Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/375

 FURTHER EXPANSION 329 and here the great buildings were placed. Thus there was gathered within the School of Education a complete school system a kindergarten, an elementary school, a high school, a college, and a graduate department. The High School, the Elementary School, and the Kindergarten were the laboratory schools of the College of Education. Following the retirement of Dean Belfield, in 1910, Franklin W. Johnson, his associate, became Dean of the University High School. The school grew in numbers, and in 1913 the attendance was restricted to four hundred, action resulting in an annual waiting-list. In the Elementary and High schools a serious effort was made to prepare students for college in a shorter time than the tra- ditional system required. President Judson was thoroughly persuaded that this could be done with great advantage to the student. In 1909 Professor Charles H. Judd of Yale University was made Director of the School of Education. He was in com- plete sympathy with the President's great purpose. In his annual report to the President in 1913 he reported the problem in process of solution, saying: In the Elementary School the experiment of reducing the regular period of instruction to seven years has been consummated. From this year on there will be only seven grades in the school. This reduction in time has been achieved without curtailing the course of study. The method of reduction was through the elimination of repetitions, the adoption of more efficient methods of instruction, and the more complete articulation of elementary courses with the work of the secondary school. The same type of readjust- ment of the relations of the High School to the Junior College is possible and constitutes the next large problem of the laboratory schools. A year later Dean Johnson of the High School reported: Judged by the resurts of the year's work, the elimination of the eighth grade in our Elementary School has proved a complete success The problem of further elimination of waste in the period of secondary education is being vigorously attacked. Thus was a problem being worked out the importance and practical value of the solution of which it would be hard to over- estimate. Under Mr. Judd's leadership the School of Education rapidly developed. As in the Graduate Schools the Summer was the