Association of Museums has appointed a special commission for museum cooperation for the purpose of investigating this problem, with a view to promoting higher efficiency and closer cooperation among existing museums and assisting in the organization and development of new museums.

Since this report was completed, the Newark Museum Association has published a paper on The Educational Value of Museums, by Louise Connolly, with an introduction by J. C. Dana. This paper is based on personal visits by Miss Connolly to many museums and on a study of the Directory of American Museums, the Proceedings of the American Association of Museums, the Museums Journal, and other literature. It is one of the most illuminating studies of this subject available, and will be of interest alike to museum workers and to school authorities.

CHAPTER XXIV.

SCHOOL SURVEYS.

By EDWARD FRANKLIN BUCHNER,

Professor of Education and Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University.

List of surveys examined: Of year 1910-Boise. Of 1911-Montclair-Baltimore-Boston-East Orange. Of 1912-Montgomery County, Md.-Vermont (secondary)-Syracuse-Greenwich-Wisconsin-Westchester County, N. Y.-The 48 States-Atlanta. Of 1913-Boise (second)-Bridgeport-St. PaulWaterbury-New York City-Newburgh-Grafton-Upper Peninsula, Mich.-Portland-Minneapolis. Of 1914-Ohio-Vermont-Public School 188B, Manhattan-Butte.

INTRODUCTION.

The present movement in education which is briefly described by the term "survey" has not come upon our activities in a sudden manner. It holds in part historical connection with the more recent tendencies which endeavor to "commission," "rate," and "standardize" various features in educational activity and provisions for educational organization.

The most interesting exhibition of the popular interest in education has been manifested in the city and State commissions which have been created for various purposes. Probably the earliest instance of this type of activity is to be found in the Educational Commission of the City of Chicago, which presented its report in 1897. It was a commission of nine members, appointed by the mayor in such a way as to represent the city council, the board of education, and the outside public. Its primary object was "to utilize all that is good in the present system, to discard all that is defective, and to employ new methods when needed." The work of this commission stood in stately isolation until the middle of the last decade, when, in the city of Cleveland, a study was made by the educational committee (1906) which had been appointed by the board of education to inquire into the government, supervision, and course of study of the Cleveland public schools.

STATE COMMISSIONS.

It is chiefly, however, among the States that the commission movement has been most widely extended. It may be said to have begun in 1905 when the Legislature of Massachusetts organized a commission of nine members for the purpose of investigating "the needs

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for education in the different trades of skill and especially in the various industries of the Commonwealth," "how far the needs are met by existing institutions," and to consider "what new forms of educational effort may be advisable." During the next five years. the various, particular, and general educational problems were committed to investigations to be conducted by educational commissions in the following States: Arkansas (1910), Colorado (1910), Connecticut (1907), Delaware (1909), Idaho (1909), Illinois (1907), Indiana (1911), Iowa (1907), Kansas, Kentucky (1908), Maine (1909), Maryland (1909), Michigan (1909), Montana, Nebraska (1908), North Dakota (1907), New Jersey (1908), Oregon (1909), Pennsylvania (1907), South Carolina (1910), Texas (1909), Utah (1909), Vermont (1909), Virginia (1908), Washington (1907), West Virginia (1909), Wisconsin (1909). By 1908 the effort to secure the benefits of this method of consideration of pressing educational problems had reached such magnitude that the United States Commissioner of Education in his introduction to the Report of the Commissioner of Education (vol. 1, pp. 3-6) attaches to it ranking importance in his analysis of the achievements of the year.1

THE SURVEY MOVEMENT.

Beginning with the Report of the Commissioner of Education for the year ending June 30, 1907, one may find another anticipation of, if not a preparation for, the survey movement as it has developed in more recent years. In this report (vol. 2, ch. 19, pp. 523-541) there appears a special survey of the material in the most recent collections of the bureau which is intended to be an introduction to the statistical papers. In his treatment of this material Prof. Edward L. Thorndike continues

to show in some measure what these statistics reveal that is of interest and significance; first, to all intelligent citizens; second, to the half million men and women who are engaged in the work of teaching; and, third, to those teachers, clergymen, statesmen, and other students of education who lead public opinion, and should preserve expert knowledge.

The topics presented in this chapter include: What the statistics reveal; the facts of the educational census of 1907 and the changes within recent years; types and variations in American education; and educational relations. In the next year's report (1908) (vol. 2, pp. 1057–1075), a similar method of surveying the new material collected by the Bureau of Education was continued by Prof. George D. Strayer in "A summary of the statistical papers." This survey presented the following topics: Data given in the statistical papers; some of the facts concerning the general summary of education sta

1 See also Reports of the Commissioner of Education: 1908, vol. 1, pp. 42-52; 1909, vol. 1, pp. 42-52; 1910, vol. 1, pp. 41-46; 1511, vol. 1, pp. 228-231.

tistics, with special reference to tendencies which are apparent from a comparison of data available since 1870; and to reports and variations in educational practice for the several States. In the report of 1909 (vol. 2, pp. 1327-1352) Prof. Strayer gave a statistical summary of the year's material and selected the following topics for consideration: Review of the papers in the report; financial statistics of city school systems; retardation and acceleration of pupils in city schools. Again in the report of 1910 (vol. 2, pp. vii-xxvi) his introductory survey considered these topics: Selection of statistics; work of the Bureau of Education for schools and improvement of social conditions in Alaska; statistical summarization; retardation and elimination of pupils; the economic status of highschool students; some data concerning normal school students.

The inauguration of the present movement in educational surveys received, without doubt, great impetus from the various efforts to rate schools, which began with the work of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In so far as any of the associations of colleges and preparatory schools in the different sections of the country controlled the activities of their members, the practice of estimating educational performance, as it focalized at the point of entering college, had doubtless gone far to suggest the desirability of this practice. The policy of rating and standardizing has been discovered to be an excellent means of molding public opinion in its constructive attitude toward education. One of these last manifestations is to be found in the very recent effort to apply "the efficiency score card" in the rating of rural schools as "standard" or "superior,' as is being done in Alabama, Illinois, Oregon, West Virginia, and other States.

The school survey movement, however, is the logical outcome of the recent discovery and development of scales and other standards of measurement of the educational progress of individual pupils and an estimation of the comparative positions which these schools and systems of schools occupy in any fields of study. Although many of the surveys that have been made were actuated by more popular interest and gave vent to the tension of local pressure, it is highly probable that the survey movement of the present decade would not have taken form had it not been for the norms, standards, and scales, established during the preceding decade by investigations in teaching school subjects to children and in the administration of city and State systems of schools. The measurement problem and the survey problem in education are not identical, but there is a logical as well as historical connection between them. The measurement problem calls for a detailed and experimental analysis of the facts of a given order; the survey problem calls for a sympathetic and critical treatment of facts of a different order. The former takes educational