The
rigid inflexibility of the inherited course of study has contributed
perhaps more than its full share to the waste product of the
educational machinery. The importance of this change from compulsion
and rigidity toward greater flexibility has already received attention
and commendation. One authority[57] states that "one main cause of
(H.S.) elimination is incapacity for and lack of interest in the sort
of intellectual work demanded by the present courses of study," and
further that "specialization of instruction for different pupils within
one class is needed as well as specialization of the curriculum for
different classes." There must be less of the assumption that the
pupils are made for the schools, whose regime they must fit or else
fail repeatedly where they do not fit. Theoretically considerable
progress has already been made in the differentiation of curricula, but
in practice the opportunity that is offered to the pupils to profit
thereby is curtailed, because of the rigid organization of courses and
the uniform requirements that are dictated by administrative
convenience or by the college entrance needs of the minority. The only
permissible limitations to the variables of the curriculum should be
such as aim to secure a reasonable continuity and sequence of subjects
in one or more of the fields selected. One of the chief barriers to a
more general flexibility has been the notion of inequality between the
classical and all other types of education.
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