the harmonious development of all the faculties, the one-sided, somewhat
restricted, or undeveloped, view of Pestalozzi and others of his
followers, surely not individual efficiency for personal gain, the
selfish view of crass materialism, but social efficiency is the
present-day motive in education. And the definition of education takes
on a different color. Not merely the development of inner life but in
conjunction with that or in addition to it, _the development in the
individual of the power of adjustment to an ever changing social
environment_. And likewise the school becomes more than a place in which
the child can discover himself. Aye, it is the instrument that democracy
has fashioned for realizing its broad and humanitarian ideal. Democracy
is ever striving for closer and more harmonious relation between its
members, a greater degree of social justice, and the school is its
efficient means.
These two tendencies, the psychological and the sociological,--only two
since the narrow individualistic was never accepted and is now being
rapidly eliminated--these two are not antagonistic nor mutually
exclusive. The difference is largely in point of view or emphasis. One
may say that they are but the two sides of the same shield but the fact
remains that there _are_ two sides. There is a difference and the change
came as suggested. And the change has modified conditions on the firing
line. Ever since Mr. Spencer asked his suggestive question, "what
knowledge is of most worth," the question of educational values has been
raised and the curriculum has come under close scrutiny. The result has
been a modification. The purely linguistic and literary, that which does
not function directly for preparation in life and society, is slowly
giving way to that which deals with the facts and forces of nature and
of social institutions.
Thus far I have tried to make plain the great educational campaign in
which we are engaged, as seen on the firing line,--to point out the goal
before us, universal education, of course, and social efficiency for
each member of the group. That suggests at once as a definition of
education, the one made famous by Herbert Spencer more than a half
century ago, "_Preparation for complete living._" That was good as a
start in the new direction, but one of the most prominent generals of
our educational forces now commanding at the front, John Dewey of
Columbia University, has suggested a modification which brings it up to
date and gives the key-note of explanation to the tactics now in vogue
out there in the front ranks. He says that instead of being the
preparation for life, education is life itself. Some without trying to
probe deeply into the thought back of the trenchant expression, have
said that this was a mere play upon words. But Dewey is not a man who
plays with words. What he meant by the statement is that the child is
best prepared for life as an adult by living the right kind of life as a
child. That is by living a life that has real meaning to him now, a
normal natural life, putting forth those activities that spring from
within, not merely sitting behind a narrow desk trying to memorize wordy
descriptions of complicated facts thought to be useful to him later on.
And when we go out and see what they are doing on the firing line we
shall see just that being done.
CHILD STUDY
But perhaps I should guard against a possible misapprehension. In
eliminating the materialistic point of view in individualism--narrow
individual development for personal gain--we have not thrown aside the
goal of development suggested by Rousseau and Pestalozzi. Advanced
educational thought has that prominently in mind--the discovery of the
child's latent powers--his possibilities--his tastes--his "bent" and the
development of the same. But while with them that was the goal, the end
in view, and a somewhat selfish one, even tho not crassly materialistic,
it has become, with us, a means to a larger end, namely, social
betterment. The child must be known and developed to enable it to be
able to contribute its largest quota to the welfare of society.
With this general direction of educational activity made plain, and
incidentally the character of the activities along the entire battle
front, let us pass to a consideration of a few specific activities that
will illustrate the general movement. Let us bear in mind that we have
in view, in the first place, the individual child whose tastes and
aptitudes we must discover and, on the basis of discovery, whose fullest
development, consistent with the rights of others, we must seek. And the
reason for this, you know, is that only as this is done and he is
prepared to do that kind of work in the world for which his tastes best
adapt him--only thus can he be made the most efficient member of society
possible. Because, as Plato said, centuries ago, "Society is but the
individual writ large"--a collection of individuals. The foundation of
all things in social life is the individual.
Now, I'll admit, at once, that that is not the program of the rank and
file of the schools. It should be, but it isn't. What the schools are
trying to do, in the main, is to teach the children a lot of facts that
tradition says would be well for them to know when they become adults,
wholly irrespective of the child's present attitude toward these
facts--whether or not they have meaning for him. What the high schools
are trying to do is to teach the relatively few who survive this grade
program, in addition to these elementary tradition-directed facts of
knowledge, a lot more of meaningless matter prescribed by the colleges
and listed under that alluring title, "entrance requirements." And as a
result of these programs the schools are sending altogether too many of
their boys and girls into society unacquainted with themselves, and
ill-fitted for any useful occupation, and therefore out of sympathy with
the serious work of the world. They are misfits in the social and
economic world and are obliged to take their places in the ranks of the
lowest-paid of unskilled labor--and work up if they can.
Now, what is being done on the firing lines to remedy this situation
and to usher in the new day? Well, first, in our normal
schools--institutions established and maintained for the simple purpose
of preparing young people for teaching children--great emphasis is being
placed upon the study of the child. It is felt that only as the teacher
understands the child mind and the laws of its development can she
direct that development aright. (That's a sensible point of view, isn't
it? And yet it is only on the firing line in educational practise that
we find it recognized. Without that factor of equipment, the teacher is
teaching subjects, not boys and girls.) In many normal schools child
study is one of the required subjects--no one may graduate or be
recommended for a teaching position who has not taken it. It should be
required in all--and will be a little later on. No person should be
allowed to occupy the position of teacher of children who has not made
such a study--and proved himself efficient in it. Boards of education
should demand it even if some normal schools do not yet require it for
graduation. It is far and away the most important part of the teacher's
professional equipment.
And then in our schools of education and teachers colleges--institutions
set apart for preparing teachers for our high schools and for
administrative positions--the study of adolescence is receiving
increasing attention. The high school boy and the high school girl are
being made the subjects of close, careful, scientific study. It is
thought that in order to deal effectively with these young people the
high school teacher should understand those marvelous changes--physical,
mental, and moral--thru which they are passing. How else can one know
how to check where checking is needed (and it usually is needed
somewhere along the line); to guide where the pathway is obscure (and
every adolescent is sure to pass thru valleys of darkness during the
high school course); and to inspire where inspiration is lacking (and
with some it is lacking a good deal of the time)--in a word, how else
than thru a knowledge of the situation can one be the "philosopher,
guide, and friend" that the adolescent always needs?
Do you know that about one-fourth of all students who enter the freshman
classes of our high schools, thruout the United States, drop out before
the close of the first semester? Do you know, too, that the elimination
continues right along until that one-fourth is made more than one-half
before graduation day arrives? Now, these boys and girls enter full of
hope and expectation, eager and ambitious for what the high school is
supposed to do for them; they do not plan to drop out before completing
the course--nor do their parents plan to have them do so. Why do they do
it? What has changed their point of view and sent them from the school,
sad and disappointed, and their parents dissatisfied with both school
and child? What is it? Do you want me to tell you? The situation has
been the subject of investigation in many places thruout the country,
and the conclusion reached by thoughtful men and women, unbiased
students of educational practises, is that, while many influences
combine to bring about that unfortunate result, the chief cause of this
high mortality is the unsympathetic attitude of high school teachers
toward the adolescent. But, you may ask, why unsympathetic? Because they
regard them as fickle, unstable, and irrational, and so have but little
patience with them. I'll admit that the adolescent seems all that at
times, but that is only on the surface. The developmental
changes--physical and moral--thru which he is passing often make the
life during this period one of turmoil. From fourteen to eighteen--the
normal high school period--is frequently called the "storm and stress
period" of life. Not having made a study of the situation, high school
teachers, in the main, do not know the fundamental scientific facts, and
therefore can not account for actions, points of view, signs of
waywardness, lack of appreciation, poor lessons, etc., etc., that
sometimes characterize the youth while a student in the high school.
They often lay to an unclean mind what springs from a perfectly normal
development of the sex function; they are sure that moral perversity is
the basis of actions that are more correctly explained by reference to a
moral nature merely in the process of development; they think that pure
laziness alone explains the lack of vigorous work, whereas the boy is
growing so fast that he has no strength for anything else; they scold
him for being awkward and say it is due to carelessness and a slip-shod
mind, because they do not know that the muscles sometimes grow faster
than the bones, making accurate co-ordination a physical impossibility;
in a word, to general, all round cussedness they charge behavior that
should be referred to high blood pressure, aching bones, the knitting
together by fiber growth of the various brain centers, and finally, to
youthful enthusiasm, all of which are perfectly normal signs of
developing youth. They do it because they do not know any better. They
are ignorant of many things that touch, and vitally, the young people
with whom they are working. But how could it be otherwise? They have
never given any reflective thought to the matter. The term "half-baked"
that they often apply to the adolescent in disgust, or in coarse jest,
is, from this point of view, more applicable to themselves.
That, I say,--the unsympathetic attitude of the high school teacher
toward the adolescent--is the chief cause of the high mortality of high
school students. That, coupled with another, that springs from the same
fundamental situation--ignorance of the needs and points of view of the
adolescent--tho not so chargeable to the individual class teacher as to
the school system as a whole, local, state, and national, pretty nearly
cover the ground. The other cause to which I refer is the course of
study and program of activities that are so ill-adapted to the tastes,
and needs, and capacities of adolescent boys and girls--studies and
activities that have no real meaning to them and that fit them for
nothing definite save college entrance where the same old process,
meaningless to many, often goes on for another period.
What is being done on the firing line to better such conditions? A good
deal; quite a good deal. Normal schools and schools of education here
and there, the former more than the latter, are now giving attention to
the matter, requiring in some cases and urging in others, prospective
teachers to become intelligent in regard to the lives they are to
direct. It is being done at our own institution as at others. This year
Dr. Todd has given instruction in child study to nearly one hundred
young men and women who are looking forward to teaching in the grades,
and I have had a group of some thirty-five or forty prospective high
school teachers and superintendents who have been making a careful study
of adolescence. I guarantee that these people will not make the crude
and unfeeling blunders that I have mentioned as too common among high
school teachers, as they run. These are firing-line activities. They
were nearly new a dozen years ago. My introduction of such courses in
our University was smiled at indulgently by some of my colleagues and
sharply criticised, especially the work in adolescence, by others. They
are not yet required of students preparing to teach, but have evidently
demonstrated their value since, tho in no sense snap courses, they have
become very popular.
As illustrative of this work let me refer to a notable recent action of
the legislature of Iowa. It has just passed an Act appropriating to the
State University $25,000 a year for the purpose of financing what is
called a "child-welfare" campaign. The plan is to make an exhaustive
scientific study of the child from both the physiological and
psychological points of view, to the end that it may be better known and
thus more satisfactorily guided in its educational career.
One other thing, in this same connection, is being done on our firing
lines all over the country--something that is hoped will set the people
at large, parents and citizens generally, to thinking sanely on
educational matters and ere long rectify our blunders as to subjects of
study and general school activities and thus result in sending the
children out efficient workmen in suitable fields. I refer to addresses
and discussions such as this and others, to articles in newspapers and
magazines, and the educational press, and to even more extensive and
thoro discussions put out in book form from time to time for the laymen.
The old darkey says, "The world do move." We sometimes think it moves
very slowly, but yet it "do move." Tho we can't see it move, we can, by
looking back, see that it has moved.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Another thing for which we are fighting out on the firing lines is an
adequate system of physical education. This would include periodical
medical inspection of every child from the kindergarten up; it would
also include the school nurse and the visiting nurse, and, as well, free
public clinics for ear, eye, nose, throat, and tooth difficulties. It
would also include, for mental and moral as well as physical ends,
well-equipt playground and gymnasium facilities under the direction of
men and women expert and skilful in those fields--and these would be in
operation the entire year.
The physical education of the child and adolescent should be as
carefully planned, as scientifically workt out in a positive way, as the
intellectual. Why not? Because you know--every intelligent person
knows--that the physical is the basis for the mental and the moral. You
know--we all know--that a sound, a healthy, a sane life can not be
developt in an unsound or a diseased body. Then why are these activities
merely on the firing lines and not a part of the regular program?
Because ignorance, and prejudice, and selfishness, and stubbornness, and
penuriousness are still keeping many people in the trenches. But they
will be dislodged. Just as sure as fate they will be driven from cover.
They are fighting a losing battle. They are standing in the way of an
irresistible movement that is sure to engulf them. If there were time I
should like to describe just what is being done along this line in some
places and give the reflex influence of the same on the community. It
has surely meant a new heaven and a new earth to many a child, and
glimmerings of the same to many a community. But I pass to less
spectacular matters, continuing to discuss principles rather than
illustrations.
THE EDUCATIONAL SURVEY
Another matter of interest these days is the educational survey that has
been taken up by many progressive communities. The plan is, as many of
you know, to subject the school system of a city or community to a
searching investigation in order to discover, if possible, its weak
points, if it has any, to the end of their betterment. Experts are
brought in who, without fear or favor, examine the system from all
possible points of view--location and arrangement of school buildings
including heating, lighting, and general health conditions, adequacy of
playground and athletic facilities, the extent to which the schools are
satisfying community needs in the way of equipt workmen and the needs of
the young people for equipment for suitable work, the cost of the
system, attendance, methods of teaching and supervision, course of
study, etc. Outside experts are brought in for various reasons: known to
have no personal interest in the outcome, their reports are likely to be
received with greater respect; and, too, a local committee, thru
nearness and very familiarity, would fail to notice features, good as
well as bad, that might at once attract the attention of strangers. Many
cities, ranging from 2500 to half a million people, have already availed
themselves of the survey with, in the main, very gratifying results. Not
only have cities used the survey, but other units of educational
administration. There have been a few very significant and interesting
rural school surveys by counties in several states. A similar study has
been made of several State universities, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada, for
example. I notice that the legislature of Minnesota has just arranged
for a survey of theirs. You all recall that such a survey was made of
all the institutions of higher education of North Dakota only a short
time ago. The general feeling is that it was well worth while. Such and
even more extensive surveys have already been made in five other
states--Oregon, Iowa, Washington, Colorado, and Wyoming. The end sought
in each and all of these surveys, whether city schools, higher
institutions, or state-wide systems, is greater efficiency--larger
service to society. A survey of this character is usually followed by a
detailed printed report that is generously distributed resulting in
greater interest in the schools and a more intelligent appreciation of
their work and their needs.
VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE
Much has been said in recent years about vocational education. The
schools have been severely criticised for not teaching trades. Many have
demanded that that be the dominating motive in all our schools,
especially in the high schools. The educational press, for the last
decade, has kept the matter in the limelight. Books have been written
calling attention to the heavy dropping out of school of pupils even
before reaching high school age wholly unfitted to do anything above the
most menial and lowest-paid work. They have argued strenuously and
sometimes logically for better things. To this program the objection has
been raised that children in these early years are not yet ready to
choose their work of life; that they do not yet sufficiently know
themselves--their own tastes and capacities for such serious choice; it
has also been urged that to place before children such attractive
objective features would result in swerving many from the normal pathway
of their development and check it midway. The result has been what might
be called a compromise, and the firing-line activities have been
somewhat modified. Not vocational education but vocational guidance is
now more nearly the thought. And this has a much larger content, a
background, a more scientific basis, and one organically connected with
the larger movement of which I have already spoken--the social motive
in education supplemented by the individual involving the discovery and
development of taste and capacity.
I have already called attention to the high mortality of high school
students. The reasons I have given are the lack of sympathy that the
teacher has with the adolescent and the lack of meaning found in the
work being done. The same facts account for the heavy elimination that
takes place in the upper grades of the elementary school. But both are
being remedied to some extent. The first thru the child-study movement
and the second thru the matter of vocational guidance. And the two are
very closely connected as one can see at a glance. Thru the child-study
movement the teacher comes to know child nature so well that direct
application can be made to the individual child and an intimate
knowledge gained of his tastes, capacities, ambitions, and dominant
interests. This will enable her to give the subject matter definite
meaning in the early years, and, later on, when vocations begin to
attract, the guiding may be intelligent and the final choice a suitable
one. From the beginning of the adolescent period there should be
opportunities furnished by the school or thru its co-operative effort
for children to test themselves in various lines--academic lines,
vocational lines. They should, in a word, be vocationally tempted in as
many different directions as possible so as to come to know themselves
so well that the final settling will not be haphazard. In these ways
they should be guided into their vocations, definite ones, just as early
in life as they can be adequately prepared for them. For example:--if
his tastes and capacities fit a certain boy for merely a mechanical
pursuit that requires but little academic learning, such as carpentry,
plumbing, blacksmithing, brick laying, etc., he should, relatively early
in the adolescent period, be thus guided, and not forced to attempt an
academic course that can have no possible meaning to him. This would
send him out, a productive member of society, happy in his work because
suited to him and efficient in it because fitted for doing it well. If,
on the other hand, tastes and capacities fit for academic or
professional careers, such as medicine, law, teaching, or engineering,
the principle would remain the same but the program would differ. The
academic work, meaningless to the prospective plumber, or dressmaker,
would be full of meaning to the embryo lawyer or teacher, and the period
of preparation much prolonged.
Such are the points of view that teachers should hold, and such the
opportunities that schools should offer. And it is all being found out
on the firing lines. This program is being carried out to some extent in
many places in different parts of the country. The time is not very far
distant when something of the kind will be demanded in all our towns.
For out in the front ranks the high school is no longer regarded chiefly
as a preparatory for college. Out there it is seen to possess a much
larger function--assisting the child--every child--to form its own
acquaintance and to begin the planning of its future. In other words,
the thought on the firing line is that the high school is an institution
established by a community for community purposes--to take its young
people--all of them--and guide them thru the difficult and transitional
period of adolescence, directing, inspiring, shaping, checking,
developing for the largest manhood and womanhood possible and providing
the community with efficient workmen in various lines.
THE EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST
While there are many other activities, significant and interesting, that
might well be considered in such a treatment as this, I shall close with
a very brief mention of one more--the place and work of the educational
psychologist in our modern system.