procedure is that termed _educational mesurements_, perhaps better
called the _mesurement of intelligence_. About a generation ago it began
to be observed that many children did not pass thru the grades with the
regularity that was thought normal or desirable. Many were obliged to
repeat grades--they did not "pass," to use the language of the schools.
The more the matter was investigated, the more serious was it seen to
be. Investigation has gone on until at last carefully gathered
statistics tell us that almost, if not quite, one-half of all the
children in the schools fail to progress thru the grades at the expected
rate. For some reason, or for some combination of reasons, they are
retarded from one to three years. And of the $400,000,000 annually spent
to carry on the work of the schools it is estimated that from
$40,000,000 to $50,000,000 go every year in attempts to teach these
retarded ones what they have already tried but failed to learn. Here was
a double loss, a financial one of large proportions and a human one of
much more serious import. Why the retardation? And what could be done to
check it?
Thoughtful consideration was given to the matter with the following
revelation: it was seen that in educational procedure all matters of
grading, promotion, even choice of subject matter where there was a
choice, were being handled on the basis of results of tests of
information--possession of knowledge facts--rather than of ability or
intelligence. This might not be so bad if the knowledge sought in these
tests were knowledge necessary to have in order to function adequately
in the new or advanced environment. But usually no such relationship
could be traced. It was but another illustration of no present meaning
connected with the work of the school. A remedy was sought, and is being
sought, in trying to substitute for the information test a test of
intelligence. It is generally admitted that neither one is an adequate
mesure of the other. A child may have a very high grade of intelligence
and yet make a very poor showing in the ordinary schoolroom test for
knowledge, not that he has been unable to learn such facts but merely
that his interests and attention have not been thus focust. On the other
hand, it is entirely possible for one of low-grade intelligence to
receive a very creditable "mark" in a test for information since it is
frequently a test of verbal memory, that "great simulator of
intelligence," as Binet calls it.
One of the most interesting of the books bearing upon this new
educational movement is _The Measurement of Intelligence_ by Professor
Terman of Leland Stanford University. In the thoughts just exprest I
have used material found in this book.
So, for a few years now, educational psychologists have been trying to
work out a series of tests of intelligence, so that children may be
located on the basis of their general intelligence, or ability to
accomplish results. The results so far are very promising as tending to
eliminate much of the loss mentioned above. And out on our firing lines
the educational psychologist is being looked upon as a necessity in any
system looking forward to real efficiency. It is thought that thru the
saving he could effect in the two directions cited his regular
employment would be a matter of economic foresight. A few years ago it
was the school physician who was being fought for out in the front
ranks. He is now a fixture in every up-to-date school system, and it is
the psychologist for whom battle is now being waged. And it is only a
question of time when his position will be secure and the line pushed
forward for another attack.
I have discust with you briefly some of the interesting points of view
of the education of to-day. I have tried to place before you, first,
what I think to be its dominant motive--social betterment, made
effective thru discovery and development of the individual's tastes and
dominant interests. To show how this program is becoming established and
worked out, I have touched upon various new lines of activity in
sympathy with and contributing to the general movement. Thus I discust
briefly the great child-study movement having for its goal knowledge of
the individual child as a basis for its educational treatment. Following
this I spoke of physical education--its beginning in many places and the
great need for extension. Another activity named was the educational
survey by means of which a community may have its own educational
activity tested by impartial experts that its real efficiency may be
known. Then followed brief discussion of the new movement for vocational
guidance that is doing so much where being used to make the youth
efficient and happy in his chosen and appropriate field of activity. I
closed the discussion with a mention of a still newer movement having
the same great ends in view--the employment of the educational
psychologist. Firing-line activities all of these are, each vigorous and
active in the great movement for educational betterment.
II
THE RELATION OF THE STATE UNIVERSITY TO THE HIGH SCHOOLS OF THE STATE
_An Address delivered before the Annual Conference of the North Dakota
Superintendents and Principals at the University of North Dakota, May
18, 1916_
This is a topic of great interest to us all--to you in the field and to
us here on the campus. The work of the two institutions is so closely
related, each depends so much upon the other, that participation in the
activities of one bespeaks interest in the other. But before we can
discuss at all intelligently the matter of relationship it will be
necessary to look at the two separately--objectively, as it were--to
note the function of each and its place in the educational system of the
State. What is the university? What is the high school? And what is the
work of each? are questions that must first be answered.
In the first place, of course, the two are but parts of a still larger
whole, neither being an independent, self-sufficing entity. The larger
whole is the educational system of the State, of which there is one
other part equally important with the two named, even the elementary
school. And all three parts forming the whole are creations of the
State, devised, controlled, and maintained for a very definite
purpose--namely, the welfare and happiness of our people.
While it is true that the three parts are correlative, each
supplementing the others and the system incomplete without all three,
it is also true that they are co-ordinate, no one of the three being,
_per se_, in authority over any other, nor any one subordinate to
another. Let me put before you, very briefly, that we may all be
thinking together, the system in its outlines and then discuss each of
its parts, trying to discover its function and its node of work. Then we
shall pass to the matter of relationship.
The system as a whole covers and tries to provide for the entire school
life of the individual. The elementary period, or department, includes,
in the main, as now organized, the work of the first eight years of the
child's school life and ministers to it from the age of six to fourteen
years. The secondary, beginning where the elementary closes, carries on
the work for four years and is followed by the higher, the colleges and
the professional schools--the university.
It may clarify matters somewhat and thus give us a clearer perspective,
if, before, entering upon the discussion, I account for the system as we
have it to-day.
Our Colonial forefathers in the Old Bay State, back in the 17th century,
in providing to meet the situation that prest upon them, unconsciously
laid the foundations for an educational system that expanded with their
expansion and developed with their development. But before taking the
initial steps they did not wait to analyze the entire situation and upon
logical or philosophical grounds map it out in its entirety. They had no
such thought. They needed ministers of the Gospel and, since a knowledge
of Latin was the one sure gateway to that profession, they established a
Latin school almost as soon as they had set their own dwelling places
in order. This was in 1635, and Harvard College followed the very next
year to complete the preparation. It was an afterthought and came eleven
years later when they legislated for an elementary school. And even tho
we can see, in what they had then produced, the fundamental factors of
our present somewhat complicated system, the people who were responsible
for its organization were only dimly conscious of the significance of it
all. They builded better than they knew. The broad outlines can not be
improved. Details, of course, are ever changing as local conditions
change, but from the very nature of things, the elementary, the
secondary, and the higher schools have remained with us, each for a
quite definite purpose and all working together for a common end. Let us
look, therefore, for a moment, at each of the three and see for what it
stands and what it should attempt to do.
THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
The fundamental purpose of the elementary school in a democracy is well
stated in the first legislation on the continent touching elementary
education, tho not mentioning the elementary school. It was in the
Massachusetts colonies in 1642. The General Court passed an ordinance of
which the following quotation gives the substance:
"This Court, taking into consideration the great neglect of many parents
and masters in the training of their children in labor and learning, and
other employments which may be profitable to the commonwealth, do
hereupon order and decree that in every town the chosen men appointed
for managing the prudential affairs of the same shall henceforth stand
charged with the care of the redress of this evil ... and for this end
they, or the greater number of them, shall have the power to take
account, from time to time, of all parents and masters, and of their
children, concerning their calling and employment of their children,
especially of their ability to read and understand the principles of
religion and the capital laws of this country; and they shall have power
... to put forth as apprentices the children of such as they shall find
not to be able and fit to employ and to bring them up."
Here was compulsory elementary education, that children might know how
to read, might "understand the principles of religion and the capital
laws of the State," and also that they might be taught to work. And why?
For their own present and future welfare, and that they might be
"profitable to the commonwealth," the document reads.
It was for all the children of all the people. The same thought is with
us to-day and, analyzed and stated in our present-day terminology, may
be put about as follows:
The elementary school is for all the people and aims to do for all three
things: first, exercise a positive directive influence over the child's
physical development; second, carry on, in a more systematic, scientific
manner the training of the sense organs already begun by the home, thus
opening up the life to the beauties of nature, art, and other forms of
truth, and so providing for the development of the inner life of each in
accordance with inherent leaning and capability; and, third, equip them
with the tools of knowledge and give such knowledge facts and develop
such points of view as will enable each to become a self-directing,
constructive, and contributing member of his democratic community.
Attendance upon the elementary school should, in the interests of all as
individuals and of the State as an organization, be compulsory.
THE HIGH SCHOOL
The high school should likewise be for all, tho for a somewhat different
purpose. While attendance should not be compulsory, the aim should be to
make it universal. For a somewhat different purpose, I said; I should
perhaps have said for an added purpose, because I would have the three
ends of the elementary school kept constantly in view as fundamental
bases. But, assuming that these things have been well done, the chief
purpose of the high school should be to discover the child's latent
powers, his dominant interests, and then, so far as these are wholesome,
help him plan his education in their general direction. I might put it
briefly thus: the chief function of the high school should be to help
the child to become acquainted with himself and begin the planning of
his future. Let us look at it carefully and see if it is not sound.
At the conclusion of the elementary school, at the age of 14, the boys
and girls are still children; they are developing, not developed, in
either body or mind. They have not yet reached, in the main, the period
of rapid acceleration of physical growth, intellectual expansion, or
moral development; they are just reaching it; they are now in the early
stages of that wonderful period of adolescence when the boy is being
transformed into the man and the girl into the woman. They are neither
children nor adults, yet manifesting the characteristics of both. They
do not know themselves, nor does any one else know them intimately. How
can they? They are not yet formed. They are in the process of formation.
What will emerge as a result of the process, we know only in broad
outlines--not at all in minute detail. So many factors are at work and
there are possible so many combinations of factors that no one can tell;
for it is during the period of adolescence that hereditary
characteristics show themselves. Up to this time the child is a child of
the race; during this period it becomes the offspring of its parents.
And the factors of heredity--father, mother, ancestry--are mingling and
clashing and combining with the factors of environment, and what the
outcome is going to be, nobody knows, in specific cases, in advance.
This is the period when the heart, the lungs, and the brain are being
transformed, modified, whipt into shape for the performance of the
duties of adulthood. It is a period when, in the intellectual realm,
because of what is taking place in the physical, concepts are being
clarified, relationships traced, ideas formed, things seen in the right
perspective, and real reasoning begun. It is the period when, in the
moral field, because of what is being accomplished in the physical and
the intellectual, principles are being apprehended that will finally
enable the individual to distinguish between right and wrong, to
organize on principle rather than upon expediency his relationships with
his fellows, and eventually to become a free moral agent,
self-controlled and self-directed. It is the period, therefore, when
ideals are being formed, habits fixt, character shaped, life plans
matured, and professions chosen.
And so, with such an individual and during such a period, what other
function of the high school can begin to compare, either in importance
or in appropriateness, with the one stated?
It may be objected that I do not include in this function of the high
school that which has been during a large portion of its history its
foremost work--preparation for college. The seeming omission has not
been accidental. I say the _seeming_ omission because, even tho not
specifically stated, it is there, for all who should be encouraged to
prepare for college. But it has not been made prominent since, in my
judgment, it is of minor importance. Note again the function as
suggested--to help the child know himself, find out what he wants to do
and what he can do best, and then begin getting ready for doing it well.
If the specific form of future activity decided upon in a particular
instance should call for the contribution of the college, then of course
the plan mentioned would include appropriate preparation.
But from what point of view should the high school be regarded and for
whom should it be planned? Should it be for the relatively few who go
beyond, or for the great majority who do not? It is a fair question and
admits of but one answer. The high schools of the State must, of course,
give adequate preparation for entrance into the State university. Some
of them must--not necessarily every one. It must be the preparatory
school, since both are State institutions and the only ones occupying
the field. But it should do vastly more than that. Being of the people,
by the people, and for the people, it should be so handled as to serve
all, not merely a few, of the people. It is perfectly plain, therefore,
where the emphasis should be placed.
Please do not misunderstand me; I am not looking upon this from any
narrow point of view, I am not thinking merely of getting these children
ready for jobs--certainly not all of them. I am not advocating the
transforming of our high schools into trade schools--not at all. What I
am urging primarily is a different point of view--and so enlarging and
modifying our high school activities and equipment that all our
children, instead of only a few, may find there a congenial atmosphere
and activities suited to their tastes. If their tastes lie in the
direction of carpentering, or of plumbing, or of dress-making, well and
good; let them be thus developed and prepared to go out into their
community somewhat equipt for remunerative toil and for community
service. Why not? Are they not as worthy as those who have tastes and
ambitions or a more literary character and who, therefore, look forward
to the chair of the teacher, the office of the lawyer, or the practise
of a physician? And is not the community under as much obligation to the
one as to the other? Some fear that such a program would lessen the
number preparing for college, that work of this objective character
would be so attractive that all would choose it. These fears are
groundless. Children are not all built that way. At any rate it would
not lessen the number who ought to go to college--who are adapted to
that kind of work. It would, of course, greatly increase the number
attending high schools--holding those who now, because of lack of
interest in the work offered, drop out of school entirely and thus swell
the ranks of unskilled and unintelligent labor. And that is greatly
worth while. My own feeling is, too, that out of the greatly increased
attendance of the high school an even larger number than at present
would find their way to the university, and that they would be better
equipt in point of view and purpose than are many who enter under
present conditions. This suggestion is made not to keep boys and girls
out of the university, but to send them there with a purpose.
But there is oftentimes a misapprehension as to these two possible
programs for the high schools. Preparation for college and preparation
for life are by no means antagonistic. Preparation for college is the
only kind of preparation for life for him who goes to college. And for
him who, during his high school course, plans to go to college, but who
at its close, finds himself unable to do so, for economic or other
reasons, it should still be the best possible preparation for life that
he could have made, and it will be if, as I am urging, it has all the
time been based upon his own nature and seeking his normal development
in the direction of his dominant interests. And preparation for life
should be the very best kind of preparation for college, for him who
later changes his plans and goes to college as well as for him who does
not, since the college itself should be regarded as merely completing
preparation for life. But a great many, the majority, no doubt, will not
go to college, should not go to college, or to put it better, perhaps,
need not go to college. The activities of life, psychical as well as
manual, for which they are best adapted by native endowment, and in the
performance of which they will, therefore, be happiest, and thru which
they will, therefore, contribute most to the welfare of society, do not
need for their satisfactory performance school preparation beyond the
high school period. In other words, a great many boys and girls should
not be urged to go to college. They should not if they do not have
within them those characteristics of leadership which, developed, will
make them leaders. The college graduate who, in later life, is a street
car conductor, or a Pullman porter, or what-not, has largely wasted the
time and money spent in college. And this is not because these
occupations are not honorable, but because they do not call for that
kind of preparation. And the kind of an individual who is at home as a
street car conductor does not usually profit greatly by the work of the
college. I will not put it as David Starr Jordan is said to have done,
that "It does not pay to give a fifty-cent boy a five thousand dollar
education." It is not a question of dollars and cents--rather one of
fitness and of fitting. The so-called "fifty-cent boy" who may have been
given the "five thousand dollar education" and because of its
inappropriateness degenerated into a ten-cent man, might have been made
into a thousand dollar man if he had been given the right kind of
education. The boy who has the instincts of a blacksmith, who likes the
shaping of iron and the shoeing of horses and the smell of the forge,
will be a far happier and more useful member of society as a blacksmith
than, made over by the college, as a lawyer without clients, a
physician without patients, or a teacher always hunting a new position.
I have discust the high school, as you see, from the point of view of
the developmental needs of the children of the community. The outcome
would have been practically the same had I looked upon it from the
standpoint of the industrial needs of the community. I fully believe
that a high school should be to-day just what it was originally planned
to be back there in the first half of the nineteenth century--a school
higher than the elementary, controlled by the community, in co-operation
with the educational leaders of the State, serving the needs of the
community, fitting its boys and girls for service in the community and
discriminating, if at all, in the favor of the group of boys and girls
who are not going to college, since that group is much the larger. Since
boys and girls are nearer to us than industrial needs, I have chosen to
look at the problem from that angle.
I am well aware that my point of view in this entire matter is not quite
in accord with the present-day program. The American high school still
has preparation for college as the one dominant object. Its curriculum
is planned for that end. It is rated at first, second, or third class,
depending upon the degree in which it meets college entrance
requirements--not upon the degree in which it serves the community needs
or develops the community's children.
I realize fully that the change suggested would involve quite a decided
rearrangement of the ordinary high school program. With the time at my
disposal it will be impossible to discuss the matter in detail, but it
should be touched upon briefly to get the matter of relationship clearly
before us.
The first change would be in the matter of organization: instead of
having the elementary school, as now, covering eight years and closing
with the child at the age of 14, it should cover but six years, sending
the child to the high school at about the age of 12, at which time,
approximately, begin those physical and psychological changes earlier
spoken of, as belonging to adolescence. And that thought has taken root,
as we all know, in the junior high school movement. Six years is long
enough to do well all that the elementary school should be expected to
do. It certainly is as long as children can be held interested in the
kind of work thought necessary for the child, and as long as he can be
happy in the atmosphere of the ordinary elementary school. It is long
enough for the laying of foundations. It is time something else should
be taken up.