The Junior-College Curriculum

Abstract

or any other phase of its administration. It may now be taken for granted that it will have a place-and an important place-in the American school system, although we may not be certain of the specific form or forms it will assume. As the writer has recently been at work on a recount of the junior colleges of the country and has at hand some of the data on the growth of the movement, it may give point to the desirability of considering the junior-college curriculum to cite certain of the findings of this recount before proceeding with the chief concern of this presentation. It may be reported that, with the junior-college divisions of the universities omitted from the count, there are now well over three hundred junior colleges in operation in the United States. This is approximately a hundred more such units than were in existence five years ago-an increase of about 50 per cent. These institutions are distributed among three main typespublic junior colleges, junior colleges on state foundations, and private junior colleges. Units of the first group are parts of publicschool systems. They now number about one hundred-more than twice the number reported in 1922. Of the three types, this group experienced the most rapid development during the five-year period. As may be inferred from the designation, the junior colleges on state foundations are maintained as state institutions or as parts of state institutions, not including state universities and four-year state colleges. Five years ago three-fourths of the twenty-four then in existence were operated in connection with normal schools and teachers' colleges, most of the remainder being branches of other higher institutions. The thirty or more in existence in 1927 are a much 657