Two generations ago school was supplemented by endless opportunity
for play, and children had to work about the house and farm more and
more as they grew to maturity. Play and work were in those days as
plentiful as sunshine and air, and it is no wonder that educational
ideals were developed taking no account of them. But we cling to these
old ideals at the present time when children have no opportunity to
play, when there is an almost complete absence of old fashioned chores
about the home, when boys never see their fathers at work, and when
the only opportunity for boys and girls to work outside the home is
to face the certainty of reckless exploitation! What a piece of
stupidity! Our entire educational system, primary and secondary,
collegiate and technical, is sick with inconsequential bookishness,
and school work has become the most inefficient of all the organized
efforts of men.
Yes but we have our Manual Training Schools and our college courses
in Shop Work and Shop Inspection. Away with such scholastic shams! The
beginnings of manual training must indeed be provided for in school;
paper cutting, sewing and whittling. But from the absurdity of an
Academic Epitome of Industry may the good Lord deliver us! And he will
deliver us, never fear, for the law of economy is His law too.
_The greatest educational problem of our time is how to make use of
commercial and industrial establishments as schools to the extent
that they are schools._
The first object of all work is indeed to get food and clothes and
lodging and fuel, but the essence of work is a human discipline as
kindly and beneficent as the sunshine and the rain, and the greatest
need of our time is that the discipline of work come again to its own
in our entire system of education.
_This book is dedicated to the kind of education that is proving
itself at the University of Cincinnati._
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