Long Count

The Germans, it now appears, are not likely to conquer the physical U.S. But they conquered the minds of U.S. educators long ago. The German doctrines of scientific pedagogy and of the squirrelish accumulation of facts (Ph.D.) are still the U.S. fashion. Anyone curious to know what is wrong with U.S. education would do well to examine briefly a new book titled A Basic Vocabulary of Elementary School Children (Macmillan; $6).

Henry D. Rinsland, Ph.D., professor of education (on military leave) at the University of Oklahoma, spent many months of his time (and hundreds of other people's) and $25,000 of federal (WPA) and University funds in counting and tabulating 6,012,359 words in 100,212 compositions by as many first-to-eighth-grade pupils in 708 U.S. schools. His solemn purpose : to determine what words are used to what extent by what pupils so that teachers may use such words to such an extent in instructing such pupils.

Dr. Rinsland begins by mentioning 19 other studies in the last 24 years (including one of his own) which purport to achieve practically the same object. Then, on the 600-odd pages that follow, he lists and notates the 14,571 words occurring three or more times in any one grade. They begin with a, which occurred 14,830 times in the 353,874 first-grader words which were studied, thus placing it in the "first one hundred of the first five hundred of the first one thousand" most frequently used words in that grade. (In the second grade, a occurred 18,571 times, etc., etc.) They end with zoological, which occurs only five times in 910,754 seventh-grader words and only four times in 1,088,343 eighth-grader words, placing it respectively in the seventh and eighth thousand most frequently used words in those grades.

Before he got very far in this monumental project, Dr. Rinsland noted "that some differences as to meanings of the same word forms (spellings) should be made." He offers the reassurance that "a very comprehensive beginning has been made" and will be continued "in counting every separate meaning." Meantime, says he modestly: "[This work] will bring suggestions for further research. . . ."

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