We estimate a man’s worth by his intellectual grasp, his æsthetic and
ethical insight, and his power for action toward right and useful ends.
If these characteristics make the ideal man, they should be the ideal
aim of education, and a study is to be valued as it best contributes
toward developing them. The same test of efficiency is to be applied to
the whole curriculum of a school period.
There is a correlation between the field of knowledge and the knowing
being. The objective world, with its varied content, answers to
the mind with its varied powers. It is through the objective world
of nature and of man that the subject comes to a consciousness of
himself. Each important phase of the objective world makes a distinct
contribution in extent or kind of knowledge to that consciousness. We
do not live in a world where cucumbers grow on trees, or where human
beings fail in their ever-recurring characteristics; and we believe it
possible to discover the kind of value which each source of knowledge
may furnish toward the education of the child, with the expectation
that we shall not find the choice of studies to be a matter of
indifference.
* * * * *
Without laying claim to a best analysis, we may use a customary
division of the field of knowledge: (1) mathematical relations, (2)
natural phenomena, (3) human action, (4) human thought, (5) æsthetic
and ethical qualities. The studies corresponding are (1) mathematics,
(2) natural science, (3) history, (4) language and literature, (5) art
and ethics. Mathematics treats of quantitative knowledge, furnishes a
peculiar intellectual training, and makes possible all commerce, all
great structures, and the higher developments of physical science.
Natural science acquaints us with the field of physical phenomena and
of plant and animal life, is the best training in induction, and is
largely the basis of our material civilization. History reveals the
individual and our present civilization in the light of all human
action, is a source of ethical training, and has high practical value
for the problems of government and society. Literature reveals the
ideal thought and the speculations of men, gives æsthetic and ethical
culture, and in a practical way applies poetry to life. Art and ethics
deal with distinct types of knowledge, cultivate the higher emotional
powers, and, like ideal literature, set up standards of perfection in
execution and in conduct of life.
The world in which we live is the world we are to know in order to
adapt ourselves to it in thought, the world we are to know in order to
gain power to work therein with success, the world we are to know as
representing the thought of the Creator and the correlated nature of
man, the world we are to know to gain the soul’s highest realization,
and, for these ends, to know in its various phases. Each department
of study makes its own peculiar contribution to knowledge, each has
its peculiar fitness for developing some given power of the mind,
each makes its own contribution in preparing the individual for the
practical world. In three distinct ways does each subject have a
peculiar value—for knowledge, for power, for practical life.
While a classification of studies without cross divisions is
impossible, we may say that the first four groups give us the power
of knowledge for action; the fifth, the feeling for perfection of
action and rightness of action; and these, in their exercise and their
tendency, create the right kind of power in action.
Can the exact absolute and relative value of each line of study
be determined? No; but we may make approximate estimates through
philosophical study of the relation of the mind to the world, through
the history of education and the experience of practical teachers.
Every position is tentative and subject to constant readjustment, with
a closer approach to truth. A reinvestigation of many problems through
careful observation of children will doubtless make an important
contribution to knowledge of values, if the experiments are conducted
with a wisdom that takes them out of the realm of fads, and if the
greatest thinkers are not given a seat too far back. Important as this
kind of investigation is, extreme advocates may undervalue the store
of educational philosophy that has become common property. From Cain
and Abel down, the child has always been the observed of all observers;
the adult man recognizes the nature of the child in his own nature,
and has recollections of many of his first conscious experiences. From
the time of the early philosophers, the data have been sufficient to
discover universal truths. Child study serves, not so much to establish
principles, as to bring the teacher’s mind in close sympathy with
the life of the child, in order to observe carefully facts for the
application of principles.
* * * * *
In an ideal course of general training, can there be, in any exact
meaning, an equivalence of studies? As well ask whether one sense can
do the work of another sense in revealing the world to the mind. To be
sure, the fundamental conceptions of the material world can be obtained
through the sense of touch alone; but we also attach importance to
the revelations of sight and hearing, and these revelations have a
different quality. He who lacks these other senses is defective in
sources of soul development. So he who neglects important fields of
knowledge lacks something that is peculiar to them. Each study helps
every other, and before special training begins each is to be used,
up to the time when the student becomes conscious of its meaning. By
contact with nature and society, the child, before the school period,
gets an all-around education. He distinguishes numerically, observes
natural phenomena, notes the deeds of his fellows, gains the thoughts
of others, and begins to perceive the qualities of beauty and right.
The kindergarten promotes all lines of growth; the primary school
continues them. Shall the secondary school be open to broad election?
At a time when some educators of strong influence are proclaiming the
formal theory of education, that power, without reference to content,
is the aim of study, and some universities encourage a wide choice of
equivalents in preparation for admission, and the homes yield to the
solicitation of pupils to omit difficult subjects, it is important to
answer the question in the light of the previous analysis. And we say
no, for the simple reasons that not until the secondary period can
the meaning of the various departments of knowledge be brought within
the conscious understanding, not until then are the various powers
developed to a considerable degree of conscious strength, not until
then has the natural bent of the student been fairly tested. In this
period one would hardly advocate the exclusive study, for instance, of
history to the entire neglect of mathematics and physics; nor would he
advocate the choice of mathematics to the entire neglect of history and
literature.
The question of college electives is to an extent an open one. But it
is clear that when general education ends, special education should
begin, and that indiscriminate choice of studies without purpose is
no substitute, either for a fixed curriculum or for group election in
a special line. We may fully approve the freedom of modern university
education, but not its license. Its freedom gives the opportunity to
choose special and fitting lines of work for a definite purpose; its
license leads to evasion and dilettanteism. We hear of a senior who
took for his electives Spanish, French, and lectures in music and art,
not because they were strong courses in the line of his tastes and
tendencies, but because they were the lines of least resistance. There
appears to be a reactionary tendency toward a more careful guarding of
college electives, together with a shortening of the college course, in
order that genuine university work may begin sooner. If this tendency
prevails, it will become possible to build all professional and other
university courses upon a substantial foundation, and we shall no
longer see law and medical students entering for a degree upon the
basis of a grammar-school preparation.
The opportunity to specialize, which is the real value of college
election, is necessary even for general education. To know all subjects
one must know one subject. The deepening of one kind of knowledge
deepens all knowledge. The strengthening of power in one direction
strengthens the whole man. An education is not complete until one is
fairly master of some one subject, which he may employ for enjoyment,
for instruction, and for use in the world of practical activity.
Here we reach the ultimate consideration on the intellectual side in
estimating educational values.
* * * * *
We who are sometimes called conservative know that we have before us
new problems or a reconsideration of old problems. We believe the
trend of educational thought is right, however some may for a time
wander in strange paths. We know that mental capacity, health, time,
money, home obligations, proposed occupation, and even deviation from
the normal type are all to be considered in planning the education of
a pupil. But the deviations from ideal courses and standards should
be made with ideals in view, a different proposition from denying
the existence or possibility of ideals. We know that the mind is a
unit-being and a self-activity, that it develops as a whole, that there
are no entities called faculties. But suppose the various psychical
activities had never been classified, as they now are, in accordance
with the facts of consciousness, the usage of language and literature,
and the convenience of psychology, what a herald of fresh progress
would he be who would first present mental science in clear groupings!
We may call the world one, but it has many phases; the mind is one, but
it has many phases; these are more or less correlated, and our theory
of educational values stands. We know that interest is the _sine qua
non_ of success in education, and nothing is more beneficent than the
emphasis given this fact to-day. We also know that pleasure is not the
only, not even the most valuable, interest; and that the disagreeable
character of a study is not always a criterion for its rejection. The
pleasure theory will hardly overcome the importance of a symmetrical
education.
In regard to some things, however, some of us must be permitted to move
slowly. We must use the principle of “apperception,” and interpret the
new in the light of that which has for a long time been familiar—attach
it to the “apperception mass”; we must be indulged in our right to use
the “culture-epoch” theory and advance by degrees from the barbaric
stage to that of deeper insight; we must “concentrate” (concentre) with
established doctrines other doctrines that present large claims, and
learn their “correlations” and “coördinations.”
A new object or idea must be related to and explained by the knowledge
already in mind; it must be so placed and known, or it is not an idea
for us. If “apperception” means the act of explaining a new idea by the
whole conscious content of the child’s mind, then it is the recognized
process of all mental growth. In a given study, topics must be arranged
in logical order, facts must be so organized as to constitute a
consistent whole; important relations with other studies must be noted,
and one subject must be made to help another as opportunity arises.
If “correlation” means to unite and make clear parts of subjects and
subjects by discovery of valuable mutual relations, then it is a
vital principle of all good teaching. Studies, while preserving their
integrity, must be adjusted to each other in time and sequence so
that a harmonious result may be produced. If “coördination” means the
harmonious adjustment of the independent functions of departments of
study, we recognize it as an old acquaintance.
If the theory of “culture-epochs” finds a parallel, in order of
development, between race and individual, and throws light upon the
selection of material for each stage of the child’s growth, then let
the theory be used for all it is worth. Its place, however, will be
a subordinate one. Here are the world and the present civilization
by means of which the child is to be educated, to which he is to be
adjusted. Select subjects with reference to nature as known by modern
science, with reference to modern civilization, and the hereditary
accumulation of power in the child to acquire modern conceptions.
If “concentration” means subordinating all other subjects of learning
to a primary subject, as history or literature, which is to be used
as a centre throughout the elementary period, we refuse to give it a
place as an important method in education. Intrinsically there is no
such thing as a primary centre except the child himself. He possesses
native impulses that reach out toward the field of knowledge, and in
every direction. It is difficult to imagine a child to be without
varied interests. Did you ever see a boy who failed to enumerate his
possessions, investigate the interior of his automatic toy, delight in
imaginative tales, applaud mock-heroic deeds, and appreciate beautiful
objects and right action? If the child lacks normal development
and has not the apperceiving mind for the various departments of
knowledge, create new centres of apperception and interest, cultivate
the neglected and stunted powers. The various distinct aspects of the
objective world suggest the selection of studies; the nature of the
mind suggests the manner in which the elements of knowledge are to
be organized. The parts of a subject must be distinctly known before
they are correlated; subjects must be distinctly known before they
are viewed in a system of philosophy. Knowledge is not organized by
artificial associations, but by observing the well-known laws of
classification and reasoning. Moreover, all laws of thought demand that
a subject be developed in a definite and continuous way, and that side
illustration be employed only for the purpose of clearness. In practice
the method of concentration can but violate this principle.
We may ask whether apperception, correlation, coördination, and
concentration are anything but a recognition of the laws of
association. The laws of association in memory are nothing but the law
of acquisition of knowledge, as all good psychology points out. These
laws include relations of time, place, likeness, analogy, difference,
and cause. Add to these laws logical sequence in the development of
a subject, and you have all the principles of the methods named.
Have these investigations an important value? Yes. They explain and
emphasize pedagogical truths that have been neglected. Having performed
their mission and having added to the progress of educational theory,
they will give way to new investigations. This is the history of all
progress.
* * * * *
The subject of interest deserves a further thought. It goes without
saying that all a man thinks, feels, and does centres around his own
personality, and, in that sense, is a self-interest. But we are not
to infer that, therefore, interest must be pleasure. We are born with
native impulses to action, impulses that reach out in benevolence and
compassion for the good of others, impulses that reach out toward the
truth and beauty and goodness of the world, without regard to pleasure
or reward. These impulses tend toward the perfection of our being, and
the reward lies in that perfection, the possession of a strong and
noble intellectual, æsthetic, and ethical character. The work of the
teacher is to invite these better tendencies by presenting to them the
proper objects for their exercise in the world of truth, beauty, and
right. Interest and action will follow, and, later, the satisfaction
that attends right development. Whenever this spontaneous interest does
not appear and cannot be invited, the child should face the fact that
some things must be, because they are required, and are for his good.
When a course of action is obviously the best, and inclination does not
lead the way, duty must come to the rescue.
We are not touching this matter as an old ethical controversy, but
because it is a vital practical problem of to-day in education, because
the pleasure theory is bad philosophy, bad psychology, bad ethics,
bad pedagogy, a caricature of man, contrary to our consciousness of
the motives of even our ordinary useful acts, a theory that will make
a generation of weaklings. Evolution does not claim to show that
pleasure is always a criterion of useful action. Herbert Spencer in
his “Ethics” says: “In many cases pleasures are not connected with
actions which must be performed nor pains with actions which must be
avoided, but contrariwise.” He postpones the complete coincidence of
pleasure with ideal action to the era of perfect moralization. We await
the evolutionist’s millennium. Much harm as well as much good has been
done in the name of Spencer by well-meaning teachers, and much harm has
been done in the name of physiological psychologists; we would avoid
a misuse of their noble contributions to educational insight. Listen
to a view of physiological psychology with reference to the law of
habit: “Do every day or two something for no other reason than that
you would rather not do it. The man who has daily inured himself to
habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial
in unnecessary things, will stand like a tower when everything rocks
around him and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff
in the blast.” The fact is, it is impossible to create character,
energy, and success without effort that is often painful. This view is
an essential part of our theory of educational values.