Whatever the conditions are, educational leadership there must be. Although the leader must be a thoughtful educator, he does not do the thinking for the faculty; he stimulates and challenges their thinking. Ile respects their worth, believes in their integrity, welcomes their best thought, and unites them in the great common cause of making education more fruitful for every boy and girl in the school. Ile keeps all eyes constantly upon the students.

The pupils, too, have an important part in school reconstruction. To those who have been working with the schools during the eight years of the Study, it seems that the most profound change is the shift in emphasis from subject matter to the boys and girls themselves. Curriculum content is still important, but only as it helps young people with their problems of living in our democracy. Whatever the school does, finds its value in service to youth. It follows, then, that they should share in making the curriculum. Experience bas taught that high school students are well able to share effectively in school reconstruction. Many of them have surprised and delighted their teachers by the mature and constructive thought which they have brought to the problem when they were invited to think with teachers and parents about the work of the school.

Therefore, the participating schools advise taking students into partnership in changing the general life of the school and in revising the curriculum. Their ability to share responsibility in school organization and government has been demonstrated in schools everywhere, but their readiness and capacity for participation in curriculum making have only recently been discovered. In many of the member schools students are now habitually consulted concerning curriculum problems, and teacher-pupil planning is becoming an established practice.

The reasons for pupil participation are compelling. The schools have taken the position that the source of the curriculum is to Ile found in the concerns of youth and in the nature of the society which the school serves. Therefore, youth should have opportunity to ask that the schools heed their needs and to tell what some of those needs are. An even more vital reason for their sharing is that the kind of life we seek in America can Ile achieved only by full participation in planning for the common welfare and in meeting common responsibilities. School is the place for youth to develop the habit of co-operative thought and skill in group action.

Even with competent leadership and effective student cooperation, no school can go very far along the road of reconstruction without freedom to act according to its best judgment. The schools in the Study have had that freedom for eight years. A plan is proposed earlier in this chapter by which all schools may have the freedom essential to progress. When it comes, schools will learn, as the Thirty Schools did, that greater freedom entails greater responsibility for wise guidance of youth. But young people cannot be counseled wisely by the school unless each individual is well known by some teacher. Ways by which each boy and girl can be known intimately have been suggested in t1lese pages.³ However, intimate knowledge of a student does not of itself bring intelligent guidance. Teachers must have time and opportunity to use that knowledge to the student's advantage. The wisest teachers should have the largest measure of responsibility for counseling. Sometimes specialized, professional advice is needed, but of one thing the schools are sure: that guidance cannot be divorced from the everyday work of the classroom. All teachers share this responsibility.

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