Superintendent Wirt of Gary, Indiana, has established such a
twelve-year course in the Emerson School. The grades, numbered from one
to twelve, are so arranged that a girl may take half of her subjects in
school year eight (last grammar grade) and the other half in school year
nine (first high school grade). In order to make the harmony more
complete, Mr. Wirt places the elementary rooms, containing the second
grade pupils, next door to the rooms which shelter high school seniors.
On this side of the hall is a kindergarten; directly across from it is a
class in high school geometry.

The same plan, on a larger scale, has been adopted by I. B. Gilbert,
principal of the Union High School, Grand Rapids, Michigan, which houses
twelve hundred students.

"We have obliterated the sharp line of distinction between the grades,"
declared Mr. Gilbert. "The school, which is a new one, has a very
complete equipment--physical, chemical, and biological laboratories, two
cooking rooms, dressmaking and millinery rooms, an art department, a
woodworking shop, a forge room and a machine shop; the print shop,
though not yet installed, is to be put in this year. By bringing
children of all grades to the school, we place at the disposal of grade
pupils apparatus ordinarily reserved for high school pupils only. At the
same time, our equipment is in constant use and the cost of establishing
a separate industrial department or school for the grades is eliminated.

"These are merely the surface advantages, however. The real gain to the
students is in other and most significant directions. First, the
abolishing of rigid grading allows each child to follow his own bent. At
the beginning of the adolescent period, when the old interests begin to
lag, some new ideas must be furnished if the child is to be kept in
school. We provide that new stimulus by beginning departmental work
with the seventh year (at twelve or thirteen). Then, if the child shows
any particular preference for any line of work, he may pursue it. From
the seventh grade up, promotion is by subjects entirely, and not by
grades. If a student elects art, she may follow up her art work for the
next six years; similarly, a boy may follow shop-work, or a girl
domestic science or millinery. In order to fit the school more quickly
to the pupils' need, we make a division at the beginning of the eighth
grade of those pupils desiring to take academic work and those desiring
to take indust