James Fleming Hosic (1870--1959) entered into prominence on the national scene in 1917 when he produced the report known as the Reorganization of English in Secondary Schools. Originating over protests with the 'college lists,' the report came to be regarded by both English teachers and administrators as a curriculum guide for English instruction throughout the secondary school years. Its wide acceptance nationwide established progressive practices as the accepted approaches to secondary curriculum in English.;As a leader in urban school reform, Hosic saw an evident need to serve the different type of population that was entering the nation's secondary schools. In order to better relate the teaching of English to the demands of the times, in 1911, Hosic had established the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and its organ, The English Journal (1912), "to coordinate and unite the English teachers of the country as a whole." Under the direction of Hosic, a five-year effort yielded a report, the Reorganization of English in Secondary Schools (1917) that would serve as the exemplar for its parent report, the Cardinal Principles Report (1918).;An examination of Hosic's life and contributions in the area of curriculum reform in secondary English showed that he was a part of the rise of the educated expert to a position of prominence as public education moved closer to the center of American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hosic, however, sought reform through the authority of representative groups which, he believed, alone had the authority to reform general school practice rather than bureaucracies.;In accordance with prevalent educational theories and practices, he sought the emancipation of English from the past and the reduction of its content to those activities that were of a strictly practical and usable nature. As an educator who helped establish the progressive structure in English, Hosic's journal articles, method books, and course books laid the foundation for the emerging, modern, secondary English curriculum and led to the conception of English as functional rather than formal in character. An analysis of the more influential of his writings revealed a consistent responsiveness to the persistent problems in education such as public school supervision, the stimulus of his professional endeavors during his years as a professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University from 1921 to 1936. |