Committee of Fifteen

Background

American educational practice of the 19th century was shaped primarily by faculty psychology, also called mental discipline. Simply stated, this philosophy viewed the mind metaphorically as a muscle. The faculties of the mind—memory, judgment, and imagination—were to be enlarged and strengthened, much as muscles are strengthened through work and exercise. In schools, mental exercise translated into large blocks of time devoted to rote memorization and recitation even though faculty psychology called for holistic development: intellectual, moral, and physical. Only a few classical or humanities subjects were considered capable of helping students develop mental discipline.

However, by the late 19th century, agitation for educational reform related to these problems advanced from several fronts. At the 1888 meeting of the NEA, Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University, called for reform of elementary education. He suggested shortening the elementary school program from 10 years of study to 8 years and realigning the curriculum to allow for enrichment based on student choice. One of the strongest calls for educational reform came from the National Herbartian Society, formed in 1892. Two of the key principles the Herbartians sought to advance were correlation and concentration (conceptual forerunners of contemporary integrated curricula). [Page 185]Correlation referred to the need to bring unity to the fragmented curriculum and help learners understand the natural connections that existed between related areas of knowledge. By concentration, most Herbartians meant using one area of the curriculum, such as history, as the organizing focus for other curriculum areas.

The combined weight of the calls for reform eventually led the NEA to form three committees during the 1890s: the Committee of Fifteen on Elementary Education, the Committee of Ten on Secondary Studies, and the Committee on College Entrance Requirements. When the Committee of Ten, chaired by Eliot, released its report in 1893, it initiated fairly widespread controversy for its limited reforms and reassertion of mental discipline. In this context of controversy, the Committee of Fifteen worked to create its report on elementary education reform. Brooklyn, New York, Superintendent of Schools William H. Maxwell chaired the Committee of Fifteen. To increase efficiency, he divided the group into three subcommittees of five members each. William Torrey Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education and vocal opponent of the Herbartians was named chair of the subcommittee on the correlation of studies (curriculum) and became the major author of the final report. Most members on the Committee of Fifteen were advocates of traditional perspectives of elementary schooling, endorsing either humanities-based education, mental discipline, or a combination of the two.

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