Post B - Education and History

The Committee of Ten

The Committee of Ten formed in 1892 eventually creating the first ideas of a widespread High School curriculum. As given by its name it made of up ten people. They were all men and they were all in the education field, some principles, some commissioners, some headmasters and even presidents. The Chairman of the Committee was Charles Eliot, who was the president of Harvard. The Committee of Ten was appointed by the National Education Association. They had two major recommendations. The first was to add some subjects that everyone should learn, and then the second was to teach kids, especially college bound students, certain subjects.
The Committee of Ten recommended eight years of elementary school and four years of secondary education, which has still basically stayed the same to this point in time. The first major subject that everyone thought at that point in time was Classical and Latin. After Latin came Language and English courses. Included in these courses were many of the subjects that people take to this day such as: foreign language, mathematics, science and history.

The Committee of Ten is also known as the Committee on Secondary School Studies. It is commonly called this because many people believe the main idea of it was to focus on the high school years, because those years were what determined your future in college and your interests. The idea that college was the most important became obvious when the report came out of the committee and it established college domination over the high school curriculum. This is still true today; people who go to college often get better jobs than those people who don’t go to college. College gives you the information you need to succeed in your area of choice. They didn’t want to just allow the college bound students to study though, Charles Eliot thought that everyone should be given the opportunity, even if they weren’t heading to college.

At the time the Committee was formed, a very small percentage of the overall students attended high school and college. Those were different times then now, and I believe that is why they formed it in the first place: to raise the interest and allow people to see what they really needed to know. At the time the Committee was formed only six percent of people who could be in high school went, and only two percent of people who could be in college went. Those numbers should have swayed the minds of the National Education Association.

The Committee of Ten affected the history of education by laying down the process by which education should be learned. They recommended a curriculum, which has remained relatively the same, and the focus of many people is still to promote college and get people further in life.